Toggle light / dark theme

“It’s not just about the smell,” said Adrian Cheok, one of the scientists behind the experiments. “It is part of a whole, integrated virtual reality or augmented reality. So, for example, you could have a virtual dinner with your friend through the internet. You can see them in 3D and also share a glass of wine together.”

In real life, odors are transmitted when airborne molecules waft into the nose, prompting specialized nerve cells in the upper airway to fire off impulses to the brain. In the recent experiments, performed on 31 test subjects at the Imagineering Institute in the Malaysian city of Nusajaya, researchers used electrodes in the nostrils to deliver weak electrical currents above and behind the nostrils, where these neurons are found.

The researchers were able to evoke 10 different virtual odors, including fruity, woody and minty.

Essentially a quantum radar teleportation device could entangle objects anywhere in the universe.


Last year, a Long March 2D rocket took off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in the Gobi Desert carrying a satellite called Micius, named after an ancient Chinese philosopher who died in 391 B.C. The rocket placed Micius in a Sun-synchronous orbit so that it passes over the same point on Earth at the same time each day.

Micius is a highly sensitive photon receiver that can detect the quantum states of single photons fired from the ground. That’s important because it should allow scientists to test the technological building blocks for various quantum feats such as entanglement, cryptography, and teleportation.

A new “all-plant” drink bottle is underway at a Netherlands biochemicals company. These bottles are made from sustainable crops and decompose within a year.

The bottle is made from plant sugars instead of traditional fossil fuels. Avantium is the company behind the bottle. They have already found support from beer company Carlsberg, who plans to sell a plant-plastic lined cardboard bottle in future beverage releases. Coca-Cola and Danone have also backed the product.

Avantium’s chief executive, Tom van Aken told the Guardian that the plan should be finalized by the end of the year, with the bottles hitting supermarket shelves by 2023. “This plastic has very attractive sustainability credentials because it uses no fossil fuels, and can be recycled – but would also degrade in nature much faster than normal plastics do,” says Van Aken.

A group of cyclists managed to charge a Tesla Model X electric SUV with their own power.

One of the best things about electric vehicles is that you get to choose where the energy powering your car comes from.

Even if your choices are somewhat limited, there are still a lot more options than with gasoline and diesel vehicles, which will of course each only take their own fuel.

The prestigious news outlet mapped the performance of 30 leading economies by plotting their public health and economic outcomes and grouping them based on whether they have instituted light, moderate or severe restrictions on commerce and social interactions.

The matrix included countries and territories’ economic outcomes, including the benchmarks of GDP, unemployment and fiscal stimulus packages and health outcomes based on testing, infection and death statistics provided by health ministries and government authorities and graphed by Worldometer and Johns Hopkins University.

As seen in the ranking chart, Vietnam stands at the furthest end with “better public health outcome,” with Taiwan coming close, followed by New Zealand, South Korea, Iceland, Argentina and Australia.

Researchers led by biologists at Tufts University have discovered that the brains of developing frog embryos damaged by nicotine exposure can be repaired by treatment with certain drugs called “ionoceuticals” that drive the recovery of bioelectric patterns in the embryo, followed by repair of normal anatomy, gene expression and brain function in the growing tadpole. The research, published today in Frontiers in Neuroscience, introduces intervention strategies based on restoring the bioelectric “blueprint” for embryonic development, which the researchers suggest could provide a roadmap for the exploration of therapeutic drugs to help repair birth defects.