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Aug 2, 2021

Omega-3 can boost life expectancy

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

High blood concentrations of omega-3 fatty acids, which oily fish such as salmon are known to be rich in, can increase your life expectancy by nearly five years.

Aug 2, 2021

Google’s own mobile chip is called Tensor

Posted by in categories: mobile phones, robotics/AI

Rick Osterloh casually dropped his laptop onto the couch and leaned back, satisfied. It’s not a mic, but the effect is about the same. Google’s chief of hardware had just shown me a demo of the company’s latest feature: computational processing for video that will debut on the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro. The feature was only possible with Google’s own mobile processor, which it’s announcing today.

He’s understandably proud and excited to share the news. The chip is called Tensor, and it’s the first system-on-chip (SoC) designed by Google. The company has “been at this about five years,” he said, though CEO Sundar Pichai wrote in a statement that Tensor “has been four years in the making and builds off of two decades of Google’s computing experience.”

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Aug 2, 2021

Meet James Webb — A Time Machine Worth $10 Billion

Posted by in category: time travel

Aug 2, 2021

Astronomers Discover a “Changing-Look” Blazar – A Powerful Active Galactic Nucleus

Posted by in category: cosmology

A University of Oklahoma doctoral student, graduate and undergraduate research assistants, and an associate professor in the Homer L. Dodge Department of Physics and Astronomy in the University of Oklahoma College of Arts and Sciences are lead authors on a paper describing a “changing-look” blazar — a powerful active galactic nucleus powered by a supermassive black hole at the center of a galaxy. The paper is published in The Astrophysical Journal.

Hora D. Mishra, a Ph.D. student, and faculty member Xinyu Dai are lead authors of the paper, along with Christopher Kochanek and Kris Stanek at the Ohio State University and Ben Shappee at the University of Hawaii. The paper represents the findings of researchers from 12 different institutions who participated in a two-year collaborative project involving the collection of spectra or imaging data in different electromagnetic bands. The OU team led the effort in analyzing all the data collected from the collaboration and contributed primarily on the interpretation of the analysis results, assisted by OU graduate student Saloni Bhatiani and undergraduate students Cora DeFrancesco and John Cox who performed ancillary analyses to the project.

Aug 2, 2021

Google soon won’t let you sign in on very old Android devices

Posted by in categories: mapping, mobile phones

Starting September 27th.


If you still have a device running Android 2.3.7 (the final version of Gingerbread) or older, Google won’t let you sign in to your Google account on that device starting September 27th, according to a support document (via Liliputing).

“As part of our ongoing efforts to keep our users safe, Google will no longer allow sign-in on Android devices that run Android 2.3.7 or lower starting September 27, 2021,” the company says. “If you sign into your device after September 27, you may get username or password errors when you try to use Google products and services like Gmail, YouTube, and Maps.”

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Aug 2, 2021

Theory of Mind in Humans and Machines

Posted by in category: neuroscience

To promote an ethical approach in human-machine interaction.


The theory of mind is about recognizing other minds, comprehend emotions, understand intentions, and predict behaviors that are essential for intelligent social interaction. The capability to detect others’ minds is critical to human cognition and social interaction. It allows us to build relationships and work cooperatively to achieve common goals.

Research has shown that having a sophisticated theory of mind may be a large part of why humans have cognitive skills. This ability is so important that when it is disrupted, as we see in some cases of autism, vital cerebral functions like language learning and imagination become impaired.

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Aug 2, 2021

Credit card-stealing malware found in official Python repository

Posted by in category: cybercrime/malcode

Security researchers blame the repository’s lack of moderation.


Packages tainted with malicious code once again find their way into PyPI.

Aug 2, 2021

Researchers From Tel Aviv University, UC Berkeley and NVIDIA Introduce ‘DETReg’, A Novel Unsupervised AI For Object Detection

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

Artificial intelligence, machine learning, data science.

Aug 2, 2021

Scientists Find A Better Way To Turn Heat Into Electricity

Posted by in categories: energy, space

Engineers usually regard heat as “waste energy” since it is hard to efficiently turn into anything useful. However, a new class of thermoelectric materials could change that after researchers opted to try the exact opposite of the usual approach. A paper in Science Advances explains why, speeding the search for even better versions.

As the name suggests, thermoelectric materials turn heat into electricity, skipping the boiling water stage used in most bulk electricity production. However, cost and inefficiency have kept thermoelectric generators restricted to niche applications, such as powering spacecraft like the Mars Perseverance rover where lightweight, reliable energy production matters more than price.

Thermoelectric materials are too expensive and polluting for more widespread use, but new versions that replace heavier elements with magnesium could change that, opening the door to even better options that could find widespread uses.

Aug 2, 2021

SpaceX installs 29 engines on giant Super Heavy Mars rocket (photos)

Posted by in category: space travel

The company is gearing up for the first orbital test flight of its Starship system.


SpaceX has made significant strides toward the planned first orbital test flight of its Starship system, installing engines on the giant first-stage booster known as Super Heavy.