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Aug 18, 2022

Fruit-picking drones can solve the farm labor shortage

Posted by in categories: drones, food, robotics/AI, sustainability

These autonomous robotic pickers can harvest precisely and gently without tiring or needing a break.

Aug 18, 2022

James Webb Space Telescope Shows Big Bang Didn’t Happen? Wait… | News Talk

Posted by in category: cosmology

To all who see them, the new images of space taken by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) are awe-inspiring.

Physicist Eric J. Lerner gets to the point:

Why are JWST images causing panic among cosmologists? And the predictions of which theory do they contradict? The papers don’t really speak. The truth that is not reported in these documents is that the hypothesis that the JWST images blatantly and repeatedly contradict the Big Bang Hypothesis is that the universe began 14 billion years ago in an incredibly hot, dense state and has since the pore is expanding. Since this hypothesis has been defended for decades as an indisputable truth by the vast majority of cosmological theorists, the new data cause these theorists to panic. “Now I’m lying awake at 3 a.m.,” says Alison Kirkpatrick, an astronomer at the University of Kansas at Lawrence, “and wondering if I did everything wrong.”

Aug 18, 2022

Quantum Physics Could Finally Explain Consciousness, Scientists Say

Posted by in categories: neuroscience, quantum physics

Yet, in the newly-created fields of quantum physics and cognitive science, difficult and troubling mysteries still linger, and occasionally entwine. Why do quantum states suddenly resolve when they’re measured, making it at least superficially appear that observation by a conscious mind has the capacity to change the physical world? What does that tell us about consciousness?

Aug 18, 2022

Self-charging, ultra-thin device that generates electricity from air moisture

Posted by in categories: engineering, health, sustainability, wearables

Imagine being able to generate electricity by harnessing moisture in the air around you with just everyday items like sea salt and a piece of fabric, or even powering everyday electronics with a non-toxic battery that is as thin as paper. A team of researchers from the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) College of Design and Engineering (CDE) has developed a new moisture-driven electricity generation (MEG) device made of a thin layer of fabric—about 0.3 millimeters (mm) in thickness—sea salt, carbon ink, and a special water-absorbing gel.

The concept of MEG devices is built upon the ability of different materials to generate electricity from the interaction with moisture in the air. This area has been receiving growing interest due to its potential for a wide range of real-world applications, including self-powered devices such as wearable electronics like health monitors, electronic skin sensors, and information storage devices.

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Aug 18, 2022

Tech startups are racing to implant computer chips in everyone’s brain — and they’re close to making the sci-fi wizardry a reality

Posted by in categories: business, computing, neuroscience

“Brain computer interfaces” — devices that allow you to operate a computer with your mind — are already in human trials. And they’re about to be a really big business.

Aug 18, 2022

Raymond Damadian, Creator of the First M.R.I. Scanner, Dies at 86

Posted by in categories: electronics, innovation

Incensed when two others won the Nobel Prize for the science behind the invention, he took out a newspaper ad that called his exclusion a “shameful wrong that must be righted.”

Aug 18, 2022

Experts Claim to Have Deciphered a Mysterious Ancient Script

Posted by in category: futurism

A mysterious writing system dubbed Elamite that remained undeciphered for centuries has finally been translated by experts.

Aug 18, 2022

Study: Novel drug promotes nervous system repair in animal models of stroke

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Researchers led by the University of Cincinnati’s Agnes (Yu) Luo, PhD, have published findings in the journal Cell Reports showing a novel drug helped to repair the damage caused by ischemic stroke in animal models.

Aug 18, 2022

The Hidden Pattern: A Patternist Philosophy of Mind

Posted by in categories: quantum physics, robotics/AI

The Hidden Pattern presents a novel philosophy of mind, intended to form a coherent conceptual framework within which it is possible to understand the diverse aspects of mind and intelligence in a unified way. The central concept of the philosophy presented is the concept of “pattern”: minds and the world they live in and co-create are viewed as patterned systems of patterns, evolving over time, and various aspects of subjective experience and individual and social intelligence are analyzed in detail in this light. Many of the ideas presented are motivated by recent research in artificial intelligence and cognitive science, and the author’s own AI research is discussed in moderate detail in one chapter. However, the scope of the book is broader than this, incorporating insights from sources as diverse as Vedantic philosophy, psychedelic psychotherapy, Nietzschean and Peircean metaphysics and quantum theory. One of the unique aspects of the patternist approach is the way it seamlessly fuses the mechanistic, engineering-oriented approach to intelligence and the introspective, experiential approach to intelligence.

Aug 18, 2022

Negative digital media effects

Posted by in categories: computing, mobile phones, neuroscience

Smartphones, tablets, computer screens — all digital media has detrimental effects on your brain. That is a position that Professor Manfred Spitzer, a neuroscientist and author of several books, defends. You might like what you’ll hear, you might not, but don’t say that you haven’t been warned. Especially if you have kids running around with smartphones all day long.

Created by Rimantas Vančys.
Video footage and graphics: Envato Elements.
Additional material: NASA.
Music: Envato Elements.

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