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May 19, 2021

Astronomers found a giant “wall” of galaxies hiding in plain sight

Posted by in category: space

Circa 2020


Astronomers have found one of the largest structures in the known universe—a “wall” of galaxies that’s at least 1.4 billion light-years long. And given how close it is to us, it’s remarkable that we haven’t seen it before now.

What happened: An international team of scientists reported the discovery of the South Pole Wall in a paper published Thursday in the Astrophysical Journal. The structure is basically a curtain that stretches across the southern border of the universe (from the perspective of Earth) and consists of thousands of galaxies, along with huge amounts of gas and dust.

Continue reading “Astronomers found a giant ‘wall’ of galaxies hiding in plain sight” »

May 19, 2021

New Graphene Aluminum-Ion Cell May Ditch Cooling Systems

Posted by in category: materials

GMG and the University of Queensland presented a graphene aluminum-ion cell that charges faster than Li-ion batteries. It also requires no cooling.

May 19, 2021

Google AI tool can help patients identify skin conditions

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, robotics/AI

The tech giant says its “dermatology assist” tool can recognise 288 different skin ailments.

May 19, 2021

Kate Adamala (U of M) 1: Synthetic Cells: Building Life to Understand It

Posted by in categories: alien life, engineering, evolution, genetics

www.iBiology.org.

Dr. Kate Adamala describes what synthetic cells are and how they can teach us the fundamental principles of life.

Continue reading “Kate Adamala (U of M) 1: Synthetic Cells: Building Life to Understand It” »

May 19, 2021

Behold! China unveils 1st Mars photos from Zhurong rover

Posted by in category: space

China is only the 2nd nation to successfully soft-land on Mars.


China has released the first photographs taken by its Zhurong rover, which touched down on Mars late on Friday (May 14) as part of the country’s Tianwen-1 mission.

May 19, 2021

2021 Space Renaissance Congress

Posted by in categories: government, space

Register for free to the 2021 Space Renaissance Congress.


June 26 — 30 virtual on zoom+attendify+youtube.

https://2021.spacerenaissance.space/index.php/registration/

May 19, 2021

Splunk to buy security intelligence-sharing startup TruStar

Posted by in categories: cybercrime/malcode, robotics/AI

Splunk today announced it plans to acquire security software company TruStar for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition will add TruStar’s cloud-native, cyber intelligence-sharing capabilities and automated processes to Splunk’s growing cybersecurity portfolio.

“TruStar will help us get even better at predictive threat assessments by strengthening our threat intelligence framework. This acquisition will allow customers to autonomously and seamlessly enrich their (security operation center) workflows with threat intelligence data feeds from heterogeneous sources,” Splunk president and CEO Doug Merritt told VentureBeat in an exclusive interview.

The pending deal is in line with Splunk’s philosophy that “security is a data problem,” he said. The announcement marks a return to M&A activity for Splunk and the massive $1.05 billion deal for SignalFX in 2019. The company also made four cloud-related acquisitions in 2020.

May 19, 2021

Unknown Physics on the Cosmic Scale? 1000 Supernova Explosions Chart the Expansion History of the Universe

Posted by in categories: cosmology, information science, physics

An international research team analyzed a database of more than 1000 supernova explosions and found that models for the expansion of the Universe best match the data when a new time dependent variation is introduced. If proven correct with future, higher-quality data from the Subaru Telescope and other observatories, these results could indicate still unknown physics working on the cosmic scale.

Edwin Hubble’s observations over 90 years ago showing the expansion of the Universe remain a cornerstone of modern astrophysics. But when you get into the details of calculating how fast the Universe was expanding at different times in its history, scientists have difficulty getting theoretical models to match observations.

To solve this problem, a team led by Maria Dainotti (Assistant Professor at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan and the Graduate University for Advanced Studies, SOKENDAI in Japan and an affiliated scientist at the Space Science Institute in the U.S.A.) analyzed a catalog of 1048 supernovae which exploded at different times in the history of the Universe. The team found that the theoretical models can be made to match the observations if one of the constants used in the equations, appropriately called the Hubble constant, is allowed to vary with time.

May 19, 2021

Nvidia’s ownership of ARM could drive customers to RISC-V, other alternatives if not careful, says Xilinx CEO

Posted by in category: futurism

If ARM doesn’t prove it can be a level playing field in Nvidia’s ownership, customers will defect to alternatives.

May 19, 2021

Deconstruction of high-density polyethylene into liquid hydrocarbon fuels and lubricants

Posted by in categories: chemistry, sustainability

Plastic pollution has become one of the most pressing environmental issues now that the rapidly increased production of disposable plastic products is far beyond the world’s capacity for recycling and upcycling waste plastics. Although recent studies have provided a few catalytic strategies for producing value-added fuel and chemical products from polyethylene (PE) waste, the kinetic rates and/or selectivities are unsatisfactory, even with extended processing time (24 h) and high temperatures (280°C). This work reports a liquid-phase catalytic hydrogenolysis process that highly efficiently converts high-density PE to jet-fuel-and lubricant-range hydrocarbons under relatively mild conditions. The application of this efficient liquid-phase catalytic hydrogenolysis process could provide a promising approach for selectively producing high-value products, such as lubricants, from waste PE and other polyolefin polymers.