A paper suggests that habitable zone waterworlds like Earth would usually have no land or very little land. This would be another factor that would make technological civilizations more rare. On a purely statistical basis, one naïvely expects to find a highly asymmetric division of land and ocean surface areas. A natural explanation for the …
Zooniverse volunteers on Exoplanet Explorers have discovered a new 4-planet system. This new planetary system, 597 light years away in the constellation Aquarius, has dips from four different planets. The planets take only 3 to 13 Earth days to orbit their star. The smallest is just shy of twice Earth’s size, and the largest is …
Construction and installation work formally started yesterday at the site of unit 2 of the Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran, Atomproekt, the reactor design subsidiary of Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom, announced today. The first foundation stone for units 2 and 3 of the plant was laid in a ceremony held at the construction …
The total value of all bitcoins in circulation hit a record high above $16 billion on Friday, as the web-based digital currency jumped 5 percent on the day to its highest levels in three years after more than doubling in price this year. The price of one bitcoin reached $875 on the Europe-based Bitstamp exchange, …
1. Forbes James Conca – Oops! – Rick Perry Chosen To Head Energy Department The former Texas Governor is President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to become the next Secretary for the Department of Energy (DOE). This is amazing given that Governor Perry wanted to kill the Department completely. Everyone seems fixated on shifting DOE away from …
Diane Bryant, executive vice president and general manager of the Data Center Group at Intel, says the Intel Nervana platforms will “produce breakthrough performance and dramatic reductions in the time to train complex neural networks.” She predicted that Intel would deliver a 100x increase in performance of deep learning training. Last week at SC16, Intel …
Bigelow Aerospace and Axiom Space — plan to launch habitat modules to orbit in 2020, with the aim of making some money off Earth. If all goes according to plan, private space stations will eventually form the backbone of commercial facilities that replace the International Space Station (ISS), which is currently funded through 2024. “Hopefully, …
A hormone injection has been shown to be a safe and effective method of contraception – for men. US researchers say the jab was almost 96% effective in tests on around 270 men who were using it, with four pregnancies among their partners. However, a relatively high number developed side effects, including acne and mood …
ALIAS ( ircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automation System) can fly a military helicopter and then move into another aircraft and fly that too— and ALIAS is not human. Driverless cars may have been making headlines of late, but DARPA’s ALIAS program has also been making great strides in the development of “digital pilot” technology. The brainchild …
An F-35A Joint Strike Fighter preparing for a training mission at Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho, caught fire just before takeoff, according to the Air Force. The Air Force F-35A Lightning II, assigned to the 56th Fighter Wing, experienced what the service said was a “ground emergency” at about 12:20 p.m. eastern Friday at …
Video footage seen by New Scientist appears to show a dog walking three weeks after its spinal cord was almost completely severed. Italian neurosurgeon Sergio Canavero says the technique used to treat the dog will make a human head transplant possible next year. The idea is that someone paralysed from the neck down, for example, …