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Secure communications provider Wickr has announced that it will shutter its free encrypted messaging app, Wickr Me, next year.


Text messaging has been around since the dawn of cellular technology, and sparked its own unique language. But it’s time to put sending regular SMS messages out to pasture.

If you have an iPhone, you’re already on your way. iPhones (as well as iPads and Macs) use iMessage to send messages between Apple devices. It’s a data-based messaging system reliant on 3G, 4G, and Wi-Fi, rather than SMS messaging, which uses an old, outdated but universal 2G cellular network. iMessage has grown in popularity, but has left Android devices and other computers out in the dark.

That’s where other messaging services have filled a gap in the market.

It will be the sight of astronauts on the moon, their gaze drawn to the strange movements of planet Earth and its sun, something that is sure to be an amusing sight for future NASA astronauts at the moon’s south pole.

This visualization shows the unusual movements of the Earth and the Sun as seen from the South Pole of the Moon. The animation compresses three months (a little over three lunar days) into two minutes. The virtual camera is on the rim of the Shackleton crater, partially visible in the lower right, and is pointed at Earth. The mountain on the horizon, some 85 miles away, is unofficially known as Mons Malapert.

Here, the Sun glides across the horizon, never more than 1.5 degrees above or below it, while the Earth bobs up and down, never straying from 0° longitude. The Earth appears to be upside down and spinning backward. The Sun’s perpetually low angle casts extremely long swirling shadows over the rugged lunar terrain.

In the second month of the visualization, the Earth passes in front of the Sun, creating an eclipse. For observers on Earth, this is a lunar eclipse, in which the Moon passes through the shadow cast by the Earth. However, seen from the Moon, it is an eclipse of the Sun.

Video Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Visualizations by: Ernie Wright (USRA) Narrated by: Ernie Wright (USRA) Produced and Edited by: David Ladd (AIMM) Principal Scientist: Noah Petro (NASA/GSFC) Technical Support: Laurence Schuler (ADNET), net. /Jones (ADNET)

While some might view the emergence of humanoids with apprehension, a future filled with robots is likely to be a positive development for most. But as with anything, policy and society must be ready if, and when, they arrive.


There is growing corporate interest in humanoid robots to replace human labor. Tesla’s recently unveiled Bumble C robot may mark a turning point in an industry that has thus far focused on specialized machines produced in limited quantities. Should Tesla succeed, what does a mass-produced humanoid robot mean for the future of humanity?

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Revolutionary improvements to automation and production may one day create machines able to produce almost anything, quickly and cheaply, and far faster and more varied than modern 3D Printers. Such devices are sometimes known as Santa Claus Machines, Cornucopia Devices, or Clanking Del-Replicators, and today we will examine how likely such technology is, how far off in the future they might be, and what impact they would have on society.

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It’s time we talked about loop quantum gravity. What exactly is it? What are the loops? And can it really defeat string theory in our quest for a Theory of Everything?

High-Risk, High-Payoff Bio-Research For National Security Challenges — Dr. David A. Markowitz, Ph.D., IARPA


Dr. David A. Markowitz, Ph.D. (https://www.markowitz.bio/) is a Program Manager at the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA — https://www.iarpa.gov/) which is an organization that invests in high-risk, high-payoff research programs to tackle some of the most difficult challenges of the agencies and disciplines in the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC).

IARPA’s mission is to push the boundaries of science to develop solutions that empower the U.S. IC to do its work better and more efficiently for national security. IARPA does not have an operational mission and does not deploy technologies directly to the field, but instead, they facilitate the transition of research results to IC customers for operational application.

Infectious diseases expert George Thompson has been studying and treating fungal diseases for over two decades. He monitors their spread, symptoms and relative risks. Lately, he has been more concerned about a rising threat: the spread of disease-causing fungi outside of their traditional hot spots.

In a commentary published in Annals of Internal Medicine, Thompson and his co-author from the Mycotic Diseases Branch at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Tom Chiller raised the alarm. They noted the expanding presence and emerging risks from three endemic : histoplasmosis, blastomycosis and coccidioidomycosis (Valley fever).

“These three fungal diseases usually inhabit specific U.S. regions conducive to their survival,” said Thompson. He is a professor at the UC Davis School of Medicine in the Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases, and the Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology. “Recently, we are finding more cases of these diseases outside their known areas, taking clinicians and patients by surprise.”

9 nov 2022.


The challenge of fabricating nanowires directly on silicon substrates for the creation of the next generation of electronics has finally been solved by researchers from Tokyo Tech. Next-generation spintronics will lead to better memory storage mechanisms in computers, making them faster and more efficient.

As our world modernizes faster than ever before, there is an ever-growing need for better and faster electronics and computers. Spintronics is a new system which uses the spin of an electron, in addition to the charge state, to encode data, making the entire system faster and more efficient. Ferromagnetic nanowires with high coercivity (resistance to changes in magnetization) are required to realize the potential of spintronics. Especially L 10-ordered (a type of crystal structure) cobalt-platinum (CoPt) nanowires.

Conventional fabrication processes for L 10-ordered nanowires involve heat treatment to improve the physical and chemical properties of the material, a process called annealing on the crystal substrate; the transfer of a pattern onto the substrate through lithography; and finally the chemical removal of layers through a process called etching. Eliminating the etching process by directly fabricating nanowires onto the silicon substrate would lead to a marked improvement in the fabrication of spintronic devices. However, when directly fabricated nanowires are subjected to annealing, they tend to transform into droplets as a result of the internal stresses in the wire.