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Mar 30, 2019
[Not Surprisingly], a U.S. Bank Bans Customers From Buying Bitcoin
Posted by Genevieve Klien 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
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Mar 30, 2019
Crispr Gene Editing Could One Day Cut Away Human Pain
Posted by Genevieve Klien in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical
Mar 30, 2019
Cholera is spreading in Mozambique in the wake of Cyclone Idai
Posted by Genevieve Klien in category: futurism
Mar 30, 2019
LIGO to Resume Its Nobel-winning Hunt for Gravitational Waves
Posted by Genevieve Klien 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 Genevieve Klien in category: neuroscience
Mar 30, 2019
Physicists Just Measured Quantum ‘Nothingness’ at Room Temperature
Posted by Genevieve Klien 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 Quinn Sena in category: futurism
She reported numerous burns and cuts without pain, often smelling her burning flesh before noticing any injury.
Mar 30, 2019
Jeff Bezos’ worlds collide: Cast of ‘The Expanse’ visits Blue Origin’s space turf
Posted by Genevieve Klien 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.
Mar 30, 2019
Giant viruses have weaponised CRISPR against their bacterial hosts
Posted by Genevieve Klien 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.