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The story illuminates the way that many scientific discoveries become life-changing innovations: with decades of dead ends, rejections and battles over potential profits, but also generosity, curiosity and dogged persistence against scepticism and doubt. “It’s a long series of steps,” says Paul Krieg, a developmental biologist at the University of Arizona in Tucson, who made his own contribution in the mid-1980s, “and you never know what’s going to be useful”.

Hundreds of scientists had worked on mRNA vaccines for decades before the coronavirus pandemic brought a breakthrough.

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A new study has found that a material(nickel oxide, a quantum material) can mimic the sea slug’s most essential intelligence features. The discovery is a step toward building hardware that could help make AI more efficient and reliable.

For artificial intelligence to get any smarter, it needs first to be as intelligent as one of the simplest creatures in the animal kingdom: the sea slug.

A new study has found that a material can mimic the sea slug’s most essential intelligence features. The discovery is a step toward building hardware that could help make AI more efficient and reliable for technology ranging from self-driving cars and surgical robots to social media algorithms.

The study, publishing this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was conducted by a team of researchers from Purdue University, Rutgers University, the University of Georgia and Argonne National Laboratory.

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O,.o.

Like Hitting a Bullseye With Your Eyes Closed Two statisticians put into perspective the chances of asteroid Bennu striking Earth in the next 300 years. Even Harry Stamper would probably like these odds. Recently NASA updated its forecast of the chances that the asteroid Bennu, one of the two most hazardous known objects in our solar system, will hit Earth in the next 300 years. New calculations put the odds at 1 in 1,750 a figure slightly higher than previously thought.

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Pandemic lockdown forces a new perspective on designs for futuristic AI-based computing devices.

Isaac Newton’s groundbreaking scientific productivity while isolated from the spread of bubonic plague is legendary. University of California San Diego physicists can now claim a stake in the annals of pandemic-driven science.

A team of UC San Diego researchers and colleagues at Purdue University have now simulated the foundation of new types of artificial intelligence computing devices that mimic brain functions, an achievement that resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. By combining new supercomputing materials with specialized oxides, the researchers successfully demonstrated the backbone of networks of circuits and devices that mirror the connectivity of neurons and synapses in biologically based neural networks.

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The findings of a new study by the University of Liverpool provides further evidence of an approximately 200 million-year long cycle in the strength of the Earth’s magnetic field.

Researchers performed thermal and microwave (a technique which is unique to the University of Liverpool) paleomagnetic analysis on rock samples from ancient lava flows in Eastern Scotland to measure the strength of the geomagnetic field during key time periods with almost no pre-existing, reliable data. The study also analysed the reliability of all of the measurements from samples from 200 to 500 million years ago, collected over the last ~80 years.

They found that between 332 and 416 million years ago, the strength of the geomagnetic field preserved in these rocks was less than quarter of what it is today, and similar to a previously identified period of low magnetic field strength that started around 120 million years ago. The researchers have coined this period “the Mid-Palaeozoic Dipole low (MPDL).”

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A Shortfall of Gravitas: SpaceX’s new drone ship detailed

The ship supported its first mission on August 29. This was the 23rd Commercial Resupply Services mission, the latest in a series of launches for NASA that sends cargo to the International Space Station.

A Shortfall of Gravitas is a notable upgrade over previous ships. SpaceX explained during the mission launch livestream that it improves over its predecessors with a fully autonomous operation procedure. That means it can travel to sea, find its position, receive the rocket, grab the rocket with the “octograbber” robot and return it to land — all autonomously.

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A similar nuclear waste storage project, proposed in New Mexico by Holtec International Corp., is also awaiting approval by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The agency said it expects to make a decision on that proposal in January 2022.

Texas officials vowed to fight a federal regulator’s decision to approve plans to allow thousands of tons of highly radioactive nuclear waste to be stored in oil fields in the state.

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In June, San Francisco-based startup Orbit Fab launched a prototype refueling station into Earth’s orbit — but rather than allowing astronauts to venture into deep space, this system is meant to give old satellites a new lease on life.

That’s a compelling idea, and now the company has locked down $10 million in funding to further it. Our planet’s orbit is getting cluttered with old and new satellites, increasing the risks of a collision and adding to an existing space junk problem.

Orbit Fab’s Tenzing Tanker-001, an early prototype satellite fuel tanker, launched into orbit as part of SpaceX’s Transporter-2 rideshare mission on June 30.

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