A paradigm shift in how we think about the functions of the human brain. A long-awaited genetic sequence of Rafflesia arnoldii, the strangest flower in the world. A revelation in sleep science. These are some of the year’s biggest discoveries in neuroscience and other areas of biology. Read the articles in full at Quanta: https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-year-in-biology-20211221/
Quanta Magazine is an editorially independent publication supported by the Simons Foundation.
It was a big year. Researchers found a way to idealize deep neural networks using kernel machines—an important step toward opening these black boxes. There were major developments toward an answer about the nature of infinity. And a mathematician finally managed to model quantum gravity. Read the articles in full at Quanta Magazine: https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-year-in-math-and-computer-science-20211223/
Quanta Magazine is an editorially independent publication supported by the Simons Foundation.
Sure, my telepresence robot had some issues—but for students like me who can’t make it to campus because of disability or illness, these tools open new doors.
But this is only one half of the story, as metal-poor stars within the Milky Way may also have come from smaller dwarf galaxies that smashed into and merged with our galaxy throughout its life. By examining these stars’ paths through space while retaining only those that didn’t veer out into the metal-poor regions of the galaxy, the researchers were able to separate out the stars that form the ancient heart from the stars that originated in a dwarf galaxy.
This left researchers with some of the original skeleton of stars around which the Milky Way grew — a population they estimate to be between 50 million to 200 million times as massive as our own sun. As heavier stars die faster than smaller ones, the remaining stars are on average around 1.5 times lighter than the sun, according to the researchers.
“These stars make up about half of the total stellar mass once born,” Rix said. “So, about half of the stars [from the protogalaxy] survive to date.”
Asia’s top chip stocks tumbled Tuesday, ensnared in an escalating US-China tech race that has erased more than $240 billion from the sector’s global market value.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world’s largest contract chipmaker, plunged a record 8.3% while Samsung Electronics Co. and Tokyo Electron Ltd. also declined. The selloff spread to the foreign-exchange market as investors tallied up the damage from the sweeping curbs the US is imposing on companies that conduct technology business with China.
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Posted in space
ABC News’ photo editors have assembled a collection of some of the most stunning images taken of outer space. A photo of aurora australis or the southern lights taken aboard the International Space Station, June 13, 2019.
People often need to adapt to unexpected and sudden events, such as a road construction or a road accident while driving, a broken automatic payment or ATM machine, and changes in weather. To effectively deal with these events, they must possess what is known as behavioral flexibility, or the ability to deviate from routine and well-establish behavioral patterns.
To adapt their behavior based on unforeseen events, humans need to encode and retrieve reward-related memories and use them to inform their present or future choices. This process entails the integration of different cognitive abilities that are supported by different regions of the brain.
Past studies found that patients with different neuropsychiatric disorders and those suffering from an addiction tend to have a scarce behavioral flexibility. This often adversely affects their quality of living, as it makes dealing with the uncertainty of daily life particularly challenging.
For spooky october, here is an exploration of the future of biological 3D printing, it’s implications on alien life, and how fantasy could become reality.
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Inspired by insects, robotic engineers are creating machines that could aid in search and rescue, pollinate plants and sniff out gas leaks.
Cyborg cockroaches that find earthquake survivors. A “robofly” that sniffs out gas leaks. Flying lightning bugs that pollinate farms in space.
These aren’t just buzzy ideas, they’re becoming reality.
Robotic engineers are scouring the insect world for inspiration. Some are strapping 3D-printed sensors onto live Madagascar hissing cockroaches, while others are creating fully robotic bugs inspired by the ways insects move and fly.
