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Jul 19, 2022

NASA’s $10 Billion Webb Space Telescope Has Been Permanently Damaged, Scientists Reveal

Posted by in category: space

Scientists report that damage to the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) caused by a micrometeoroid impact in late May 2022 may be more severe than previously believed.

A group of scientists evaluated the performance of the space telescope throughout its commissioning phase in a new report released last week following Webb’s amazing first photographs.

Jul 19, 2022

This 3-minute animation will change your perception of time

Posted by in category: futurism

VIDEO: If the history of Earth was on a timeline from Los Angeles to New York, the American Revolution would have been fought 8 inches ago.

Jul 19, 2022

Scientists hack fly brains to make them remote controlled

Posted by in categories: cybercrime/malcode, engineering, genetics, nanotechnology, neuroscience, particle physics

Researchers at Rice University have shown how they can hack the brains of fruit flies to make them remote controlled. The flies performed a specific action within a second of a command being sent to certain neurons in their brain.

The team started by genetically engineering the flies so that they expressed a certain heat-sensitive ion channel in some of their neurons. When this channel sensed heat, it would activate the neuron – in this case, that neuron caused the fly to spread its wings, which is a gesture they often use during mating.

Continue reading “Scientists hack fly brains to make them remote controlled” »

Jul 19, 2022

Scalable all-perovskite tandem solar cells with a 19.1% efficiency

Posted by in categories: solar power, sustainability

Now, researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have developed a prototype for fully scalable all–perovskite tandem solar modules. They were able to scale up individual perovskite cells with a power conversion efficiency of up to 23.5% at an aperture area of 0.1 square centimeters to all-perovskite tandem solar modules with an efficiency of up to 19.1% with an aperture area of 12.25 square centimeters.

The aperture area is the usable part of the surface that is not covered by electrodes, frames, or fasteners. At approximately five percent, the loss of efficiency when upscaling is relatively low. “This is the first report of an all-perovskite tandem solar module worldwide,” says Dr. Bahram Abdollahi Nejand, lead author of the publication and team leader for all-perovskite tandem solar modules.

The KIT researchers claimed this remarkable result is the first of its kind reported worldwide. To obtain this, the team increased the efficiency by optimizing the light path and reducing reflections in the solar cell architecture. They implemented an efficient layout for tandem solar modules using high-throughput laser scribing that enables the production of functional tandem solar mini-modules with two-terminal interconnected cell strips. Lastly, they used coating processes (blade coating and vacuum deposition) that are already established in industrial practice.

Jul 19, 2022

Astronomy 101: Neutron stars

Posted by in category: space

In this video, explore the various superdense remnants of massive stars, which hold between 1 and 3 times the Sun’s mass and are so dense that a teaspoon of their matter weighs about a billion tons.

Jul 19, 2022

What’s the diameter of the largest exoplanet found so far?

Posted by in category: space

Read and share your comments on this article.

Jul 19, 2022

Failures in large networks can be prevented with local focus

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, computing, finance, transportation

We live in an increasingly connected world, a fact underscored by the swift spread of the coronavirus around the globe. Underlying this connectivity are complex networks—global air transportation, the internet, power grids, financial systems and ecological networks, to name just a few. The need to ensure the proper functioning of these systems also is increasing, but control is difficult.

Now a Northwestern University research team has discovered a ubiquitous property of a complex network and developed a novel computational method that is the first to systematically exploit that property to control the whole network using only . The method considers the computational time and information communication costs to produce the optimal choice.

The same connections that provide functionality in networks also can serve as conduits for the propagation of failures and instabilities. In such dynamic networks, gathering and processing all the information necessary to make a better decision can take too much time. The goal is to diagnose a problem and take action before it leads to a system-wide issue. This may mean having less information but being timely.

Jul 19, 2022

New ‘future-proof’ method could remove phosphorus from wastewater using bacteria

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, chemistry, climatology, physics, sustainability

A recent study from the Singapore Centre for Environmental Life Sciences Engineering (SCELSE) at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and published in Wa | Chemistry And Physics.


This study is intriguing since one of the results of climate change is increasing water temperatures, so removing phosphorus from such waters will prove invaluable in the future, with this study appropriately being referred to as a “future-proof” method.

Continue reading “New ‘future-proof’ method could remove phosphorus from wastewater using bacteria” »

Jul 19, 2022

Flipkart-owned flight booking platform Cleartrip hit by data breach

Posted by in category: cybercrime/malcode

Flipkart-owned Cleartrip, a flight booking platform, said that it suffered a major data breach in its internal systems.

In an email to customers, the company stated, “This is to inform you that there has been a security anomaly that entailed illegal and unauthorised access to a part of Cleartrip’s internal systems.”

However, the travel company assured them that no sensitive information pertaining to a user’s account had been compromised due to this incident, apart from a few personal details.

Jul 19, 2022

Asteroid impacts create diamond materials with exceptionally complex structures

Posted by in categories: asteroid/comet impacts, energy, engineering, existential risks

Shockwaves caused by asteroids colliding with Earth create materials with a range of complex carbon structures, which could be used for advancing future engineering applications, according to an international study led by UCL and Hungarian scientists.

Published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team of researchers has found that formed during a high-energy shock wave from an around 50,000 years ago have unique and exceptional properties, caused by the short-term high temperatures and extreme pressure.

The researchers say that these structures can be targeted for advanced mechanical and electronic applications, giving us the ability to design materials that are not only ultra-hard but also malleable with tunable electronic properties.