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Mar 30, 2019

Extreme, Hydrogen-Crushing Physicists Are Pushing Us into a ‘New Era of Superconductivity’

Posted by in categories: computing, quantum physics

Lanthanum, diamond crushers and advanced computer models are changing the hunt for this extreme quantum mechanical effect.

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Mar 30, 2019

[Not Surprisingly], a U.S. Bank Bans Customers From Buying Bitcoin

Posted by in categories: bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, finance

Regions Financial Corporation has barred its customers from purchasing cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin.

The US-based bank and financial service clarified in its 2018 bank deposit agreement that it reserved the right to “return or decline to pay” for items related to “decentralized, non-fiat virtual currencies, cryptocurrency or another digital currency or money that relies on distributed ledger or blockchain.”

2018 Regions Bank Deposit Agreement pic.twitter.com/mDtEr5T1ep

Continue reading “[Not Surprisingly], a U.S. Bank Bans Customers From Buying Bitcoin” »

Mar 30, 2019

Crispr Gene Editing Could One Day Cut Away Human Pain

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical

But the technology could also, theoretically, be used to develop placid super-soldiers.

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Mar 30, 2019

Cholera is spreading in Mozambique in the wake of Cyclone Idai

Posted by in category: futurism

The infection can kill within hours.

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Mar 30, 2019

LIGO to Resume Its Nobel-winning Hunt for Gravitational Waves

Posted by in categories: cosmology, physics

The hunt for gravitational waves is back on. After a series of upgrades, the National Science Foundation’s Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) will resume its search for ripples in space and time on Monday, April 1.

LIGO is famous for making the first direct detection of gravitational waves in 2015, for which the observatory’s founders were awarded the Nobel Prize. The observatory was able to detect gravity waves generated by two colliding black holes which were located 1.3 billion light-years away from Earth, and since then has observed nine more black hole mergers and one collision of two neutron stars.

Gravitational waves are ripples in the fabric of spacetime, caused by massive bodies which bend it like a bowling ball placed on a rubber sheet. They were predicted by Einstein as part of his general theory of relativity in 1916, but it took nearly a century for physicists to observe them because the effects are so small. Since these waves have been detected, they can be used to investigate cosmic objects as an alternative to light-based telescopes.

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Mar 30, 2019

Growing Up in Poverty Affects the Brain Differently Than We Thought

Posted by in category: neuroscience

A new study shows socioeconomic status changes cognitive functioning on several levels.

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Mar 30, 2019

Physicists Just Measured Quantum ‘Nothingness’ at Room Temperature

Posted by in categories: cosmology, quantum physics

Physicists have measured the sound of ‘nothingness’ at room temperature — an important step in our future ability to listen in to the Universe.

You can think of it a little like this — we’ve now been able to measure the way some of the ubiquitous ‘background noise’ of space interacts with our equipment, which will hopefully help us tune it out going forward.

After all, the entire Universe is crackling with the static of quantum physics, and in order to be able to pick up the faint echoes of distant astronomical giants — such as the gravitational waves rippling off a black hole merger, for example — we need to be able to tune out the quantum static.

Continue reading “Physicists Just Measured Quantum ‘Nothingness’ at Room Temperature” »

Mar 30, 2019

Woman with ‘mutant’ gene who feels no pain and heals without scarring discovered by scientists

Posted by in category: futurism

She reported numerous burns and cuts without pain, often smelling her burning flesh before noticing any injury.

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Mar 30, 2019

Jeff Bezos’ worlds collide: Cast of ‘The Expanse’ visits Blue Origin’s space turf

Posted by in category: space travel

Science fiction met space fact this week in the Seattle area when the cast of “The Expanse,” the science-fiction jewel in Amazon’s streaming-video crown, got a look at Blue Origin’s spaceship.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is the common denominator in the meetup: He personally engineered the sci-fi series’ shift from SyFy to Prime Video, and announced it onstage at a space conference last May while I was sitting beside him. Bezos is also the founder of Blue Origin, the space venture that is testing its New Shepard suborbital spaceship and gearing up to build its orbital-class New Glenn rocket.

During last May’s sit-down with Bezos, I joked that cast of “The Expanse” might want to take a ride on New Shepard, just to get some real-life experience behind their portrayal of space travel. And Bezos played along.

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Mar 30, 2019

Giant viruses have weaponised CRISPR against their bacterial hosts

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical

Hundreds of giant viruses that infect bacteria have been discovered. Some seem to deploy CRISPR – the system used for gene editing – to fight their hosts.

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