On Saturday, June 23, 2018, a team of experts from Botswana, South Africa, Finland and the United States of America recovered a fresh meteorite in Botswana’s Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR). The meteorite is one of the fragments of asteroid 2018 LA which collided with Earth on June 2, 2018 and turned into a meteor […]
Category: Technology
Belkin power bank charges with your iPhone’s Lightning cable
The need to use proprietary Lightning cables with your iPhone creates some complications, including for external batteries — you’ll have to carry a separate cable just to top up your power pack. We can’t guarantee that Apple will solve the problem by switching to USB, but you can get the next best thing. Belkin has […]
Is your Android phone watching you? Study of more than 17,000 popular apps reveals ‘disturbing practice’
Researchers who set out to investigate whether smartphones eavesdrop on consumers’ conversations debunked one conspiracy theory and ended up finding another “disturbing practice.” Five researchers from Northeastern University in Boston, who specialize in computer science, studied more than 17,000 popular Android apps — nearly half of which were allowed access to a user’s camera and […]
Researchers upend conventional wisdom on thermal conductivity
Scientists have long known that diamond is the best material for conducting heat, but it has drawbacks: It is costly and is an electrical insulator; when paired with a semiconductor device, diamond expands at a different rate than the device does when it is heated. Now a group of researchers from around the United States […]
Synopsis: Collective Spin Behavior in an Ultracold Quantum Gas
In an ultracold quantum gas, collective interactions among the particles can lead to many forms of unusual behavior, such as superfluidity. Researchers have now observed a new collective phenomenon in a spinor gas—an ultracold atomic cloud that has both magnetic and superfluid properties. Laurent Vernac and colleagues from the University of Paris 13 in Villetaneuse […]
Einstein gets it right again—weak and strong gravity objects fall the same way
Einstein’s understanding of gravity, as outlined in his general theory of relativity, predicts that all objects fall at the same rate, regardless of their mass or composition. This theory has passed test after test here on Earth, but does it still hold true for some of the most massive and dense objects in the known […]
A matter of gravity—understanding how plants grow in space
Last month a rocket thundered off a NASA launch pad in Virginia, destined for the International Space Station. Nestled among the 7,400 lbs. of supplies was a handful of seeds designed to open new windows into our knowledge of how plants grow in space – information that could lead to growing fresh food in space […]
Want to know how to save big on AI and machine learning?
Events If you’re sweating about how to get on top of machine learning and AI, snap up an early bird ticket for MCubed, our three-day delve into how real organisations can exploit these technologies. With two superb keynote speakers, 36 conference sessions, and four optional deep dive workshops, there’s no better way to get to […]
Can Markov Logic Take Machine Learning to the Next Level?
Advances in machine learning, including deep learning, have propelled artificial intelligence (AI) into the public conscience and forced executives to create new business plans based on data. However, the scarcity of highly trained data scientists has stymied many machine learning implementations, potentially blocking future AI development. Now a group of academics and technologists say the […]
Google tries to calm controversy over app developers having access to your Gmail
Google has published a new blog post in response to a story from The Wall Street Journal yesterday that detailed how common it is for third-party app developers to be able to read and analyze the contents of a user’s Gmail message. While not offering any substantially new insights into the industry practice, now understood […]
Microsoft Surface Phone, Andromeda: what went wrong (again)
It doesn’t seem to be a good year for Microsoft fans, especially fans waiting for the Windows-powered mobile device to show them all who’s boss. Actually, it has never been a good few years for Windows Phone/Windows Mobile believers and, at least for now, it sounds like they never will have a good year. The […]
Why Particle Physicists Are Excited About This Mysterious Inconsistency
Scientists haven’t conclusively spotted any new particles since the Higgs boson, and that’s got some people worried—there are a ton of other physics puzzles remaining, many of which would require the presence of a new particle to resolve. But recently, there have been some tantalizing clues of new physics, perhaps a new particle, that many […]