Sydney's red-hot auction run heads into seventh week

Posted on by

Antony Lawes's Hot Auctions: 9am. 155 Eastern Valley Way, Castlecrag $1,100,000+. 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 3 car spaces. Three bidders are expected on Saturday, attracted by the property's lower price bracket for the North Shore. Inspect 8.30am. Agent Forsyth, 0425 337 011.

Will Sydney's autumn auction market continue its red-hot run this weekend by notching up the seventh straight clearance rate at or above 80 per cent?

Last weekend was the sixth consecutive weekend result of 80 per cent or more, and these record levels show no signs of slowing down.

What makes these numbers all the more remarkable is that it's not just buyers who are out in force. Auction numbers are also significantly higher so far this autumn as seller confidence soars. There were 1287 properties listed for auction in Sydney over the past two weekends, which is an increase of 392, or 43 per cent, on the 895 homes listed over the same two weekends last year.

Antony Lawes's Hot Auctions: 10am. 58 Forbes Street, Newtown $1,050,000+. 3 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, 1 car space. Up to eight bidders are expected and most have plans to renovate this severely dated terrace house. Inspect 8.45am Agent Raine & Horne Newtown, 0406 751 631.

This weekend the trend continues with another strong weekend of offerings. There are 632 homes scheduled to go under the hammer, which is 38.6 per cent higher than the 456 that were listed over the same weekend last year.

Advertisement

The inner west is the most popular region for auctions this weekend, with 110 properties listed. Next highest is the south with 87, followed by the upper north shore with 73, the city and east with 70, the lower north with 65 and the northern beaches with 55 auctions.

Mosman is the most popular suburb for auctions this weekend, with 12 listed. This is followed by Strathfield with 10, Blacktown and Greenacre with nine each, and Erskineville with eight.

Antony Lawes's Hot Auctions: 12.45pm. 9 Pentonville Parade, Castle Hill $1,200,000+. 5 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 2 car spaces. Up to 10 parties are expected to battle it out for this luxurious five-year-old house. Inspect 12pm Agent McGrath Castle Hill, 0411 196 328.

Read more:

Sydney's red-hot auction run heads into seventh week

NASA's Latest Smartphone Satellite Ready for Launch

Posted on by

NASA's preparing to send its fifth in a series of smartphone-controlled small spacecraft into orbit. PhoneSat 2.5 will ride into space as part of the SpaceX-3 commercial cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station. SpaceX-3 is scheduled to lift off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 4:41 a.m. EDT Sunday, March 16. Once in Earth orbit, the tiny spacecraft will demonstrate the power of smartphone components to support space-based communications systems and survive the radiation environment of low Earth orbit -- as high as 220 miles above Earth. The technology demonstration mission also will pave the way for a constellation of cooperative small satellites scheduled to launch later this year. "If I showed PhoneSat to you, you'd ask, 'where's the phone?'," said Bruce Yost, program manager for NASA's Small Spacecraft Technology Program at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. "That's because although we buy a smartphone off the shelf, much like the one in your pocket or purse, we take it apart and repackage it to fit in the cubesat form and work in space. This differs from the first PhoneSat, that packed in the entire smartphone." Selected for launch as part of NASA's Cubesat Launch Initiative, PhoneSat 2.5 is a one-unit (1U) cubesat spacecraft measuring 10 centimeters square (approximately four inches on each side), using commercially available smartphones. The mission has three objectives: determine if a low-cost commercially available attitude determination and control system can work in space; verify if a smartphone can support space-based communications systems; and provide further confidence in the PhoneSat concept and components by investigating its ability to survive long-term in the radiation environment of space. "NASA is using these pioneering small spacecraft missions to gauge the use of consumer-grade smartphone technology as the main control electronics of a capable, yet very low-cost, satellite," said Andrew Petro, program executive for the Small Spacecraft Technology Program in the Space Technology Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, which funds the PhoneSat series. PhoneSat 2.5 is equipped with a higher-gain S-Band antenna, which serves as a pathfinder for future NASA missions, including the Edison Demonstration of Smallsat Networks (EDSN) mission scheduled to launch later this year. The EDSN mission plans to launch eight identical 1.5U cubesats (10-by-10-by-15 centimeters and 2.5 kilograms), based on the PhoneSat architecture, to demonstrate the concept of using many small spacecraft working together in a cooperative manner. EDSN will fly the cubesats in a loose formation. Each satellite will be able to cross-link communicate with the others so that engineers can study space-to-space communications and how small, low-cost, powerful satellites can perform space weather monitoring duties. In addition to the large memory, fast processors, GPS receivers, gyroscope and magnetometer sensors and high-resolution cameras commonly found in smartphones, the PhoneSat 2.5 also houses a low-cost commercial attitude determination and control system that contains reaction wheels that by slowing down or speeding up, can rotate the satellite. Engineers hope to determine if this control system can orient PhoneSat in space, a critical capability for satellites that may need to point towards a specific object of scientific interest like an asteroid, star or features on Earth. The missions also gather further information about the orbital lifespan of the smartphone components. "By advancing the price performance of nanosatellites using consumer electronics, we can make some of the more radical ideas become economically viable," said Jasper Wolfe, PhoneSat Control System lead at NASA Ames. PhoneSat 2.5 builds upon the successful flights of previous NASA smartphone satellites launched last year. PhoneSat 2.4 launched last November and achieved its primary mission objectives, demonstrating a smartphone can serve as an avionics controller. It also demonstrated the use of its magnetometer and an Ames-designed magnetorquer to actively align the satellite's orientation with Earth's magnetic fields. This was a first for Ames small satellites, which to date have used passive, permanent magnetic torque rods. PhoneSat 2.4 continues to transmit data, which means its solar arrays, battery charging circuit, Arduino watchdog and data router are still operating correctly. In early January, however, the Phonesat 2.4 smartphone began to experience recurring resets coinciding with a period of numerous solar flares. As a result, the satellite no longer executes flight application software. "We expect PhoneSat 2.5's orbital lifetime to be as long as six weeks" said Cedric Priscal, PhoneSat software lead at Ames. "This operation time will help us demonstrate that the system can survive being exposed to the doses of space radiation all satellites must endure in low Earth orbit, and help us gather data on the effects radiation has on the satellite." What kind of smartphone has a battery life of six weeks? NASA equipped the six sides of the PhoneSats with solar panels to help replenish the batteries and keep the spacecraft alive. PhoneSat 2.5 also includes a higher-gain two-way S-band radio communications capability. Engineers will test the radio's capability to send commands to the spacecraft and telemetry back to ground station on Earth, in preparation for NASA's Edison Demonstration of Smallsat Networks (EDSN) mission, scheduled for launch late this year. While orbiting Earth, ground station controllers at Santa Clara University in California, also will attempt to command PhoneSat 2.5 to transmit photographs of what it sees using the smartphone's camera to gather information for future low cost onboard camera systems and star trackers. "We're answering the question, how useful are consumer grade electronics for atmospheric or Earth science, communications, or other space-born applications," said Ken Oyadomari, PhoneSat communications lead at Ames. "The next step is to add a propulsion system to pave the way for cubesats to explore further into the solar system," said Oriol Tintore, PhoneSat mechanical lead at Ames. Though it's unlikely you'll find one of those on your smartphone anytime soon. The PhoneSat series of technology demonstration missions is funded by the Small Spacecraft Technology Program, in NASAs Space Technology Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters and the Engineering Directorate at Ames. For more information about NASA's Small Spacecraft Technology Program and the PhoneSat series of cubesats, visit: http://go.usa.gov/KWRP

X

Please follow SpaceRef on Twitter and Like us on Facebook.

The rest is here:

NASA's Latest Smartphone Satellite Ready for Launch

NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Safe After Unplanned Computer Swap

Posted on by

NASA's long-lived Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter put itself into a precautionary safe standby mode March 9 after an unscheduled swap from one main computer to another. The mission's ground team has begun restoring the spacecraft to full operations.

"The spacecraft is healthy, in communication and fully powered," said Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project Manager Dan Johnston of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "We have stepped up the communication data rate, and we plan to have the spacecraft back to full operations within a few days."

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's science observations and its relaying of communications from NASA's two active Mars rovers have been suspended. The rovers continue to use NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter as a communications relay.

Entry into safe mode is the prescribed response by a spacecraft when it detects conditions outside the range of normal expectations. Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has experienced unplanned computer swaps triggering safe-mode entry four times previously, most recently in November 2011. The root cause of the previous events has not been determined. The spacecraft has also experienced safe-mode entries that have not involved computer swaps.

Unlike any previous safe-mode entries experienced in this mission, the March 9 event included a swap to a redundant radio transponder on the orbiter. While the mission resumes operations with this transponder, engineers are investigating the status of the one that is now out of service.

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter entered orbit around Mars eight years ago, on March 10, 2006. Since then, it has returned more data than all other past and current interplanetary missions combined. The mission met all its science goals in a two-year primary science phase. Three extensions, the latest beginning in 2012, have added to the science returns. The longevity of the mission has given researchers tools to study seasonal and longer-term changes on the Red Planet.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the orbiter and collaborates with JPL to operate it. For more information about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, visit http://www.nasa.gov/mro and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mro/ .

Please follow SpaceRef on Twitter and Like us on Facebook.

Read the rest here:

NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Safe After Unplanned Computer Swap

NASA Needs Coders to Help Prevent Asteroid Armageddon

Posted on by

Savvy coders can soon help NASA defend Earth against asteroid threats and win some cash prizes in the bargain. The U.S. space agency has joined forces with an asteroid-mining company to recruit programmers who can help identify asteroids in the slew of images taken by ground-based telescopes.

TheAsteroid Data Huntercontest scheduled for launch on 17 March will offer a total of US $35000 over the next six months to anyone with the coding chops to create new asteroid-hunting algorithms. Winning solutions must boost detection sensitivity, minimize false positives, overlook imperfections in the telescope imaging data, and run well on all computer systems. Such efforts could help NASA's sky surveys find even smaller asteroids that still pose a threat to human populations.

"For the past three years, NASA has been learning and advancing the ability to leverage distributed algorithm and coding skills through the NASA Tournament Lab to solve tough problems," said Jason Crusan, NASA Tournament Lab director, in apress release. "We are now applying our experience with algorithm contests to helping protect the planet from asteroid threats through image analysis."

NASA set up the crowd-sourced challenge in partnership withPlanetary Resources, an asteroid mining startup backed byHollywood director James Cameron and Google executives Larry Page and Eric Schmidt. Planetary Resources will help contest participants access NASA-funded sky survey data and also review the contest results. NASA's role includes managing the contest and figuring out how to use winning solutions to improve asteroid survey programs.

Such a partnership provides a possible win-win for both public and private entities. NASA gets to learn more about Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) and track potential threats to Earth, whereas Planetary Resources gets to identify newasteroid mining targets for future missions to harvest space resources.

The new contest is part of NASA's Asteroid Grand Challengethat focuses on finding all asteroid threats to human populations and figuring out how to handle such threats. It also falls under the broader NASA Asteroid Initiative, whichincludes the U.S. space agency's proposal to send a robotic mission to capture a near-Earth asteroid for closer study.

NASA's asteroid-hunting efforts so far have helped find 95percent of near-Earth asteroids larger than 1kilometer within the last 15years. But the Asteroid Grand Challenge aims to find even smaller asteroids such as the Chelyabinsk meteor that exploded in the atmosphere over Russia last year. Researchers estimate they have found less than 10percent of asteroids smaller than 300meters in diameter, and less than 1percent of objects smaller than 100meters in diameter.

IEEE Spectrums general technology blog, featuring news, analysis, and opinions about engineering, consumer electronics, and technology and society, from the editorial staff and freelance contributors.

Sign up for the Tech Alert newsletter and receive ground-breaking technology and science news from IEEE Spectrum every Thursday.

Advertisement

View original post here:

NASA Needs Coders to Help Prevent Asteroid Armageddon

NASA Space Technology Grants for Early Career University Faculty

Posted on by

NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate is seeking proposals from accredited U.S. universities on behalf of outstanding early career faculty members who are beginning their independent careers. The grants will sponsor research in specific, high-priority areas of interest to America's space program.NASA expects to award about five grants this fall, funded up to $200,000 each per year for as many as three years, based on the merit of proposals and availability of funds. Funded research will investigate unique, disruptive or transformational space technologies in areas such as soft machines for robotic mobility and manipulation, science-based digital materials and manufacturing, and low -size, -weight and -power lasers.The deadline to submit final proposals to the Early Career Faculty Appendix of NASA's Research Announcement "Space Technology Research, Development, Demonstration and Infusion 2014 (SpaceTech-REDDI-2014)" isMarch 14, 2014.For information on the solicitation, including specific technology areas of interest and how to submit notices of intent and proposals, visithttp://tinyurl.com/kcglhca.This solicitation is part of NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate, which is responsible for innovating, developing, testing and flying hardware for use in future missions. For more information about the directorate and Space Technology Research Grants Program, visithttp://www.nasa.gov/spacetech.Please email any questions about this opportunity to Bonnie F. James atHQ-STMD-SpaceTech-REDDI-2013@nasa.gov.

Please follow SpaceRef on Twitter and Like us on Facebook.

See the article here:

NASA Space Technology Grants for Early Career University Faculty

Graphene Origami Boxes Store Hydrogen Fuel

Posted on by

Researchers at the University of Maryland have demonstrated through computer modeling that graphene can be triggered by an electric field to fold itself into a nifty three-dimensional box that can serve as a container for hydrogen storage and then unfold itself.

The technique could greatly increase a fuel cell's ability to store and release hydrogen -- an advance that could improve the capacity of hydrogen fuel cells for powering cars.

The way in which the graphene folds up into a box has been dubbed hydrogenation-assisted graphene origami (HAGO) and involves cutting the graphene into a pattern and then functionalizing it by atomically attaching hydrogen to the carbon atoms of the graphene. The electric field that is used does not trigger the graphene to perform its origami but is used to unfold the structure and then repeat the trick.

First, a suitably functionalized and patterned graphene can spontaneously fold into a 3-D nanostructure.... No external electric field is needed, explained Teng Li, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at University of Maryland in an e-mail to Nanoclast. Second, an electric field can cause the polarization of the graphene, effectively reducing the graphene inter-layer adhesion, which causes the folded nanostructure to unfold. Upon turning off the electric field, the graphene folds up into a box spontaneously again. Such a process can be repeated many times.

In the research, which was published in the journal ACS Nano(Hydrogenation-Assisted Graphene Origami and Its Application in Programmable Molecular Mass Uptake, Storage, and Release), the graphene origami boxes demonstrated remarkable hydrogen storage capabilities. The researchers calculate that graphene origami boxes have a hydrogen storage capacity of 9.7 percent by weight, far exceeding targets set by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) -- 5.5 percent by 2017 and 7.5 percent by 2020.

It would seem that nanomaterials are exceeding DOE targets for fuel cells on a pretty regular basis now. However, nanomaterials have a somewhat checkered past with hydrogen storage. At one time, carbon nanotubes were touted as the next big thing in that field, with claims of greater than 50-percent storage capacity.

But it is now generally accepted that the figure is really closer to 1-percent. The problem was that the structures of both carbon nanotubes and fullerenes did not remain stable. This instability has not proven to be a problem with the HAGO boxes.

Much effort has been dedicated in this research to demonstrate the promising feasibility of the HAGO process, including its robustness to possible manufacturing defects and stability at room temperature, wrote Li. We will actively pursue collaborations with experimentalists to actually demonstrate.

Get more from IEEE Spectrum

This article originally appeared on IEEE Spectrum; all rights reserved.

View original post here:

Graphene Origami Boxes Store Hydrogen Fuel

Nano Utica inspires students at local technology show

Posted on by

Story Created: Mar 13, 2014 at 6:21 PM EDT

Story Updated: Mar 13, 2014 at 6:30 PM EDT

MARCY, N.Y. (WKTV) -- If you're into science and technology, it's an exciting time to be in Utica.

Middle and high school students from all over Upstate New York gathered to show off their technology projects at the 13th annual Technology Education Showcase at SUNY IT Thursday.

Students also took part in carbon dioxide car races and junkyard wars.

"A hands on approach to learning, critical thinking, problem solving, it's just an overall great event," said Chris Jensen, a technology instructor at Whitesboro High School.

Beyond team work and collaboration, SUNY IT's outreach coordinator says the tech show also stresses the importance of Science Technology Engineering and Math or rather, STEM-based learning.

"In Utica in particular STEM is going to be everyone's ticket for economic success and that's because for example, Nano Utica is going to bring so many jobs to this region," said Elizabeth Rossi, K-12 outreach coordinator at SUNY-IT.

At the tech show, students can see a small scale version of Nano Utica's cleanroom being built right at SUNY-IT. You can even step into a clean suit and feel what it would be like to work at Nano Utica. Many students at the tech show hope that may one day be reality.

"That's one of the reasons I want to go to SUNY IT- it's close to home and this big nano tech center. I want to become an engineer that's a big part of- civil, nano tech engineering, electrical engineering so they're going to be looking for so many people to work in that building," said Michael Palmieri, a senior at Whitesboro High School.

View original post here:

Nano Utica inspires students at local technology show

Nanoscale Optical Switch Breaks Miniaturization Barrier

Posted on by

Contact Information

Available for logged-in reporters only

Newswise NASHVILLE, Tenn. An ultra-fast and ultra-small optical switch has been invented that could advance the day when photons replace electrons in the innards of consumer products ranging from cell phones to automobiles.

The new optical device can turn on and off trillions of times per second. It consists of individual switches that are only one five-hundredths the width of a human hair (200 nanometers) in diameter. This size is much smaller than the current generation of optical switches and it easily breaks one of the major technical barriers to the spread of electronic devices that detect and control light: miniaturizing the size of ultrafast optical switches.

The new device was developed by a team of scientists from Vanderbilt University, University of Alabama-Birmingham, and Los Alamos National Laboratory and is described in the Mar. 12 issue of the journal Nano Letters.

The ultrafast switch is made out of an artificial material engineered to have properties that are not found in nature. In this case, the metamaterial consists of nanoscale particles of vanadium dioxide (VO2) a crystalline solid that can rapidly switch back and forth between an opaque, metallic phase and a transparent, semiconducting phase which are deposited on a glass substrate and coated with a nanomesh of tiny gold nanoparticles.

The scientists report that bathing these gilded nanoparticles with brief pulses from an ultrafast laser generates hot electrons in the gold nanomesh that jump into the vanadium dioxide and cause it to undergo its phase change in a few trillionths of a second.

We had previously triggered this transition in vanadium dioxide nanoparticles directly with lasers and we wanted to see if we could do it with electrons as well, said Richard Haglund, Stevenson Professor of Physics at Vanderbilt, who led the study. Not only does it work, but the injection of hot electrons from the gold nanoparticles also triggers the transformation with one fifth to one tenth as much energy input required by shining the laser directly on the bare VO2.

Both industry and government are investing heavily in efforts to integrate optics and electronics, because it is generally considered to be the next step in the evolution of information and communications technology. Intel, Hewlett-Packard and IBM have been building chips with increasing optical functionality for the last five years that operate at gigahertz speeds, one thousandth that of the VO2 switch.

Vanadium dioxide switches have a number of characteristics that make them ideal for optoelectronics applications, said Haglund. In addition to their fast speed and small size, they:

Read the rest here:

Nanoscale Optical Switch Breaks Miniaturization Barrier

BORDENTOWN CITY: Committee stands by decision to not fly flag

Posted on by

BORDENTOWN CITY Members of the citys Veterans Memorial Committee stood by their decision to refuse to fly a flag honoring and remembering military personnel, including the late Army SPC Benjamin Moore, during its committee meeting on March 6.

Members of the committee maintain the flag violates code.

We are very saddened by the decision of the Veterans Committee, said SPC Moores mother, Amy Moore, of Robbinsville, in an email on Sunday. They just dont get it. Our intent on presenting the committee the flag was to thank the community for their love and support we received back in January of 2011 when we lost our son.

The decision of the committee has put a huge divide in the community, she added.

Committee Chairman Bruce Throckmorton defended the decision.

We were requested to fly the Honor and Remember Flag, Mr. Throckmorton added. We sent a letter out to the Moores and thanked them and said that we would fly the flag at our earliest opportunity and we didnt.

Mr. Throckmorton noted that the committee realized that there were some substantial issues with the flag. A letter was then sent to the Moores explaining why it was inappropriate for it to fly at the memorial.

We felt it was a violation of the flag code, he added. There are no sanctions if you violate the flag code. The flag code tells you how you are to respect the flag.

The committee reviewed the flag code and reviewed it again.

Frankly, I was hoping we could come up with a compromise, Mr. Throckmorton said. Some way we could fly this flag because I know how much it means to many people in this community but I cant. I have studied the flag code and I believe its a violation.

Continued here:

BORDENTOWN CITY: Committee stands by decision to not fly flag

Penn Medicine Team to Examine Cognitive Impact of Space Flight as Part of NASA's Unprecedented Twin Astronaut Study

Posted on by

PHILADELPHIA A team of researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania will take part in a first-of-its-kind investigation by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) into the molecular, physiological and psychological effects of spaceflight on the human body by comparing identical twins. The unique opportunity is made possible by NASA's decision to fly veteran astronaut Scott Kelly aboard the International Space Station for one year, beginning March 2015, while his identical twin brother, retired astronaut Mark Kelly, remains on Earth. The research is part of NASAs continuous effort to reduce the health impacts of human space exploration.

Penns research team includes principal investigator Mathias Basner, MD, PhD, MSc, assistant professor of Sleep and Chronobiology, Department of Psychiatry, David F. Dinges, PhD, professor and chief, Division of Sleep and Chronobiology, Department of Psychiatry, and Ruben C. Gur, PhD, professor of Psychology, Director of Neuropsychology, the Brain Behavior Laboratory, and the Center for Neuroimaging in Psychiatry.

Their research will focus on psychosocial and neurobehavioral differences between the Kelly brothers including attention, spatial orientation, emotion recognition, and risk decision making, as a result of the spaceflight environment, which includes confinement, weightlessness, stress, and space radiation. "This is a unique opportunity to substantially increase our knowledge of the effects of prolonged exposure to the space flight environment on human physiology and cognition which will help us to better plan for a human mission to Mars, Basner said.

Using twins for the study will allow researchers to examine more subtle changes caused by spaceflight than previously understood. Since the twins have essentially almost identical DNA and DNA controls the biomolecular workings of the body any difference are likely due to spaceflight and not because the two subjects are genetically distinct.

In addition to the work by the Penn team, NASA's Human Research Program (HRP) will fund nine other studies of the Kelly brothers designed to better understand the effects of microgravity on the human body at the molecular level. These studies will look at the way genes in the cells are turned on and off as a result of spaceflight; and how stressors like radiation, confinement and microgravity prompt changes in the proteins and metabolites gathered in biological samples like blood, saliva, urine and stool. The National Space Biomedical Research Institute is partnering with HRP to provide genetic counseling and assisting in the management of the research.

In order to launch the new twin study, scientific and technical experts from academia and government reviewed 40 proposals submitted in response to NASAs research announcement "Human Exploration Research Opportunities - Differential Effects on Homozygous Twin Astronauts Associated with Differences in Exposure to Spaceflight Factors." The 10 selected proposals, which are from 10 institutions in seven states, will receive a combined $1.5 million during a three-year period.

For more information on the study, please visit the NASA website.

Original post:

Penn Medicine Team to Examine Cognitive Impact of Space Flight as Part of NASA's Unprecedented Twin Astronaut Study

String Theory Genius Explains The Coming Breakthroughs That Will Change Life As We Know It

Posted on by

String field theory co-founder Michio Kaku did not even try to explain his controversial yet undeniably brilliant cosmological theory of everything during his interview on Reddit, beyond this analogy:

"In string theory, all particles are vibrations on a tiny rubber band; physics is the harmonies on the string; chemistry is the melodies we play on vibrating strings; the universe is a symphony of strings, and the 'Mind of God' is cosmic music resonating in 11 dimensional hyperspace."

(The "Mind of God" is what Stephen Hawking said we would understand once we completed a theory of everything.)

While Kaku's cursory approach annoyed some Redditors (the top-voted response brings up problems with string field theory like its lack of testable theses that he did not address), it allowed him to discuss a wide array of fascinating topics he has covered in his further research.

Kaku's media tour is meant to promote his new book, "The Future Of The Mind."

Some highlights from Reddit:

On coming breakthroughs:

"Time travel and teleportation will have to wait. It may take centuries to master these technology. But within the coming decades, we will understand dark matter, perhaps test string theory, find planets which can harbor life, and maybe have Brain 2.0, i.e. our consciousness on a disk which will survive even after we die.

"I think, in the coming years, we will have a brain pacemaker that can stimulate the memory of people with Alzheimer's disease. They will be able to upload simple memories of who they are and where they live. Beyond that, we will be able to use electronics to upload vacations we never had, perhaps. And the internet itself will be a brain-net of emotions and memories.

"The 20 century was the century of physics, with computers, lasers, TV, radio, GPS, the internet, etc. Physics, in turn, has made possible that can probe biology. So I think the 21st century will be the century of physics and biology, esp. biology that can be explored via physics. So the future belongs to nanotech, biotech, AI, and quantum physics."

Read the rest here:

String Theory Genius Explains The Coming Breakthroughs That Will Change Life As We Know It

Biotechnology could extend criminals' lives to make punishment last HUNDREDS of years

Posted on by

This is the scenario being explored by researchers at Oxford University They claim life extension tech could mean prisoners serve longer sentences Philosopher Dr Rebecca Roache also writes in her blog that a time distortion pill could make people feel like they were in prison longer Another scenario the group looked at was uploading mind to a digital realm Running it a million times faster than normal would enable the uploaded criminal to serve a 1,000 year sentence in eight-and-a-half hours

By Ellie Zolfagharifard

PUBLISHED: 05:37 EST, 14 March 2014 | UPDATED: 12:54 EST, 14 March 2014

1,723 shares

525

View comments

Sentencing a criminal to 1,000 years in an artificial hell may one day become a reality.

At least, that is the claim of scientists at Oxford University who have been exploring controversial technologies that could extend human life.

They say billions are being invested in techniques that could mean the cruellest criminals will be kept alive indefinitely in condition befitting their crime.

Last year, a team of scientists led by Rebecca Roache began exploring technologies that could keep prisoners in an artificial hell

See the article here:

Biotechnology could extend criminals' lives to make punishment last HUNDREDS of years