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Jan 2, 2020

TikTok Banned By U.S. Army Over China Security Concerns

Posted by in category: government

The U.S. Army this week has banned TikTok from government-owned devices as scrutiny over the platform’s relationship with China grows.

Jan 2, 2020

Forecasters predict near-ideal weather conditions Monday night for the first launch at Cape Canaveral this year

Posted by in category: satellites

Forecasters predict near-ideal weather conditions Monday night for the first launch at Cape Canaveral this year, when SpaceX plans to send another 60 Starlink broadband satellites into orbit atop a Falcon 9 rocket.

FULL STORY: https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/01/02/good-weather-predicted…h-of-2020/

Jan 2, 2020

SpaceX’s Upcoming Crewed NASA Mission Will Feature a Tesla Car: Video

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, space travel, sustainability

Elon Musk’s rocket company SpaceX is kicking off the new year with an ultra busy month of tests and missions, including a major test for the company’s first crewed mission to fly NASA astronauts to and back from the International Space Station (ISS).

To drum up hype ahead of the big day, Musk posted a simulated video on Monday showing how the eventual manned launch will look.

SEE ALSO: Why Nobel Prize-Winning Scientists Universally Oppose Moving to Mars.

Jan 2, 2020

The Coolest (and Scariest) Military Tech of 2019

Posted by in category: military

This year birthed some of the most mind-bending military tech we’ve ever seen.


Whether you’re a war hawk or a pacifist, it’s hard to deny the last year’s mind-bending advances in warfare technology.

Jan 2, 2020

What does it take for a psychedelic drug to get to market?

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Any FDA-approved drug must first pass through three phases of development, to show safety and efficacy. At our launch party, Dr. Cole Marta, a principal investigator at the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) Los Angeles MDMA phase 3 study site, explains the process of drug development and what happens after a drug gets to market, including factors such as cost to the patient and insurance coverage. How would *you* like to see psychedelic medicines legally come to market?

Jan 2, 2020

Researchers build a particle accelerator that fits on a chip

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, chemistry, computing, nanotechnology

The accelerator-on-a-chip demonstrated in Science is just a prototype, but Vuckovic said its design and fabrication techniques can be scaled up to deliver particle beams accelerated enough to perform cutting-edge experiments in chemistry, materials science and biological discovery that don’t require the power of a massive accelerator.

“The largest accelerators are like powerful telescopes. There are only a few in the world and scientists must come to places like SLAC to use them,” Vuckovic said. “We want to miniaturize accelerator technology in a way that makes it a more accessible research tool.”

Team members liken their approach to the way that computing evolved from the mainframe to the smaller but still useful PC. Accelerator-on-a-chip technology could also lead to new cancer radiation therapies, said physicist Robert Byer, a co-author of the Science paper. Again, it’s a matter of size.

Continue reading “Researchers build a particle accelerator that fits on a chip” »

Jan 2, 2020

Finding the root of consciousness: Is this brain cell your ‘mind’s eye’?

Posted by in category: neuroscience

Researchers believe they have identified specific neurons that are responsible for conscious awareness. Previous studies have implicated both thalamocortical circuits and cortico-cortico circuits in consciousness. The new study reports these networks intersect via L5p neurons. Directly activating L5p neurons made mice react to weaker sensory stimuli. The researchers say if consciousness requires L5p neurons, all brain activity without them must be unconscious.

Jan 2, 2020

Remote connections? Detangling entanglement in quantum physics

Posted by in categories: computing, encryption, quantum physics

Quantum computers, quantum cryptography and quantum (insert name here) are often in the news these days. Articles about them inevitably refer to entanglement, a property of quantum physics that makes all these magical devices possible.

Einstein called entanglement “spooky action at a distance,” a name that has stuck and become increasingly popular. Beyond just building better quantum computers, understanding and harnessing entanglement is also useful in other ways.

Continue reading “Remote connections? Detangling entanglement in quantum physics” »

Jan 2, 2020

Moon Phases 2020

Posted by in category: space

🌖 What will the Moon look like throughout 2020? Using data from our Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter to visualize with unprecedented fidelity, NASA Goddard’s Dial-a-Moon shows you the Moon each hour: https://go.nasa.gov/37sKofB

Watch a full year of Moon phases from the Northern Hemisphere: https://go.nasa.gov/2udsqPY

From the Southern Hemisphere: https://go.nasa.gov/2QHYt1U

Jan 2, 2020

Some learning is a whole-brain affair, study shows

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, food, neuroscience

Researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine have successfully used a laser-assisted imaging tool to “see” what happens in brain cells of mice learning to reach out and grab a pellet of food. Their experiments, they say, add to evidence that such motor-based learning can occur in multiple areas of the brain, even ones not typically associated with motor control.

“Scientists should be looking at the entire brain to understand specific types of learning,” says Richard Huganir, Ph.D., Bloomberg Distinguished Professor and Director of the Solomon H. Snyder Department of Neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “Different parts of the brain contribute to learning in different ways, and studying brain cell receptors can help us decipher how this works.”

The work, say the researchers, may ultimately inform efforts to develop treatments for learning-based and neurocognitive disorders.