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Oct 30, 2018

Hybrid cell turns sunlight and water into hydrogen and electricity

Posted by in categories: solar power, sustainability

One of the main methods of producing hydrogen for fuel cells is to use artificial photosynthesis to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, but these devices still suffer from some efficiency issues. Now a new hybrid device may be able to recover some of the energy that would otherwise go to waste, by producing both hydrogen and electricity.

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Oct 30, 2018

The Bitter Class Struggle Behind Our Definition of a Kilogram

Posted by in category: futurism

Before standardization, units of measurement were often manipulated by tyrants to cheat peasants and steal land.

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Oct 30, 2018

Eye scan may detect Alzheimer’s disease in seconds

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, neuroscience

It may soon be possible to diagnose Alzheimer’s in a matter of seconds using a noninvasive eye scanner that simply examines a person’s retina.

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Oct 30, 2018

Last night, #ParkerSolarProbe surpassed 153,454 miles per hour becoming fastest-ever human-made object relative to the Sun

Posted by in category: space travel

This breaks the record set by the German-American Helios 2 mission in April 1976. The spacecraft will continue to break its own records, achieving a top speed of about 430,000 miles per hour in 2024. Catch up: https://go.nasa.gov/2qjOraI

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Oct 30, 2018

DeepMind’s Eerie Reimagination of the Animal Kingdom

Posted by in categories: futurism, robotics/AI

If a recent project using Google’s DeepMind were a recipe, you would take a pair of AI systems, images of animals, and a whole lot of computing power. Mix it all together, and you’ d get a series of imagined animals dream ed up by one of the AIs. A look through the research paper about the project—or this open Google Folder of images it produced—will likely lead you to agree that the results are a mix of impressive and downright eerie.

But t he eerie factor doesn’t mean the project shouldn’t be considered a success and a step forward for future uses of AI.

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Oct 30, 2018

This Bizarre Form of Ice Grows at Over 1,000 mph, And Now Physicists Know How

Posted by in categories: mathematics, physics

New research into a very weird type of ice known as Ice VII has revealed how it can form at speeds over 1,000 miles per hour (1,610 kilometres per hour), and how it might be able to spread across yet-to-be-explored alien worlds.

This ice type was only discovered occurring naturally in March, trapped inside diamonds deep underground, and this latest study looks in detail at how exactly it takes shape – apparently in a way that’s completely different to how water usually freezes into ice.

Based on a mathematical model devised by researchers from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, there’s a certain pressure threshold across which Ice VII will spread with lightning speed. This process of near-instantaneous transformation is known as homogeneous nucleation.

Continue reading “This Bizarre Form of Ice Grows at Over 1,000 mph, And Now Physicists Know How” »

Oct 29, 2018

We’re getting closer to “touching” the Sun

Posted by in category: space travel

ParkerSolarProbe became the closest-ever spacecraft to the Sun when it passed within 26.55 million miles of the Sun’s surface. Find out more: https://go.nasa.gov/2Q4QB9p

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Oct 29, 2018

The Most FASCINATING Things Ever Found in SPACE

Posted by in category: space

Part 2.

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Oct 29, 2018

Augmented War: New Combat Helmets Are Equipped With Microsoft’s HoloLens

Posted by in category: augmented reality

Helmets provide 360-degree visibility without exposing soldiers to risk.

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Oct 29, 2018

Sir Martin Rees says a physics experiment could swallow up the entire universe

Posted by in category: particle physics

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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