One of the most confounding implications of quantum physics is that light can behave as both a particle (photon) and a wave, depending on the nature of the observation. This is called wave-particle duality, and it has been extremely difficult to picture, let alone observe in both stages simultaneously. 
Now, physicists publishing in Nature Communications report that they have been able to capture a photograph of wave/particle duality ‘in action’, so to speak. This TED video explains the nature of the effect:
The next time someone accuses you of making an irrational decision, just explain that you’re obeying the laws of quantum physics.
A new trend taking shape in psychological science not only uses quantum physics to explain humans’ (sometimes) paradoxical thinking, but may also help researchers resolve certain contradictions among the results of previous psychological studies.
According to Zheng Joyce Wang and others who try to model our decision-making processes mathematically, the equations and axioms that most closely match human behavior may be ones that are rooted in quantum physics.
Kim Suozzi died at age 23 from glioblastoma — a deadly brain tumour.
When she died in 2013, she made sure her fight for survival, albeit an unusual one, would not be forgotten.
She wanted to live forever through a computer and chose to have her brain frozen in the hopes that it may one day be resurrected and transformed into digital code.
The 1st Space Development Network Conference will be held in Bangalore in January, 2016. The motivation of the conference is to invite researchers, eminent scientists, faculty from reputed colleges and students working in the area of Space development and technology to present their research and get valuable feedback from the people attending the conference. The topics of space development network conference are given below:
•Asteroid Mining.
•Space Colonization.
•Space Debris.
•Satellites and Cubesats payload.
Terahertz radiation could one day provide the backbone for wireless systems that can deliver data up to one hundred times faster than today’s cellular or Wi-Fi networks. But there remain many technical challenges to be solved before terahertz wireless is ready for prime time.
Researchers from Brown University have taken a major step toward addressing one of those challenges. They’ve developed what they believe to be the first system for multiplexing terahertz waves. Multiplexers are devices that enable separate streams of data to travel through a single medium. It’s the technology that makes it possible for a single cable to carry multiple TV channels or for a fiber optic line to carry thousands of phone calls at the same time.
One of gene therapy’s major challenges is getting a gene sequence into a cell without damaging it. Traditional methods are often inefficient and unreliable, but this nano-device from Brigham Young University may offer a solution.
My first article for TechCrunch. The story is on disability & transhumanism:
Radical technologies around the world may soon overhaul the field of disability and immobility, which affects in some way more than a billion people around the world.
MIT bionics designer Hugh Herr, who lost both his legs in a mountain climbing accident, recently said in a TED Talk on disability, “A person can never be broken. Our built environment, our technologies, are broken and disabled. We the people need not accept our limitation, but can transcend disability through technological innovation.”
His words are coming true. Around the world, the deaf hear via cochlear implants, paraplegics walk with exoskeletons and the once limbless have functioning limbs. For example, some amputees have mind-controlled robotic arms that can grab a glass of water with amazing precision. In 15 or 20 years, that bionic arm could very well be better than the natural arm, and people may even electively remove their biological arms in favor of robotic ones. After all, who doesn’t want to be able to do a hundred pull ups in a row or lift the front end of a car up to quickly change a flat tire?
A 28 year old man who has been paralysed has been given a new sense of touch following a new breakthrough that saw electrodes places directly into the man’s brain.
The research and clinical trial has been carried out by DARPA, the US Military’s research agency. Essentially, the man (who has not been named) is now able to control his new hand and feel people touching it because of two sets of electrodes: one array on the motor cortex, the part of the brain which directs body movement, and one on the sensory cortex, which is the part of the brain which feels touch.
Everything starts to go downhill as we get older and muscle is no exception; even simple tasks become challenging as we lose bone and muscle. Now research has identified a protein behind this age-related decline and therapeutic molecules that can fight it, helping individuals stay healthy and strong for longer.
A team at the Univesity of Iowa has discovered that a protein called ATF4 might be behind muscular decline. ATF 4 is a transcription factor, which means it tells the body to activate or regulate certain genes. ATF4 seems to change skeletal muscle with age, reducing protein synthesis and overall mass.
”Many of us know from our own experiences that muscle weakness and atrophy are big problems as we become older”
What can we do about it?
Researchers also identified two molecules that dramatically reduce this age-related decline in mice: ursolic acid from apple peels, and tomatidine, present in green tomatoes. When elderly mice were fed either of these compounds, muscle mass was increased by 10% and muscle strength by 30% — essentially restoring their muscles to a youthful state.