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Apr 7, 2018

New brain cells growing until the day we die, says study

Posted by in category: neuroscience

A study suggests problems with mental ability and memory with old age are not down to neuron loss, but rather a failure of cells to communicate with each other.

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Apr 7, 2018

The Most Precise Measurement of Antimatter Yet Deepens the Mystery of Why We Exist

Posted by in categories: cosmology, physics

Scientists have made the most precise measurement of antimatter yet, and the results only deepen the mystery of why life, the universe, and everything in it exists.

The new measurements show that, to an incredibly high degree of precision, antimatter and matter behave identically.

Yet those new measurements can’t answer one of the biggest questions in physics: Why, if equal parts matter and antimatter were formed during the Big Bang, is our universe today made up of matter?

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Apr 7, 2018

Boeing’s first crewed space flight may be more than just a test

Posted by in category: space travel

This week, NASA announced that it has updated its commercial crew contract with Boeing. Specifically, Boeing is one of two contractors that is building a crew vehicle that will eventually be able to carry astronauts to and from the International Space Station. The change surrounds its first test flight — including the option to extend the flight (from two weeks up to six months) and potentially adding a third crewmember. In other words, the first test flight wouldn’t be a test anymore.

This isn’t a huge surprise. Back in January, the GAO released a report that said that human flight certification of Boeing and SpaceX rockets would likely be delayed until the end of 2019. NASA currently has seats for astronauts on Russian Soyuz spacecraft through the fall of 2019. After that, well… Houston, we have a problem.

Russia doesn’t have any more Soyuz seats to offer us for purchase, so that leaves a significant gap between when we will need operational human spaceflight capabilities and when we will have them. The only solution is to use SpaceX and Boeing’s test flights as actual flights, in which we carry humans to and from the ISS, rather than as the test flights they were originally designed to be.

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Apr 7, 2018

This surreal AI creature meets humans, then decides whether it wants to play with them

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

BOB is an AI entity who can be interacted with in an art exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery in London.

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Apr 7, 2018

George Soros Prepares to Trade Cryptocurrencies

Posted by in category: cryptocurrencies

George Soros called cryptocurrencies a bubble in January. Now his $26 billion family office is planning to trade digital assets.

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Apr 7, 2018

SkyKnit: How an AI Took Over an Adult Knitting Community

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

Quirky knitters teamed up with a neural-network creator to generate new types of tentacled, cozy shapes.

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Apr 7, 2018

A Brain-Boosting Prosthesis Moves From Rats to Humans

Posted by in categories: cyborgs, information science, neuroscience

An algorithm tailored to individual brain activity shows it can boost memory with electrical zaps.

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Apr 7, 2018

Secret army of killer doomsday robots is ‘being built in a Korean university’

Posted by in categories: existential risks, robotics/AI

It’s feared super-smart silicon assassins could one day declare war on humanity and wipe us off the face of the Earth.

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Apr 7, 2018

There’s a Detectable Human-Made Barrier Surrounding Earth

Posted by in category: space

We are changing space itself.


In 2017, NASA space probes detected a massive, human-made ‘barrier’ surrounding Earth.

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Apr 7, 2018

Mach Effect Propellantless drive awarded NASA NIAC phase 2 study

Posted by in categories: cosmology, physics, space travel

James Woodward and the Space Studies Institute has a Phase 2 NASA Innovative Advanced funded study. They are looking at the implementation of an innovative thrust producing technology for use in NASA missions involving in space main propulsion.

Mach Effect Gravity Assist (MEGA) drive propulsion is based on peer-reviewed, technically credible physics. Mach effects are transient variations in the rest masses of objects that simultaneously experience accelerations and internal energy changes. They are predicted by standard physics where Mach’s principle applies as discussed in peer-reviewed papers spanning 20 years and a recent book, Making Starships and Stargates: the Science of Interstellar Transport and Absurdly Benign Wormholes published in 2013 by Springer-Verlag.

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