Just how real is the risk?
Some physicists worried that particle accelerator experiments could unleash bits of “strange matter” that destroy the Earth, or even the entire universe. Daniel Dominguez, Maximilien Brice / CERN.
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Evidence has been building in recent years that our diet, our habits or traumatic experiences can have consequences for the health of our children — and even our grandchildren. The explanation that has gained most currency for how this occurs is so-called ‘epigenetic inheritance’ — patterns of chemical ‘marks’ on or around our DNA that are hypothesised to be passed down the generations. But new research from the University of Cambridge suggests that this mechanism of non-genetic inheritance is likely to be very rare.
A second study, also from Cambridge, suggests, however, that one way that environmental effects are passed on may in fact be through molecules produced from the DNA known as RNA that are found in a father’s sperm.
The mechanism by which we inherit innate characteristics from our parents is well understood: we inherit half of our genes from our mother and half from our father. However, the mechanism whereby a ‘memory’ of the parent’s environment and behaviour might be passed down through the generations is not understood.
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Two teams demonstrate that they can count the number of quantized vibrations, or phonons, in cold mechanical oscillators by measuring the energy in the vibrations.
At the origin of every musical note is a mechanical oscillator that resonates at a specific frequency. But what the ear cannot distinguish is that the energy of these vibrations is discretized into an integer number of quanta of motion, or phonons. Most vibrating objects contain an uncountable number of phonons, but researchers have, for some time now, been able to prepare massive mechanical oscillators in their quantum ground state, where the average phonon number is smaller than one. This hard-won accomplishment not only involved getting rid of all thermal excitations in the oscillator through intense cooling, but it also required inventing a system of motion detection with a sensitivity at the quantum level [1]. An emerging technique consists of coupling the oscillator motion to another quantum object: a superconducting qubit, which can serve a role in the detection as well as the manipulation of states of motion [2–4].
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The FDA has recently given 510(k) clearance to the OpenSight Augmented Reality System, the first augmented reality (AR) medical solution for Microsoft HoloLens cleared for use in pre-operative surgical planning.
The technology projects 2D, 3D and 4D images of patients interactively by overlaying them onto the patient’s body, according to a Novarad press release published Oct. 24.
OpenSight specifically utilizes the Microsoft HoloLens headset that allows simultaneous visualization of the 3D patient images in AR and the actual patient and their real-world surroundings. The technique may decrease operative times and improve surgical planning and the understanding of anatomic relationships.
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KhalifaSat, the first-ever Emirati-manufactured satellite successfully launched into space from Japan’s Tanegashima Space Centre on October 29.
As well as KhalifaSat, the H-2A rocket also launched carrying Japan’s environment satellite, GoSat-2.
KhalifaSat is an Earth observation satellite set to monitor environmental changes, such as the effects of global warming in the North and South Poles.
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Imagine a digital avatar of ourselves living on after we die. They could help comfort our loved ones, and they could also preserve expertise and experience. There’s some benefits, but it’s still questionable if this is comforting, or just creepy.
A digital afterlife may soon be within reach, but it might not be for your benefit.
The reams of data we’re creating could soon make it possible to create digital avatars that live on after we die, aimed at comforting our loved ones or sharing our experience with future generations.
That may seem like a disappointing downgrade from the vision promised by the more optimistic futurists, where we upload our consciousness to the cloud and live forever in machines. But it might be a realistic possibility in the not-too-distant future—and the first steps have already been taken.