Test Track for Ultra-Fast 'Hyperloop' Transit System Unveiled

Though it sounds like a transportation system straight out of a science-fiction novel, the "Hyperloop" is inching closer to reality, and new images offer a first look at the Hyperloop One project's test track.

First envisioned by SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk, the Hyperloop is a transportation concept in which passenger-filled pods are accelerated through a low-pressure tube to their destination. The startup Hyperloop One (which is not affiliated with Musk) has begun construction of a full-scale test track, known as the DevLoop, in the Nevada desert.

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It's Official: Time Crystals Are a New State of Matter, and Now We Can Create Them

Earlier this year, physicists had put together a blueprint for how to make and measure time crystals - a bizarre state of matter with an atomic structure that repeats not just in space, but in time, allowing them to maintain constant oscillation without energy.

Two separate research teams managed to create what looked an awful lot like time crystals back in January, and now both experiments have successfully passed peer-review for the first time, putting the 'impossible' phenomenon squarely in the realm of reality.

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Brainlike computers are a black box. Scientists are finally peering inside

Last month, Facebook announced software that could simply look at a photo and tell, for example, whether it was a picture of a cat or a dog. A related program identifies cancerous skin lesions as well as trained dermatologists can. Both technologies are based on neural networks, sophisticated computer algorithms at the cutting edge of artificial intelligence (AI)—but even their developers aren’t sure exactly how they work. Now, researchers have found a way to "look" at neural networks in action and see how they draw conclusions.

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In an Unexplained Case, Brain Activity Has Been Recorded as Much as 10 Minutes After Death

Doctors in a Canadian intensive care unit have stumbled on a very strange case - when life support was turned off for four terminal patients, one of them showed persistent brain activity even after they were declared clinically dead.

For more than 10 minutes after doctors confirmed death through a range of observations, including the absence of a pulse and unreactive pupils, the patient appeared to experience the same kind of brain waves (delta wave bursts) we get during deep sleep. And it's an entirely different phenomenon to the sudden 'death wave' that's been observed in rats following decapitation.

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Harvard Physicists Just Proposed That Mystery Radio Bursts Are Powering Alien Spaceships

Are alien radio beams causing one of the most mysterious signals from space? A new study by Manasvi Lingam and Avi Loeb at Harvard says that fast radio bursts (FRBs) could come from extraterrestrial radio beams being used as beacons or to power alien light sails.

The source of FRBs, which are milliseconds-long but incredibly bright pulses of radio waves, have intrigued and mystified astronomers for years – and this isn’t the first time aliens have been suggested.

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Special steel inspired by bone is more resistant to cracking

Getting close to the bone is sometimes exactly the right strategy. Mimicking the crack-resistant properties of bone has delivered two new types of steel, which could improve safety in construction and transport applications.

Steel is ubiquitous: we use it in everything from cars and aircraft to power plants and bridges. It’s affordable and its alloys can be easily tailored for specific applications.

But it is also vulnerable to scratching, which can lead to the development of microcracks that spread over time until the material fails. The changes in air pressure that an airplane is subjected to over its lifetime, for example, can lead to metal fatigue, with potentially catastrophic consequences.

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The US Government Has Issued NASA a Demand - Get Humans to Mars by 2033

Both chambers of Congress just passed the NASA Authorisation Act of 2017. With this transformative development, the space agency got a lot more than just $19.508 billion in funding. They also got a very clear mandate: Get humanity to Mars.

To be clear, Mars has been in the works for some time; however, the 2017 Act places a strong emphasis on this goal, making it the focal point of NASA's long-term plans. In the document, congress asserts that the space agency is to get humans "near or on the surface of Mars in the 2030s".

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The clearest image of Saturn's sixth largest moon Enceladus ever taken. One of the top candidates for hosting alien life.

Credit: NASA
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Scientists Just Took a Big Step Towards Creating Artificial Life

Scientists have taken a major step forward in developing complex artificial life, by successfully synthesising six out of 16 yeast chromosomes – the molecular structures that carry genes.

This means they're more than one-third of the way to being able to build their own custom-made yeast genomes from scratch, which would be a huge moment in the field of developing lab-made lifeforms.

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Your brain fills gaps in your hearing without you realising

Noise is everywhere, but that’s OK. Your brain can still keep track of a conversation in the face of revving motorcycles, noisy cocktail parties or screaming children – in part by predicting what’s coming next and filling in any blanks.

New data suggests that these insertions are processed as if the brain had really heard the parts of the word that are missing.

“The brain has evolved a way to overcome interruptions that happen in the real world,” says Matthew Leonard at the University of California, San Francisco.

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Scientists Have Found Some Much-Needed Clues About the Genetic Cause of Social Anxiety

Social anxiety disorder (SAD) can be a debilitating condition, but like many mental health disorders, researchers aren't sure where the genetic basis of the condition lies, or how the environment plays a role in triggering the symptoms - and that makes it particularly difficult to diagnose and treat.

But new research has provided more evidence that a gene involved with the transport of serotonin - a neurotransmitter that contributes to feelings of wellbeing - could increase the risk of the disorder.

"There is still a great deal to be done in terms of researching the genetic causes of this illness," says one of the researchers, Andreas Forstner from the University of Bonn.

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Growing Potatoes on Mars Could Actually Work, Says NASA-Backed Experiment

In the 2015 blockbuster movie The Martian, a fictional botanist-turned-astronaut gets stranded on Mars, forcing him to "science the shit" out of his dire situation.

Mark Watney (played by Matt Damon) survives by fertilising Martian soil with his faeces, slicing up potatoes, and planting the cuttings in the soil. This eventually grows him enough food to last hundreds of days.

Growing potatoes and other food on Mars is not just a sci-fi curiosity. Now, a NASA-backed "Potatoes on Mars" experiment is showing that Watney's fictional feat might actually be possible.

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SpaceX on Twitter: Falcon 9 on Pad 39A. Launch window for @EchoStar XXIII opens early tomorrow morning at 1:34am EDT.
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/841331499961991169

Submitted March 13, 2017 at 05:54PM by FutureMartian97
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Scientists Have Created an Artificial Retina Implant That Could Restore Vision to Millions

Scientists have developed a retinal implant that can restore lost vision in rats, and are planning to trial the procedure in humans later this year.

The implant, which converts light into an electrical signal that stimulates retinal neurons, could give hope to millions who experience retinal degeneration – including retinitis pigmentosa – in which photoreceptor cells in the eye begin to break down, leading to blindness.

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Did you knowingly commit a crime? Brain scans could tell

The number of years someone spends behind bars can hinge on whether they were clearly aware that they were committing a crime. But how is a judge or jury to know for sure? A new study suggests brain scans can distinguish between hardcore criminal intent and simple reckless behavior, but the approach is far from being ready for the courtroom.

The study is unusual because it looks directly at the brains of people while they are engaged in illicit activity, says Liane Young, a Boston College psychologist who was not involved in the work. Earlier research, including work by her, has instead generally looked at the brains of people only observing immoral activity.

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Scientists Have Found the Spot in Your Brain That Makes You Itch When Others Scratch

Much like yawning, scratching can be a contagious behaviour, set off simply by watching another person relieve an itch.

Scientists have now found that mice share the same response, and the discovery could help us identify the brain circuitry responsible for causing us to feel another's irritation.

Previous research on socially contagious behaviours has both supported and rejected the idea that feeling a need to yawn or scratch when others do is linked to our sense of empathy, leaving the cause behind such an innate urge unexplained.

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Lab-grown mini-organs help model disease, test new drugs

To the naked eye, the little globs of cells are undifferentiated masses, smaller than sesame seeds. Put them under a microscope, though, and these lab-grown miniature organs show striking complexity: the tiny tubules of a kidney, the delicate folds of cerebral cortex, or a mucousy layer of intestinal lining. Now—after nearly a decade of figuring out how to make cells grow, organize, and specialize into 3D structures similar to human tissues, scientists have created a veritable zoo of “organoids,” including livers, pancreases, stomachs, hearts, kidneys, and even mammary and salivary glands. In a special issue published today in the journal Development, researchers in this young field describe what organoid research has achieved so far and report a handful of new advances. Here’s a crash course on these alluring—but imperfect—little models.

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Record-Setting Star Orbits Dangerously Close to Black Hole

Talk about living dangerously.

A white dwarf star nearly 15,000 light-years from Earth apparently whips around its companion black hole once every 28 minutes, a new study suggests. That means the two objects are likely separated by just 2.5 Earth-moon distances — the tightest such orbit ever observed around a black hole, study team members said.

"This white dwarf is so close to the black hole that material is being pulled away from the star and dumped onto a disk of matter around the black hole before falling in," study lead author Arash Bahramian, of the University of Alberta in Canada and Michigan State University, said in a statement. "Luckily for this star, we don't think it will follow this path into oblivion, but instead will stay in orbit."

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New Study Suggests Our Understanding of Brain Cells Is Flawed, and Here's Why

A new study has found evidence that a section of our neurons, called the dendrites, aren't the passive receivers we've always assumed them to be.

Instead, researchers have found that dendrites generate up to 10 times more electrical pulse spikes than parts of our brain cells called the soma, which until now were thought to be the main area to produce these electrical signals.

If verified, the study could change our understanding of neurons, and how the various parts of the human brain work together.

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NASA Moving Ahead With Plans for Cislunar Human Outpost

Despite uncertainty about potential policy changes, NASA is pressing ahead with plans for a cislunar "gateway" outpost for future human missions, with decisions about how to develop it expected in the coming months.

Speaking at the American Astronautical Society's Goddard Memorial Symposium here March 8, Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA associate administrator for human exploration and operations, said he was studying concepts for launching the first elements of the proposed outpost as secondary payloads on early flights of the Space Launch System.

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