In a windowless hangar in the California high desert, the final touches are coming together on an aircraft that could reshape aviation. The needle-nosed X-59 is all sweeping lines and unbroken curves, a narrow cockpit concealed in the centre. Designed and built by NASA and Lockheed Martin, this is the supersonic airplane of the future. And when it takes to the skies, NASA and Lockheed are hoping you won't even notice it flying by,...
The digital age is not making us stupid, says University of Cincinnati social/behavioral expert Anthony Chemero. "Despite the headlines, there is no scientific evidence that shows that smartphones and digital technology harm our biological cognitive abilities," says the professor of philosophy and psychology who recently co-authored a paper stating such in Nature Human Behaviour. In the paper, Chemero and colleagues at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management expound on the evolution of the digital age, explaining how smart...
In 1934, physicist Eugene Wigner made a theoretical prediction based on quantum mechanics that for 87 years went unseen. The theory suggested how a metal that normally conducts electricity could turn into a nonconducting insulator when the density of electrons is reduced. Wigner theorized that when electrons in metals are brought to ultra-cold temperatures, these electrons would be frozen in their tracks and form a rigid, non-electricity conducting structure – a crystal – instead...
Researchers have introduced an autonomous excavator system (AES) that can perform material loading tasks for long duration without human intervention while offering performance almost equivalent to that of an experienced human operator, Tech Xplore reports. AES is among the world's first uncrewed excavation systems to have been deployed in real-world scenarios and continuously operating for over 24 hours, bringing about industry-leading benefits in terms of enhanced safety and productivity. The researchers described their methodology...
The death of dinosaurs is widely accepted to have been caused by the impact of an asteroid on the Earth about 66 million years ago. However, palaeontologists have long debated whether they were in decline before the mass extinction. In a study published today in the journal Nature Communications, an international team of scientists suggests that they were in decline for as much as ten million years before the death blow, reports Phys.org. Lead author Fabien...
Research using machine learning on images of everyday items is improving the accuracy and speed of detecting respiratory diseases, reports Tech Xplore. Researchers from Edith Cowan University in Australia trained algorithms on a database of more than 1 million commonplace images and transferred this knowledge to identify characteristics of medical conditions that can be diagnosed with an X-ray. Results of this technique, known as transfer learning, achieved a 99.24 percent success rate when detecting COVID-19...
Researchers have found a low-cost way for backscatter radios to support high-throughput communication and 5G-speed Gb/sec data transfer using a single transistor. Employing a unique modulation approach in the 5G 24/28 Gigahertz (GHz) bandwidth, the researchers have shown that these passive devices can transfer data safely and robustly from virtually any environment. The findings were reported earlier this month in the journal Nature Electronics. "Typically, it was simplicity against cost. You could either do very...
Quick, accurate and easy-to-use, CRISPR-Cas9 has made genomic editing more efficient — and in so doing has erased many ethical barriers to editing the genes of heredity, reports Medical Xpress. "The ethical debate about what is now called human gene editing has gone on for more than 50 years," writes Dr. John H. Evans, co-director of the Institute for Practical Ethics at the University of California, San Diego. "For nearly that entire time, there...
The highly anticipated U.S. Pentagon report on UFOs released Friday reveals that all the bizarre sightings over the years fall into several categories, require more study, and remain largely unexplained and unidentified, reports CNET. "The limited amount of high-quality reporting on unidentified aerial phenomena hampers our ability to draw firm conclusions about the nature or intent of UAP," reads the summary of a report posted online by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. "... UAP clearly pose a...
Researchers have created an artificial tactile sensing system that mimics the way in which humans recognize objects in their surroundings via their sense of touch, reports Tech Xplore. This system uses sensors to capture data associated with the tactile properties of objects. Biological sensory systems convert tactile stimuli into action potentials through a process known as somatosensory transduction. Subsequently, they transmit these signals to the brain via afferent nerves. To emulate the human tactile system, the...
