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A bot from Open AI defeated professional gamer Danylo “Dendi” Ishutin in a one-on-one exhibition matchup of the video game Dota 2. OpenAI is the $1 billion artificial-intelligence...

Researchers have demonstrated the transmission of two separate video signals through a terahertz multiplexer at a data rate more than 100 times faster than today’s fastest cellular data networks....

CRISPR DNA editing is allowing correction of many diseases. But many other diseases are linked to RNA. Biotech startup Locana is using the power of CRISPR to develop treatments for disease caused by...

Carnival of Space 521 is up at Universe Today Universe Today – Hubble Eyes Stratosphere Around a Very Hot, Watery Jupiter! Artist’s concept of the hot Jupiter WASP-121b, which presents...

The Carnival of Space 520 is at the Urban Astronomer Universe Today – Advanced Civilizations Could Build a Galactic Internet with Planetary Transits In a recently-published paper (arxiv – Exoplanet Transits as the Foundation of an Interstellar Communications Network) , Dr. Duncan H. Forgan of St. Andrews University proposed that extra-terrestrial civilizations could be communicating with each other by creating artificial transits of their respective stars. This sort of “galactic internet” could be how advanced species are attempting to signal us right now. An ETI ’A’ can communicate with ETI ’B’ if B is observing transiting planets in A’s star

The Carnival of space 519 is at The Evolving Planet Universe Today – Strange Radio Signals Detected from a Nearby Star scientists from the Arecido Observatory recently announced the detection of a strange radio signal coming from Ross 128 – a red dwarf star system located just 11 light-years from Earth. As always, this has fueled speculation that the signal could be evidence of an extra-terrestrial civilization, while the scientific community has urged the public not to get their hopes up. The discovery was part of a campaign being conducted by Abel Méndez – the director of the Planetary Habitability

Pedestrian Observations has a comparison of world subway, tunnel and rail costs. There are updated comparisons of construction costs. In non-English-speaking developed countries, the typical range for urban subways is $100-300 million per km, with a few outliers in both directions. In the US the cost of tunnels and subways is about $1.5-6 billion per mile. 1. Elon Musk’s Boring company is looking to cut the diameter of the tunnels they dig, moving from the traditional tunnel diameter for passenger vehicles of 26 to 28-feet to a 12-foot standard diameter which would be sufficient for the Tesla skate. On the

Gene-edited piglets have been cleaned of viruses that might cause disease in humans. There were 33,600 organ transplants last year in the USA, and 116,800 patients on waiting lists and there are around one billion pigs in the world. 100 million pigs are killed each year in the USA for food. A few tens of thousand of pigs grown for their organs would represent just a small fraction of that total, and that they would be used to save human lives. The animals would be anesthetized and killed humanely. Harvard professor George Church founded a company, eGenesis, in hopes of

Ad Astra is working to boost the endurance of the Vasimr plasma rocket to 100 hours of continuous firing at a power level of 100 kilowatts, by 2018. Ad Astra Rocket Company has successfully completed all contract milestones and deliverables for the second of its three-year Next Space Technology Exploration Partnerships (NextSTEP) contract with NASA. The 9 million dollar, fixed-price contract remains on schedule and on budget. After a successful year-two performance review at NASA Headquarters in Washington D.C. on July 24, 2017 and completion of a 10-hour cumulative test of the 200SSTM rocket at 100kW, Ad Astra received NASA

Kraig Biocraft Laboratories, the leading developer of spider silk based fibers, announced that the U.S. Army awarded the optional phase of its contract with the Company valued at more than $900,000. Under this exercised option, the Company will work to design, produce, and deliver additional recombinant spider silk materials tailored for the protective needs of our Soldiers. With this additional award the total contract is now valued at more than $1.0 million. Genetically modified spider silk could be used to make more protective armor and underwear for soldiers. Spider silk isn’t as strong as Kevlar, it’s more flexible. In 2014,

The head of the Pentagon’s missile defense agency on Thursday said recent missile intercept tests give him confidence the U.S. can protect itself from wide variety of threats, including an intercontinental ballistic missile from North Korea. This July 28, 2017, photo distributed by the North Korean government shows what was said to be the launch of a Hwasong 14 intercontinental ballistic missile at an undisclosed location in North Korea. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP) The U.S. Missile Defense Agency used a ground-based interceptor launched from a silo in Vandenberg Air Force Base in California to successfully shoot

Tesla is developing a long-haul, electric semi-truck that can drive itself and move in “platoons” that automatically follow a lead vehicle, and is getting closer to testing a prototype, according to an email discussion of potential road tests between the car company and the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), seen by Reuters. California officials are meeting with Tesla on Wednesday “to talk about Tesla’s efforts with autonomous trucks,” state DMV spokeswoman Jessica Gonzalez said. The correspondence and meeting show that Tesla is putting self-driving technology into the electric truck it has said it plans to unveil in September, and

Roger Shawyer is the original inventor of the Emdrive. He claims to have a new generation EmDrive and has filed for a patent in the UK. The Emdrive is super-controversial propellantless space drive. Many argue that there are problems with the physics of EmDrive claims. Here is part of Shawyers most recent presentation and his patent application. First generation emdrive- Original low thrust technology for inorbit satellite applications. Reported to be operational in US and China. NASA eagleworks has a peer reviewed report of 1.2 millinewtons per kilowatt of thrust from a first generation emdrive. Second Generation emdrive High thrust,

Here are some interesting videos where a 50 caliber gun shoots regular and armor piercing rounds and a 20 mm gun shoots against titanium. An inch and half of titanium does not get penetrated by the armor piercing 50 cal or 20 mm. Although with 90 degree angle there is deeper penetration.

Nextbigfuture wrote about the designs for an improved nuclear thermal rocket by John Bucknell. John has worked as a senior engineer on the Spacex Raptor rocket. John provides high quality qualified work to his rocket designs and to his proposed space habitat. Nextbigfuture comments had some technical observations about Project Timberwind and a comment from John himself that his design improves on flaws in the last major nuclear thermal rocket experiments. There were also comments and discussion about Star Trek and communism and O’Neill space stations. Reddit futurology had two comments. One positive comment by the submitter and a negative

A shot of klotho, a hormone associated with longevity, seems to make mice smarter. Klotho is a naturally occurring hormone in the body. More than two decades ago, Japanese researchers discovered that this hormone plays a role in aging. People with more klotho in their body, tend to live longer and to retain more of their faculties—that is to stay sharp—well into old age. Researchers injected three types of mice with a portion of the protein. They injected young mice, aged mice, and mice genetically altered to have brains similar to that which we would see in Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s

File a comment with the FCC to let them know that affordable true high speed (1+ Gbps) is needed. The FCC wants to ditch the requirement to provide higher speed internet and try to say that the current slow speeds that have existed for about 20 years are good enough. Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act requires the FCC to determine whether broadband (or more formally, “advanced telecommunications capability”) is being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion. The Notice of Inquiry says that “advanced telecommunications capability is provided in different circumstances using fixed or mobile service.”

The brain loses flexibility with age, impacting the ability to learn, remember, and adapt. Now, scientists at University of Utah Health report they can rejuvenate the plasticity of the mouse brain, specifically in the visual cortex, increasing its ability to change in response to experience. Manipulating a single gene triggers the shift, revealing it as a potential target for new treatments that could recover the brain’s youthful potential. “It’s exciting because it suggests that by just manipulating one gene in adult brains, we can boost brain plasticity,” says lead investigator Jason Shepherd, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Neurobiology and Anatomy at

After conducting a cosmic inventory of sorts to calculate and categorize stellar-remnant black holes, astronomers from the University of California, Irvine have concluded that there are probably tens of millions of the enigmatic, dark objects in the Milky Way – far more than expected. “We think we’ve shown that there are as many as 100 million black holes in our galaxy,” said UCI chair and professor of physics & astronomy James Bullock, co-author of a research paper on the subject in the current issue of Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. UCI’s celestial census began more than a year

Patagotitan mayorum, the long-necked behemoth lived about 102 million years ago and was likely more than 120 feet long and weighed 69 tons, or about the same as 12 African elephants (the current largest land dweller). By those numbers, Patagotitan just edges out the previous “largest dinosaur ever,” another titanosaur called Dreadnoughtus. Researchers describes a new giant titanosaur, which represents the largest species described so far and one of the most complete titanosaurs. Its inclusion in an extended phylogenetic analysis and the optimization of body mass reveals the presence of an endemic clade of giant titanosaurs inhabited Patagonia between the

Tissue Nanotransfection (TNT), that can generate any cell type of interest for treatment within the patient’s own body. This technology may be used to repair injured tissue or restore function of aging tissue, including organs, blood vessels and nerve cells. “By using our novel nanochip technology, injured or compromised organs can be replaced. We have shown that skin is a fertile land where we can grow the elements of any organ that is declining,” said Dr. Chandan Sen, director of Ohio State’s Center for Regenerative Medicine & Cell Based Therapies, who co-led the study with L. James Lee, professor of

Mazda Motor Corp said it would become the world’s first automaker to commercialize a much more efficient petrol engine using technology that deep-pocketed rivals have been trying to engineer for decades, a twist in an industry increasingly going electric. The new compression ignition engine is 20 percent to 30 percent more fuel efficient than the Japanese automaker’s current engines and uses a technology that has eluded the likes of Daimler AG and General Motors Co. Mazda, with a research and development (R and D) budget a fraction of those of major peers, said it plans to sell cars with the

Northwestern Medicine scientists and engineers have invented a range of bioactive “tissue papers” made of materials derived from organs that are thin and flexible enough to even fold into an origami bird. The new biomaterials can potentially be used to support natural hormone production in young cancer patients and aid wound healing. The tissue papers are made from structural proteins excreted by cells that give organs their form and structure. The proteins are combined with a polymer to make the material pliable. In the study, individual types of tissue papers were made from ovarian, uterine, kidney, liver, muscle or heart

Nerves are taut in China over the structural integrity of the Great Wall at Badaling as engineers blast a tunnel deep underneath for a record-breaking high-speed railway, and a cavernous station. China is using precision micro blasting to dig high speed rail underneath the great wall withouat damaging the wall. The 12-km-long tunnel will sink to a maximum depth of 432 meters under the most visited section of China’s Great Wall, completed in 1504, to carry a trains running at 350km/h between Beijing and the city of Zhangjiakou ahead of the 2022 Winter Olympics, which the two cities are co-hosting.

When the HK$84.4 billion (US$12 billion) high speed railway is up and running in the third quarter of 2018, mainland China officers will be able to exercise almost full jurisdiction in a 25 per cent portion of the terminus that the central government will lease from the local government. They expect in the next two to three months, Hong Kong citizens will welcome the joint immigration and customs facilities at the high-speed railway after thorough explanation. “Only such an arrangement can unleash the economic and social benefits brought by the high-speed railway.” China Railway’s general manager, Lu Dongfu, said the

John Bucknell presented at the Starship Congress 2017 his Nuclear Thermal Turbo Rocket and applied for a single stage to orbit mission of placing a space habitat. John Bucknell worked on the Spacex Raptor rocket as a senior engineer so he is very qualified to understand current rocket technology and rockets in general. Nextbigfuture has noted that NASA has funded $18.8 million on advancing nuclear thermal rocket propulsion by studying low enriched uranium for the fuel. Nuclear-powered rocket concepts are not new. The United States conducted studies and significant ground tests from 1955 to 1972 to determine the viability of

AquaBounty Technologies in Maynard, Massachusetts, announced last week that it has sold about 4.5 tonnes of GM salmon fillets to unnamed customers in Canada – where the authorities last year gave approval for the produce to be sold as food. Aquabounty received regulatory approval from Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency last year, sold approximately five tons of fresh AquAdvantage® Salmon fillets at market price to customers in Canada. The engineered Atlantic salmon are equipped with a growth hormone gene from chinook salmon that makes them grow much faster than standard salmon. A second added gene from the

A lawyerbot called Do Not Pay helps people contest parking tickets. In London and New York, it helped people overturn 160,000 tickets in its first 21 months. Its creator, 19-year-old London-born Stanford student Joshua Browder observed: “I think the people getting parking tickets are the most vulnerable in society. These people aren’t looking to break the law. I think they’re being exploited as a revenue source by the local government.” There’s not much doubt about that. Local governments pretend it’s about safety, but use traffic fines for revenue. Those fines fall hardest on poor people, for whom a $150 fine

A report published by Bloomberg Intelligence in June said factories planned by Chinese companies could have the battery capacity to produce more than 120 GWh by 2021 – enough to supply 1.5 million Tesla Model S vehicles. This will be over three times initial the battery cell capacity of the Tesla Gigafactory at 35 GWh. As of 2014, the projected capacity of Gigafactory for 2020 was to have been 35 gigawatt-hours per year of cells as well as 50 gigawatt-hours per year (5.7 MW) of battery packs. During the 2016 Tesla Shareholders Meeting, Elon Musk announced that the company could

Nature Biotechnology – Digital-to-biological converter for on-demand production of biologics Nextbigfuture covered this a few days ago in a biological teleporter article. Synthetic Genomics has developed a digital-to-biological converter for fully automated, versatile and demand-based production of functional biologics starting from DNA sequence information. Specifically, DNA templates, RNA molecules, proteins and viral particles were produced in an automated fashion from digitally transmitted DNA sequences without human intervention. Researchers at SG have used the device to remotely synthesize viruses and claim they are on the cusp of doing the same with a so-called minimal cell, a major step toward remotely printing

Viacyte, privately-held, leading regenerative medicine company, announced today that the first patients have been implanted with the PEC-Direct™ product candidate, a novel islet cell replacement therapy in development as a functional cure for patients with type 1 diabetes who are at high risk for acute life-threatening complications. The first implant procedures of the clinical trial took place at the University of Alberta Hospital in Edmonton, Alberta, and the UC San Diego School of Medicine’s Altman Clinical Trials Research Institute. The goal of the open-label clinical trial is to evaluate the PEC-Direct product candidate for safety and definitive evidence of efficacy.

Devtak Designs has a 4.85 pound helmet with 7 mm plates that claims 80% ballastic (bullet proof) protection. The 7mm strong plates can deflect gunshots and protects against shrapnel, blasts and fire. British SAS soldiers are reported to be testing out the Devtak Ronin helmets. US Navy SEALs and Army Delta Force have used Devtak helmets. It picks up signals from other people through “friend or foe” vision and is air conditioned to protect against heat and gases. The US and UK have the following standards for body armor and bullet proof vests.

As NASA pursues innovative, cost-effective alternatives to conventional propulsion technologies to forge new paths into the solar system, researchers at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, say nuclear thermal propulsion technologies are more promising than ever, and have contracted with BWXT Nuclear Energy, Inc. of Lynchburg, Virginia, to further advance and refine those concepts. Part of NASA’s Game Changing Development Program, the Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP) project could indeed significantly change space travel, largely due to its ability to accelerate a large amount of propellant out of the back of a rocket at very high speeds, resulting in

Our World in data shows the trends in advances against extreme poverty and other gains. Our World in Data tracks population, health, energy, food and other statistics.

Boeing and SpaceX have indicated that they are on track to hit target launch dates in 2018. A July 20 report released by NASA shows that SpaceX is still targeting an unmanned test flight in February 2018 and a crewed flight in June 2018, and Boeing is aiming to launch an unmanned test flight in June 2018 and a crewed flight in August 2018. Boeing also plans to conduct pad abort tests in early 2018. SpaceX plans to launch its Dragon 2 on an upgraded version of the Falcon 9 rocket known as Block 5, currently in development. The Block

This month a new high-speed railway line began operating between Paris and Bordeaux—reducing travel time from three hours twenty-five minutes to two hours and four minutes. This makes day trips between cities practical, and will further open up southwest France to visitors. Although there are currently multiple daily flights between cities, travel time between city centers and outlying airports can take between 30 and 45 minutes, making the train journey a more rapid alternative to flight. It took five years of serious civil engineering efforts, and $9.1 billion (7.8 billion Euros) to lay these tracks and infrastructure across 117 communities

Spacex will launch a 5400 kilogram SES-11 satellite into geosynchronous orbit using a previously used first stage. Launching Dragons to low Earth orbit (LEO) makes for a considerably cooler and less damaging recovery for Falcon 9 first stages, likely leading to an easier refurbishment process. Spacex previously launched SES-10 with a reused first stage that launched SpaceX’s CRS-8 mission.

Tesla will only build the $49,000 310 mile range Tesla Model 3 with upgraded interior version until at least November. The base $35,000 Model 3 will not be available until sometime in 2018. A $5,000 package upgrades the interior to something more in keeping with luxury car standards. It costs another $1,500 if you want 19″ wheels instead of the standard 18″ wheels, $1,000 for a color other than black, and $5,000 to activate Autopilot. An extra $3,000 will unlock “full self-driving” capabilities — once regulators give the green light. A fully loaded Model 3 would cost nearly $60,000 today.

Stealth, or aircraft signature reduction, is a potent and viable military capability in modern combat, and will remain so well into the future. It is not, however, an all or nothing capability, as some critiques have suggested. Investments in stealth technology significantly improve the ability of US aircraft to penetrate enemy air defenses and create significant costs for adversaries who attempt to defend against this technology. In certain environments, stealth may have the ability to penetrate with little support. However, stealth is most effective when employed in concert with other aircraft, tactics, and capabilities. Adding stealth to a multicapability force

A drug commonly used to treat diabetes may have disease-modifying potential to treat Parkinson’s disease, a new UCL-led study suggests, paving the way for further research to define its efficacy and safety. The study, published in The Lancet and funded by The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research (MJFF), found that people with Parkinson’s who injected themselves each week with exenatide for one year performed better in movement (motor) tests than those who injected a placebo. “This is a very promising finding, as the drug holds potential to affect the course of the disease itself, and not merely the

IBM recently announced one with 16 qubits—the components needed to build a quantum computer—and Google is gunning for around 50 qubits this year. Rigetti has made chips with 8 qubits; it says the new fab will speed up the experimentation needed to increase that number. Rigetti has developed a highly coherent and scalable quantum integrated circuit architecture. Two key ingredients are a new fab process for superconducting through-silicon vias, and a low-temperature bonding process for 3D integration. As part of a 3D quantum integrated circuit architecture, a cap chip forms the upper half of an enclosure that provides isolation, increases

A new wearable device hopes to deliver supplies to US Marines and soldiers on demand, instead of leaving members of the armed forces to carry supplies on their back. The PCARD, or personal combat assistant and reporting device, has been created by Marine staff sergeant Alexander Long and allows those is the field to tap into the likes of food, water and ammunition in real time. The device itself is smaller than a standard smartphone, with each individual fire team member able to submit a request when supplies are running low. This is then conveyed to the squad leader, who

Supercapacitors have long been far faster charging than batteries but usually have 40 times less energy density (5 watt hours instead of 200 watt hours) compared to batteries. There are new supercapacitors being commercialized with 60 watt hours of energy density and 100 watt hour energy density is being reported in lab results. Yunasko is commercializing a 40 watt hour per kilogram hybrid battery-supercapacitor. The University of Surrey has reported contact lens polymer materials offering supercapacitors that are between 1,000-10,000 times more powerful than existing supercapacitors. There are also research on graphene based supercapacitors which also are promising to beat

General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS) announced today that its new 10 Mega Joule (MJ) medium range multi-mission railgun system has completed final assembly and factory acceptance test in preparation for transport to Dugway Proving Ground in Utah to begin testing. The 10 MJ railgun system has been designed and built by GA-EMS to provide multi-mission, multi-domain capability with greater flexibility and a smaller footprint for ship, land and mobile platforms. “The 10 MJ railgun system has our third generation railgun launcher, and includes our fifth generation pulsed power system and a new mounting system that allows the launcher to elevate

The Long Range stand off (LRSO) nuclear cruise missile program has been funded since 2013 and has received about $500 million in funding. The program will eventually cost $15-30 billion. There have been calls to cancel it. The LRSO would have a variable-yield weapon using a modified W80 warhead. The Air Force wishes to procure: 1,000–1,100 LRSO. That looks like a significant increase in the number of air-launched cruise missiles available for bomber missions. The Department of Energy is producing a new variant of the B61 gravity bomb that will be highly accurate and have a variable yield of 0.3

Beijing’s Belt and Road initiative is part and parcel of President Xi Jinping’s strategy to solidify China’s emergence as a great economic and military power, a leading expert on Asian economies said Wednesday. In May, 2017, China’s President Xi Jinping has pledged $124 billion (£96bn) for the scheme, known as the Belt and Road initiative. China will funnel an additional RMB 100 billion ($14.5 billion) into the Silk Road Fund, while the China Development Bank and Export-Import Bank will set up new lending schemes of 250 billion ($36.2 billion) and RMB 130 billion ($18.8 billion), respectively, for Belt and Road

Transatomic Power Corporation has been awarded a second voucher to complete work with the Argonne National Laboratory, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced last month. The voucher, awarded through the DOE’s Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (GAIN) initiative, will experimentally verify the physical properties of the fuel salt for Transatomic’s molten salt reactor technology, and will be conducted at the Argonne National Laboratory. This is the second year that GAIN has awarded vouchers to support advanced nuclear technology, and builds on successful outcomes from the program’s inaugural round. Last year, Transatomic was awarded a voucher for work at