Hint of Crack in Standard Model Vanishes in LHC Data
A once-promising hint of new physics from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s largest particle accelerator, has melted away, quashing one of physicists’ best hopes for a major discovery. The apparent anomaly was an unexpected difference between the behaviour of electrons and that of their more-massive cousins, muons, when they arise from the decay of certain particles. Continued here |
Validating Product-Market Fit in the Real World
To test new products, most companies rely on creating “minimum viable products” and testing customer feedback, or conducting focus groups or marketing surveys. There’s another method companies should try: “heat-testing,” or testing consumer reaction to online advertisements. Heat-testing is revolutionary because it takes place in the real world. Unlike focus groups or surveys, which rely on what consumers say, people who click or like an ad are demonstrating actual behavior and interest, which can be a more powerful form of feedback. Continued here |
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How to Infuse Liberatory Practices into Work Practices
Many companies’ DEI efforts have stalled since they made big commitments in 2020. That’s because traditional talent practices — including recruitment and hiring, performance management, career development, promotion practices, and progressive discipline — were created to support business fundamentals that extract through domination and control. Instead of centering principles of extraction, organizations can embrace practices based in liberatory principles that change the shape of how we work together, moving away from the triangle of oppressive hierarchy and toward a circle of human connection and liberation. The author believes we can use theories of liberation inspired by the ideas and work of Black feminists and other thought leaders of color to find an alternative way of working together so everyone can thrive. Continued here |
Thoughtful and Funny Feedback From Quanta's Audience in 2022 | Quanta Magazine
Every Quanta article, video and podcast has its own backstory. By the time it arrives on your screen, our staff has nurtured it through weeks (and sometimes months) of careful work: research, reporting, writing, editing, art direction, animation, filming, recording, fact-checking, copy editing and web production. Then it's my turn. My job is to engage with Quanta's audience and facilitate engagement within our online community. In carrying out this work, I want to know: Who are you? How did you find us? What are you looking to learn and what did you take away from what you found here? On an internet that can at times feel equal parts overwhelming and draining, this digital magazine aims to provide a quiet, information-rich spot where you can consider the immense complexity of our world. I'm here to get our work in front of you using language that helps you know what to expect. And when you tell us what you think, I'm here to listen. Continued here |
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A Field at a Crossroads: Genetics and Racial Mythmaking
As their research is twisted to fuel racist claims, many geneticists are weighing the societal risks of their work It was around 2:30 on a Saturday afternoon this May, according to court documents, when Payton Gendron gunned down 32-year-old Roberta Drury outside a Tops supermarket in Buffalo, New York. It is impossible to know exactly what crossed Gendron’s mind in that moment, but if a manifesto published under his name is any indication, he might have noticed Drury’s golden skin and dark curly hair, and intuited that some of her ancestors—maybe 20 generations ago—had called sub-Saharan Africa home. He would have taken this lineage as an indication of her character: The manifesto asserted that people from that part of the world were their own subspecies, hardwired to be violent, psychopathic, and unintelligent; he had come to Buffalo to slay as many of them as he could. Continued here |
Hot or Not? The Best Thermal Cameras for Your Phone
If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED You are looking hot today. Literally: With a thermal camera, I can see that you have a body temperature of over 102 degrees Fahrenheit, so you’ve got a fever. Not only that, but I can see where your hot water pipes are in the wall, determine if your electrical cables are overheating, and locate your dog outside on a moonless night. Continued here |
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The Biggest Math Breakthroughs in 2022 | Quanta Magazine
Video: In 2022, mathematicians solved a centuries-old geometry question, proved the best way to minimize the surface area of clusters of up to five bubbles and proved a sweeping statement about how structure emerges in random sets and graphs. We can think of a mathematician as a kind of archaeologist, painstakingly brushing dust off the hidden structures of the world. But the structures mathematicians reveal are not only durable, but also inevitable. They could never have been any other way. They are also remarkably interconnected: Though each year the mathematical frontier continues to expand as new discoveries are made, the sprawl of subdisciplines also shrinks a little as connections are found between seemingly far-flung domains. Continued here |
How to Construct Buildings That Have a Positive Impact on Climate and Biodiversity
Making buildings part of a circular economy that minimizes the waste of materials could yield huge environmental rewards Our built environment—from houses to offices, schools and shops—is not environmentally benign. Buildings and the construction industry are, in fact, the world’s biggest consumer of raw materials and contribute 25–40% of global carbon dioxide emissions (F. Pomponi & A. J. Moncaster Clean. Prod. 143, 710–718; 2017). Making buildings part of a circular economy that minimizes the waste of materials could therefore yield huge environmental rewards. Conversely, failure on this front could have dire consequences. Continued here |
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In 4 Words, Neil deGrasse Tyson Reveals the Secret of Success Hang out with people who are smarter than you. Continued here |
The Bittersweet Defeat of Mpox
For a few weeks this summer, the world worried that monkeypox might become the next global pandemic. At the peak in early August the US was recording 600 cases a day, and the health authorities’ fumbling response echoed the early days of Covid-19. Vaccines were slow to arrive and in short supply for most of the fall. Testing was bottlenecked. Antiviral drugs, though they existed, were almost unobtainable because they hadn’t been federally authorized for the disease. While most cases were among gay and bisexual men, there were fears that the rarely fatal but often extremely painful infection, which can can take weeks to subside, might spread to the broader population. Things today look very different, at least for now. By mid-December, mpox, as the World Health Organization has now renamed it, had appeared in 110 countries, but the spread had dramatically slowed. The US, which had recorded 29,740 cases as of December 21—more than a third of the global total—was registering barely a handful each day. Continued here |
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How to Get Better at Asking for Help at Work
The hesitance to ask for help can keep us bogged down in more work than is necessary and is a key contributor to feeling constantly overwhelmed at work. In this piece, the author outlines six strategies for unlearning old, unproductive patterns that prevent you from reaching out for assistance when you really need it. Continued here |
To Rebuild Cities After War, Look to the Past
The Russian invasion of Ukraine is a human catastrophe on a scale not witnessed in Europe since the Second World War. Civilians have been targeted by the Russian military, which has been purposely destroying Ukrainian cities, displacing large numbers of people. At the time of writing, it’s not clear how long the fighting will continue, but what is certain is that the Ukrainian national government and city mayors are already planning to rebuild their cities in 2023. The key to these reconstruction projects will be in prioritizing the restoration and preservation of cultural heritage. Successful examples of cities around the world which had to rebuild their physical fabric after a war show why that will be the case. For instance, in 1995, the population of Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina chose to start its reconstruction by rebuilding an iconic 16th century bridge which connected communities with diverse cultural heritage and identity. They chose the bridge ahead of their own houses as a sign of reconciliation. The process of restoration was long and painstaking, involving the use of divers to collect the original stones from the riverbed. The bridge was finally opened in 2004, nearly nine years after the end of the war, and today remains an international symbol of reconciliation. Continued here |
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The Best Automated Espresso, Latte, & Cappuccino Makers
A good latte or cappuccino is like a rich, milky mug of heaven. Just writing about these delicious, warming drinks makes us want one. Sadly, creating the perfect cap or caffe latte at home can be a hassle. Making a barista-worthy espresso is tough enough, but adding the right amount of milk and foam, perfectly heated and combined, is surprisingly daunting. That's why we've put together a list of machines that make excellent milk-based or alternative-milk-based beverages at the touch of a button (or a couple buttons). The machines here differ from the picks in our Best Espresso Machines roundup in a couple of important ways. Here we're gathering machines that make it easier, specifically, to make milk-based or alternative-milk-based drinks. That includes machines with built-in containers for milk, or machines that effectively do the steaming for you. In that way, these machines are automated or semi-automated and are great for anyone who wants a device that specializes in dispensing coffee at the touch of a button. Continued here |
Accidentally harvested weed alongside spinach caused hallucinations in Australians
Testing has identified a toxic weed as the cause of hallucinations in nearly 200 individuals who ate baby spinach in Australia, South China Morning Post reported. The weed known as devil's trumpet or devil's snare was accidentally harvested and packed along with baby spinach at a producer's facility in New South Wales. The mishap came to light after people across four states in Australia reported symptoms of hallucinations after consuming products such as salads and stir-fry mixes that had been sold at multiple brands of retail outlets in the island nation. Food Standards Australia issued a recall for these products with an expiry date of December 28. Continued here |
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The 7 Biggest Acquisitions of 2022 Mergers and acquisitions cooled in 2022, but that didn't stop major players such as Adobe, Microsoft, and Salesforce from completing huge deals. Continued here |
What made Ada Lovelace so brilliant
Ada Lovelace, known as the first computer programmer, was born on Dec. 10, 1815, more than a century before digital electronic computers were developed. Lovelace has been hailed as a model for girls in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). A dozen biographies for young audiences were published for the 200th anniversary of her birth in 2015. And in 2018, The New York Times added hersas one of the first “missing obituaries” of women at the rise of the #MeToo movement. Continued here |
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How Amazon made $200 billion a year in pure profit
In 1994, a successful but relatively unknown businessman named Jeff Bezos resigned from his position as senior vice-president of the Wall Street-based hedge fund D.E. Shaw & Co. when he learned that World Wide Web usage was growing at a staggering annual rate of 2,300%. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Bezos was convinced that the internet was more than a passing craze. He started looking for a business plan that would “make sense in the context of that growth.” While driving across the U.S. from New York to Seattle, he drew up a list of 20 products that he thought would be easiest to market and sell online. Continued here |
Disgraced FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried released on $250 million bail
Set to live with his parents, the founder of FTX, the once crazy rich 30 year old Sam Bankman-Fried was arraigned in a Westchester, New York court today. Other former employees of FTX, and floating in Bankman-Fried's orbit have already pled guilty and are cooperating with federal authorities. The federal judge ruled that Bankman-Fried could be freed on $250 million bail, stemming from eight counts of alleged fraud in relation to the collapse of FTX this year. Continued here |
Marico's Chairman on Innovating Across Every Part of the Business
When the author launched what would become Marico as a division within his family’s business, Bombay Oil, it was with product innovation: Instead of selling edible oils in bulk to other businesses, it would sell in smaller, branded packages directly to consumers. Eventually the division became a separate entity, which is now one of India’s largest homegrown CPG companies. Its growth has depended on constant innovation—around not just products, packaging, and pricing but also supply chain, talent management, and business models. Over the past decade Marico has branched out into services with its Kaya skin-care spas, pioneered the use of premium hair oils, and added savory oats to Indian diets. Through the Marico Innovation Foundation, Mariwala also promotes innovative thinking outside the company, supporting small businesses and entrepreneurs in their efforts to scale up new ideas. The key to doing that well, he says, is to be ever curious about customer needs, to create a flat hierarchy that rewards risk-taking, to learn from every failure, and to constantly prototype, experiment, refine, and retest. Continued here |
Eight-car Thanksgiving pileup blamed on Tesla "Full Self-Driving" software
An eight-car collision on Thanksgiving Day (Nov. 24) is now being blamed on Tesla's "Full Self-Driving" (FSD) assistance system. The crash took place in the Bay Area in California on I-80 and left one person hospitalized and eight others with minor injuries. Continued here |
Pigeon Neurons Use Much Less Energy Than Those of Mammals
Scientists once thought bigger brains made smarter animals. But birds fly in the face of that logic: with a brain smaller than a walnut, they can develop sophisticated tools and remember where they hid food. Now research published in Current Biology suggests birds can pull this off because their brain neurons use less energy than those of mammals, letting their bodies support a higher proportion of these cells. A 2016 study showed that avian brains are denser than those of many other animals. For example, a macaw’s 20-gram brain holds as many neurons as a squirrel monkey’s 30-gram brain. But neurons drain energy; researchers have found that a human brain uses a fifth of the body’s energy despite being only 2 percent of its mass, notes avian neuroscientist Kaya von Eugen of Ruhr University Bochum in Germany. She and others wondered how birds’ small bodies and energy budgets—based on how much food they consume—can support so many neurons. Continued here |
In a first, scientists produced male and female cells from a single person
Scientists created male and female cells with the same genetic code from the same person for the first time. This unique set of cells could provide researchers with valuable insights into how sex chromosomes affect various diseases and their role in early development. In humans, most people have two sex chromosomes, either two X chromosomes (XX) or an X chromosome and a Y chromosome (XY). These sex chromosomes determine an individual's sex and are responsible for the development of female or male biological attributes. Continued here |
Humans can be both geniuses and astonishing jerks. I think I know why
As 2022 comes to a close, now is a good time to look back and ask how we, as a species, are doing. After all, this is the season of peace and goodwill to everyone. A quick review shows that this last year, like many of the years before it, was a mixed bag. While we managed to pull off some amazing acts of ingenuity, with some kindness and generosity sprinkled here and there, wars, poverty, and environmental hooliganism kept going strong. Given that this was also the year we created a solar fusion furnace in a lab and sent the most complicated telescope ever built into orbit past the moon, it is not unreasonable to ask what exactly is our problem. How can we have gotten so far, know so much, and still collectively act like such astonishing jerks? Since life first appeared on Earth some 3.5 billion years ago, the planet has been home to an astonishing variety of creatures. First came single-celled critters. While simple-looking from the outside, they were busy inventing a biochemical toolkit of extraordinary sophistication and reach. From photosynthesis to fermentation, the smallest iterations of life on Earth produced some of its most important evolutionary innovations. Continued here |
How do laser weapons work? What to know about the US Army's latest tool
Back in September of 2022, Lockheed Martin unveiled its 300-kW-class electric laser that can be used for tactical purposes. Delivered to the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research & Engineering (OUSDR&E), this is the most powerful laser that Lockheed Martin has made. This 300 kW-class laser is ready to be used in U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) demonstration programs, such as the Indirect Fire Protection Capability-High Energy Laser (IFPC-HEL) laser weapon system used by the U.S. Army. Continued here |
TikTok cops to running "covert surveillance campaign" on Western journalists
Following an internal investigation, TikTok owner ByteDance today confirmed reports from this fall that claimed some of its employees used the popular app to track multiple journalists, including two in the US. The ByteDance employees’ goal? To identify anonymous sources who were leaking information to the media on the company’s ties to the Chinese government, according to The New York Times. Continued here |
Lionel Messi Just Broke the Instagram Record for 'Likes.' Mark Zuckerberg's Reaction Was Eye Opening It's all about Instagram and WhatsApp. Continued here |
Meet the Medical Student Challenging Racial Bias with TikTok
Medical influencer Joel Bervell is challenging racism in health care, one TikTok at a time. Joel Bervell: You have the freedom to choose another doctor if you feel like you're not being heard. Continued here |
8 Insights on What It Takes to Expand or Start a New Business Today Your innovation may be the greatest, but many fail because of lack of focus on other business essentials. Continued here |
How to make a low-carbon Christmas dinner
There's an unspoken rule that you don't discuss the calorie content of a Christmas feast. It would take a brave host to point out that the average person consumes around 5,200 on the day, by one calculation – more than double the recommended intake – while handing round a plate of roast potatoes. So, perhaps it's not exactly festive to dissect its environmental impact, either. But after a year of headlines about the climate emergency, water shortages, and the global collapse of biodiversity, you might just feel like you can't ignore these things. What if you could deliver a Christmas dinner that's so spectacular, no one even notices that it's also planet-friendly? Continued here |
Ancient Mars did not have atmospheric oxygen, claims new research
A new experimental study conducted by Washington University in St. Louis is defeating any hope that scientists have had that atmospheric oxygen once existed on the Red Planet, according to a press release by the institution published on Thursday. The new research is indicating that just because NASA’s Mars rovers found manganese oxides on Mars in 2014 does not mean that oxygen was actually present in the planet’s atmosphere. Continued here |
Indigenous Activists Criticize 'Avatar' Sequel
They say the film romanticizes colonization and reduces Indigenous cultures to vague stereotypes With the release of Avatar: The Way of Water, director James Cameron’s mystical world of Pandora is back, 13 years after the first Avatar film premiered. Back, too, are critics worried that the movie romanticizes colonization and paints Indigenous communities around the world with a broad brush. Continued here |
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Sleep duration clearly divides adult lifespan into 3 phases
A massive new study shows that adult lifespan can be divided into three distinct phases based on sleep duration. The research, published in the journal Nature Communications, also shows a relationship between sleep duration and cognitive performance in later life, and reveals regional differences in the time spent sleeping. Antoine Coutrot of the University of Lyon and his colleagues analyzed data from more than 730,000 participants across 63 countries that was collected from the Sea Hero Quest project, which uses a cellular phone app to assess spatial navigation abilities. Continued here |
This 120-Million-Year-Old Dinosaur Fossil Had a Mammal Hiding in Its Stomach
When a team of scientists reanalyzed a cat-sized dinosaur fossil discovered more than two decades ago, they realized the remains of the predator’s lunch had been hiding undetected in its stomach. Researchers found the foot of a tiny mammal, likely the size of an average mouse, within the dinosaur’s rib cage. This “very rare discovery” is only the second recorded direct evidence of a dinosaur consuming a mammal, they say in a statement. The findings were published Tuesday in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. Continued here |
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Adetayo Bamiduro: Africa's path to clean mobility -- driven by motorcycles
A lack of infrastructure in parts of Africa has made unregulated, gas-powered motorcycle taxis widespread -- a system that gets people where they need to be, but heavily pollutes the air and excludes drivers from the formal economy. TED Fellow and entrepreneur Adetayo Bamiduro offers his vision for a cleaner, more equitable future, where an electric motorcycle service helps green Africa's transportation and transform the lives and livelihoods of drivers. Continued here |
What You Need to Know About Launching a Startup Right Out of College
In the fall of 2020, when the world was in lockdown, Kris Christmon, a life sciences Ph.D. candidate at the University of Maryland, USA, was surprised to learn that entrepreneurship was a career option for her. When the university announced a competition to promote innovation and entrepreneurship in agriculture and environmental sustainability, Christmon decided to give it a shot. Her team pitched an idea around recycling plastics and won the first prize. Continued here |
Ukrainian President Zelensky's Brilliant Public-Speaking Tactic That Inspires His Audiences Relate to your audience by citing people, places, and events they know. Continued here |
In Bad Times, Prepare for the Good Although negative shifts in the economy are stressful, they do eventually end. Continued here |
Do you have a duty to tell people they’re wrong about carrots? | Psyche Ideas
is a research fellow at the ArgLab, the Reasoning and Argumentation Lab within the Institute of Philosophy at the NOVA University of Lisbon in Portugal. is a collaborating member of the ArgLab in the Institute of Philosophy at NOVA University of Lisbon in Portugal. Continued here |
The New Era of Biofuels Raises Environmental Concerns
To realize the potential of biofuels, the industry needs to pay attention to how feedstock crops change soil carbon Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is squeezing global oil supplies and inflation is jacking up prices at the pumps. Although petrol prices have started to fall in recent months, the situation has delivered a powerful reminder of the world’s dependence on fossil fuels. Continued here |
The real reasons we turn on "airplane mode" when we fly
We all know the routine by heart: “Please ensure your seats are in the upright position, tray tables stowed, window shades are up, laptops are stored in the overhead bins and electronic devices are set to flight mode”. Now, the first four are reasonable, right? Window shades need to be up so we can see if there’s an emergency, such as fire. Tray tables need to be stowed and seats upright so we can get out of the row quickly. Laptops can become projectiles in an emergency, as the seat back pockets are not strong enough to contain them. Continued here |
Lightweight and energy-dense electric motors to power the first hybrid rocket
Things are on course for the most lightweight and energy-dense electric motors ever developed to power Australia's first commercial orbital launch vehicle, the Eris. If the launch is successful, it will be the first rocket ever with hybrid engines to reach Earth's orbit. The advanced electric motors and inverters used in the project are manufactured by UK-based Equipmake in partnership with Australia's Gilmour Space. This partnership marks the foray of the former into the space industry. With expertise in weight reduction techniques, Equipmake was able to meet Gilmour Space’s stringent requirements for power and weight, which becomes a critical factor in space missions. Equipmake and Gilmour Space started working on the project in late 2020. Continued here |
Overturning Roe and Other Important Reproductive Health Stories of 2022
As the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade reversal put reproduction into the political limelight, Scientific American explored a range of issues related to abortion and reproductive health Reproductive health issues came to political center stage in 2022 with the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling, which ended federal protections on abortion and left the procedure for states to regulate. Almost immediately, getting an abortion became almost impossible in certain parts of the U.S., despite the scientific evidence that this medical treatment is extremely safe and effective. Scientific American explored not only abortion but the interrelated gamut of reproductive health issues. Here, we highlight some of our best writing and reporting on this critical field of contention from 2022. Continued here |
Shrinking Pollinator Populations Could Be Killing 427,000 People Per Year
New research explores the relationship between human health and crop loss due to pollination deficits around the world Pollinators like bees, butterflies, bats and moths help farmers grow healthy foods. They support the production of vegetables, fruits, nuts and legumes—but now, when there are fewer pollinators around to help plants reproduce, crop yields are decreasing. Continued here |
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All Great Leaders Are Narcissists, but Not All Narcissists Are Great Leaders. Here's Why, According to Science The great but egoistic leaders can rise in the ranks, but that's not the end of their journey. Continued here |
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried's top associates plead guilty to US charges
Two of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s closest associates have pleaded guilty to fraud and agreed to co-operate with US authorities investigating the collapse of the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange, a federal prosecutor in Manhattan said on Wednesday. Continued here |
Why I Left Venezuela
Migration, I like to tell myself, is the opposite of inertia. I left Venezuela on August 28, 2014. President Hugo Chávez had died the year before, bequeathing power over his dictatorship to his hand-picked successor, Nicolás Maduro. Around this time, supermarket shelves were emptying and resourceful Venezuelans were creating WhatsApp groups to tell one another where to find medicine, toilet paper, flour. Street violence was so common that seemingly everyone knew somebody who had been abducted, if only for a few hours, usually for ransom. (For me, this person was my older sister.) One morning, as I drove to a memorial service for a classmate who had been killed by the police the day before, I realized that I had to leave the country. This student had died in a protest that I had also attended, but it was not fear of death that motivated me. It was the feeling that these protests would subside and accomplish nothing. Even though my parents struggled greatly to afford my studies abroad, we agreed that my leaving was worth the expense. In the years that followed my departure, daily life in Venezuela only got worse. And uprooting myself became progressively easier as time passed. My mailing address bounced among the Netherlands, Italy, Uganda, Portugal, and now the United States. I’ve developed an unsentimental readiness to leave cities behind, along with my friends and my books and anything too heavy to carry with me on the plane to the next place. Continued here |
The Biggest Discoveries in Physics in 2022 | Quanta Magazine
The year began right as the James Webb Space Telescope was unfurling its sunshield — the giant, nail-bitingly thin and delicate blanket that, once open, would plunge the observatory into frigid shade and open up its view of the infrared universe. Within hours of the ball dropping here in New York City, the sunshield could have caught on a snag, ruining the new telescope and tossing billions of dollars and decades of work into the void. Instead, the sunshield opened perfectly, getting the new year in physics off to an excellent start. JWST soon started to glimpse gorgeous new faces of the cosmos. On July 11, President Biden unveiled the telescope's first public image — a panoramic view of thousands of galaxies various distances away in space and time. Four more instantly iconic images were released the next day. Since then, the telescope's data has been distributed among hundreds of astronomers and cosmologists, and cosmic discoveries and papers are pouring forth. Continued here |
Ukraine’s Fate and America’s Destiny
Zelensky’s address to Congress challenged us to remember America’s mission in the world. This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Continued here |
Blu-ray player gathering dust? Turn it into a laser-scanning microscope
Blu-rays never quite managed to usurp DVDs entirely. Recent estimates, based on data gathered by Nielsen VideoScan and MediaPlayNews, suggest that as of Q2 2022, DVDs still controlled 51.4 percent of market share compared to 48.6 percent for Blu-rays. And no matter which format has the biggest slice, the physical media pie is shrinking. So, if your Blu-ray player has gone from your home theater centerpiece to a dust-gathering ornament, one clever hacker knows just what to do with it. Continued here |
Billionaires are investing in brain-computer-interface systems. Here's why
Earlier this month, we reported that Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos- backed foundations ( Gates Frontier and Bezos Expeditions) joined other companies in investing $ 75 million in Synchron, the endovascular brain-computer interface (BCI) company. Meanwhile, it is common knowledge that Elon Musk is behind the industry -leading startup Neuralink. Finally, Peter Thiel, a billionaire cofounder of PayPal, invested last year in an older BCI startup called Utah's Blackrock Neurotech that has announced it hopes to apply for Food and Drug Administration approval soon. What is behind this popular rush to support BCI firms? Continued here |
This Exoplanet Is Doomed to Be Obliterated by a Star
More than a decade ago, Kepler-1658b was the first exoplanet discovered by NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope. Now, astronomers say the planet is doomed to meet a fiery fate. It’s been spiraling ever closer to its host star, foreshadowing a fatal collision. This is the first time astronomers have observed an exoplanet inching closer to an evolved, or older star, according to a statement from the Center for Astrophysics, Harvard & Smithsonian. Researchers detailed the exoplanet’s impending demise in a study published Monday in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Continued here |
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This Is What It Looks Like When Twitter Falls Apart
Elon Musk now claims that he will step down as Twitter’s CEO, contingent on him finding the right replacement. In just eight weeks, Musk has laid off large chunks of the workforce, asked those who remained to commit to being “extremely hardcore,” unbanned previously suspended accounts, caused advertisers to flee the platform, kicked a number of journalists off the platform and then reinstated them, and polled users about whether or not he should continue as CEO (a majority voted no). David Karpf, a professor of media and public affairs at George Washington University and a longtime Twitter user, has been studying and thinking about the intersection of the internet and politics for years. When we spoke late last week, he predicted that the Musk drama would continue: “Every time he goes a couple days of getting a little worried that people are getting bored, he has to do something ridiculous.” Continued here |
Scientists can now "see" things without "looking" at them using a new quantum technique
A team of scientists has devised a means of using quantum mechanics to "view" objects indirectly. The new method could improve measurements for quantum computers and other systems. It brings together the quantum and classical worlds. We "see" things via the complex interaction of light photons within specialized cells in the retina of our eyes. However, some scientists have speculated that a similar phenomenon could be replicated without photo-absorption or without any light. Continued here
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