Menu

Blog

Page 5176

Dec 30, 2021

New EV charging station quickly powers four vehicles at once

Posted by in categories: sustainability, transportation

Swiss tech company ABB has unveiled a new EV charging station that can rapidly power four electric vehicles at once — which could help make annoying wait times at stations a thing of the past.

The challenge: It typically takes less than five minutes to fill up a car’s tank at a gas station, and gas stations are everywhere in the U.S.

Continue reading “New EV charging station quickly powers four vehicles at once” »

Dec 30, 2021

A Vacuum Cleaner-Like Gadget Could Save Your Earbuds From Train Rails

Posted by in category: transportation

Japan’s growing lost earbuds problem meets its end with a vacuum cleaner-like gadger collaboration between Panasonic and JR East.

Dec 30, 2021

NASA Says Webb’s Excess Fuel Likely to Extend its Lifetime Expectations

Posted by in category: space travel

After a successful launch of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope Dec. 25, and completion of two mid-course correction maneuvers, the Webb team has analyzed its initial trajectory and determined the observatory should have enough propellant to allow support of science operations in orbit for significantly more than a 10-year science lifetime. (The minimum baseline for the mission is five years.)

The analysis shows that less propellant than originally planned for is needed to correct Webb’s trajectory toward its final orbit around the second Lagrange point known as L2, a point of gravitational balance on the far side of Earth away from the Sun. Consequently, Webb will have much more than the baseline estimate of propellant – though many factors could ultimately affect Webb’s duration of operation.

Webb has rocket propellant onboard not only for midcourse correction and insertion into orbit around L2, but also for necessary functions during the life of the mission, including “station keeping” maneuvers – small thruster burns to adjust Webb’s orbit — as well as what’s known as momentum management, which maintains Webb’s orientation in space.

Dec 30, 2021

Neuroscientists uncover a sensory “gateway” in the brain

Posted by in category: neuroscience

The anterior insular cortex requires more understanding in its role for human cognition and consciousness. But the next time you notice a cyclist who came out of nowhere or a dog that’s about to round the corner, you can thank your anterior insular cortex for it.

INVERSE is counting down the 20 science discoveries that made us say “WTF” in 2021. This is #2. Read the original story here.

Dec 30, 2021

“A True Cosmic Monster!” Violent High-Frequency Oscillations Captured in Gigantic Eruption of a Neutron Star

Posted by in categories: robotics/AI, space

An international scientific group with outstanding Valencian participation has managed to measure for the first time oscillations in the brightness of a neutron star – magnetar – during its most violent moments. In just a tenth of a second, the magnetar released energy equivalent to that produced by the Sun in 100,000 years. The observation has been carried out automatically, without human intervention, thanks to the Artificial Intelligence of a system developed at the Image Processing Laboratory (IPL) of the University of Valencia.

Among the neutron stars, objects that can contain half a million times the mass of the Earth in a diameter of about twenty kilometers, stands out a small group with the most intense magnetic field known: magnetars. These objects, of which only thirty are known, suffer violent eruptions that are still little known due to their unexpected nature and their duration of barely tenths of a second. Detecting them is a challenge for science and technology.

Continue reading “‘A True Cosmic Monster!’ Violent High-Frequency Oscillations Captured in Gigantic Eruption of a Neutron Star” »

Dec 30, 2021

How AI Is Improving Education, Healthcare And Farming In India

Posted by in categories: education, food, robotics/AI

From preventing blindness to helping children read to forecasting floods, AI has come a long way from the specialised labs where it emerged, here’s how it is reshaping lives in India.

Dec 30, 2021

A Neuroscientist Prepares for Death

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, education

Lessons my terminal cancer have taught me about the mind.

By David J. Linden

Dec 30, 2021

Astronomers See Black Hole Jets Blaze 16x Wider Than The Full Moon in Our Sky

Posted by in category: cosmology

Astronomers have captured a breathtaking radio wave image, showing our closest radio active black hole spewing out massive jets of plasma that span more than 16 times the size of the full moon in our sky.

The supermassive black hole in question is located in the center of the galaxy Centaurus A around 12 million light-years away.

The black hole has a jaw-dropping mass of around 55 million Suns but isn’t visible in the image. It would be located within the small empty patch in the center of the two butterfly wing-like lobes.

Dec 30, 2021

Nvidia’s Trillion-Dollar AI Opportunity (NASDAQ: NVDA)

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

NVIDIA’s dominance in AI is underappreciated. NVDA satisfies all the conditions to grow its competitive advantage in AI over time.

Dec 30, 2021

Large helium nanodroplets splash like water upon surface collisions

Posted by in categories: nanotechnology, particle physics

While working with helium nanodroplets, scientists at the Department of Ion Physics and Applied Physics led by Fabio Zappa and Paul Scheier have come across a surprising phenomenon: When the ultracold droplets hit a hard surface, they behave like drops of water. Ions with which they were previously doped thus remain protected on impact and are not neutralized.

At the Department of Ion Physics and Applied Physics, Paul Scheier’s research group has been using nanodroplets to study ions with methods of mass spectrometry for around 15 years. Using a supersonic nozzle, tiny, superfluid helium nanodroplets can be produced with temperatures of less than one degree Kelvin. They can very effectively be doped with atoms and molecules. In the case of ionized droplets, the particles of interest are attached to the charges, which are then measured in the mass spectrometer. During their experiments, the scientists have now stumbled upon an interesting phenomenon that has fundamentally changed their work. “For us, this was a gamechanger,” says Fabio Zappa from the nano-bio-physics team. “Everything at our lab is now done with this newly discovered method.” The researchers have now published the results of their studies in Physical Review Letters.