The known Universe just got a lot bigger.
A new map of the night sky published Tuesday charts hundreds of thousands of previously unknown galaxies discovered using a telescope that can detect light sources optical instruments cannot see. Current latest trending Philippine headlines on science, technology breakthroughs, hardware devices, geeks, gaming, web/desktop applications, mobile apps, social media buzz and gadget reviews.
Scientists said Monday they had discovered immune cells that can fight all known flu viruses in what was hailed as an “extraordinary breakthrough” that could lead to a universal, one-shot vaccine against the killer disease.
Influenza epidemics, largely seasonal, kill hundreds of thousands of people each year, according to the World Health Organization.
Due to its mutating strains, vaccine formulas must be regularly updated and only offer limited protection currently.
A great analogy can often be the key to innovation, making it possible to transfer knowledge from one domain to another. Now researchers have shown that rather than relying on eureka moments, crowdsourcing and AI can dramatically speed up the search for these parallels.
Examples of analogies leading to major breakthroughs range from Edison’s early work in motion pictures to Kepler’s elucidation of the laws of planetary motion. But being able to strip away superficial differences and understand the underlying similarities between solutions to diverse problems has so far largely relied on individual genius.
That doesn’t need to be the case, though, according to the authors of a recent paper in PNAS. By splitting the task up and leveraging the strengths of both crowdsourcing and AI, they were able to find novel analogies that could help solve a variety of problems in creative ways.
The recent SpaceX Raptor engine was actually a real breakthrough. It was a holy grail desired by NASA and the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union almost had it, but when we landed on the Moon they stopped development. The engine is a “full-flow staged combustion” engine.
“Full-flow staged combustion (FFSC) is a twin-shaft staged combustion cycle that uses both oxidizer-rich and fuel-rich preburners. The cycle allows full flow of both propellants through the turbines; hence the name The fuel turbopump is driven by the fuel-rich preburner, and the oxidizer turbopump is driven by the oxidizer-rich preburner”
Followers of the Church of Elon will no doubt already be aware of SpaceX’s latest technical triumph: the test firing of the first full-scale Raptor engine. Of course, it was hardly a secret. As he often does, Elon has been “leaking” behind the scenes information, pictures, and even video of the event on his Twitter account. Combined with the relative transparency of SpaceX to begin with, this gives us an exceptionally clear look at how literal rocket science is performed at the Hawthorne, California based company.
This openness has been a key part of SpaceX’s popularity on the Internet (that, and the big rockets), but its been especially illuminating in regards to the Raptor. The technology behind this next generation engine, known as “full-flow staged combustion” has for decades been considered all but impossible by the traditional aerospace players. Despite extensive research into the technology by the Soviet Union and the United States, no engine utilizing this complex combustion system has even been flown. Yet, just six years after Elon announced SpaceX was designing the Raptor, they’ve completed their first flight-ready engine.
The full-flow staged combustion engine is often considered the “Holy Grail” of rocketry, as it promises to extract the most possible energy from its liquid propellants. In a field where every ounce is important, being able to squeeze even a few percent more thrust out of the vehicle is worth fighting for. Especially if, like SpaceX, you’re planning on putting these new full-flow engines into the world’s largest operational booster rocket and spacecraft.
For most of us, receiving junk mail is an annoyance. For Sydney woman Lisa Hayes, it’s a thrill.
She was born completely blind and has never known what it’s like to scan through the items in unsolicited catalogues that get stuffed into her letter box. That was until last September when she received a small device that clips onto a pair of glasses and uses sophisticated artificial intelligence technology to recognise faces and read text for her.
“It’s one of the best things I’ve ever had,” she tells news.com.au. Ms Hayes, 50, and says the device has transformed her life.
(Natural News) A recent breakthrough in high-intensity focused ultrasound therapy (HIFU) technology has proven its use as an effective cancer treatment. A multi-institutional research team from China developed a semi-enclosed, spherical cavity transducer that can produce a focused, standing-wave field with a subwavelength-scale focal region and extremely high ultrasound intensity. The spherical cavity transducer appeared to generate tighter focal regions and greater pressure amplitude compared with the traditional concave spherical transducer. Researchers said the level of intensity generated by the new transducer design may lead to significant improvements in HIFU therapy. The findings were published in the Journal of Applied Physics.
HIFU is a non-invasive, targeted treatment that makes use of sound waves to eradicate cancer cells. HIFU uses an ultrasonic transducer to convert electrical signals into sound waves, then concentrates ultrasound into a small focal region to raise the temperature to more than 65 decrees Celsius, thereby killing cancer cells in the process without inducing damage to surrounding tissues. The technique works in the same manner as focusing sunlight through a lens, which helps eliminate the disease-causing cells.
HIFU can be used as an alternative to traditional cancer treatments such as chemotherapy and surgery.
Circa 2015
Researchers have used an infrared laser to cool water by about 2°C (36°F) — a major breakthrough in the field. As they are cooled by the laser, the nanocrystals developed by the University of Washington team emit a reddish-green ‘glow’ (shown) that can be seen by the naked eye.
‘Typically, when you go to the movies and see Star Wars laser blasters, they heat things up’, senior author and assistant professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Washington Peter Pauzauskie explained.
‘It was really an open question as to whether this could be done because normally water warms when illuminated.’
New York: Researchers say they have developed an innovative new system for delivering a malaria vaccine that shows promise in its effectiveness. By developing a vaccine that targets specific cells in the immune system, researchers from the University of Chicago in the US saw a much greater immune and antibody response to the vaccine.
Though a vaccine for malaria exists, it is only effective in 30 to 50 per cent of patients, and malaria is still responsible for nearly 500,000 deaths annually, according to the US Centers for Disease Control. “When compared to the current malaria vaccine option, our results are extremely exciting,” said Jeffrey Hubbell, a professor at the University of Chicago.
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