Submarine drones could grow a lot kelp in the open ocean

Marine BioEnergy is collaborating with a research team at the University of Southern California, Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies. US Department of Energy, Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) has provided $2.1 million in funding for a proof of concept. Kelp grows best 100 and 300 meters beneath the surface, or where there are …

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So long Global Warming and thanks for all of the fish

About 37 percent of Earth’s land area is used for agricultural land. About one-third of this area, or 11 percent of Earth’s total land, is used for crops. The balance, roughly one-fourth of Earth’s land area, is pastureland, which includes cultivated or wild forage crops for animals and open land used for grazing. There is …

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Ocean fish farming could commercialize in 2018

InnovaSea Systems has raised $15 million to develop an all-in-one system for farming fish in the open ocean. They plan to bring the product to market in 2018. They will test its technology at fish farms in Panama and Mexico. Brian WangBrian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 …

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Mud Volcanoes in Mariana Trench area reveal evidence of life from 10 kilometers below the sea floor

An interdisciplinary team of scientists led by scientists from Utrecht University with participation from University of Gothenburg have found new clues about how deep life may extend into the Earth’s interior near the deepest place on our planet – the Challenger Deep in the Pacific Ocean. In their paper published in the Proceedings of the …

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Brain-computer interface allows fast, accurate typing by people with paralysis

In a Stanford-led research report, three participants with movement impairment controlled an onscreen cursor simply by imagining their own hand movements. The report involved three study participants with severe limb weakness — two from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also called Lou Gehrig’s disease, and one from a spinal cord injury. They each had one or two …

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Illumina Introduces the NovaSeq Series—a New Architecture Designed to Usher in the $100 Genome sequence

Illumina the global leader in next-generation sequencing technology, today introduced the NovaSeqTM Series, a new and scalable sequencing architecture expected one day to enable a $100 genome. Unveiled at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, this platform redefines high throughput sequencing with unrivaled throughput, ease of use, low per sample costs, and unmatched flexibility. NovaSeq is …

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Researchers remove mutated DNA from mitochondria to slow or reverse a cause of aging

Researchers from Caltech and UCLA have developed a new approach to removing cellular damage that accumulates with age. The technique can potentially help slow or reverse an important cause of aging. Led by Nikolay Kandul, senior postdoctoral scholar in biology and biological engineering in the laboratory of Professor of Biology Bruce Hay, the team developed …

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Korea unveils door-to-door self-driving taxi

A team from Seoul National University on Tuesday unveiled a door-to-door self-driving taxi for the first time in the nation. Called Snuber 2, it is an upgraded version of an app-based self-driving taxi Snuber developed in November 2015. The new autonomous car developed with Hyundai’s Genesis sedan is capable of tracking moving subjects, avoiding collision …

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Alibaba’s Jack Ma sees 3-5 tough years for China but then about 5% GDP per year for 15 years

China’s economy will face “a difficult three to five years” but the slowdown will be good for its long-term development, Alibaba executive chairman Jack Ma told the South China Morning Post in an interview just before the e-commerce giant’s takeover of the 113-year-old newspaper. Ma said the Chinese economy was indeed grappling with structural problems …

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Photos of China J-20 stealth fighter with camouflage paint as they move toward 2019 combat readiness and the start of full production

The Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group (CAC) is involved in preparation for some kind of aerial display involving the low-rate initial production (LRIP) J-20A. This included what was essentially a semiofficial ‘presentation’ of the J-20A with a flurry of news reports and images issued between September 30 and October 1. Four pre-production aircraft — two of …

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