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WASHINGTON: Newly discovered ancient fossils from South Africa provide strong evidence that life existed on Earth 2.2 billion years ago - four times earlier than previously believed.
Conventional scientific wisdom has it that plants and other creatures have only lived on land for about 500 million years, and that landscapes of the early Earth were as barren as Mars.
Erwin Schrödinger dreamed up the famous thought experiment about a cat that is both dead and alive to demonstrate the absurdity of applying quantum mechanics to ordinary objects. Now two teams have made the closest thing yet to a Schrödinger's cat in the lab – by connecting hundreds of millions of photons via the strange quantum property of entanglement.
"It's not the entanglement of something as big as a cat, but it's at least a kitten," says Seth Lloyd of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a quantum physicist who was not involved in the work
A major new technology has been developed by The University of Nottingham, which enables all of the world's crops to take nitrogen from the air rather than expensive and environmentally damaging fertilisers.
Nitrogen fixation, the process by which nitrogen is converted to ammonia, is vital for plants to survive and grow. However, only a very small number of plants, most notably legumes (such as peas, beans and lentils) have the ability to fix nitrogen from the atmosphere with the help of nitrogen fixing bacteria. The vast majority of plants have to obtain nitrogen from the soil, and for most crops currently being grown across the world, this also means a reliance on synthetic nitrogen fertiliser.
A team of researchers in Russia has conducted a series of experiments that prove that dogs are able to distinguish between different colors. In their paper published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the team describes the experiments with dogs they conducted and the results they found.
.While we take calendars for granted these days, the invention of systems that track time stands as one of humanity's most monumental achievements ... in more ways than one. Long before written calendars emerged, monuments were used to measure time. Now a crude but working "calendar" discovered in Warren Field, Scotland, suggests that these time measuring monuments may have been developed much earlier than previously thought. Archaeologists believe the Warren Field calendar was created by hunter gatherers around 8,000 BC, making it the world's oldest calendar discovered to date by a significant margin
The Terracraft is a sharp-looking 3-wheeler concept that aims to offer a unique hybrid of the motorcycle riding and car driving experiences. Its retractable roof and doors can offer weather protection and aerodynamics, its tandem double seat replicates the motorcycle pillion experience, and its unique steering system means the driver can manually dial in a tilt angle to replicate the sensation of leaning a motorcycle into a corner. Gizmag spoke with inventor James 'Wes' Abbott.
A team of researchers at Germany's University of Darmstadt has succeeded in causing light to stop and then to be held in place for 60 seconds. In their paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters, the researchers describe how they achieved this feat and how their technique might be used in possible future applications
7 hours ago by Nancy Owano report
Archeologists have discovered a lunar calendar in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, that is nearly ten thousand years old. Their findings show that the calendar makers (1) thought about time and (2) figured out a means to follow it at a period in history that was still in the Stone Age. The discovery is considered both surprising and important because it now places a calendar nearly five thousand years before what was previously considered as the first formal calendar, created in Mesopotamia 5,000 years ago. But here, a discovery has been made of a calendar construct appearing to track the phases of the moon nearly 10,000 years ago.
A Swiss adventurer is making his first public flights in the United States this summer with his custom-built jet suit.
Yves Rossy (eev RAW'-see), also known as "Jetman," is making appearances at the Experimental Aircraft Association's AirVenture in Wisconsin. On Monday he demonstrated his carbon-Kevlar jetwing with four engines.
His first public flight in the U.S. is set for Tuesday.
Rossy says he hopes to inspire people with his flight.
He's able to propel himself through the sky at upward of 190 mph, controlling his jet suit with a throttle in his hand. He can go as high as 12,000 feet.
AirVenture runs through Aug. 4 in Oshkosh. His flights will be part of the air shows during the week.
He'll also fly at the Reno Air Races in September.
Researchers have demonstrated the reliability and efficiency of "real-time hybrid simulation" for testing a type of powerful damping system that might be installed in buildings and bridges to reduce structural damage and injuries during earthquakes.
The magnetorheological-fluid dampers are shock-absorbing devices containing a liquid that becomes far more viscous when a magnetic field is applied.
"It normally feels like a thick fluid, but when you apply a magnetic field it transforms into a peanut-butter consistency, which makes it generate larger forces when pushed through a small orifice," said Shirley Dyke, a professor of mechanical engineering and civil engineering at Purdue University.
Whizzing through 213 trillion calculations per second, newly upgraded supercomputers of NOAA’s National Weather Service are now more than twice as fast in processing sophisticated computer models to provide more accurate forecasts further out in time. And as the hurricane season ramps up, forecasters will be armed with an enhanced hurricane model that will improve track and intensity forecasts.
The scientific data and insights that these newly upgraded supercomputers will provide are essential to help government officials, communities, and businesses better understand and manage the risks associated with extreme weather and water events. In support of the president’s Climate Action Plan, the administration will continue to take steps like this to analyze and predict climate variability amid an increasing number of extreme natural events affecting the nation.
Australia's most powerful computer was unveiled Wednesday, in a boost for climate scientists who need to crunch vast amounts of data to make forecasts and pinpoint extreme weather, officials said
Thanks to research being conducted at the California Institute of Technology, regular microscopes could soon be capable of much higher-resolution imaging. Instead of making changes to the microscopes’ optics, the Caltech researchers are instead focusing on using a computer program to process and combine images from the devices.
The main hardware change to an existing microscope involves installing an array of about 150 LEDs beneath the stage, in place of the regular light. Using each bulb in that array one at a time, 150 images are then acquired of the sample that’s being viewed. In each image, the light is originating from a slightly different (and known) direction. The computer program then stitches all of those images together into one cohesive image of the sample.
Most aircraft carrying Doppler radar look like they’ve grown a tail, developed a dorsal fin, or sprouted a giant pancake on their backs. But when the unmanned Global Hawk carries a radar system this summer, its cargo will be hard to see. The autonomous and compact High-altitude Imaging Wind and Rain Profiler, or HIWRAP, a dual-frequency conical-scanning Doppler radar, will hang under the aircraft’s belly as it flies above hurricanes to measure wind and rain and to test a new method for retrieving wind data.
HIWRAP is one of the instruments that will fly in this summer's mission to explore Atlantic Ocean hurricanes. NASA's Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel, or HS3, airborne mission will investigate tropical cyclones using a number of instruments and two Global Hawks. The HS3 mission will operate between Aug. 20 and Sept. 23.
A new transparent, bioinspired coating makes ordinary glass tough, self-cleaning and incredibly slippery, a team from the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University and Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) reported online in the July 31 edition of Nature Communications.
The new coating could be used to create durable, scratch-resistant lenses for eyeglasses, self-cleaning windows, improved solar panels and new medical diagnostic devices, said principal investigator Joanna Aizenberg, Ph.D., who is a Core Faculty Member at the Wyss Institute, Amy Smith Berylson Professor of Materials Science at SEAS, and a Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology.
How would you feel about flying on an electric airliner? Current planes may be noisy, rattly, and relatively inefficient, but there’s something reassuring about being able to hear the constant roar of the engines, or glance out of the window and see them.
So the airliner of the future may feel very alien to anyone comfortable with our current mode of flying – at least if an ambitious model called the eConcept is anything to go by. Designed by European aviation powerhouse, EADS (which announced it will be renamed Airbus Group next year), together with Rolls Royce, the eConcept shows how cutting-edge technology and materials could combine to make more efficient and quiet aircraft that take their cues from the hybrid-car model.
“We imagine the impossible, and then try to think how possible it might be,” Professor Ric Parker, Chief Technical Officer of Rolls Royce tells me. “We don’t just do science fiction. We want things that are maybe a stretch for today’s technology, but where the basic laws of physics aren’t being broken. That’s the bounds we are setting ourselves.”
First evidence that the universe is not as we know it has emerged from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the giant atom-smashing machine built to recreate conditions at the dawn of time.
Confirmation of the results, showing minute deviations in the behaviour of a sub-atomic particle, would indicate the existence of a 'new physics' model of the universe.
Microscopic tears in a new kind of man-made material may actually help the substance bulk up like a bodybuilder at the gym.
"We've shown how normally destructive mechanical forces can be channeled to bring about stronger materials," said Duke chemist Steve Craig, who led the research. "The material responses are like Silly Putty transforming into a solid as stiff as the cap of a pen or a runny liquid transforming into soft Jell-O."
The world's first lab-grown burger is to be unveiled and eaten at a news conference in London on Monday.
Scientists took cells from a cow and, at an institute in the Netherlands, turned them into strips of muscle which they combined to make a patty.
Researchers say the technology could be a sustainable way of meeting what they say is a growing demand for meat.
Critics say that eating less meat would be an easier way to tackle predicted food shortages.
BBC News has been granted exclusive access to the laboratory where the meat was grown in a project costing £215,000.
Prof Mark Post of Maastricht University, the scientist behind the burger, said: "Later today we are going to present the world's first hamburger made in a lab from cells. We are doing that because livestock production is not good for the environment, it is not going to meet demand for the world and it is not good for animals".
Martin Jetpack Prepares For Launch | Stuff.co.nzChristchurch aero-engineering firm Martin Aircraft Company has appointed a new chief executive to launch its jetpack into the market later this year.
International aviation expert Peter Coker spent part of his first day on the job watching test flights near Oxford yesterday.
He said he had been a long-time observer of the Martin Jetpack and his decision to join the company was spurred by the ‘‘spectacular leap forward’’ in the aircraft’s technological capabilities.
‘‘Recently, the company achieved a number of flight technology breakthroughs with their latest generation Jetpack and that’s when I really sat up and took notice.’’
Coker said the developments had allowed the flying machine to become ‘‘a very practical machine’’ rather than something that was in research stages only.
‘‘In the past it’s been a research and development company. My role is now to bring it into a very much commercial company.’’
The company was putting in place a plan to take it from development into production stage.
‘‘A commercial opportunity by the end of the year is certainly an aim that we have right now.’’
The current development model, the P12, has already been proven up to 5000 feet and could theoretically fly for 10 or 15 minutes, but the end production model would have greater range and endurance, Coker said.
Read more at: Roots breakthrough for drought-resistant riceJapanese biotechnologists on Sunday said they had developed a rice plant with deeper roots that can sustain high yields in droughts that wipe out conventional rice crops.
It is the third breakthrough in new cereal strains in less than two years, boosting the quest to feed the world's spiralling population at a time of worsening climate change.
Writing in the journal Nature Genetics, a team led by Yusaku Uga of the National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences in Tsukuba describe how they found a remarkable gene in a rice plant cultivated in the dry uplands of the Philippines.
Graphene-based supercapacitors have already proven the equal of conventional supercapacitors – in the lab. But now researchers at Melbourne’s Monash University claim to have developed of a new scalable and cost-effective technique to engineer graphene-based supercapacitors that brings them a step closer to commercial development.
With their almost indefinite lifespan and ability to recharge in seconds, supercapacitors have tremendous energy-storage potential for everything from portable electronics, to electric vehicles and even large-scale renewable energy plants. But the drawback of existing supercapacitors has been their low energy density of around 5 to 8 Wh/liter, which means they either have to be exceedingly large or recharged frequently.
Professor Dan Li and his team at Monash University’s Department of Materials Engineering has created a graphene-based supercapacitor with an energy density of 60 Wh/liter, which is around 12 times higher than that of commercially available supercapacitors and in the same league as lead-acid batteries. The device also lasts as long as a conventional battery.
An iconic moment in the history of Hollywood movie magic was born in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz when Judy Garland as Dorothy Gale stepped out of the black and white world of Kansas into the rainbow colored world of Oz. An iconic moment in the history of infrared imaging may have been born with the announcement of the first technique to offer full color IR tomography.
