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When asked to write the numbers from one to ten in a sequence, how do you order them? Horizontally? Vertically? Left to right? Top to bottom? Would you place them randomly?

It has been often been assumed, and taught in schools in Western countries, that the “correct” ordering of numbers is from left to right (1, 2, 3, 4…) rather than right to left (10, 9, 8, 7…). The ordering of numbers along a horizontal dimension is known as a “mental number line” and describes an important way we represent number and quantity in space.

Studies show humans prefer to position to the right and smaller numbers to the left. People are usually faster and more accurate at comparing numbers when larger ones are to the right and smaller ones are to the left, and people with that disrupts their spatial processing also show similar disruptions in number processing.

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Scientists have discovered a beautiful ocean world that looks like it was ripped out of the Star Wars prequels. The exoplanet TOI-1452 b was discovered just 100 light-years from Earth. A new paper on the discovery says that the entire planet is covered by a thick layer of water and that it’s located far enough from its star to possibly support life.

The ocean world was discovered by a team of researchers at the Université de Montréal. Charles Cadieux, the team leader, announced the discovery this week. Cadieux is also a member of the Institute for Research on Exoplanets (iREx).

The planet is just slightly greater in size and mass than Earth. While the fact that this exoplanet is covered in water is intriguing, it’s also located a perfect distance out from its stars to not be too cold or hot. That means that it could potentially support life, though it’s unclear what kind of life might thrive on an ocean world such as this.

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Findings from a machine learning study suggest that some of the speech differences associated with autism are consistent across languages, while others are language-specific. The study, published in the journal PLOS One, was conducted among separate samples of English speakers and Cantonese speakers.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is often accompanied by differences in speech prosody. Speech prosody describes aspects of speech, like rhythm and intonation, that help us express emotions and convey meaning with our words. Atypical speech prosody can interfere with a person’s communication and social abilities, for example, by causing a person to misunderstand others or be misunderstood themselves. The reason these speech differences commonly present among autistic people is not fully understood.

Study author Joseph C. Y. Lau and his team wanted to shed light on this topic by studying prosodic features associated with autism across two typologically distinct languages.

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The future of architecture is here!

Dubai is known for its extravagant architecture that causes envy around the world. Just when you thought its buildings could not get more futuristic, along comes ZNera space, an architecture firm with some very ambitious plans for the city.

What might these be? They have developed a design for a high-rise building that encircles the Burj Khalifa, reported an online magazine designboom on Tuesday.

With oil reserves dwindling, Dubai has needed to re-invent itself to stay relevant in the modern world. Prince Sheikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum has worked tirelessly to invest in Architecture and Engineering projects in the region to lead the “wonders of Dubai”. Dubai’s investment is expected to attract many millions of tourists over the coming years.

Here are our top 8 architectural and engineering wonders of dubai:

Continue reading “Top 8 Engineering and Architectural Wonders of Dubai” | >

This is just one of many military advancements the nation has made against its arch-rival.

Back in July, South Korea undertook a 33-minute flight of its homegrown KF-21 fighter jet for the first time flaunting its military might and perhaps sending a message to North Korea.

South Korea is pursuing stealth drones that could take out North Korean air defenses as part of a “manned-unmanned teaming system.”

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This finding “proved” the significance of chromosomal rearrangement, a crucial evolutionary indicator of the emergence of a new species.

Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) claim to have found a novel technique for programmable chromosome fusion successfully producing mice with genetic changes “that occur on a million-year evolutionary scale” in the laboratory.

The findings could shed light on how chromosome rearrangements—the tidy packages of organized genes provided in equal numbers by each parent, which align and trade or blend traits to produce offspring—influence evolution, reported Phys.org on Thursday.

Evolutionary chromosomal changes may take a million years in nature, but researchers are now reporting a novel technique enabling programmable chromosome fusion that has successfully produced mice with genetic changes that occur on a million-year evolutionary scale in the laboratory. The result may provide critical insights into how rearrangements of chromosomes—the tidy packages of organized genes, provided in equal number from each parent, which align and trade or blend traits to produce offspring—influence evolution.

In results published today in Science, the researchers reveal that chromosome-level engineering can be achieved in mammals, and they successfully derived a laboratory house mouse with novel and sustainable karyotype, providing critical insight into how may influence evolution.

“The laboratory house mouse has maintained a standard 40-chromosome karyotype—or the full picture of an organism’s chromosomes—after more than 100 years of artificial breeding,” said co-first author Li Zhikun, researcher in the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) Institute of Zoology and the State Key Laboratory of Stem Cell and Reproductive Biology. “Over longer time scales, however, karyotype changes caused by chromosome rearrangements are common. Rodents have 3.2 to 3.5 rearrangements per million years, whereas primates have 1.6.”

Continue reading “Researchers engineer first sustainable chromosome changes in mice” | >

The oldest radio galaxy yet discovered is hidden in a cluster.

Astronomers claim to have found the oldest fossil radio galaxy yet discovered, hiding in a cluster. The brightest galaxy in the cluster erupted as a result of supermassive black hole activity, blowing massive bubbles of radio light into space, according to a report published by ScienceAlert.

“These newly discovered bubbles — known as radio lobes, or a radio galaxy — are the oldest of their kind we’ve ever seen,” claimed the astronomers’ team led by Surajit Paul and Savitribai Phule from Pune University in India.

A second team of astronomers led by Gopal Krishna of the University of Mumbai also discovered a pair of younger lobes that are linked to the same parent galaxy.

If we had been around and able to see into the heart of galaxy cluster Abell 980 around 260 million years ago, we may have seen something very spectacular indeed.

The brightest galaxy in the cluster erupted, the result of activity from its supermassive black hole, an event that would go on to blow massive bubbles emitting radio light out into space.

Continue reading “The Oldest Fossil Radio Galaxy Discovered Yet Has Been Found Hiding in a Cluster” | >

Are you curious?

Imagine two towns on two opposite sides of a mountain. People from these towns would probably have to travel all the way around the mountain to visit one another. But, if they wanted to get there faster, they could dig a tunnel straight through the mountain to create a shortcut. That’s the idea behind a wormhole.

A wormhole is like a tunnel between two distant points in our universe that cuts the travel time from one point to the other. Instead of traveling for many millions of years from one galaxy to another, under the right conditions, one could theoretically use a wormhole to cut the travel time down to hours or minutes.

You’ll often see wormholes in science fiction as a way to travel across the Galaxy.

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Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg was a recent guest on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, and during the episode, he discussed, among other things, neural technology. During his conversation, Zuckerberg remarked that Elon Musk’s Neuralink would probably not be popular in the next 10–15 years because “normal people” would not want to have devices implanted in their brains that are made of non-mature technology.

Zuckerberg admitted that Meta is researching neural interface tech as part of the company’s push into the metaverse, though he also noted that the tech company is focusing on innovations that can receive signals from the brain but does not send any information back to it.

In later comments, the Meta CEO noted that companies like Elon Musk’s Neuralink, which is developing a device that can be implanted into people’s skulls, is taking neural technology “super far-off.” Neuralink’s implant is designed to record and stimulate brain activity, which Musk has stated could help people address conditions such as obesity.

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