70333783
submission
hypnosec writes:
The Mars One project has picked its 100 candidates out of the initial 202,586 applicants for its next round of Mars One Astronaut Selection Process which will ultimately see around 40 undertake a one-way trip to Mars to set up a colony on the red planet. 50 men and 50 women make up the 100 candidates with 39 from the Americas, 31 from Europe, 16 from Asia, 7 from Africa, and 7 from Oceania.
70313105
submission
hypnosec writes:
We know of many risks that threaten human existence on our planet, but scientists over at Oxford University have for the first time identified 12 global risks that threaten our existence. Not only have the researchers drawn up a list of risks that threaten our civilisation, they have for the first time provided a structured overview of key events related to the 12 risks and have tried to provide initial rough quantifications for the probabilities of these impacts. The risks include Extreme climate change; nuclear war; ecological catastrophe; global pandemic; global system collapse; major asteroid impact; supervolcano; synthetic biology; nanotechnology; artificial intelligence; uncertain risks; and Future Bad Global Governance.
70292779
submission
hypnosec writes:
The work done by Interstellar’s visual effects team is now more than just mere science fiction as their work could find use in providing new insights into the powerful effects of black holes. In a paper published in Classical and Quantum Gravity, the team has described an innovative computer code that was used to generate the movie’s iconic images of the wormhole, black hole and various celestial objects and explained how the code has led them to new science discoveries.
70268685
submission
hypnosec writes:
According to a new study that tracked marine debris from its source, 8.8 million tons of plastic ends up in the world oceans annually. Plastic waste is a global problem and until now there wasn't a comprehensive study that highlighted how much plastic waste was making it to the oceans. Latest study by researchers over at University of Georgia claim that if all the plastic waste being dumped to oceans is accounted for, it will be equivalent of five grocery bags full of plastic debris dotting each foot of coastline around the world.
70241061
submission
hypnosec writes:
The European Space Agency (ESA) has successfully completed the first test flight of its Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle (IXV), as planned, wherein it saw the wingless spaceplane land in one piece in the Pacific Ocean. A Vega VV04 rocket took the IXV to an altitude of 340 km from where it separated and continued up to 412 km. Reentering from this suborbital path, it recorded a vast amount of data from more than 300 advanced and conventional sensors. According to ESA the spaceplane few east around the globe during its descent and finally landed safely in the the Pacific Ocean west of the Galapagos Islands at about 15:20 GMT
70208241
submission
hypnosec writes:
Artificial leaf created waves the moment it was announced by Daniel Nocera back in 2011 and his latest research, published in PNAS, involves utilising hydrogen from this artificial leaf, carbon dioxide from another source and feeding it to bacterium Ralstonia eutropha to create liquid fuel. The new system involves using the “artificial leaf” to split water into hydrogen and oxygen; carbon dioxide from another source and a bacterium Ralstonia eutropha engineered to convert carbon dioxide plus hydrogen into the liquid fuel isopropanol.
70187837
submission
hypnosec writes:
European Space Agency (ESA) has revealed its preparedness for the launch of its experimental “space plane” dubbed Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle (IXV) on Wednesday. ESA’s car-sized, wingless vessel is being tested for re-entry and could build a platform on which design of future reusable spacecraft are based on. IXV will be launched on Vega flight VV04 at 13:00 GMT (14:00 CET) for a suborbital flight to test technologies and critical systems for Europe’s future automated reentry systems from Kourou, French Guiana, 11 February 2015.
70150101
submission
hypnosec writes:
Over 40 years after Neil Armstrong’s Apollo 11 space travel, a hidden bag full of artefacts has been discovered by his widow Carol Armstrong. Carol found the bag after Neil’s death in 2012 shortly after he underwent a heart surgery. The bag contains a total of 20 items including the priceless 16mm movie camera that recorded Apollo 11’s descent to the surface of the moon, optical alignment sight used by crew for docking manoeuvres, and Waist tether among other things. The purse and the contents are now on loan at the National Air and Space Museum for preservation, research and eventual public display.
70097071
submission
hypnosec writes:
DARPA is all set to take its Airborne Launch Assist Space Access module (ALASA) program to the next level after the program has shown promising results for its mission of sending 100-pound satellites into low Earth orbit (LEO) for just $1 million per launch. Currently under intensive testing, ALASA is a new program that seeks to overcome a stipulation series of launch systems by streamlining pattern and production and leveraging a coherence and re-usability of an air-launched system.
69980623
submission
hypnosec writes:
Researchers over at University College London (UCL) have demonstrated a new technique for fibre optic signal processing that doubles the distance at which data travels error-free through transatlantic sub-marine cables. The UCL research, published in Scientific Reports, has the potential to reduce the costs of long-distance optical fibre communications as signals wouldn't need to be electronically boosted during their journey, which is important when the cables are buried underground or at the bottom of the ocean. The study reports a new way of improving the transmission distance, by undoing the interactions that occur between different optical channels as they travel side-by-side over an optical cable. By eliminating the interactions between the optical channels, Researchers are able to double the distance signals can be transmitted error-free, from 3190km to 5890km, which is the largest increase ever reported for this system architecture.
69947945
submission
hypnosec writes:
University of Manchester and University of Sheffield researchers have managed to produce first graphene-based LED display that will pave the way for efficient, flexible and semi-transparent electronic devices. The research, published in scientific journal Nature Materials, shows how Graphene displays and related 2D materials could be utilised to create light emitting devices for the next-generation of mobile phones, tablets and televisions to make them incredibly thin and durable. The LED device was constructed by combining different 2D crystals and emits light from across its whole surface. Being so thin, at only 10-40 atoms thick, these new components can form the basis for the first generation of semi-transparent smart devices.
69853435
submission
hypnosec writes:
European Space Agency (ESA) has confirmed based on joint analysis of data gathered by ground based BICEP2 and Keck Array experiments and its own Planck satellite that previous reports of BICEP2’s primordial gravitational waves detection are untrue and they haven’t found any conclusive evidence that they were detected.
69663003
submission
hypnosec writes:
Chemists over at University of California, Irvine and those from South Australia’s Flinders University have found a way to unboil a hen egg — the process and technique they claim will dramatically reduce not only costs cancer treatment but also food production and all areas of biotechnology related to proteins. Using a urea substance, Weiss and his colleagues re-created a clear protein lysozyme by liquefying the boiled egg white. The protein bits are still balled up into unusable masses and to get them in proper order scientists used a vortex fluid device designed by Professor Colin Raston's laboratory at South Australia's Flinders University. Using the device, shear stress within thin, microfluidic films is applied to the balled up proteins forcing them back into untangled, proper form. Pharmaceutical companies currently create cancer antibodies in expensive hamster ovary cells that do not often misfold proteins. The ability to quickly and cheaply re-form common proteins from yeast or E coli bacteria could potentially streamline protein manufacturing and make cancer treatments more affordable, researchers said.
69637347
submission
hypnosec writes:
The US Air Force and private space flight company SpaceX have settled their dispute involving military’s expendable rocket program thereby paving way for the latter to join the spy satellite launch programme under Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV). The settlement opens doors for SpaceX to compete with United Launch Alliance (ULA) for launch of spy satellites. ULA is a joint Boeing-Lockheed venture – the only private player to have received clearance for launching black ops satellites.
69562761
submission
hypnosec writes:
Stargazers are in for a treat as they will be able to witness a rare astronomical event early tomorrow morning (January 24, 2015) where shadows of three of Jupiter’s largest moons — Io, Europa, and Callisto — will fall upon Jupiter simultaneously. Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles will provide a live online broadcast on its Livestream channel. The event is slated to being on January 24, 2015 at 4:30 AM GMT and should end by 7:00 am GMT. For those in the PST, the event will happen today from 8:30 pm to 11:00 pm.
