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Dec 2, 2015

The Chinese scientist behind the world’s biggest cloning factory believes he can replicate humans

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

But cattle are only the beginning of chief executive Xu Xiaochun’s ambitions.

In the factory pipeline are also thoroughbred racehorses, as well as pet and police dogs, specialised in searching and sniffing.

Boyalife is already working with its South Korean partner Sooam and the Chinese Academy of Sciences to improve primate cloning capacity to create better test animals for disease research.

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Dec 2, 2015

China Plans Enormous Particle Collider

Posted by in category: particle physics

The country is plotting a separate path to the Large Hadron Collider’s successor.

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Dec 2, 2015

Hawking radiation is not produced at the black hole horizon

Posted by in category: cosmology

Stephen Hawking’s “Brief History of Time” was one of the first popular science books I read, and I hated it. I hated it because I didn’t understand it. My frustration with this book is a big part of the reason I’m a physicist today – at least I know who to blame.

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Dec 1, 2015

Light-Bending Microchip Could Fire Up Quantum Computers

Posted by in categories: computing, quantum physics, time travel

For the first time, scientists have achieved infinite speeds on a microchip. Although this advance will not enable faster-than-light starships, the light-warping technology behind this innovation could lead to new light-based microchips and help enable powerful quantum computers, researchers said.

Light travels at the speed of about 670 million miles per hour (1.08 billion km/h) in a vacuum, and is theoretically the fastest possible speed at which matter or energy can travel. Exceeding this speed limit should lead to impossible results such as time travel, according to Einstein’s theory of relativity.

However, in a way, researchers have overcome this barrier for decades. [Warped Physics: 10 Effects of Faster-Than-Light Travel].

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Dec 1, 2015

SpaceX Will Attempt Next Rocket Landing At Cape Canaveral Instead Of In The Ocean

Posted by in category: space travel

Next time a SpaceX rocket touches down, it will be on solid ground.

Florida Today broke the news today that SpaceX was hoping to land its next Falcon 9 rocket on the ground at NASA’s Cape Canaveral facility in Florida.

SpaceX has attempted to land a rocket gently before, but those attempts were made on giant floating platforms in the ocean (which just missed). Then, last week, competitor Blue Origin managed to land it’s own reusable rocket safely on the ground, amping up the public pressure on SpaceX to successfully land their own rocket.

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Dec 1, 2015

GTA V Pinnacle mod includes amazing visual and gameplay enhancements

Posted by in category: entertainment

If you’ve got the patience to install it and the hardware to run it, Pinnacle looks like the ultimate GTA V experience.

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Dec 1, 2015

New AI ‘Gabriel’ wants to whisper instructions in your ear

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, neuroscience, robotics/AI

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University are building an AI platform that will “whisper” instructions in your ear to provide cognitive assistance. Named after Gabriel, the biblical messenger of God, the whispering robo-assistant can already guide you through the process of building a basic Lego object. But, the ultimate goal is to provide wearable cognitive assistance to millions of people who live with Alzheimer’s, brain injuries or other neurodegenerative conditions. For instance, if a patient forgets the name of a relative, Gabriel could whisper the name in their ear. It could also be programmed to help patients through everyday tasks that will decrease their dependence on caregivers.

For the software to exist as a working wearable assistant, it will need a head-mounted device to latch onto. For now, the team is using Google Glass for demos like a ping pong assistant, where the programs tells the user to hit the ball to the right or left depending on the position of the ball in relation to the opponent. In the video below, when the user follows the guidance it makes it harder for the opponent to defend the ball in the game.

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Dec 1, 2015

Gene Editing: What Is It Good For?

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, food

The explosion of gene-editing methods is transforming medicine, agriculture, and possibly the future of the human species.

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Dec 1, 2015

Biologists induce flatworms to grow heads and brains of other species

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics, neuroscience

Tufts biologists induced one species of flatworm —- G. dorotocephala, top left — to grow heads and brains characteristic of other species of flatworm, top row, without altering genomic sequence. Examples of the outcomes can be seen in the bottom row of the image. (credit: Center for Regenerative and Developmental Biology, School of Arts and Sciences, Tufts University.)

Tufts University biologists have electrically modified flatworms to grow heads and brains characteristic of another species of flatworm — without altering their genomic sequence. This suggests bioelectrical networks as a new kind of epigenetics (information existing outside of a genomic sequence) to determine large-scale anatomy.

Besides the overall shape of the head, the changes included the shape of the brain and the distribution of the worm’s adult stem cells.

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Dec 1, 2015

How to encrypt a message in the afterglow of the big bang

Posted by in categories: encryption, physics, space

Physicists have come up with a way to make secret codes based on the cosmic microwave background, the afterglow of the birth of the universe.

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