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Feb 27, 2019

SpaceX readies Crew Dragon spacecraft for first test flight to the space station

Posted by in category: space travel

If successful, the flight will be a major milestone for the burgeoning commercial spaceflight industry.

SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule will launch atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

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Feb 27, 2019

Gigantic Japanese detector prepares to catch neutrinos from supernovae

Posted by in categories: cosmology, particle physics

Recent upgrades to the Super-Kamiokande neutrino observatory will allow it to trace the history of exploding stars. An upgraded Super-Kamiokande will be able to detect these particles with greatly improved efficiency.

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Feb 27, 2019

Siberia’s ancient ghost clan starts to surrender its secrets

Posted by in category: evolution

A mysterious group of extinct humans known as Denisovans is helping to rewrite our understanding of human evolution. Who were they? A mysterious group of extinct humans known as Denisovans is helping to rewrite our understanding of human evolution. Who were they?

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Feb 27, 2019

Abcam Moves to New Purpose-Built Global Headquarters

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, business

CAMBRIDGE, England—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Feb 27, 2019—Abcam, a global innovator in life science reagents and tools, is pleased to announce its move to new state-of-the-art global headquarters, Discovery Drive, on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus (CBC), UK, a leading hub of healthcare, science and medical research.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190227005291/en/

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Feb 27, 2019

The French Fencing Federation introduces lightsaber dueling as a new sport

Posted by in categories: entertainment, weapons

From pop culture channel InqPOP:


Inspired by the Star Wars movie franchise, this newly recognized sport by the French is different from how the other weapons are used in fencing. For one, it requires combatants to pull their sword from behind themselves before they can try to strike their opponent. It also has rounds that last three minutes. And the first duelist who will reach 15 victories will be announced as the winner.

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Feb 27, 2019

The Crisis Of Science

Posted by in category: science

https://youtube.com/watch?v=LfHEuWaPh9Q

Corbett Report covers data manipulation crisis within the sciences.

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Feb 27, 2019

Elon Musk on Moon Bases, Mars, and How Not to Be Vaporized

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

RD: Is that because the focus right now is so much on getting there? EM: Yeah yeah, you need to get there. That’s a big deal. I think Starship will also be good for creating a base on the moon. We’ll probably have a base on the moon before going to Mars.


The SpaceX CEO on food, fuel, and the risk of vaporization.

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Feb 27, 2019

Are Robots Competing for Your Job?

Posted by in categories: economics, employment, food, robotics/AI, sustainability

This thesis has been rolling around like a marble in the bowl of a lot of people’s brains for a while now, and many of those marbles were handed out by Martin Ford, in his 2015 book, “Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future.” In the book, and in an essay in “Confronting Dystopia: The New Technological Revolution and the Future of Work” (Cornell), Ford acknowledges that all other earlier robot-invasion panics were unfounded. In the nineteenth century, people who worked on farms lost their jobs when agricultural processes were mechanized, but they eventually earned more money working in factories. In the twentieth century, automation of industrial production led to warnings about “unprecedented economic and social disorder.” Instead, displaced factory workers moved into service jobs. Machines eliminate jobs; rising productivity creates new jobs.


Probably, but don’t count yourself out.

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Feb 26, 2019

The Bullish Case for Bitcoin

Posted by in categories: bitcoin, computing, economics, government

With the price of a bitcoin surging to new highs in 2017, the bullish case for investors might seem so obvious it does not need stating. Alternatively it may seem foolish to invest in a digital asset that isn’t backed by any commodity or government and whose price rise has prompted some to compare it to the tulip mania or the dot-com bubble. Neither is true; the bullish case for Bitcoin is compelling but far from obvious. There are significant risks to investing in Bitcoin, but, as I will argue, there is still an immense opportunity.

Never in the history of the world had it been possible to transfer value between distant peoples without relying on a trusted intermediary, such as a bank or government. In 2008 Satoshi Nakamoto, whose identity is still unknown, published a 9 page solution to a long-standing problem of computer science known as the Byzantine General’s Problem. Nakamoto’s solution and the system he built from it — Bitcoin — allowed, for the first time ever, value to be quickly transferred, at great distance, in a completely trustless way. The ramifications of the creation of Bitcoin are so profound for both economics and computer science that Nakamoto should rightly be the first person to qualify for both a Nobel prize in Economics and the Turing award.

For an investor the salient fact of the invention of Bitcoin is the creation of a new scarce digital good — bitcoins. Bitcoins are transferable digital tokens that are created on the Bitcoin network in a process known as “mining”. Bitcoin mining is roughly analogous to gold mining except that production follows a designed, predictable schedule. By design, only 21 million bitcoins will ever be mined and most of these already have been — approximately 16.8 million bitcoins have been mined at the time of writing. Every four years the number of bitcoins produced by mining halves and the production of new bitcoins will end completely by the year 2140.

Continue reading “The Bullish Case for Bitcoin” »

Feb 26, 2019

Boeing Will Unveil This ‘Loyal Wingman’ Combat Drone For Australia’s Air Force Tomorrow (Updated)

Posted by in category: drones

Boeing reportedly developed the all-new stealthy drone specifically for the Australians as part of a classified program.

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