Researchers have uncovered a new genus and five new species of millipedes in remote African jungles – and say the many-legged creatures could hold important clues to whether woody vines are choking or protecting the world’s forests.
University of the Sunshine Coast Professor Andy Marshall said they found the millipedes – with heads that look somewhat like Star Wars characters – among forest litter and loose soil while researching tree and vine growth in the Tanzania’s remote Udzungwa Mountains.
The new genus and species were officially described recently in the European Journal of Taxonomy in a paper titled “A mountain of millipedes,” with six international collaborators including lead author Professor Henrik Enghoff of the University of Copenhagen.
Ultimate fact presents top 15 Weapons Of The Future Will Blow Your Mind. We’ve come a long way since sticks and stones, and it’s almost inconceivable that only a few hundred years ago, Man was still waging war with bows, arrows, cannons, and muskets. Modern militaries are constantly in the process of developing new weapons, some of which will definitely make some mouths drop. We thought it would be fun to take a closer look at the most amazing offensive and defensive weapons currently in the works. Autonomous weapons. These are robotic vehicles, under development, that search and destroy enemy troops and equipment on the ground or in the air, without risk to friendly troops – theoretically. Onboard computers interpret sensor data to identify and target hostile forces with built-in weapons. Robots may query human controllers at remote sites for the go-ahead to fire, and friendly forces may carry transponders that identify them as “friends” High-energy lasers. These are powerful energy beams that travel through air or space in straight lines. They travel at the speed of light and can strike over distances of thousands of kilometres. Large mirrors focus powerful laser beams onto a small spot on the target. Space-based weapons. Space is the ultimate high ground, so weapons in orbit would have the ability to see and zap anything on the ground, in the air, or nearby in space. The main mission of space-based weapons would be to defend against ballistic missiles fired at targets on Earth. Hypersonic aircraft. Launched from a standard runway, a hypersonic aircraft could fly faster than Mach 5 to strike anywhere in the world within two hours. It would also have enough thrust to deliver a satellite to low-Earth orbit. To get off the ground from a runway, a hypersonic plane would either hitch a ride on a conventional plane, or have its own conventional jet engine. Active Denial System. Millimetre-wave or microwave beams supposedly make people flee without injuring them. They might typically be powered by a generator fitted to a Humvee, in crowd control situations. A 2-metre antenna and mobile generator produce and aim a beam of 95-gigahertz (3-millimetre) radiation. Nuclear missiles. Nuclear missiles are able to deliver unmatched destructive power anywhere in the world, making them the ultimate level of military power. One or more nuclear warheads are mounted on a ballistic missile, and launched vertically. Stun guns (Tasers) Tasers disable people with bursts of high-voltage electricity, allowing police to subdue them without lasting injury. A special gun fires darts on wires. These deliver a pulse of electricity that temporarily disrupts control of voluntary muscles. E-bombs. A rapid increase in electromagnetic field strength during a pulse, induces surges of electric current in conductors. This burns out electrical equipment – semiconductor chips are particularly vulnerable. Layered missile defence. Layered missile defence offers the best chance to shoot down attacking ballistic missiles. Multiple anti-missile systems are deployed to target ballistic missiles during different stages of the attacking missile’s flight: Each phase, or layer, of defence increases the chance of successful destruction of the missile. Information warfare. This technique interferes with the flow of information vital to enemy operations, while defending friendly channels of communication. Information warfare specifically targets communication networks and computers. ‘Hyper Stealth’ or ‘Quantum Stealth’ Using naturally occurring metamaterials, scientists have been designing lightwave-bending materials that can greatly reduce the thermal and visible signatures of a target. Electromagnetic Rail Guns. EM rail gun launchers use a magnetic field rather than chemical propellants (e.g., gunpowder or fuel) to thrust a projectile at long range and at velocities of 4,500 mph to 5,600 mph. nautical miles using 32 megajoules. The extended velocity and range of EM rail guns provides several benefits both in offensive and defensive terms, from precision strikes that can counter even the most advanced area defense systems to air defense against incoming targets. Space Weapons. Despite international pressure against the weaponization of space, major countries continue to explore technologies that would turn the sky above us into the next battleground. Hypersonic Cruise Missiles and ‘Prompt Global Strike’ Had hypersonic cruise missiles existed in the mid-1990s, the U.S. might have rid itself of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden much earlier than it did, and would have accomplished the feat in Afghanistan rather than in Pakistan. Sentient’ Unmanned Vehicles. Perhaps the single-most important development in the defense industry in the past decade is the emergence of unmanned vehicles. Among this which one seems most terrible to you let us know in the comment section. #UltimateFact #Weaon #Facts
Now we’re cooking with gas—but soon, we may be cooking with induction. A growing number of consumers are switching to induction-based stoves and ovens to address environmental concerns and health risks associated with gas ranges. But while these new appliances are more energy efficient, most models require modified electrical outlets and cost hundreds of dollars to install. That’s why startups like Channing Street Copper and Impulse Labs are working to make induction ovens easier to install by adding built-in batteries that supplement regular wall-socket power. Channing Street Copper plans to roll out its battery-boosted Charlie appliance in early 2024.
Near-gapless and haplotype-resolved genome assemblies of the dwarfing ‘M9’ and semi-vigorous ‘MM106’ rootstocks and a major apple cultivar ‘Fuji’ provide insights into the genetic basis of rootstock-induced dwarfing traits.
To construct a pan-genome that encompasses the full range of genetic diversity in B. ole racea, we analyzed the resequencing data of 704 globally distributed B. ole racea accessions covering all different morphotypes and their wild relatives (Supplementary Tables 1 and 2). We identified 3,792,290 SNPs and 528,850 InDels in these accessions using cabbage JZS as reference genome22. A phylogenetic tree was then constructed using SNPs, which classified the 704 accessions into the following three main groups: wild B. ole racea and kales, arrested inflorescence lineage (AIL) and leafy head lineage (LHL; Fig. 1a and Supplementary Note 2). The phylogenetic relationship revealed in our study was generally consistent with those reported previously4,5,24,25. Based on the phylogeny and morphotype diversity, we selected 22 representative accessions for de novo genome assembly (Table 1).
We assembled genome sequences of the 22 accessions by integrating long-reads (PacBio or Nanopore sequencing), optical mapping molecules (BioNano) or high-throughput chromosome conformation capture data (Hi-C) and Illumina short-reads (Methods; Supplementary Note 2 and Supplementary Tables 3–7). The total genome size of these assemblies ranged from 539.87 to 584.16 Mb with an average contig N50 of 19.18 Mb (Table 1). An average of 98% contig sequences were anchored to the nine pseudochromosomes of B. ole racea. The completeness of these genome assemblies was assessed using benchmarking universal single-copy orthologs (BUSCO), with an average of 98.70% complete score in these genomes (Supplementary Table 8).
To minimize artifacts that could arise from different gene prediction approaches, we predicted gene models of both the 22 newly assembled genomes and the five reported high-quality genomes5,21,22,23 using the same annotation pipeline (Methods). Using an integrated strategy combining ab initio, homology-based and transcriptome-assisted prediction, we obtained a range of 50,346 to 55,003 protein-coding genes with a mean BUSCO value of 97.9% in these genomes (Table 1). After gene prediction, a phylogenetic tree constructed based on single-copy orthologous genes clustered the 27 genomes into three groups, similar to the results observed in the population (Fig. 1a and b).
Electron charge and spin shuttling is a promising technique for connecting distant spin qubits. Here the authors use conveyor-mode shuttling to achieve high-fidelity transport of a single electron spin in Si/SiGe by separation and rejoining of two spin-entangled electrons across a shuttling distance of 560 nm.
Add a dash of creamer to your morning coffee, and clouds of white liquid will swirl around your cup. But give it a few seconds, and those swirls will disappear, leaving you with an ordinary mug of brown liquid.
Something similar happens in quantum computer chips—devices that tap into the strange properties of the universe at its smallest scales—where information can quickly jumble up, limiting the memory capabilities of these tools.
That doesn’t have to be the case, said Rahul Nandkishore, associate professor of physics at the University of Colorado Boulder.
