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Jan 30, 2018

Scientists Think They’ve Found a Way to Stop Allergic Reactions Before They Happen

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, health

If you’re one of the unlucky millions of people burdened by allergies, you know that sometimes there’s only so much antihistamines can do to help.

Researchers have been working to find more effective allergy treatments, and now they’ve discovered how a particular antibody can stop an allergic reaction from happening altogether.

An allergic reaction is the immune system’s way of completely overreacting to a normally benign substance, from proteins in cat saliva to surprisingly deadly peanuts.

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Jan 30, 2018

China enlists top scientists in mission to become military tech superpower

Posted by in categories: military, quantum physics, robotics/AI

China has gathered 120 researchers from around the military to work for its top research institute as part of a push to develop military applications for artificial intelligence and quantum technology, state media reported.


Experts from within the military to work for its top research institute as China modernises its armed forces to give them cutting-edge equipment and arms.

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Jan 29, 2018

Physicists cracked the mystery of teleportation — but it’s nothing like what you see in Star Trek

Posted by in category: physics

Theoretical physicist Brian Greene explains how teleportation actually works.

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Jan 29, 2018

Why Elon Musk is selling flamethrowers

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, sustainability, transportation

Elon Musk’s latest product is the next in a long line of PR stunts for companies like Tesla, The Boring Company and more.

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Jan 29, 2018

Artificial Intelligence May Have Cracked Freaky 600-Year-Old Manuscript

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

The Vonyich manuscript (Image: Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University) Since its discovery over a hundred years ago, the 240-page Voynich manuscript, filled with seemingly coded language and inscrutable illustrations, of has confounded linguists and cryptographers. Using artificial intelligence, Canadian researchers have taken a huge step forward in unraveling the document’s hidden meaning. Named after Wilfrid Voynich, the Polish book dealer who procured the manuscript in 1912, the document is written in an unknown script that encodes an unknown language—a double-whammy of…

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Jan 29, 2018

Don’t Miss the First Super Blue Blood Moon Since 1866

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, space

The moon will glow big, bright—and red.

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Jan 29, 2018

‘Robotic Habitats’ imagines a self-sustaining AI ecosystem

Posted by in categories: habitats, robotics/AI, space

As artificial intelligence advances at an unprecedented pace, we tend to see its arrival in emotional terms — usually, either excitement or fear. But Noumena, a collective of designers, engineers and architects, is looking at AI and robots more practically. What form will they take, how will they survive and develop, and where will they live? It aims to explore those idea with an exhibition entitled “Robotic Habitats.”

Noumena’s project assumes that deep learning systems will grow out of their narrow Go-playing abilities and soon match humans at many, if not most, tasks. While that would put them on par with us, it doesn’t mean they would live the same way, though. “Society will need to develop a framework for both to thrive,” explains Neumena on its website. “A new form of artificial life will emerge, finding space at the peripheries of humanity in order to not compete for human-dominated resources.”

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Jan 29, 2018

‘Holy Grail’ of dinosaur fossils discovered in Egyptian desert

Posted by in category: education

A new species of dinosaur has been uncovered in the Egyptian desert, a rare discovery in a part of the world not known for dino fossils.

The huge animal, which was roughly the size of a school bus, is an “incredible discovery,” scientists said in a new study that was published Monday.

“This was the Holy Grail — a well-preserved dinosaur from the end of the age of dinosaurs in Africa — that we paleontologists had been searching for for a long, long time,” said Matt Lamanna of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, one of the authors of the study.

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Jan 29, 2018

Handheld device sequences human genome

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Reading human DNA used to take laboratories, a pile of cash and a long time.

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Jan 29, 2018

Diamonds show promise for spintronic devices

Posted by in categories: particle physics, quantum physics

Conventional electronics rely on controlling electric charge. Recently, researchers have been exploring the potential for a new technology, called spintronics, that relies on detecting and controlling a particle’s spin. This technology could lead to new types of more efficient and powerful devices.

In a paper published in Applied Physics Letters, researchers measured how strongly a charge carrier’s spin interacts with a in diamond. This crucial property shows diamond as a promising material for spintronic devices.

Diamond is attractive because it would be easier to process and fabricate into spintronic devices than typical semiconductor materials, said Golrokh Akhgar, a physicist at La Trobe University in Australia. Conventional quantum devices are based on multiple thin layers of semiconductors, which require an elaborate fabrication process in an ultrahigh vacuum.

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