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Feb 16, 2017

Trends with Benefits: Elon Musk is boring a hole under LA, would you take a pilot-less flying taxi?

Posted by in category: Elon Musk

Pilot-less Flying Taxis: If you head to Dubai this summer, you could be one of the few people to actually try out a flying pilot-less taxi. The 184 has one passenger, eight propellers, four arms and NO pilot. Would you be willing to go for a ride?

Boring Company: Elon Musk posted on Twitter in December that he was tired of sitting in traffic and said he wanted to bore a hole under the freeways to alleviate it. It looks like he was serious, because he is now drilling test holes in the SpaceX parking lot!

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Feb 16, 2017

Meet Zealandia: Earth’s latest continent

Posted by in category: futurism

New Zealand might be Australia’s smaller neighbor but it’s sitting on a massive new continent scientists have named “Zealandia,” according to a publication released by The Geological Society of America.

New Zealand and Australia might be able to finally give each other more breathing room. It turns out they sit on separate continents. New Zealand calls a 1.8 million square mile land mass known as Zealandia home. This new continent also includes New Caledonia, along with several other territories and island groups.

The idea of a potential continent in this area has been around for some time. Geophysicist Bruce Luyendyk coined the term Zealandia in 1995.

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Feb 16, 2017

The UAE is looking to expand

Posted by in categories: government, space

The United Arab Emirates is looking to expand — and wants to do so on Mars.

Over the past few decades, oil and gas revenue has helped the UAE develop at a breakneck pace. It’s glistening megacity Dubai is now home to the world’s tallest building and countless other accolades, while just last year there were new plans announced to build a completely new “city of happiness.”

The UAE’s latest venture may set new heights in terms of ambition, however. On Tuesday, at the sidelines of the World Government Summit in Dubai, the UAE announced that it was planning to build the first city on Mars by 2117. According to CNBC, UAE engineers presented a concept city at the event about the size of Chicago for guests to explore.

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Feb 16, 2017

Aubrey de Grey — A Post-Aging Planet

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJzrXZb1G3E

A great Q&A, especially with the deathists that crop up.


Website ► http://sens.org
YouTube ► https://www.youtube.com/user/SENSFVideo
Facebook ► https://www.facebook.com/sensf
Twitter ► https://twitter.com/senstweet

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Feb 16, 2017

Local Funeral Home Offers Drive-Thru Visitation For Families Of The Dearly Departed

Posted by in categories: augmented reality, business, transportation, virtual reality

My niece shared this with me; and the 1st thing of course that came to mind was VR/ AR funerals/ ceremonials as so many including myself cannot always be there doesn’t mean we could not engage/ participate in an event like a funneral or wedding. Maybe marriage via VR is a business just like a funeral via VR could be.


MEMPHIS, Tenn. (localmemphis.com) — A funeral home off Lamar Avenue is offering a different service from its competitors. You can drive up, say your final goodbyes to your loved ones, and you don’t even have to get out the car.

Ryan Bernard, owner of R. Bernard funeral home, says he got the idea from a funeral home in California. His main goal is to make it more convenient for families who are already dealing with losing a loved one.

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Feb 16, 2017

NASA wants you to help find a new planet

Posted by in category: space

For those of you still upset over Pluto’s demotion, there may be a new ninth planet. Or at least NASA scientists believe it exists — and they want you to help find it.

The Zooniverse space projects site has launched a NASA-funded venture, Backyard Worlds: Planet 9, which lets anyone participate in the search for the not-yet-discovered planet.

“There are really low barriers to entry,” Dr. Laura Trouille of Zooniverse told CNN. “Anyone can participate, from a kindergartener to a 95-year-old.”

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Feb 16, 2017

From Initial Nucleation to Cassie-Baxter State of Condensed Droplets on Nanotextured Superhydrophobic Surfaces

Posted by in categories: energy, nanotechnology

Science mimicking nature’s dew in a lab. Important btw in how we looking at H2O harvesting and improving how we advance green energy; however, I see usage of this research in other emerging technologies as well.


Understanding how droplet condensation happens plays an essential role for our fundamental insights of wetting behaviors in nature and numerous applications. Since there is a lack of study of the initial formation and growing processes of condensed droplets down to nano-/submicroscale, relevant underlying mechanisms remain to be explored. We report an in situ observation of vapor condensation on nano-/microtextured superhydrophobic surfaces using optical microscopy. An interesting picture of the vapor condensation, from the initial appearance of individual small droplets (≤1 μm) to a Cassie-Baxter wetting state (30 μm), are exhibited. It is found that individual droplets preferentially nucleate at the top and the edge of single micropillars with very high apparent contact angles on the nanotextures. Scenarios of two distinguished growing modes are reported statistically and the underlying mechanisms are discussed in the view of thermodynamics. We particularly reveal that the formation of the Cassie-Baxter wetting state is a result of a continuous coalescence of individual small droplets, in which the nanotexture-enhanced superhydrophobicity plays a crucial role. We envision that these fundamental findings can deepen our understanding of the nucleation and development of condensed droplets in nanoscale, so as to optimize design strategies of superhydrophobic materials for a broad range of water-harvesting and heat-transfer systems.

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Feb 16, 2017

Woolly mammoths may be brought back from extinction in just TWO YEARS

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical

Scientists from Harvard University plan to create a mammoth hybrid. They will splice mammoth DNA preserved in Siberian ice with Asian elephant DNA and grow the hybrid in an artificial womb.

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Feb 16, 2017

Quantum non-Markovianity induced by Anderson localization

Posted by in categories: particle physics, quantum physics

Nice information on Quantum open systems via the existence of a functional relationship between a rigorous measure of quantum non–Markovian ity and the CCA localization. Sharing with my other QC R&D friends.


As discovered by P. W. Anderson, excitations do not propagate freely in a disordered lattice, but, due to destructive interference, they localise. As a consequence, when an atom interacts with a disordered lattice, one indeed observes a non-trivial excitation exchange between atom and lattice. Such non-trivial atomic dynamics will in general be characterised also by a non-trivial quantum information backflow, a clear signature of non–Markovian dynamics. To investigate the above scenario, we consider a quantum emitter, or atom, weakly coupled to a uniform coupled-cavity array (CCA). If initially excited, in the absence of disorder, the emitter undergoes a Markovian spontaneous emission by releasing all its excitation into the CCA (initially in its vacuum state). By introducing static disorder in the CCA the field normal modes become Anderson-localized, giving rise to a non–Markovian atomic dynamics. We show the existence of a functional relationship between a rigorous measure of quantum non–Markovian ity and the CCA localization. We furthermore show that the average non–Markovian ity of the atomic dynamics is well-described by a phenomenological model in which the atom is coupled, at the same time, to a single mode and to a standard — Markovian — dissipative bath.

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Feb 16, 2017

The small molecule AUTEN-99 (autophagy enhancer-99) prevents the progression of neurodegenerative symptoms

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension, neuroscience

New research on Parkinson and holds additional insights in cell & neuro technology.


Autophagy functions as a main route for the degradation of superfluous and damaged constituents of the cytoplasm. Defects in autophagy are implicated in the development of various age-dependent degenerative disorders such as cancer, neurodegeneration and tissue atrophy, and in accelerated aging. To promote basal levels of the process in pathological settings, we previously screened a small molecule library for novel autophagy-enhancing factors that inhibit the myotubularin-related phosphatase MTMR14/Jumpy, a negative regulator of autophagic membrane formation. Here we identify AUTEN-99 (autophagy enhancer-99), which activates autophagy in cell cultures and animal models. AUTEN-99 appears to effectively penetrate through the blood-brain barrier, and impedes the progression of neurodegenerative symptoms in Drosophila models of Parkinson’s and Huntington’s diseases. Furthermore, the molecule increases the survival of isolated neurons under normal and oxidative stress-induced conditions. Thus, AUTEN-99 serves as a potent neuroprotective drug candidate for preventing and treating diverse neurodegenerative pathologies, and may promote healthy aging.

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