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Feb 11, 2018

Feather-light artificial muscles lift 1000 times own weight

Posted by in categories: cyborgs, robotics/AI

Lightweight muscle-bot has the strength-to-weight ratio of a newborn lifting an SUV.

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Feb 11, 2018

Should we seed life through the cosmos using laser-driven ships?

Posted by in categories: innovation, space

Light sails can later use space-dust braking Richard Bizley/Science Photo Library By James Romero Our galaxy may contain billions of habitable worlds that don’t host any life. Should we attempt to change that? Breakthrough Starshot is a project with ambitious aims to use such systems to send tiny, lightweight probes to Alpha Centauri. The goal is to take pictures of our nearest star, but these systems could also deliver much larger payloads into orbit around nearby stars, says Gros. Potential targets include the planetary system around TRAPPIST-1, a red dwarf star just 40 light years away…

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Feb 11, 2018

Charge your phone using ambient light and printed solar cells

Posted by in categories: mobile phones, solar power, sustainability

Printed plastic solar cells should be able to harvest enough energy from indoor light to power your phone within the next few months.

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Feb 11, 2018

Free-fall experiment could test if gravity is a quantum force

Posted by in category: quantum physics

The effort to reconcile general relativity with quantum mechanics always hits one snag: gravity. An experiment could finally tell us if it is a quantum force.

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Feb 11, 2018

Peek inside a gilded cage of liquid argon made to spot neutrinos

Posted by in category: particle physics

This huge shiny cube is just a 1/20th scale model of the planned DUNE neutrino detector. It will be filled with liquid argon to catch these elusive particles.

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Feb 11, 2018

We’ve figured out how to ensure quantum computers can be trusted

Posted by in categories: computing, quantum physics

Can spot quantum errors IBM research By Mark Kim What good is a fast computer if you can’t trust it? Thanks to half a century of research on getting computers to do their job correctly even in the presence of mechanical errors, our modern machines tend to be pretty reliable. Unfortunately, the laws of sheer complexity of which leaves them prone to errors. Now, we finally have the first demonstration of a quantum program that can detect data corruption.

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Feb 11, 2018

Gravitational waves have let us see huge neutron stars colliding

Posted by in category: physics

We’ve taken the first pictures of neutron stars colliding 130 million light years away. The resulting gravitational waves may solve some big cosmic mysteries.

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Feb 11, 2018

Roadside barrier that folds like origami blocks traffic noise

Posted by in category: futurism

Traffic noise has many frequencies, making it hard to suppress. A new barrier with movable folds can change its acoustic properties in response to traffic patterns.

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Feb 11, 2018

We can finally map the spiral arm on the far side of the galaxy

Posted by in category: space

Using a jet of radio waves, astronomers have begun to map the other side of the Milky Way. Within 10 years we could have a complete map of the entire galaxy.

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Feb 11, 2018

Tesla updates mobile app to bring new cold weather convenience features

Posted by in categories: sustainability, transportation

Tesla released a new update to its mobile app to include some new cold weather convenience features when combined with its latest car software update.

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