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Mar 9, 2016

New LHC results suggest there’s a flaw in the standard model of physics

Posted by in categories: particle physics, space

Recent results from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Switzerland hint at activity going on beyond the standard model of particle physics — which means we could finally be about to enter a new era in physics.

Right now, the standard model is the best explanation we have for how the Universe works and how it’s held together. But there are big gaps — most noticeably, the fact that the model doesn’t actually account for gravity — so scientists have spent decades probing the boundaries of physics for signs of any activity that the standard model can’t explain. And now they’ve found one.

The discrepancy deals with a particle called the B meson. According to the standard model, B mesons should decay at very specific angles and frequencies — but those predictions don’t match up what’s been seen in LHC experiments, suggesting that something else is going on. And if we can figure out what that is, it’ll take us closer to unlocking some of the mysteries in our Universe.

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Mar 9, 2016

Scientists just grew vegetables in ‘Martian’ soil — but there’s a catch

Posted by in categories: food, space

There’s no way of knowing how good our fake Mars soil really is — plus, the plants might be toxic.

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Mar 9, 2016

Stem Cell Breakthrough Could Let Us Grow New Human Eyes

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, materials

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Rw1odkI0Nw8

Stem cell breakthrough grows new cornea material that restores some sight to blind rabbits in an experiment.

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Mar 9, 2016

Welcome to the CRISPR zoo

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, food

Modifying animals to improve food quality consumption.


Birds and bees are just the beginning for a burgeoning technology.

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Mar 9, 2016

New York man sentenced to 16 years for trying to buy ricin on the ‘Dark Web’

Posted by in category: futurism

Unbelievable


Prosecutors wrote Cheng Le “appears to have been motivated principally by greed and to have been prepared to embrace the ‘risk free’ murder of countless unnamed victims.”

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Mar 9, 2016

Bottlenose adds two major data sources to supercharge its smart data discovery platform

Posted by in categories: business, government

Smart data discovery company Bottlenose Inc has announced the addition of two major new sources to its ever-expanding data library: LexisNexis, which stores offline data from government, academic, and industry sources; and Flashpoint, which stores data from the deep web and the dark web.

Bottlenose co-founder and CEO Nova Spivack told me that these new integrations represent a huge boost in power for the platform, allowing businesses to better anticipate new threats and opportunities as they arise.

Spivack explained that by adding the data from LexisNexis and Flashpoint to Bottlenose’s existing sources, the platform can better detect new patterns as they form by comparing a variety of signals that might seem insignificant on their own.

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Mar 9, 2016

‘Artificial pancreas’ is one of new tech devices aimed at diabetes

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, health, mobile phones, robotics/AI, wearables

Wearables and other connected devices have been available to help treat chronic conditions like asthma and heart disease for a while now. But thus far, the nation’s 30 million diabetics haven’t seen much to help them improve their health or reduce the daily grind of finger pricks and needle pokes.

The $2.5 billion connected-care industry may be off to a late start in diabetes, but it’s making up for lost time. A new breed of connected glucometers, insulin pumps and smartphone apps is hitting the market. They promise to make it easier for diabetics to manage the slow-progressing disease and keep them motivated with feedback and support. In as little as two years, the industry plans to take charge of the entire uncomfortable, time-consuming routine of checking and regulating blood-sugar levels with something called an artificial pancreas. Such systems mimic the functions of a healthy pancreas by blending continuous glucose monitoring, remote-controlled insulin pumps and artificial intelligence to maintain healthy blood-sugar levels automatically.

For Jeroen Tas, CEO of Philips’ Connected Care and Health Informatics unit, diabetes management is also personal: his daughter Kim is diabetic.

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Mar 9, 2016

The Defense Department Got Mad at DARPA For Creating Email

Posted by in category: futurism

Ray Tomlinson, widely credited as the inventor of email, died this past weekend. He was 74.

By all accounts, Tomlinson was a brilliant man. And he’s being mourned around the world as the person who brought us the @ in our inboxes. The format novak@gizmodo didn’t just invent itself. Tomlinson did that. But the fascinating secret history of email was that the US Defense Department was initially angry that Tomlinson helped create it.

“It wasn’t an assignment at all, he was just fooling around; he was looking for something to do with ARPANET,” Raytheon spokeswoman Joyce Kuzman said in a statement about Tomlinson’s death.

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Mar 9, 2016

Pentagon unveils plans for ‘avatar’ fighter jets and swarms of microdrones

Posted by in categories: drones, military

Perdix drones were tested 150 times during the exercise in Alaska, including 72 from fighter jets.

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Mar 9, 2016

Cool technology turns down the heat on high-tech equipment

Posted by in categories: computing, military

Thousands of electrical components make up today’s most sophisticated systems – and without innovative cooling techniques, those systems get hot. Lockheed Martin is working with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Microsystems Technology Office (MTO) on its ICECool-Applications research program that could ultimately lead to a lighter, faster and cheaper way to cool high-powered microchips – by cooling the chips with microscopic drops of water.

This technology has applications in electronic warfare, radars, high-performance computers and data servers.

A core team of Lockheed Martin engineers is working on a solution to meet the goal of DARPA’s Inter/Intra Chip Enhanced Cooling (ICECool) program: to enhance the performance of RF MMIC power amplifiers and embedded high performance computing systems through chip-level heat removal techniques. Lockheed Martin experimentally demonstrated the effectiveness of its microfluidic cooling approach which resulted in a four-times reduction in thermal resistance and a corresponding six-times increase in RF output power when compared to conventional cooling techniques.

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