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Dec 26, 2019

1,000 Starships, 20 Years Are Needed to Build Sustainable City on Mars, Says Elon Musk

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

Elon Musk shared an update that building a sustainable city on Mars will take at least two more decades, as the planets align only once every two years.

Dec 26, 2019

500,000-year-old Fossilized Brain Has Totally Changed Our Minds

Posted by in categories: cyborgs, neuroscience

Fossils of just about everything have been unearthed, from ancient feathers to entire dinosaur skeletons preserved in opal, but there is one thing nobody thought could survive hundreds of thousands of years—until now.

Brain matter from a Cambrian arthropod that crawled around 500,000 years ago has proven many paleontologists wrong about brain decay being inevitable. Previous research suggests that no matter what it may be protected by, soft neural matter will break down long before fossilization can even start. Minds have suddenly been changed. Alalcomenaeus may have been a tiny creature, but its exoskeleton was tough enough to ward off decomposition.

Dec 26, 2019

China dreams of becoming an AI utopia – here’s the reality

Posted by in categories: education, food, health, robotics/AI, surveillance

This is the fourth instalment in a four-part series examining the brewing US-China war over the development and deployment of artificial intelligence technology.

China has had success with AI and surveillance, but when it comes to social issues such as education, health care and agriculture, there is still a ways to go.

Continue reading “China dreams of becoming an AI utopia – here’s the reality” »

Dec 25, 2019

The 9 Best Blobs of 2019

Posted by in category: futurism

When scientists find a round, lumpy object they can’t totally explain, they call it a “blob.” Here are our nine favorite blobs of 2019.

Dec 25, 2019

In the 2020s, human-level A.I. will arrive, and finally ace the Turing test

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

So, what’s it mean for us, the humans?

Dec 25, 2019

Neurotechnology today: What’s real, what’s coming

Posted by in categories: entertainment, neuroscience

A new film, I AM HUMAN, explores the state of neurotechnology today: Its challenge, promise, and the issues it raises.

Dec 25, 2019

Viewpoint: A Forbidden Transition Allowed for Stars

Posted by in categories: cosmology, evolution, nuclear energy, physics

The discovery of an exceptionally strong “forbidden” beta-decay involving fluorine and neon could change our understanding of the fate of intermediate-mass stars.

Every year roughly 100 billion stars are born and just as many die. To understand the life cycle of a star, nuclear physicists and astrophysicists collaborate to unravel the physical processes that take place in the star’s interior. Their aim is to determine how the star responds to these processes and from that response predict the star’s final fate. Intermediate-mass stars, whose masses lie somewhere between 7 and 11 times that of our Sun, are thought to die via one of two very different routes: thermonuclear explosion or gravitational collapse. Which one happens depends on the conditions within the star when oxygen nuclei begin to fuse, triggering the star’s demise. Researchers have now, for the first time, measured a rare nuclear decay of fluorine to neon that is key to understanding the fate of these “in between” stars [1, 2]. Their calculations indicate that thermonuclear explosion and not gravitational collapse is the more likely expiration route.

The evolution and fate of a star strongly depend on its mass at birth. Low-mass stars—such as the Sun—transition first into red giants and then into white dwarfs made of carbon and oxygen as they shed their outer layers. Massive stars—those whose mass is at least 11 times greater than the Sun’s—also transition to red giants, but in the cores of these giants, nuclear fusion continues until the core has turned completely to iron. Once that happens, the star stops generating energy and starts collapsing under the force of gravity. The star’s core then compresses into a neutron star, while its outer layers are ejected in a supernova explosion. The evolution of intermediate-mass stars is less clear. Predictions indicate that they can explode both via the gravitational collapse mechanism of massive stars and by a thermonuclear process [36]. The key to finding out which happens lies in the properties of an isotope of neon and its ability to capture electrons.

Dec 25, 2019

Planet Hunter TESS Is Already Spotting Hundreds of Crazy New Worlds

Posted by in category: space

The first data from the space telescope’s mission tallies more than 200 potential planets, including some just 50 light-years away.

Dec 25, 2019

The United States Needs a Strategy for Artificial Intelligence

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

Without one, it risks missing out on all the technology’s benefits—and falling behind rivals such as China.

Dec 25, 2019

This Ear Was Made With Vincent Van Gogh’s DNA

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

What secrets have been whispered into this creepy, living copy of the most famous ear in art history?