Scientists have discovered a new species of human ancestor deep in a South African cave, adding a baffling new branch to the family tree.'
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/09/150910-human-evolution-change/
From Martian rats to mysterious women, alien hunters say the photos from the Mars rover prove there's life on the red planet. CNN's Ian Lee investigates.
NASA hopes to send astronauts to Mars in the next 20 years. At the moment, there are rovers and robots exploring the red planet, gathering information and searching for signs of life. This will help NASA plan for maintaining human life for an extended time on Mars.'
http://www.strategicsourceror.com/2015/08/nasa-plans-interplanetary-mission-to.html
The letter states: "AI technology has reached a point where the deployment of [autonomous weapons] is – practically if not legally – feasible within years, not decades, and the stakes are high:'
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jul/27/musk-wozniak-hawking-ban-ai-autonomous-weapons
Musk and Hawking have warned that AI is "our biggest existential threat" and that the development of full AI could "spell the end of the human race". But others, including Wozniak have recently changed their minds on AI, with the Apple co-founder saying that robots would be good for humans, making them like the "family pet and taken care of all the time".
In future combat, all machines could leverage this mega-smart skin, detecting heat, damage and stress. Combat aircraft, drones, tanks and other land vehicles, as well as naval vessels could covered with the smart skin. Drones operating in air, on land, at sea or underwater could also deploy the technology.
Using a skin loaded with a range of sensors, machines could "feel" and sense things like an animal does. The smart skin would cover a combat aircraft -- reading, recording and processing the machine's sensations.'
http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2015/07/23/how-smart-skin-could-revolutionize-military-vehicles/
Their technology—dubbed 3D Xpoint—doesn't quite match the speed of the chips known as DRAMs. But unlike those chips—and like NAND flash memory—the new chips will retain data even after they're powered off, the companies say.
"This is a whole new paradigm," said Mark Adams, Micron's president, predicting the technology will cause "a major disruption" in the $78.5 billion memory-chip market…
http://www.wsj.com/articles/intel-micron-claim-memory-chip-breakthrough-1438099234
compare to nram…
The service previously offered translations between English and French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. The app works both ways: Non-English speakers can also translate English signs into their native languages. For Hindi and Thai translations, however, Google Translate can only convert English to the two languages—not the other way around—due to the complexity of their characters.
The app also works in the absence of a data connection for a phone, which makes it optimal for travelers.
The instant translation feature is largely derived from the Word Lens app, which Google acquired last year when it purchased the company behind it, Quest Visual.'
http://www.fastcompany.com/3049192/fast-feed/google-translate-can-now-decipher-signs-in-27-languages
'An almost two-million-year-old finger bone - unearthed in East Africa - suggests modern humans evolved earlier than previously thought, scientists say.
The 1.85-million-year-old little finger bone, dubbed OH 86, was found at the Olduvai Gorge paleontological site in northern Tanzania and is believed by scientists to belong to an unidentified ancient hominin species, Daily Mail reported on Wednesday.
The discovery pushes back the origin of the modern-human-like hand-ideal for grasping tools, but inadequate for climbing trees - by around 400,000 years.
"This bone belongs to somebody who's not spending any time in the trees at all," said the study's lead author Manuel Dominguez-Rodrigo.'
'A team of chemists have said that they've found a way by developing a method which can convert any atmospheric CO2 into carbon nanofibers which can be used for consumer and industrial purposes. These findings are going to be unveiled at the American Chemical Society's National Meeting & Exposition.
The way of finding these so called "diamonds in the sky" is going to let industrial manufacturers produce high-yields of carbon nanofibers which will make very strong carbon composites such as the ones used for the Boeing Dreamliner aircrafts and turbine blade, sports equipment as well as a number of other products…
It will cost around $ 1000 for each ton of carbon nanofiber in order to pay for the energy which is going to be hundred times less than the real value of the product.'
This would correspond to a stronger gravitational pull, capable of drawing in a thick atmosphere to create a potential runaway greenhouse effect, which means that the planet's temperature continues to climb.
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/04/evaluating-nasas-futuristic-em-drive/
http://www.entertainmentjourney.com
The researchers have shown that the in-plane thermal conductivity of the graphene-based film, with 20 micrometre thickness, can reach a thermal conductivity value of 1600W/mK, which is four times that of copper.
"Increased thermal capacity could lead to several new applications for graphene," said Liu. "One example is the integration of graphene-based film into microelectronic devices and systems, such as highly efficient Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs), lasers and radio frequency components for cooling purposes. Graphene-based film could also pave the way for faster, smaller, more energy efficient, sustainable high power electronics."'
Trace looks at the top theories for how Mars could be terraformed. Just don't expect for there to be a nice new red planet to move to before the next Super Bowl.
The space agency will hold a workshop in Houston this October to kick off serious discussions about possible landing sites for NASA's first manned Mars mission, which the agency aims to launch by the mid- to late 2030s.
At the four-day meeting, researchers will propose roughly 62-mile-wide (100 kilometers) "exploration zones" that they believe would be scientifically interesting and possess enough resources, such as subsurface water ice, to support human explorers.'
http://news.discovery.com/space/nasa-ponders-where-to-land-astronauts-on-mars-150626.htm
