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Jan 3, 2019

World’s first electric adventure truck can go 400 miles without recharging

Posted by in category: transportation

This electric truck can drive for 400 miles without recharging ⚡ 🚙.

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Jan 3, 2019

Brains of 3 People Have Been Successfully Connected, Enabling Them to Share Thoughts

Posted by in categories: entertainment, neuroscience

Neuroscientists have successfully hooked up a three-way brain connection to allow three people to share their thoughts – and in this case, play a Tetris-style game.

The team thinks this wild experiment could be scaled up to connect whole networks of people, and yes, it’s as weird as it sounds.

It works through a combination of electroencephalograms (EEGs), for recording the electrical impulses that indicate brain activity, and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), where neurons are stimulated using magnetic fields.

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Jan 3, 2019

Physicists Just Created a Strange New Type of ‘Quasicrystal’ in The Lab

Posted by in categories: materials, quantum physics

Dan Shechtman has the rare honour of possessing a Nobel Prize for ‘nonsense’.

It’s been nearly four decades since he set out to convince the chemist community of a discovery most considered impossible – a material called a quasicrystal. Now we have just observed a brand new variety of these once ‘impossible’ materials for the first time, one based on a single unit.

Chemists from Brown University have described the successful creation of a self-constructing lattice structure based on a strangely shaped quantum dot.

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Jan 3, 2019

China just landed on the far side of the moon: What comes next?

Posted by in categories: robotics/AI, space

The lander-rover combo touched down where no human or robot has ventured before. Find out what it’s doing there, and what else is headed for the lunar surface.

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Jan 3, 2019

Cancer breath testing moves into large clinical trials

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

A clinical trial is launching in the UK to test a new Breath Biopsy technology with the goal of finding molecular biomarkers in breath samples that can be used to diagnose a variety of different cancers.

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Jan 3, 2019

Physicists uncover new competing state of matter in superconducting material

Posted by in categories: materials, physics

A team of experimentalists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory and theoreticians at University of Alabama Birmingham discovered a remarkably long-lived new state of matter in an iron pnictide superconductor, which reveals a laser-induced formation of collective behaviors that compete with superconductivity.

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Jan 3, 2019

Intriguing new study finds molecular target to slow aging in worm neurons

Posted by in categories: life extension, neuroscience

Researchers at the University of Michigan have found a molecule that may be a potential target in new treatments to slow aging (Credit: ktsdesign/Depositphotos)

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Jan 3, 2019

OK Google, can I live forever? Secret Calico lab where tech giant’s aim is to conquer death

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension

Drive an hour north of Google’s headquarters up to Oyster Point, south San Francisco, and you will find the office of Calico Labs. The steel and glass building has none of the showmanship of its sister company, with its colourful, attention-grabbing Googleplex campus.

Its name is an acronym for “California Life Company” but its lifeless exterior makes it easy to imagine it being named after another Calico – an abandoned mining town further down the Pacific Coast. The company, a division of Google’s parent company Alphabet, is now five years old, but its operations remain highly secretive.


Jan 2, 2019

Will Mimicking The Nervous System Advance Artificial Intelligence?

Posted by in categories: innovation, robotics/AI

Frequently reported advances in artificial intelligence make some people curious, and others nervous. While some people picture their next smart appliance purchase being an AI robot, others wonder if an AI robot will take their job. The truth is, neither of those scenarios will be a reality anytime soon.

There’s a misunderstanding about artificial intelligence (AI), and it’s a big deal. True AI doesn’t exist yet, and it’s not a likely near future, either. Despite analysis of science fiction movies and scientific reports that claim otherwise.

People get excited when new breakthroughs in machine learning are publicized, like the CNBC interview with a robot named Sophia. Sophia’s ability to answer the interviewer’s questions and stay on point is jaw-dropping for many. The truth is, Sophia isn’t any closer to true AI than the last robot. She’s programmed to provide better responses, and her lifelike appearance makes her impressive, but even Sophia isn’t demonstrating true AI. She’s not autonomous, and can’t make her own decisions.

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Jan 2, 2019

China lunar rover successfully touches down on far side of the moon, state media announces

Posted by in category: space

China has become the first nation in history to land a spacecraft on the far side of the moon, state media announced on Thursday.


Thursday’s official televised announcement that the probe had landed came approximately an hour after state media outlets China Daily and China Global Television Network (CGTN) deleted posts on social media proclaiming the mission a success, sparking widespread confusion as to whether the probe had in fact had made touchdown.

No explanation was given as to why the earlier tweets were deleted. On social media, observers speculated as to the cause of the apparent backtracking, with many wondering if the mission had experienced a temporary upset, or whether it was a simple case of state media jumping the gun ahead of the official announcement.

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