Major climate model corrections needed to correct water loss from leaves

Errors in how scientists account for water loss from leaves may be skewing estimates of how much energy plants make through photosynthesis and cause errors in the models of how individual leaves function and even of the global climate. The errors are particularly pronounced when a plant’s water supply is limited — a condition of …

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IBM has made Carbon nanotubes transistors smaller and faster than silicon

IBM scientists have made carbon nanotube transistors smaller and faster silicon transistors. Carbon nanotube transistors have long had the potential to be better than silicon, but this is the first time when that promise has been realized. Now IBM and others will have to scale up superior carbon nanotube devices. IBM scientists have been experimenting …

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Hypersonic and anti-hypersonic arms race

Lockheed Martin is using turbine rocket combined cycle (TRCC) to build a mach 6-10 hypersonic plane. The TRCC is an engine that switches between turbofan, ramjet and scramjets for subsonic, supersonic, and hypersonic flight. The TRCC engine will be tested on a fighter-sized flight testbed by 2020. They would then try to develop a Mach …

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Mussels, crabs, and other emails living in ecosystem using oil as energy source

At asphalt volcanoes in the Gulf of Mexico that spew oil, gas and tar, mussels and sponges live in symbiosis with bacteria providing them with food. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology and colleagues from the USA have now discovered deep-sea animals living in symbiosis with bacteria that use oil as an …

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US plan for energy dominance includes reviving nuclear energy

The United States announced six goals to achieve global energy dominance. 1. Revive and expand nuclear energy sector 2. Address barriers to financing of overseas coal energy plants 3. Build an oil pipeline to Mexico 4. Sell more American natural gas to South Korea 5. Approve two long-term applications to export additional natural gas from …

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“Mind Reading” Technology to Decode Complex Thoughts

Carnegie Mellon University scientists can now use brain activation patterns to identify complex thoughts, such as, “The witness shouted during the trial.” This latest research led by CMU’s Marcel Just builds on the pioneering use of machine learning algorithms with brain imaging technology to “mind read.” The findings indicate that the mind’s building blocks for …

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10-fold speed up for the reconstruction of neuronal networks

Scientists working in „connectomics“, a research field occupied with the reconstruction of neuronal networks in the brain, are aiming at completely mapping of the millions or billions of neurons found in mammalian brains. In spite of impressive advances in electron microscopy, the key bottleneck for connectomics is the amount of human labor required for the …

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Evidence of Hidden dimensions could be revealed with high frequency gravitational wave detectors

Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute/AEI) in Potsdam found that hidden dimensions – as predicted by string theory – could influence gravitational waves. In a recently published paper they study the consequences of extra dimensions on these ripples in space-time, and predict whether their effects could be detected. LIGO’s …

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Origin of Homo Sapiens is at least 300,000 years ago based on new fossils instead of 200,000 years

New finds of fossils and stone tools from the archaeological site of Jebel Irhoud, Morocco, push back the origins of our species by one hundred thousand years and show that by about 300 thousand years ago important changes in our biology and behavior had taken place across most of Africa. The first of our kind. …

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Graphene dialysis membrane is ten times faster at filtering and will become 100 times faster

MIT engineers have fabricated a functional dialysis membrane from a sheet of graphene — a single layer of carbon atoms, linked end to end in hexagonal configuration like that of chicken wire. The graphene membrane, about the size of a fingernail, is less than 1 nanometer thick. (The thinnest existing memranes are about 20 nanometers …

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Elon Musk tunnel to LAX would reduce travel time from an hour to five minutes

Elon Musk and his Boring company have begun digging a tunnel from his Spacex facility in Westwood to Los Angeles Airport. The tunnel will have sleds installed which will move cars at 125 miles per hour. The tunnel and sled system will take what is now a one hour trip from Westwood to LAX from …

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