Star Chart

The European Space Agency (ESA) just released the most detailed map of the Milky Way galaxy ever assembled.

The 3D map — which makes the Milky Way look like an egg-shaped lattice — includes the positions and movements of almost 2 billion stars within our galaxy, according to The Guardian. Aside from being an outstanding accomplishment on its own, the map has already helped scientists uncover new secrets about the cosmos.

Orbital Cartography

The map is the end product of seven years’ worth of observations conducted by the ESA’s Gaia observatory, which has been studying the cosmos from its orbit around the Earth since it was launched back in 2013.

“What we’re really doing here is getting a very detailed map of the local universe that’s in three dimensions for stars out to a few hundred light years,” Nicholas Walton, Gaia team member and University of Cambridge astronomer, told The Guardian.

Full Picture

The map is so detailed, in fact, that scientists are already using it to learn about the Milky Way’s relationship to its satellite galaxies, according to The Guardian. It could also help scientists finally weigh the galaxy, a shockingly complex calculation that’s been attempted several times over the years.

“Gaia has been staring at the heavens for the past seven years, mapping the positions and velocities of stars,” Caroline Harper, space science head at the U.K. Space Agency, told The Guardian. “Thanks to its telescopes we have in our possession today the most detailed billion-star 3D atlas ever assembled.”

READ MORE: Astronomers unveil most detailed 3D map yet of Milky Way [The Guardian]

More on the Gaia map: Strongest-Ever Candidate for Alien Message Came From Sun-Like Star, Researcher Says

The post This Is the Most Detailed Map of the Milky Way in History appeared first on Futurism.

More:
This Is the Most Detailed Map of the Milky Way in History

A team of scientists has restored the eyesight of elderly mice by effectively reversing the process of aging at a molecular level.

The cohort of Harvard Medical School researchers removed thousands of chemical markers that accumulate over time from the mice’s DNA, essentially resetting their cells to a younger state. Shortly thereafter, mice with age-related vision loss or nerve damage in their retinas regained their ability to see, Nature reports.

Though there’s not yet any indication that the same technique will work on people, it’s a striking hint that genetic trickery can turn back the clock on at least some consequences of natural biological aging.

They don’t quite understand what it is about cellular mechanics that gives these cells the ability to preserve a more youthful state. But the study, published Wednesday in the academic journal Nature, appears to demonstrate that it’s possible to “reverse” aging in at least some limited domains.

Specifically, the team exploited and undid specific epigenetic changes — alterations to the mice’s gene expression rather than the genes themselves — that occurred over time.

“We set out with a question: if epigenetic changes are a driver of ageing, can you reset the epigenome?” study coauthor and Harvard Medical School geneticist David Sinclair said to Nature. “Can you reverse the clock?”

Most shocking is that the mice who lost eyesight due to nerve damage were able to sprout new nerves after the treatment — something mammals typically lose the ability to do very early in life.

“It was like a jellyfish growing out through the injury site,” study coauthor Yuancheng Lu told Nature. “It was breathtaking.”

The post Harvard Scientists Claim to Reverse Mouse Aging at Cellular Level appeared first on Futurism.

Go here to see the original:
Harvard Scientists Claim to Reverse Mouse Aging at Cellular Level

The Great Collapse

December 1 was a sad day for astronomers everywhere. The iconic 57-year-old Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico met its final demise when the 900-ton platform suspended above the 1,000-foot-wide dish antenna came crashing down — an accident caused by failing cables that were already stretched to their limits by previous damage.

Now, newly released footage shows the dramatic failure, including close-up drone shots of cables slowly unraveling, leading to the platform hurtling down in a cloud of debris.

Stunning video of the moment the Arecibo Observatory telescope platform collapsed and smashed into the dish:

via @NSF: https://t.co/5b56OWBjPW pic.twitter.com/WCUyY66hsv

— Michael Sheetz (@thesheetztweetz) December 3, 2020

Cable Failure

Two cable failures, one in October and one in November, sealed the fate of the observatory, with engineers initially planning to decommission and deconstruct the aging structure.

The collapse, however, was not planned, despite efforts to introduce some slack into existing cables to keep one of the strained cable support towers upright.

“After the November 6th cable failure, the [remaining] cables could have failed at any time,” Ralph Gaume, director of the National Science Foundation’s Division of Astronomical Sciences told reporters at a briefing this morning, as quoted by Engadget. “We were unable to predict when it would happen, [but] we knew it would happen.”

There is still a fleeting chance of rebuilding the structure, and the NSF has yet to rule out such a possibility. But it will be a hard sell, especially as it involves asking Congress for funding.

READ MORE: NSF offers a closer look at how the Arecibo Observatory collapsed [Engadget]

More on the collapse: Arecibo SETI Telescope Collapses Completely

The post Dramatic Drone Video Shows Collapse of Alien-Hunting Observatory appeared first on Futurism.

Read the original here:
Dramatic Drone Video Shows Collapse of Alien-Hunting Observatory

Censorship Allegations

One of Google’s top AI ethicists says she’s out at the company — in part, she says, because the tech giant was censoring her research.

OneZero reports that Timnit Gebru, who had been the technical co-lead of Google’s Ethical Artificial Intelligence Team, says her employment was abruptly cut off — along with her access to her company email address — after a tense email exchange.

Gebru is known for influential research into racial bias in AI algorithms. Most recently, she’s been working at Google in a research position, exploring ethical implications of AI technologies.

Story So Far

But it now sounds like her experience at the search giant has been fraught. In an email obtained by Casey Newton’s new publication Platformer, Gebru told an internal listserv about a saga in which she had circulated a new research paper coauthored with a number of other Google employees — its precise topic remains unclear, though it appears to have to do with language models — to a large group of research peers.

Then, she wrote in the email, she was surprised when her “manager’s manager” told her that she needed to retract the paper.

According to a second email, also obtained by Platformer and sent by head of Google research Jeff Dean, Gebru then said that she would resign unless a list of conditions were met. In his email, Dean also pushed back against elements of Gebru’s narrative. For instance, he said that she only gave internal Google reviewers one day to read the paper, instead of the customary two weeks.

Gebru’s manager, she said on Twitter, subsequently told her that the company couldn’t meet her conditions — and would have to let her go immediately. Google instantly cut off access to her company email account, Gebru told OneZero.

Several of Gebru’s recent tweets suggest that she’s seeking legal recourse. In one message last Monday — before her termination — she inquired about legal protections for whistleblowers among AI researchers. And on Wednesday, she tweeted that she was looking for legal representation.

First and foremost I need an employment lawyer ASAP.

— Timnit Gebru (@timnitGebru) December 3, 2020

READ MORE: Noted A.I. Ethicist Timnit Gebru Let Go From Google Following Tense Email Exchange [OneZero]

More on Google: Three Signs Google Is Turning to the Dark Side

The post Google Ousts Top AI Ethicist appeared first on Futurism.

Visit link:
Google Ousts Top AI Ethicist

Quantum Supremacy 2.0

A team of researchers from University of Science and Technology of China have just claimed quantum supremacy, Wired reports — meaning their quantum computer completed a task that would take a conventional computer tens of thousands of years.

Google became the first to claim quantum supremacy in October 2019 with its Sycamore quantum computer completing a random number generation-related calculation in just 200 seconds — a task that would have taken the world’s most powerful supercomputer 10,000 years, according to the tech giant.

Crunching Numbers Using Light

Now, as detailed in its paper published in the journal Science, the Chinese team says its system, called Jiuzhang, completed a task in three minutes that would’ve taken a powerful supercomputer two billion years, according to Wired.

But there are some striking differences between the two quantum systems. Google’s Sycamore processor uses quantum circuits that include superconducting metals that need to be cryogenically supercooled to extremely low temperatures, fractions of a degree above absolute zero.

Limited Flexibility

The Chinese team’s processor instead manipulates individual photons and doesn’t require supercooling. That introduces limitations: its task was baked into its very circuitry, meaning that it was designed from the ground up to make this particular calculation.

Quantum computing is still very much in its infancy — engineers have yet to even devise a practical use. They are also infamously unstable and fragile.

Still, the fact that they’re starting to grapple with problems beyond the capabilities of conventional computers — and with radically different architectures — is promising.

READ MORE: China Stakes Its Claim to Quantum Supremacy [Wired]

More on quantum supremacy: Here’s Why Quantum Supremacy Matters

The post China Claims Quantum Supremacy appeared first on Futurism.

Original post:
China Claims Quantum Supremacy

Three former U.S. Presidents have all volunteered to be vaccinated against COVID-19 on camera in order to bolster confidence in the vaccine.

Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama all agreed to take part, CNN reports, in an attempt to create a bipartisan message encouraging widespread inoculation against the coronavirus.

To many, the idea of encouraging people to vaccinate themselves against the pandemic that’s ravaged much of the world throughout 2020 may seem unnecessary. But a national poll from May found that only 49 percent of Americans planned on getting the vaccine. Back then, the top concern was whether the vaccine would be safe or not, so a public demonstration with three national leaders being injected could actually do a lot of good.

“People like Anthony Fauci, who I know, and I’ve worked with, I trust completely,” Obama said Thursday on SiriusXM’s Urban View. “So, if Anthony Fauci tells me this vaccine is safe, and can vaccinate, you know, immunize you from getting COVID, absolutely, I’m going to take it.”

“I promise you that when it’s been made for people who are less at risk, I will be taking it,” Obama added. “I may end up taking it on TV or having it filmed, just so that people know that I trust this science, and what I don’t trust is getting COVID.”

To Obama’s last point about personal risk, a CDC advisory panel decided on Wednesday that the first doses of the vaccine available in the U.S. ought to go to healthcare workers who are personally at risk of coronavirus exposure. After them, the panel recommended prioritizing senior citizens in assisted living.

Aside from Obama, both George W. Bush’s and Bill Clinton’s representatives confirmed to CNN that they would be get the vaccine in public or on camera — and CNN is awaiting word from President Jimmy Carter as well.

“First, the vaccines need to be deemed safe and administered to the priority populations,” Bush’s chief of staff Freddy Ford told CNN. “Then, President Bush will get in line for his, and will gladly do so on camera.”

The post Obama, Clinton, and Bush Say They’ll All Take COVID-19 Vaccine appeared first on Futurism.

See the original post:
Obama, Clinton, and Bush Say They’ll All Take COVID-19 Vaccine

Artificial Sun

China has successfully powered up its “artificial sun” nuclear fusion reactor for the first time, according to Agence France Presse.

The reactor, which is the country’s largest, could one day generate power without running the risk of a nuclear meltdown — or emitting greenhouse gases — by fusing atoms together rather than breaking them apart.

The technical challenges, though, are steep. The system’s HL-2M Tokamak reactor needs to be heated up to ten times the temperature of the core of the Sun, or about 150 million degrees Celsius, according to the state-run Chinese newspaper People’s Daily  — hence the reactor’s nickname.

Clean Energy

“The development of nuclear fusion energy is not only a way to solve China’s strategic energy needs, but also has great significance for the future sustainable development of China’s energy and national economy,” the People’s Daily wrote, as quoted by AFP.

While the news represents a meaningful step forward, achieving fusion still requires far more energy than the amount that’s actually being generated — not to mention the sky high costs involved in running such a reactor.

Despite the uphill battle, the international community is investing billions in developing fusion reactors that could one day become a feasible source of energy. Engineers recently started construction on the world’s largest reactor, an international collaborative effort between 35 countries called ITER, in southern France.

READ MORE: China turns on nuclear-powered ‘artificial sun’ [Agence France Presse]

More on fusion: Scientists Just Fired Up an Experimental Fusion Reactor

The post China Just Powered Up Its “Artificial Sun” Fusion Reactor appeared first on Futurism.

The rest is here:
China Just Powered Up Its “Artificial Sun” Fusion Reactor

Crushed Dreams

Researchers working at the Arecibo Observatory, which collapsed earlier this month, are calling for the massive radio telescope to be rebuilt, NBC News reports.

On Tuesday morning, the 900-ton platform suspended above the delicate 1,000 foot dish came crashing down following several support cables snapping under the weight in October and November.

A Tragedy

For many in the scientific community, the collapse crushed hopes and dreams as well.

“I was very sad, very disappointed,” fourth year physics student at the University of Puerto Rico Génesis Ferrer told NBC. Ferrer had earned a fellowship from the Puerto Rico NASA Space Consortium to study red dwarf stars using the Arecibo Observatory.

“I worked so hard to finally get accepted to work in the Arecibo Observatory,” Ferrer added. “And now that I got accepted, I can’t work in it.”

“It’s a tragedy because we’re seeing our dreams fading away,” said Kevin Ortiz, another fourth year physics student at the university.

We Can Rebuild

Prior to the collapse, scientist coalitions on the island were collecting signatures to ask the White House to save the aging structure. Now, the same groups are turning to Congress to ask for help.

“With the appropriate funding, we have a viable path towards reconstruction,” Ortiz argued to NBC, adding that the investigations facility and the visitor’s center are still intact.

“The educational impact of the observatory is incalculable, at all levels, from professionals and college students to the high school academy and the elementary schools that visit our center,” he added.

READ MORE: Puerto Rican scientists, shattered by collapse of Arecibo Observatory, push to rebuild [NBC News]

More on the collapse: Dramatic Drone Video Shows Collapse of Alien-Hunting Observatory

The post Researchers Call For Rebuilding Collapsed SETI Observatory appeared first on Futurism.

See original here:
Researchers Call For Rebuilding Collapsed SETI Observatory

Absolute Unit

Alabama-based startup Aevum has unveiled a fully autonomous drone designed to release satellite-launching rockets in midair — and it’s an absolute monster.

The Ravn X Autonomous Launch Vehicle is a mammoth 80-foot aircraft with a wingspan of 60 feet. The 18 feet tall behemoth weighs in at 55,000 pounds, which makes it the world’s largest Unmanned Aircraft by mass, according to The Hill.

The drone takes off and lands like a regular aircraft and requires a runway at least one mile in length. Once it’s airborne, the Ravn X is designed to release a small rocket into orbit.

Rideshare Satellites

The startup has ambitious goals: it claims the aircraft can launch satellites into space every three hours, seven days a week.

“Through our autonomous technologies, Aevum will shorten the lead time of launches from years to months, and when our customers demand it, minutes,” Jay Skylus, founder and CEO of Aevum, said in a statement. “This is necessary to improve lives on Earth. This is necessary to save lives.”

According to the company, the massive vehicle is 70 percent reusable in its current form, but will be up to 95 percent reusable in the near future.

The startup has also already worked with the Space Force to launch the nascent service branch’s first small satellite launch mission.

READ MORE: The world’s biggest drone debuts, and it weighs nearly 28 tons [The Hill]

More on drones: Firefighters Are Using Drones That Drop Fireballs

The post This Is the World’s Biggest Drone appeared first on Futurism.

Excerpt from:
This Is the World’s Biggest Drone

Rebuild Him

John Ratcliffe, the U.S. director of national intelligence, says that China is using CRISPR technology to try and gene-hack members of the military into supersoldiers.

It’s a provocative claim, and just one of many topics Ratcliffe breezed through in a Wall Street Journal op-ed he penned to argue that China is the greatest threat to the U.S. and the world. It’s certainly possible that human experimentation happened — the Chinese government likely supported the “CRISPR Baby” debacle from 2018, or at least tolerated it — but NBC reports that the ability to use CRISPR to augment human abilities likely still eludes even top labs.

Arms Race

Ratcliffe wrote that he found the alleged supersoldier CRISPR research reprehensible.

“U.S. intelligence shows that China has even conducted human testing on members of the People’s Liberation Army in hope of developing soldiers with biologically enhanced capabilities,” Ratcliffe wrote. “There are no ethical boundaries to Beijing’s pursuit of power.”

But neither Ratcliffe nor the CIA — nor the Chinese government — responded to NBC‘s request for details. And the U.S. military has done plenty of supersoldier research of its own — albeit without trying to create superpowers through CRISPR, as far as we know.

Real Threat

Chinese military leaders have said that biotechnology has incredible potential for military applications, NBC reports. But experts in the field are less concerned about CRISPR supersoldiers than they are about CRISPR doing damage when misused — such as in the pursuit of supersoldiers.

“When we start playing around with genetic organisms, there could be unforeseen consequences,” former Navy officer Wilson VornDick told NBC.

READ MORE: China has done human testing to create biologically enhanced super soldiers, says top U.S. official [NBC News]

More on gene-hacking: George Church Told Us Why He’s Listing Superhuman Gene Hacks

The post US Official Claims China Is Testing Biologically Enhanced Supersoldiers appeared first on Futurism.

Follow this link:
US Official Claims China Is Testing Biologically Enhanced Supersoldiers

Tunnel Rave

Elon Musk’s Boring Company clearly had a lot of fun decorating its Las Vegas tunnel.

A video uploaded to the company’s Twitter shows the entire Las Vegas Convention Center Loop terminal lit up in gaudy RGB lighting, pulsating in waves of rainbow colors like an overpriced trophy gaming PC.

The video also shows off a powerful sound system, pumping out EDM to go with the flashing lights.

It’s a signature move by the Tesla CEO: Musk teased in July that its brand new Gigafactory in Berlin will have “indoor/outdoor rave space” on the factory’s roof.

Tunnel Rave pic.twitter.com/d3JKOIAsy7

— The Boring Company (@boringcompany) December 4, 2020

Get In Loser

As Musk admitted in an October tweet, the company “simplified” original plans to transport passengers via roomy passenger pods inside the tunnels by “a lot.” As it stands, the Convention Center loop will carry five passengers at a time through the tunnel inside largely unmodified Tesla vehicles.

The jury is still out on how many passengers can be transported at a given time — and how those numbers compare to a conventional train system.

The Boring Company has also received approval to expand the Loop, as Electrek reported last month, with the company eyeing connecting the loop to the city’s Ars District as well.

READ MORE: Elon Musk’s Boring Company shares first look at Las Vegas Loop’s ‘Tunnel Rave’ site [Teslarati]

More on Boring Company: There’s a theory that Elon Musk is digging a tunnel between LA and Vegas

The post Elon Musk’s Boring Company Turned Its Vegas Tunnel Into a “Rave” appeared first on Futurism.

Read more:
Elon Musk’s Boring Company Turned Its Vegas Tunnel Into a “Rave”

Lab-To-Table

In Israel, a new half-lab-half-restaurant called the Chicken is the first in the world to offer lab-grown meat to diners.

The restaurant, which gives out cultured chicken burgers for free — the texture of chicken breast is difficult to mimic — seems to have nailed the flavor and texture of the fried chicken sandwich, according to The Guardian correspondent Oliver Holmes, who tested it out. In many ways, the Chicken is more of a product demo than a conventional restaurant venture. But at the same time, it’s an unmistakable sign that sustainable, lab-grown versions of meat are becoming tasty, even if they aren’t yet at a price point for mass consumption.

Cage-Free

The back room of the restaurant is also its lab, so diners can watch as scientists culture the meat that they’re eating.

“This burger takes something between two to three days to grow,” head chef Tomer Halevy, who holds a PhD in genetics, told The Guardian.

The cells are grown in a broth of water, sugar, amino acids, proteins, and vitamins, where cells develop and divide as they do in a growing animal.

“If you harvest half the meat on one day, you will get the same amount the next day,” Halevy added.

Test Run

The Chicken is meant to get people interested and engaged with lab-grown meat. The ultimate goal, according to The Guardian is to distribute the lab-grown chicken to companies that already make and sell patties and nuggets at the grocery store.

If lab-grown meat like Halevy’s takes off, The Guardian reports, it could be great news for the planet — scientists have estimated that cultured meat emits just four percent of the greenhouse gases as traditional meat farming.

READ MORE: I tried the world’s first no-kill, lab-grown chicken burger [The Guardian]

More on lab-grown meat: This May Be the First Lab-Grown Meat to Actually Hit the Market

The post Lab-Grown Chicken Sandwich Tastes Like Real Thing, Says Person Who Ate It appeared first on Futurism.

Continue reading here:
Lab-Grown Chicken Sandwich Tastes Like Real Thing, Says Person Who Ate It

Cloud Cover

This week, the Chinese government announced that it plans to drastically increase its use of technology that artificially changes the weather.

Cloud seeding technology, or systems that can blasts silver molecules into the sky to prompt condensation and cloud formation, has been around for decades, and China makes frequent use of it. But now, CNN reports that China wants to increase the total size of its weather modification test area to 5.5 million square miles by 2025 — a huge increase, and an area larger than that of the entire country of India, which could affect the environment on an epic scale and even potentially spur conflict with nearby countries.

Fog Of War

Most notably, China and India share a hotly-disputed border that they’ve violently clashed over as recently as this year, CNN has previously reported. India’s agriculture relies on a monsoon season that’s already grown unpredictable due to climate change, prompting experts in the country to worry that China may use its ability to control rain and snowfall as a weapon.

“Lack of proper coordination of weather modification activity (could) lead to charges of ‘rain stealing’ between neighboring regions,” National Taiwan University researchers conclude in a 2017 paper published in Geoforum.

Global Tampering

In the past, China has used its weather modification tech to seed clouds well in advance of major events like the 2008 Olympics and political meetings so the events themselves happen under clear skies, CNN reports.

But this planned expansion of the system means that other countries may be subject to its meteorological whims — seeding international conflict in addition to clouds.

READ MORE: China to expand weather modification program to cover area larger than India [CNN]

More on weather modification: China’s New “Weather-Controlling Tech” Could Make it Rain on Demand

The post China Is Rolling Out an Enormous “Weather Modification” System appeared first on Futurism.

Go here to read the rest:
China Is Rolling Out an Enormous “Weather Modification” System

The US National Science Foundation’s Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, the largest solar observatory in the world, just released its first-ever image of a sunspot.

The image, taken in January 2020, is the sharpest image of a sunspot in history — and it looks absolutely terrifying.

“The sunspot image achieves a spatial resolution about 2.5 times higher than ever previously achieved, showing magnetic structures as small as 20 kilometers on the surface of the sun,” associate director at NSF’s National Solar Observatory Thomas Rimmele, lead author of the corresponding paper published in the journal Solar Physics, said in a statement.

A sunspot is a dark area on the Sun’s surface. Scientists suspected that they’re caused by magnetic field flux which cause surrounding areas to cool temporarily.

Their size can be extraordinary. The new Inouye image, for instance, is 10,000 miles across — large enough to fit the entire Earth comfortably inside it.

The image shows hot and cool gas emanating from the dark center while hot gases bubble up from below the surface. Despite being relatively cool, the dark areas in the center still measure above a toasty 7,500 degrees Fahrenheit.

Roughly every 11 Earth years, the Sun starts a new cycle of solar activity. The image represents one of the first sunspots of a solar cycle that began in December 2019.

Sunspots are similar to solar flares and coronal mass ejections, which are massive bursts of plasma and magnetic fields from the Sun’s corona, the outer part of its atmosphere.

These massive outbursts can be so violent, their effects on space weather can be felt all the way back on Earth, where they wreak havoc on power grids, GPS satellites, and even air travel.

In other words, studying these phenomena could help us refine our tools and make them more resistant to freak events in space weather.

READ MORE: Inouye Solar Telescope releases first image of a sunspot [AURA]

More on the observatory: The Highest Def Photo of the Sun Looks Like Caramel Popcorn

The post The Sharpest-Ever Image of a Sunspot Looks Like a Portal to Hell appeared first on Futurism.

Original post:
The Sharpest-Ever Image of a Sunspot Looks Like a Portal to Hell

Thanks to an array of electrodes implanted in their brains, two monkeys were able to “see” and recognize individual letter shapes — without ever having to use their eyes, as New Scientist reports.

The researchers behind the effort claim it’s the highest resolution of “vision” ever achieved without taking advantage of the retina.

Previous efforts have attempted to restore sight by placing implants directly in the retina of an eye — an impressive technique, but one that won’t work for those with damaged optic nerves.

To restore vision for a pair of monkeys, a team led by Pieter Roelfsema at the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience created a brain implant made up of needle-like electrodes just 1.5 millimeters in length, as detailed in a paper published in the journal Science today.

These electrodes are then attached to the visual cortex — instead of the retina — to allow the monkeys to “see” a pattern of dots. In trials, the team implanted arrays in two macaques.

“The number of electrodes that we have implanted in the visual cortex, and the number of artificial pixels that we can generate to produce high-resolution artificial images, is unprecedented,” Roelfsema said in a statement.

Having previously been trained to perform a simple behavioral task corresponding to one of 16 letter shapes made up of individual dots, the macaques ended up responding to each letter correctly when the arrays sent them into the visual cortex.

“Our implant interfaces directly with the brain, bypassing prior stages of visual processing via the eye or the optic nerve,” Xing Chen, postdoctoral researcher and team member, explained in the statement. “Hence, in the future, such technology could be used for the restoration of low vision in blind people who have suffered injury or degeneration of the retina, eye, or optic nerve, but whose visual cortex remains intact.”

While the arrays feature an impressive number of individual dots or pixels, the resulting “vision” is still a far cry from what your eyes can produce — that is, if it were to ever be implanted in a human brain. That’s because human eyes can pick up millions of individual pixels, instead of only about a thousand.

The post New Device Sends Images Directly Into Monkeys’ Brains appeared first on Futurism.

See the rest here:
New Device Sends Images Directly Into Monkeys’ Brains

Storm Season

Billions of years ago, Mars may have been buried beneath powerful, gigantic megafloods.

In recent years, scientists have discovered evidence of a sizeable amount of water on and under the surface of Mars. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg: Research published this month in the Nature journal Scientific Reports suggests that gigantic “megafloods” could have carved out the Red Planet’s surface features and even altered its climate, vastly changing our understanding of Mars’ past.

Biblical Proportions

The Cornell University and California Institute of Technology scientists behind the research suspect that the floods began when a meteorite struck Mars about 4 billion years ago.

The impact would have generated enough heat to melt Mars’ ice reservoirs, releasing water vapor into the atmosphere and creating planet-blanketing storm clouds, according to a Cornell press release.

Swept Away

The end result — which the scientists identified using data from NASA’s Curiosity rover — is that the floods shaped the surface of Mars into 30-foot-tall ripples of rock and dust. The water itself is long gone — but the scientists speculate that the floods means the planet may have been inhabitable at the time.

“Early Mars was an extremely active planet from a geological point of view,” study coauthor Alberto Fairén, an astrobiologist visiting Cornell, said in the release. “The planet had the conditions needed to support the presence of liquid water on the surface — and on Earth, where there’s water, there’s life.”

READ MORE: Field geology at Mars’ equator points to ancient megaflood [Cornell University]

More on Mars: Scientists Just Found Three More Reservoirs of Liquid Water on Mars

The post NASA Data Shows Evidence of Ancient “Megafloods” on Mars appeared first on Futurism.

See the original post:
NASA Data Shows Evidence of Ancient “Megafloods” on Mars

Bare Bones

Before the star Cassiopeia A exploded in a supernova, something had already come by and stripped it bare.

The clouds of gas expelled by the supernova, Live Science reports, are missing hydrogen, which usually forms the outer layer of a star while heavier elements stay toward the core. Now, scientists think they know why: Cas A may have been too close to the earlier supernova of its neighbor, an explosion that would have been strong enough to blow the hydrogen layer away.

Going Together

An international team of astronomers modeled how when one star in a binary system blows up, it can essentially “sandblast” the other one, as Live Science put it. Their research, published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, matches the existing data on what happened to Cas A and similar binary supernovae.

“This is enough for the second supernova of the binary system to become a stripped-envelope supernova,” lead author Ryosuke Hirai, a researcher at The Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery, said in a press release, “confirming that our proposed scenario is plausible.”

Controlled Demolition

The first supernova taking away Cas A’s outer layer of hydrogen also likely sent it into a wildly unstable state, Live Science reports, potentially speeding up its own death.

The new research is only a model. But just as those models predicted, the researchers found a cloud of hydrogen 50 lightyears away: a shattered remnant from the first explosion.

Editor’s note 10/7/2020: An earlier version of this story misstated Cas A’s distance from Earth. It has been updated.

READ MORE: Something huge ripped the skin off this star before it died [Live Science]

More on cosmic destruction: In Its Dying Gasp, Our Sun Will Obliterate the Asteroid Belt

The post Something Peeled an Entire Layer Off This Star Like a Giant Orange appeared first on Futurism.

Read the original post:
Something Peeled an Entire Layer Off This Star Like a Giant Orange

Hydrogen Truck

Toyota announced today that it will officially develop a hydrogen fuel cell powered electric semi truck.

“It will be quiet, smooth and powerful while emitting nothing but water,” Tak Yokoo, Senior Executive Engineer at Toyota, said in a statement.

Emitting Water

The Japanese carmaker’s North America division will be partnering with Hino USA, a commercial vehicles manufacturer, to produce the “heavy” Class 8 fuel cell truck specifically for the North American market.

The truck itself will be based on the existing Hino XL Series chassis and powered by Toyota’s fuel cell technology.

Toyota is planning to show off the first demonstration vehicle in the first half of 2021, but we still know little about it. The prototype of a prior initiative called Project Portal 2.0 may provide some clues: revealed in 2018, the prototype was a 670 horsepower semi with 1,325 pound-feet of torque and a towing capacity of 80,000 pounds. Its fuel cells gave it a reported range of 300 miles, CNET reports.

Remember Nikola?

It’s a strange time to announce plans for a hydrogen-powered semi. The news comes after Tesla competitor Nikola Motors landed in hot water last month after an investigation revealed that the company may have misled shareholders with its demonstration of its “fuel cell-powered” Nikola One semi truck back in 2018.

The company’s founder later stepped down amidst the scandal with a Ford VP taking over the reigns.

READ MORE: Look out, Nikola: Toyota and Hino partner for fuel cell-powered semi truck [CNET]

More on hydrogen trucks: Founder of Tesla Competitor Nikola Steps Down Amid Fraud Scandal

The post Toyota Announces Hydrogen-Powered Semi Truck appeared first on Futurism.

Excerpt from:
Toyota Announces Hydrogen-Powered Semi Truck

Peeling Back

Facebook’s automated anti-nudity filters finally stopped impressionable children from seeing unimaginable filth on their timelines: a pile of onions that was flagged for being inappropriate.

Gaze Seed Company tried to advertise on Facebook using a picture of a pile of onions in a basket to market its seeds, CBC reports, but was blocked by Facebook’s algorithm. The official reason? Facebook’s algorithms decided that the picture was “overtly sexualized.” It’s a funny error, sure, and one that raises questions about the sorts of things these algorithms are into — but at a more basic level, it also illustrates that AI content moderation still isn’t ready for prime time.

Eat Your Veggies

Unfortunately, Gaze Seed Company’s post didn’t clarify what exactly about the onions — which the ad describes as “extremely sweet, mild and large” — or their position was “overtly sexualized” like Facebook claims.

“We got notified the other day that it’s an ‘overtly sexual image’ that they had to ban from the site,” Gaze manager Jackson McLean told CBC. “I guess something about the two round shapes there could be misconstrued as boobs or something, nude in some way.”

Free The Onion

For now, McLean and the company are fighting what must be a bizarre — yet disruptive — algorithmic glitch.

“I just thought it was funny,” McLean told CBC. “You’d have to have a pretty active imagination to look at that and get something sexual out of it.… ‘Overtly sexual,’ as in there’s no way of mistaking it as not sexual.”

“Hopefully an actual human gets to look at the photo to decide that it’s not actually sexual at all,” he added. “It’s just onions.”

READ MORE: This St. John’s seed company’s onions are too sexy for Facebook [CBC]

More on Facebook algorithms: Facebook Needs Humans *And* Algorithms To Filter Hate Speech

The post Facebook Algorithm Flags Onions as “Overtly Sexualized” appeared first on Futurism.

Read more:
Facebook Algorithm Flags Onions as “Overtly Sexualized”

Blurred Vision

Surfers in Kamchatka, Russia are reporting that the ocean water is leaving them with poisoning-like symptoms, CBS News reports.

“For several weeks now, all surfers have experienced problems with their eyes after returning from the water,” Yekaterina Dyba, a geographer who runs the Snowave Kamchatka surfing school, wrote on social media, as translated by CBS. “White shroud, blurred vision, dryness. Sore throat. Many had nausea, weakness, high fever.”

Various wildlife, including octopuses, fish, and shellfish have also been affected, washing up dead in the thousands on shores. Greenpeace Russia called it an “ecological disaster.”

Phenol Poisoning

According to the region’s acting Minister of Natural Resources and Ecology Aleksei Kumarkov, the presence of petroleum and toxic phenols exceeded safe levels by about four times.

But it’s still unclear what the exact source of pollution is. Kamchatka Governor Vladimir Solodov told the press that authorities are still waiting on test results. Last week, officials blamed the dying sea life on stormy weather, according to CBS.

Russian state media suggests it could’ve been an oil tanker that leaked as it was making its way through the Bering Strait between Alaska and Russia.

Search is On

Despite the Defense Ministry denying that any of their ships could’ve been involved, Russian media also didn’t rule out the military being the cause of the contamination.

Russian ecology minister Dmitry Kobylkin announced on Tuesday that there will be two water tests near two military testing sites, citing a “yellow film” on a local river, The Guardian reports.

“Early tomorrow morning there will be inspections of two key test sites that are raising everyone’s concerns,” he said.

READ MORE: Russian surfers say mystery ocean pollution is poisoning them and killing animals [CBS News]

More on water pollution and wildlife: Shark Teeth & Skin Dissolved by Pollution, Scientists Say

The post Russian Surfers Say Mysterious Pollution Is Poisoning Them appeared first on Futurism.

Continued here:
Russian Surfers Say Mysterious Pollution Is Poisoning Them