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Force fields are a staple of science fiction, but usually regarded as only science fiction, not science fact. Today we’ll examine the notion and see what options we might have inside known science, as well as what alternatives might achieve similar effects.

See Hydrodynamic levitation at Cody’s Lab:

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Hear from Nobel laureate Jennifer Doudna on the four ways that CRISPR gene editing technologies will revolutionize healthcare.

In her 31 March talk at the Frontiers Forum, Prof Jennifer Doudna outlined how CRISPR-based therapies are already transforming the lives of patients with previously limited treatment options. She also gave her vision for how her serendipitous discovery will revolutionize healthcare for us all. The session was attended by over 9,200 representatives from science, policy and business across the world.

Jennifer’s keynote talk was followed by a discussion with global experts on access and ethical considerations:
• Prof Andrea Crisanti, Imperial College London.
• Prof Françoise Baylis, Dalhousie University.
• Dr Soumya Swaminathan, Chief Scientist, World Health Organization.

2022 marks the 10th anniversary of Jennifer’s groundbreaking development of CRISPR-Cas9 as a genome-engineering technology, with collaborator Prof Emmanuelle Charpentier. The two earned the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work, which has forever changed the course of human and agricultural genomics research. Jennifer Doudna is the Li Ka Shing Chancellor’s Chair and a Professor in the Departments of Chemistry and of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and Founder of the Innovative Genomics Institute.

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Do supermassive black holes have friends? The nature of galaxy formation suggests that the answer is yes, and in fact, pairs of supermassive black holes should be common in the universe.

I am an astrophysicist and am interested in a wide range of theoretical problems in astrophysics, from the formation of the very first galaxies to the gravitational interactions of black holes, stars and even planets. Black holes are intriguing systems, and supermassive black holes and the dense stellar environments that surround them represent one of the most extreme places in our universe.

The supermassive black hole that lurks at the center of our galaxy, called Sgr A*, has a mass of about 4 million times that of our Sun. A black hole is a place in space where gravity is so strong that neither particles or light can escape from it. Surrounding Sgr A* is a dense cluster of stars. Precise measurements of the orbits of these stars allowed astronomers to confirm the existence of this supermassive black hole and to measure its mass. For more than 20 years, scientists have been monitoring the orbits of these stars around the supermassive black hole. Based on what we’ve seen, my colleagues and I show that if there is a friend there, it might be a second black hole nearby that is at least 100,000 times the mass of the Sun.

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A unique ultra-faint dwarf galaxy has been discovered on the outer fringes of the Andromeda Galaxy thanks to the discerning eyes of an amateur astronomer examining archival data processed by NSF’s NOIRLab’s Community Science and Data Center. The dwarf galaxy — Pegasus V — was revealed to contain very few heavier elements and is likely to be a fossil of the first galaxies in follow-up observations by professional astronomers using the International Gemini Observatory, a Program of NSF’s NOIRLab.

An unusual ultra-faint dwarf galaxy has been discovered on the edge of the Andromeda Galaxy with the help of several facilities of NSF’s NOIRLab. Called Pegasus V, the galaxy was first detected as part of a systematic search for Andromeda dwarfs coordinated by David Martinez-Delgado from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía, Spain, when amateur astronomer Giuseppe Donatiello discovered a curious ‘smudge’ in data in a DESI

The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) is a new instrument for conducting a spectrographic survey of distant galaxies that has been retrofitted onto the Mayall Telescope on top of Kitt Peak in the Sonoran Desert 55 miles distant from Tucson, Arizona. Its main components are a focal plane containing 5,000 fiber-positioning robots and a bank of spectrographs which are fed by the fibers. It enables an experiment to probe the expansion history of the Universe and the mysterious physics of dark energy.

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UPDATE — This story has been updated to include additional information from an Army press release.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army has opened up the competition to design and build prototypes for its Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle replacement, releasing a request for proposals to industry July 1 on the government contracting website Sam.gov.

The details of the RFP covering both a detailed design (phase 3) and prototyping (phase 4) are not yet publicly available.

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A scientist with the Aeronautical Development Establishment told Defense News that the flight test of the aircraft — also referred to as the Stealth Wing Flying Testbed, or SWiFT — took place to demonstrate its of ability to take off, climb in altitude, cruise midair, navigate to waypoints, descend and land autonomously.

He noted that the next step is to develop a proven autonomous combat surveillance platform. The scientist spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The 1-ton SWiFT platform is powered by a Russian NPO Saturn 36MT turbofan engine. The platform had completed taxi trials in September 2021.

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It may seem like technology advances year after year, as if by magic. But behind every incremental improvement and breakthrough revolution is a team of scientists and engineers hard at work.

UC Santa Barbara Professor Ben Mazin is developing precision optical sensors for telescopes and observatories. In a paper published in Physical Review Letters, he and his team improved the spectra resolution of their superconducting sensor, a major step in their ultimate goal: analyzing the composition of exoplanets.

“We were able to roughly double the spectral resolving power of our detectors,” said first author Nicholas Zobrist, a doctoral student in the Mazin Lab.

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