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This personal airbag could help protect the elderly from hip injuries.
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To make a regular car go faster on the track, you can add go-fast components like a turbocharger or better fuel, or improve handling components like brakes and tires. Carmakers can also make a dizzying amount of software tweaks to everything from the stability and traction control systems to throttle mapping and how much fuel gets into the engine.
But with an electric car, the software is the star of the show. Code controls everything. That’s why Tesla can introduce Track Mode to the Model 3 with a software download, unlocking new features designed to get the electric sports sedan around a track faster than before.
On something like the BMW M5, putting the car in Sport Mode adjusts a dizzying array of settings for throttle response, transmission, chassis, steering, stability control, and whether the car operates in all- or rear-wheel drive.
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Circa 2015
The first successful vaccination of deer against chronic wasting disease is reported in the journal Vaccine, (Vaccine 2015;38:726–33), posted online in advance of print Dec. 21, 2014.
Researchers say the breakthrough may not only protect U.S. livestock against CWD but may also shed new light on human diseases suspected of being caused by prion infections, such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, kuru, familial insomnia, and variably protease-sensitive prionopathy. Some studies also have associated prionlike infections with Alzheimer’s disease.
“Now that we have found that preventing prion infection is possible in animals, it’s likely feasible in humans as well,” said senior study investigator and neurologist Thomas Wisniewski, MD, a professor at New York University’s Langone Medical Center.
The Chinese military is looking to procure test systems for magnetized plasma artillery, according to a notice on the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) weapon and equipment procurement website weain.mil.cn last week.
Released on Wednesday and due expire on Thursday, the notice invites tenders for a theory-testing and a launch system for magnetized plasma artillery.
Although the weapon sounds as if it comes from a sci-fi movie, it will probably not shoot high-energy plasma but ultra-high velocity cannon shells.
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