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SpaceX hosted its fourth annual SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition finals on Sunday at the test tube it built outside its Hawthorne HQ. We were on site for the competition, and watched as Team TUM, from the Technical University of Munich, took home the win thanks to achieving the top speed overall of any team to run in the finals.

TUM (formerly known as team WARR Hyperloop in past competitions) is a repeat winner, and achieved a top speed of 288 mph in this year’s finals. That’s the fastest overall for a Hyperloop pod thus far – it beat its own record from last year of 284 mph set during the third SpaceX student run-off. It wasn’t without incident, however – near the end of its run, there was a spark and some debris appeared to fly off the craft, but it still survived the run mostly intact and satisfied SpaceX judges to qualify for the win.

TUM beat out three other finalist competitors, including Delft Hyperloop, EPFL Hyperloop, and Swissloop. Delft unfortunately had a communication error that cut their run short at just around 650 feet into the just over 3/4 mile SpaceX Hyperloop test track. EPFL managed a top speed of 148 mph and Swissloop topped out at 160 mph.

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A developer is betting $1 billion on the largest development ever in Reno, Nevada, as the city reduces its economic reliance on the gambling industry.

Jacobs Entertainment Corplans to transform a 20-block area on the west side of Downtown Reno into a residential and entertainment district called the Neon Line District.

Colorado-based Jacobs Entertainment, led by chairman and CEO Jeffrey Jacobs, is known locally for two gambling properties in Reno, the Gold Dust West Casino and the Sands Regency Casino. According to the company’s website, Jacobs developed a similar district in Cleveland, the Nautica Entertainment Complex, which has 2 million visitors a year.

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It’s not ‘us’ (reasonable people) vs. ‘them’ (irrational conspiracy nuts).

Let’s face it — you love a good conspiracy theory. At least, statistically there is a good chance you do. About half of Americans believe in at least one conspiracy theory in any given year. How could that be? What is it about the regular, everyday reality we don’t like?

A recent study published in Applied Cognitive Psychology says that the answer to this predilection towards conspiracy-fueled thinking may lie in how our brains deal with probabilities. What may be responsible is a general cognitive bias associated with low probabilities. People tend to believe more in conspiratorial explanations of events as the probability of them actually occurring gets lower.

A conspiracy theory offers an alternative explanation for events and how things seem to be in the world around you. No, says a conspiracy theory, just because most people think this is the real state of things (especially politically), that’s not how matters really stand.

Continue reading “Your brain loves conspiracy theories. Here’s why” | >

The incredible power of the GPU! Next gen consoles are gonna be lit! 😍.

Half-a-century has passed since mankind first set its foot on the moon. And while NASA is preparing to send the first woman to the moon, some humans still believe that space exploration done by US-based agency NASA was nothing more than a fake moon mission.

Anyway, July 20 was the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon mission. On this occasion, Nvidia — a US-based company which designs graphics for computers — made an effort to debunk conspiracy theories and find out if Neil Amstrong and Buzz Aldrin actually landed on the moon or if it was just a dark film studio.

Continue reading “Nividia GPU Proves Apollo 11 Moon Mission Wasn’t Fake!!” | >

Countdown to the 50th anniversary of the Moon landing: We’re proud to join NASA’s quest to return to the Moon! We’re contributing Canadarm3, a smart robotic system that will help maintain the Lunar Gateway, a small space station in lunar orbit!

Video: CSA/NASA

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Statistically, it’s pretty much a given that alien life is out there somewhere, whether that’s Martian microbes or highly intelligent life beaming comms through the cosmos. While the Curiosity rover is poking around in the dirt for the former, the Breakthrough Listen initiative is searching for the latter. Now, a new telescope array has joined the hunt, scanning the skies for flashes of laser light that alien civilizations might be giving off.

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Sharks are known to stalk and sniff out prey before they attack. But all this newly discovered shark species has to do is glow in the dark, and the prey comes to them.

The 5 1/2-inch American Pocket Shark is the first of its kind to be discovered in the Gulf of Mexico, according to a new Tulane University study. It’s less fearsome than it is wondrous.

Scientists stumbled upon a teeny male kitefin shark in 2010 while studying sperm whales in the Gulf. It wasn’t observed again until 2013, when National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) researcher Mark Grace found it in a pool of less luminous specimens.

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