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Sep 19, 2019

A biologist believes that trees speak a language we can learn

Posted by in category: futurism

Humans have long recognized the song of trees.

Sep 19, 2019

How to Feed a Mars Colony of 1 Million People

Posted by in categories: food, space travel, sustainability

What might it take to feed a million people on Mars? Lab-grown meat, tunnel-grown crops and cricket farms, a new study finds.

When it comes to plans for crewed missions to Mars, NASA typically assumes round trips with only brief stopovers on the Red Planet. However, commercial space companies have emerged with the goal of colonizing outer space, with SpaceX specifically aiming to develop a civilization on Mars.

Sep 19, 2019

A Huge Experiment Has ‘Weighed’ the Tiny Neutrino, a Particle That Passes Right Through Matter

Posted by in categories: cosmology, evolution, particle physics

An experiment nearly two decades in the making has finally unveiled its measurements of the mass of the universe’s most abundant matter particle: the neutrino.

The neutrino could be the weirdest subatomic particle; though abundant, it requires some of the most sensitive detectors to observe. Scientists have been working for decades to figure out whether neutrinos have mass and if so, what that mass is. The Karlsruhe Tritium Neutrino (KATRIN) experiment in Germany has now revealed its first result constraining the maximum limit of that mass. The work has implications for our understanding of the entire cosmos, since these particles formed shortly after the Big Bang and helped shape the way structure formed in the early universe.

“You don’t get a lot of chances to measure a cosmological parameter that shaped the evolution of the universe in the laboratory,” Diana Parno, an assistant research professor at Carnegie Mellon University who works on the experiment, told Gizmodo.

Sep 19, 2019

Elon Musk shows off Starship prototype progress

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, robotics/AI, space travel

Billionaire company founder Elon Musk tweeted a pair of photos this week apparently showing progress on one of the Starship prototypes SpaceX is currently developing.

SpaceX has said it plans to use the rockets to shuttle passengers and cargo across the planet or beyond it.

“Droid Junkyard, Tatooine,” Musk wrote in the first tweet, making a joking “Star Wars” reference.

Sep 19, 2019

Astronomers Found Goliath Pulsar That Can Collapse Forming A Black Hole

Posted by in category: cosmology

Researcher say this massive high speed Neutron star is at the edge to become a black hole.

Sep 19, 2019

Alien life shock: Elon Musk’s unexpected warning of ‘consequences’ for chasing ET contact

Posted by in categories: alien life, Elon Musk

SPACEX boss Elon Musk joined 27 other space experts in signing a document warning against the “consequences” of attempting to contact intelligent alien civilisations.

Sep 19, 2019

Astronauts make cement in space for the first time

Posted by in categories: materials, space

Concrete could provide humans in space with better protection from radiation and extreme temperatures than many other materials.

Sep 19, 2019

China will overtake the U.S. as world’s top economy in 2020, says Standard Chartered Bank

Posted by in category: economics

The report also predicts India’s economy will surpass the U.S. by 2030.

Sep 19, 2019

The end of aging: Are you ready to live to 150?

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics, life extension

Meet the Harvard genetics genius who says we can stop growing old today – even without futuristic drugs.

Sep 19, 2019

Researchers Think It’s a Good Idea to Secure Your Phone Using the One Thing You Perpetually Lose

Posted by in categories: mobile phones, privacy, security

Apple’s FaceID authentication system started moving smartphone users away from relying on fingerprints to secure their mobile devices, which are arguably less secure. But researchers think they’ve come up with an even better biometric tool for protecting a device that uses a part of the body that’s nearly impossible to spoof: a user’s ear canals.

A team of researchers led by Zhanpeng Jin, an associate professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering in the University of Buffalo’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, created a new authentication tool called EarEcho, which is somewhat self-explanatory. The team modified a set of off the shelf earbuds with a tiny microphone that points inside the wearer’s ear, not out towards the world around them. It’s not there to pick up ambient sounds to facilitate a noise-canceling or feature, or even the wearer’s voice for making calls; the tiny mic is instead tuned to listen to the echo of sounds as they’re played and then propagate through the ear canal.