Science News

Announced July 20th, researchers have discovered 97 previously unknown cortical regions, which brings our total from 83 to 180 per hemisphere. This CNN article contains an account of the research, its discoveries, and a link to the paper published in the journal Nature. Enjoy!

This is interesting, but I particularly like the "infographic" they used. You know, just in case you are not sure what 1.5m is... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-36912700

They studied brains of macaque and mouse and found interconnections statically consistent with EDR. If their hypothesis is true, elephants and toothed whales, including dolphins and orca, must have mental problems often. If so, have these mental problems been reported? I've not heard of it. Can it be true without us knowing? We have minimal contact with whales, but elephants and people have lived and worked together in the East for a very long time; the people who train and work with elephants have not reported such things, AFAIK.

Reduce your carbon footprint and improve your health at the same time.

Last May in Portugal during four days only renewables were used to produce electricity. This is a first in a country that uses 70 percent of renewable sources annually. Sorry source only in portuguese http://shifter.pt/2016/05/durante-4-dias-portugal-so-consumiu-energia-renovavel/

I found a report of this AI chatbot on YouTube. It is a free service for people in New York and London, which advises a person on how to fight traffic tickets. It asks questions about your ticket and if it takes a case has a 64% success rate, and saved people over $4M. The person who developed this service intends to expand its services to other cities. It was launched in 2015 by a 19 year old. This means AI chatbots are relatively easy to develop, and I expect we will see a rapid increase in sophistication and a plethora of chatbot applications.

IDK how sensitive current cameras are in telescopes, but it if this one is better, then images can be captured faster, making more time for other observations, or fainter objects can be captured with long times, making it possible to see things that cannot currently be seen. Since the time photons arrive is captured, will that change the nature of optical interferometry? Will it make arrays of smaller telescopes practical, instead of building massive telescopes like the ELT?

Is this a crack in the wall called The Theory of Everything?

Real live monkeys and a dolly bird. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/36767373

First produced in 2004, graphine production per year is now 205 tons and growing. See also: https://graphene-supermarket.com/new-products http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/first-graphene-light-bulbs-to-go-on-sale-this-year-10142026.html

Ever wonder what the computers less powerful than a TI-83 that guided the Apollo landers looks like? Well, it's now on Github for all to enjoy.

http://futurism.com/the-australian-rat-just-became-the-first-mammal-to-go-extinct-because-of-climate-change/ This is warning of what is to come if we don't change our ways.

Two black holes, 14.2 and 7.5 solar masses. Final BH is 20.8 solar masses. http://news.mit.edu/2016/second-time-ligo-detects-gravitational-waves-0615 https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23030783-800-ligo-sees-new-gravitational-wave-from-more-doomed-black-holes/

I think this is huge.

They don't say if this process is a hypothesis, has been done in a lab, or if it is ready for the big show. I suspect implementation will require significant engineering. With that kind of economic benefit, it seems at least one power company would be ready to sign a contract, and it might save some of the oil market. Some financier of climate deniers should be ready to foot the bill to bring this technology on-line.

Two promising battery improvements, 200,000 charges and 5x energy density would make electric cars lighter, probably less expensive to purchase, and certainly less expensive over a lifetime. We recently replace our Prius battery after eight years operation. Current batteries are limited 7000 charges; although, fewer charges is more common. Two hundred thousand (or more) charges is more than 25 times battery life, 8*25=200 years. That's ten human generations instead of 2/5 of a generation. If this technology scales up for mass production, large battery size, and low cost, it will be important. If the prediction of 1/5 cost and weight can be achieved in mass…

According to this AP article, the US Army Corps of Engineers have determined that the oldest (8,500 years), most complete human remains ever found in North America are Native American. Discovered near the Columbia River in Kennewick, WA., Kennewick Man has been the center of a custody fight since 1996 between researchers and several Native American tribes claiming his repatriation under the Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act. According to some researchers, Kennewick's unique skeletal features suggested a non-Native American ancestry; however, a comparative DNA study by the Northwestern Corps has confirmed that Kennewick is most closely related Native A…

Phys.org: Radio waves not battery fire up WISP, future seen in construction NASA flew a solar powered plane. Is it possible to reap enough EMF from the environment to power a drone? If not, surely a control station with directional antenna could be used to send a beam of modulated EM energy. Such a system could hover indefinitely. Hast it been done or is someone working on it?

The Breakthroughs Cheap Parallel Computation Big Data Better AI algorithms AI Everywhere Google Auto driving Financial Predictions others in development, $B for AI AI - Brain 1977: Deep Blue vs Kasparov Today: AI plus Kasparov vs AI Tomorrow, everyone is AI augmented, even more than carrying a cell phone. Will the Unified Theory be discovered by AI plus physicists? What is required?

They pumped C02 into subterranean basalt, which is common throughout the world. This method is the first time CO2 has been sequestered and turned to rock so quickly. They drilled wells and removed core samples to determine how quickly the CO2 combined chemically with rock. Previously, the consensus was that CO2 would take a very long time to solidify.

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2016/17/text/ https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/jun/03/universe-is-expanding-up-to-9-faster-than-we-thought-say-scientists On the Search for more details. ! Moderator Note BTW this thread is for discussing the NEWS - if you want to query the underlying theory or question accelerated expansion then the main forum is where to ask questions and the speculations forum is the place to pose alternatives.

Famous peppered moth's dark secret revealed "Scientists have discovered the specific mutation that famously turned moths black during the Industrial Revolution." It is interesting that no one has done this before. I have read some articles by creationists saying: this is nothing special, there was always a variation in colour, it is genetically simple, nothing new happened. Well, guess what? They are wrong. (Surprise!) It is an unusual type of mutation (a transposon) It is a (relatively) recent mutation. (It certainly wasn't part of the pre-existing colour variation.) And it is not simple, as the gene into which the extra sequence was added does not appear to…

Here is a interesting debate at the world science festival, on Dark matter/dark energy. DATE: Thursday, June 2, 2016 TIME: 8:00 PM-9:30 PM VENUE: Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College MODERATOR: John Hockenberry PARTICIPANTS: Katherine Freese, Justin Khoury, Stacy McGaugh, Neal Weiner A small intro before debate. http://www.worldsciencefestival.com/programs/shaking-dark-universe-dark-horses-dark-matter/

In the recent news, once again, the choice to conduct embryos for stem cell research has been highly debated due to scientist increasing the push to increase length of time an embryo can be grown for. This was all initiated due to a study whereby they managed to grow an embryo as long as they could before it became unlawful. Here is a link to the research paper http://www.nature.com/articles/ncb3347. So, I just wanted to know what peoples thoughts were on this subject, and if they believe embryo should be used for stem cell research and if they do how long should the cells be allowed to research. I have wrote an article on this subject if you need to do …

I thought this was the onion or something when I first saw it, aether? FTL? Universal time? http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/The_special_theory_of_relativity_has_been_disproved_theoretically_999.html