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His work will be published soon.

Shanghai-born Zhang Yitang is a professor of mathematics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. If a 111-page manuscript allegedly written by him passes peer review, he might become the first person to solve the Riemann hypothesis, The South China Morning Post (SCMP)

The Riemann hypothesis is a 150-year-old puzzle that is considered by the community to be the holy grail of mathematics. Published in 1,859, it is a fascinating piece of mathematical conjecture around prime numbers and how they can be predicted.

Riemann hypothesized that prime numbers do not occur erratically but rather follow the frequency of an elaborate function, which is called the Riemann zeta function. Using this function, one can reliably predict where prime numbers occur, but more than a century later, no mathematician has been able to prove this hypothesis.

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The designer has equipped the headset with explosive charges.

Palmer Luckey, the guy who co-founded the virtual reality (VR) headset-making company Oculus, has now made another VR headset that can kill you if you die in an online game. Luckey’s company was acquired by Facebook, now Meta, and his product is now a critical component of the metaverse that Mark Zuckerberg plans to build the company around.

At the outset, it might seem that Zuckerberg did the right thing by acquiring Oculus. Otherwise, we would not really know what sort of products they would bring to the market.

Palmer Luckey.

Continue reading “This new VR headset will kill you if you die in an online game” | >

Turns out, altering bacteria from within could be the solution to antibiotic resistance.

In an ironic twist, researchers used viruses engineered with the CRISPR-Cas system to alter bacterial defense mechanisms and edit their genomes selectively in complex environments. Significantly, the novel approach may help address the pressing issue of antibiotic resistance.

Meletios Verras/iStock.

The CRISPR Conundrum

Continue reading “These engineered viruses are delivering DNA to E.coli instead of killing it- here’s why” | >

face_with_colon_three circa 2012.

A century after Albert Einstein came up with his theories of relativity, a constellation of Global Positioning System satellites is orbiting Earth, making practical use of his ground-breaking understanding of time.

If the discovery of the Higgs boson particle pans out, will even more mind-bending technologies result?

Theoretically, it’s possible, says Arizona State University physicist Lawrence Krauss; but practically, it’s unlikely.

Continue reading “Is the Higgs boson the first step to a ‘Star Trek’ transporter?” | >

Digital transformation has been positioned as a cure-all to many of the challenges today’s enterprises face. But to fully reap the benefits of a digital transformation, businesses need to do more than just adopt the latest tools and apps. They also have to change their attitudes, practices and processes around data and technology, throughout their own organization and in their interactions with partners and customers.

“Digital transformation requires a jump on the technology side, but it requires a leap on the people side,” says Bill Gundrey, executive director for digital engineering and operations at Raytheon Missiles & Defense. “At Raytheon, digital transformation is a team sport. It impacts every function in our company, as well as customers and suppliers. We had to change the way people think about data and technology.”

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Get a free month of Curiosity Stream: https://curiositystream.com/isaacarthur.
Our future in the galaxy is typically envisioned as tied to the stars, be it on planets orbiting them or vast megastructures fueled by the alien suns, and yet the true future of humanity might be to dwell in the vast gulfs between the stars or even in a galaxy in which those stars have ceased to exist.

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Continue reading “Exo-Stellar Civilizations” | >

To convert heat into electricity, easily accessible materials from harmless raw materials open up new perspectives in the development of safe and inexpensive so-called “thermoelectric materials.” A synthetic copper mineral acquires a complex structure and microstructure through simple changes in its composition, thereby laying the foundation for the desired properties, according to a study published in the journal Angewandte Chemie.

The novel synthetic material is composed of copper, manganese, germanium, and sulfur, and it is produced in a rather simple process, explains materials scientist Emmanuel Guilmeau, CNRS researcher at CRISMAT laboratory, Caen, France, who is the corresponding author of the study. “The powders are simply mechanically alloyed by ball-milling to form a precrystallized phase, which is then densified by 600 degrees Celsius. This process can be easily scaled up,” he says.

Thermoelectric materials convert heat to electricity. This is especially useful in where is reused as valuable electric power. The converse approach is the cooling of electronic parts, for example, in smartphones or cars. Materials used in this kind of applications have to be not only efficient, but also inexpensive and, above all, safe for health.

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