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Planet spotted orbiting Barnard's star just 6 light years away

Astronomers have detected an exoplanet around Barnard’s star, one of the sun’s closest neighbours, but it is too hot for liquid water or life




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New Scientist recommends astronomy exhibition Borrowed Light in Berlin

The books, TV, games and more that New Scientist staff have enjoyed this week




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New Scientist recommends HowTheLightGetsIn festival in London

The books, TV, games and more that New Scientist staff have enjoyed this week




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Starship: When will SpaceX's next 'chopstick' test flight go ahead?

SpaceX claims the fifth test flight of its Starship rocket will happen “within days”, but the Federal Aviation Administration has not yet approved the launch




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First breathtaking images from Euclid telescope's map of the universe

The Euclid space telescope's massive “cosmic atlas” promises to shed light on fundamental questions in physics and cosmology




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Distant dwarf planet Makemake might have a surprising ice volcano

A small world in the outer solar system appears to have volcanic activity possibly spurred by liquid water




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SpaceX targets Starship flight next week – just a month after last one

SpaceX is preparing for the sixth test flight of Starship, the world's most powerful rocket. Next week's launch – if successful – will be the fastest turnaround yet




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Microscopic gears powered by light could be used to make tiny machines

Gears just a few micrometres wide can be carved from silicon using a beam of electrons, enabling tiny robots or machines that could interact with human cells




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3D printing with light and sound could let us copy human organs

One day, doctors might be able to 3D print copies of your organs in order to test a variety of drugs, thanks to a new technique that uses light and sound for rapid printing




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Below Deck Sailing Yacht Recap: To Plate or Not to Plate

Gary is up to his usual schtick with Dani. Will he or the new stews ever learn? (Don’t answer that.)




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Mike Tyson eyes Tyson Fury showdown and 'full comeback' after Jake Paul fight



Mike Tyson has not fought professionally since suffering a stoppage defeat to Kevin McBride in 2005.




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Efforts underway to save salmon trapped in B.C. lake due to drought

More than 80 per cent of B.C.'s water basins are experiencing level 4 or 5 drought conditions, with salmon in many parts of the province struggling to make it to their spawning grounds.



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NASA wants to shift talk on unexplained sightings 'from sensationalism to science'

NASA said Thursday that the study of UFOs will require new scientific techniques, including advanced satellites as well as a shift in how unexplained sightings are perceived.




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Whale scientists capture the sights and sounds of a baby sperm whale birth for the first time

Scientists are using machine learning to decode and eventually translate how sperm whales communicate with Morse code-like clicks and pauses.



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Is your Social Security number at risk? Signs someone might be stealing it

Tech expert Kurt “CyberGuy" Knutsson reveals four signs of compromised Social Security numbers and offers five steps to protect yourself.



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AI-powered attack drones take flight

A company announced the launch of two new advanced drones designed to improve military operations with the use of cutting-edge technology.



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Say goodbye to needle nightmares: gadget gives doctors X-ray vision of your veins

The Adison Vein Locator gives medical professionals Superman-like X-ray vision for finding patients' veins for easy insertion of needles.



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Fox News AI Newsletter: 'It might kill us all'

Stay up to date on the latest AI technology advancements and learn about the challenges and opportunities AI presents now and for the future.



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Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight

It’s become a joke to talk about Cave Story and Dark Souls when describing other games, but in the case of Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight, I’d be remiss not to: the series has never been shy about its influences. In Reverie, the fourth game of the Momodora series, rdein has done a fantastic job […]




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DevLog Spotlight: Leilani’s Island

I started work on it around a year ago on a whim because I was reading a lot of game design articles and couldn’t resist the idea of a small platform game. It’s really expanded a lot beyond that though! I’d like to start showing it to and discussing it with more people as I […]





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Tom Daley invited for Commonwealth Games talks over LGBT rights concerns




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Cristiano Ronaldo penalty rescues mediocre Manchester United in close-fought win over Norwich

  • Cristiano Ronaldo converts penalty in 75th minute after he is brought down by Max Aarons.
  • Norwich captain Grant Hanley injured in 21st minute after clashing with Ronaldo.
  • De Gea gets his 200th career clean sheet. 
  • ]]>




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    Contrite Adam Peaty fights back to win Commonwealth Games gold after ‘disrespect’ controversy

  • Adam Peaty is right about Commonwealths not being the pinnacle
  • Peaty accused of disrespecting Games after roaring into 50m final
  • British Cycling ‘confident’ they can replace Kenny if she retires
  • Englishman Jake Jarman wins fourth gymnastics gold medal
  • Daily Games schedule – plus key events to watch out for
  • ]]>



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    World champion Jake Wightman grasps Commonwealth Games bronze in savage 1,500m

  • England beat New Zealand to reach women's hockey final
  • Australia crush England's hopes of second successive netball gold
  • Nick Miller wins gold for England in the hammer
  • India edge England to make T20 cricket final
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    Beth Mead wins BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2022 on a historic night for women's sport

    By Tom Garry, in Salford

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    Shooting stars of 2023 – who will shine brightest in your sport?



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    BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award 2023: What time does it start tonight and who are nominees?






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    Hashtag Trending Mar.1- HP debacle; Humanoid robots closer to hitting our workplaces; Apple blew $10 billion on the electric car before pulling the plug

    If rumours are true and this one should be, I started it, we have a special edition of the Weekend show where we talk about the evolution of the role of the CIO with two incredible CIOs as the CIO Association of Canada turns 20. Don’t miss it.  MUSIC UP Can HP make you love […]

    The post Hashtag Trending Mar.1- HP debacle; Humanoid robots closer to hitting our workplaces; Apple blew $10 billion on the electric car before pulling the plug first appeared on ITBusiness.ca.




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    Hashtag Trending Mar.4- Canadian police need a search warrant to access IP address; Musk sues OpenAI; World Server Throwing Competition too violent?

    In Canada, your IP address has the right to remain silent. Elon Musk is suing OpenAI for not being Open. Apple faces a class action not allowing competitive access to backup services and the World Server Throwing Competition in March 2024 is accused of being too violent towards servers.   All this and more on the […]

    The post Hashtag Trending Mar.4- Canadian police need a search warrant to access IP address; Musk sues OpenAI; World Server Throwing Competition too violent? first appeared on ITBusiness.ca.




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    Hashtag Trending Mar.5- Apple Music fined for market dominance; LockBit back from the dead; OpenAI kills ChatGPT plugins

    Apple Music gives a whole new meaning to the phrase the hits just keep on coming.  It’s not the opposing candidates, it’s public AI systems that are spreading election disinformation, and LockBit, the cybercriminal gang may be back from the dead and saying so long to the ChatGPT plugins, which went from innovation to legacy […]

    The post Hashtag Trending Mar.5- Apple Music fined for market dominance; LockBit back from the dead; OpenAI kills ChatGPT plugins first appeared on ITBusiness.ca.




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    Hashtag Trending Mar.6- Facebook goes down; Amazon nuclear-powered data centres; Public trust in AI sinking

    Imagine a world without Facebook. For just half an hour. A group of AI leaders get together but don’t seem to invite Elon Musk. Amazon takes data centres nuclear. A new competitor for ChatGPT and Google. And public trust in AI is declining.  All this and more on the “just breath, Facebook will be back” […]

    The post Hashtag Trending Mar.6- Facebook goes down; Amazon nuclear-powered data centres; Public trust in AI sinking first appeared on ITBusiness.ca.




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    IT World Canada fights for survival

    Facing an unprecedented crisis, IT World Canada, a beacon of technology journalism, is on the brink of closure. This poses a critical question: Without IT World Canada, who will narrate Canada’s tech story? After decades of serving the Canadian tech industry, IT World Canada needs help to survive. As of midnight tonight, the company is […]

    The post IT World Canada fights for survival first appeared on ITBusiness.ca.




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    Perseid meteor shower peaks Sunday night, potentially giving stargazers big show

    The annual Perseid meteor shower is set to peak on Sunday night into early Monday morning, giving stargazers the chance to see hundreds of meteors.



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    Orionid meteor shower to light up night sky through most of November

    The Orionids meteor shower peaks on Monday, but will continue to light up the sky through Nov. 22, as debris from Halley's Comet enters Earth's atmosphere.



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    15,800-Year-Old Engraved Plaquettes Shed Light on Paleolithic Fishing Techniques

    Scientists from the Leibniz Zentrum für Archäologie and Durham University have examined a collection of 406 engraved schist plaquettes found at the Magdalenian site of Gönnersdorf in Germany.

    The post 15,800-Year-Old Engraved Plaquettes Shed Light on Paleolithic Fishing Techniques appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.




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    Your brain may be mutating in a way that was thought to be very rare

    DNA from mitochondria, the energy powerhouses inside cells, sometimes gets added to our genome – and the number of these mutations in the brain could be linked to ageing




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    The surprising mental health and brain benefits of weight-loss drugs

    Drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy have unexpected effects on the brain, opening up potential new ways to treat depression, anxiety, addiction and Alzheimer’s




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    Will an experimental mRNA vaccine help fight the mpox outbreak?

    After an mRNA vaccine for mpox achieved promising results in monkeys, researchers say it could have several advantages over existing vaccines – but cold storage requirements mean it will be hard to roll out in some hard-hit countries




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    Stem cell transplant gives hope for treating age-related sight loss

    A monkey that performed poorly on vision tests did much better after having a stem cell transplant to patch up holes in its retina




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    Weight-loss drugs lower impulse to eat – and perhaps to exercise too

    Popular weight-loss medications including Ozempic and Wegovy contain a drug that seems to decrease cravings for food and drugs – and now there’s evidence that it might make exercise less rewarding, too




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    Fresh insights into how we doze off may help tackle sleep conditions

    New research into the moments between wakefulness and sleep could bring hope for insomniacs and even make us more creative problem-solvers




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    Posthaste: Why the great Trump stock rally might not be what it seems

    Stocks have soared since Donald Trump was elected, but some say the run-up has more to do with bubbles than policy




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    Deion Sanders said he would tell NFL teams son Shedeur Sanders won't play for them if it's not the right fit

    Just like Eli Manning in 2004, Deion Sanders said he would tell NFL teams his son, Shedeur Sanders, won't play for them if it's not the right fit.



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    Mutiny threat sparks House GOP infighting ahead of Trump visit: 'Just more stupid'

    House Republicans are once again at odds with one another after conservatives threatened to protest Speaker Johnson's bid to lead the conference again.



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    Agencies tight-lipped on kickbacks

    Australia’s leading media agencies have ducked questions about cash kickbacks.




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    Oceans Lock Away Carbon Slower Than Previously Thought



    Research expeditions conducted at sea using a rotating gravity machine and microscope found that the Earth’s oceans may not be absorbing as much carbon as researchers have long thought.

    Oceans are believed to absorb roughly 26 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions by drawing down CO2 from the atmosphere and locking it away. In this system, CO2 enters the ocean, where phytoplankton and other organisms consume about 70 percent of it. When these organisms eventually die, their soft, small structures sink to the bottom of the ocean in what looks like an underwater snowfall.

    This “marine snow” pulls carbon away from the surface of the ocean and sequesters it in the depths for millennia, which enables the surface waters to draw down more CO2 from the air. It’s one of Earth’s best natural carbon-removal systems. It’s so effective at keeping atmospheric CO2 levels in check that many research groups are trying to enhance the process with geoengineering techniques.

    But the new study, published on 11 October in Science, found that the sinking particles don’t fall to the ocean floor as quickly as researchers thought. Using a custom gravity machine that simulated marine snow’s native environment, the study’s authors observed that the particles produce mucus tails that act like parachutes, putting the brakes on their descent—sometimes even bringing them to a standstill.

    The physical drag leaves carbon lingering in the upper hydrosphere, rather than being safely sequestered in deeper waters. Living organisms can then consume the marine snow particles and respire their carbon back into the sea. Ultimately, this impedes the rate at which the ocean draws down and sequesters additional CO2 from the air.

    The implications are grim: Scientists’ best estimates of how much CO2 the Earth’s oceans sequester could be way off. “We’re talking roughly hundreds of gigatonnes of discrepancy if you don’t include these marine snow tails,” says Manu Prakash, a bioengineer at Stanford University and one of the paper’s authors. The work was conducted by researchers at Stanford, Rutgers University in New Jersey, and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.

    Oceans Absorb Less CO2 Than Expected

    Researchers for years have been developing numerical models to estimate marine carbon sequestration. Those models will need to be adjusted for the slower sinking speed of marine snow, Prakash says.

    The findings also have implications for startups in the fledgling marine carbon geoengineering field. These companies use techniques such as ocean alkalinity enhancement to augment the ocean’s ability to sequester carbon. Their success depends, in part, on using numerical models to prove to investors and the public that their techniques work. But their estimates are only as good as the models they use, and the scientific community’s confidence in them.

    “We’re talking roughly hundreds of gigatonnes of discrepancy if you don’t include these marine snow tails.” —Manu Prakash, Stanford University

    The Stanford researchers made the discovery on an expedition off the coast of Maine. There, they collected marine samples by hanging traps from their boat 80 meters deep. After pulling up a sample, the researchers quickly analyzed the contents while still on board the ship using their wheel-shaped machine and microscope.

    The researchers built a microscope with a spinning wheel that simulates marine snow falling through sea water over longer distances than would otherwise be practical.Prakash Lab/Stanford

    The device simulates the organisms’ vertical travel over long distances. Samples go into a wheel about the size of a vintage film reel. The wheel spins constantly, allowing suspended marine-snow particles to sink while a camera captures their every move.

    The apparatus adjusts for temperature, light, and pressure to emulate marine conditions. Computational tools assess flow around the sinking particles and custom software removes noise in the data from the ship’s vibrations. To accommodate for the tilt and roll of the ship, the researchers mounted the device on a two-axis gimbal.

    Slower Marine Snow Reduces Carbon Sequestration

    With this setup, the team observed that sinking marine snow generates an invisible halo-shaped comet tail made of viscoelastic transparent exopolymer—a mucus-like parachute. They discovered the invisible tail by adding small beads to the seawater sample in the wheel, and analyzing the way they flowed around the marine snow. “We found that the beads were stuck in something invisible trailing behind the sinking particles,” says Rahul Chajwa, a bioengineering postdoctoral fellow at Stanford.

    The tail introduces drag and buoyancy, doubling the amount of time marine snow spends in the upper 100 meters of the ocean, the researchers concluded. “This is the sedimentation law we should be following,” says Prakash, who hopes to get the results into climate models.

    The study will likely help models project carbon export—the process of transporting CO2 from the atmosphere to the deep ocean, says Lennart Bach, a marine biochemist at the University of Tasmania in Australia, who was not involved with the research. “The methodology they developed is very exciting and it’s great to see new methods coming into this research field,” he says.

    But Bach cautions against extrapolating the results too far. “I don’t think the study will change the numbers on carbon export as we know them right now,” because these numbers are derived from empirical methods that would have unknowingly included the effects of the mucus tail, he says.

    Marine snow may be slowed by “parachutes” of mucus while sinking, potentially lowering the rate at which the global ocean can sequester carbon in the depths.Prakash Lab/Stanford

    Prakash and his team came up with the idea for the microscope while conducting research on a human parasite that can travel dozens of meters. “We would make 5- to 10-meter-tall microscopes, and one day, while packing for a trip to Madagascar, I had this ‘aha’ moment,” says Prakash. “I was like: Why are we packing all these tubes? What if the two ends of these tubes were connected?”

    The group turned their linear tube into a closed circular channel—a hamster wheel approach to observing microscopic particles. Over five expeditions at sea, the team further refined the microscope’s design and fluid mechanics to accommodate marine samples, often tackling the engineering while on the boat and adjusting for flooding and high seas.

    In addition to the sedimentation physics of marine snow, the team also studies other plankton that may affect climate and carbon-cycle models. On a recent expedition off the coast of Northern California, the group discovered a cell with silica ballast that makes marine snow sink like a rock, Prakash says.

    The crafty gravity machine is one of Prakash’s many frugal inventions, which include an origami-inspired paper microscope, or “foldscope,” that can be attached to a smartphone, and a paper-and-string biomedical centrifuge dubbed a “paperfuge.”




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    Machine Learning Might Save Time on Chip Testing



    Finished chips coming in from the foundry are subject to a battery of tests. For those destined for critical systems in cars, those tests are particularly extensive and can add 5 to 10 percent to the cost of a chip. But do you really need to do every single test?

    Engineers at NXP have developed a machine-learning algorithm that learns the patterns of test results and figures out the subset of tests that are really needed and those that they could safely do without. The NXP engineers described the process at the IEEE International Test Conference in San Diego last week.

    NXP makes a wide variety of chips with complex circuitry and advanced chip-making technology, including inverters for EV motors, audio chips for consumer electronics, and key-fob transponders to secure your car. These chips are tested with different signals at different voltages and at different temperatures in a test process called continue-on-fail. In that process, chips are tested in groups and are all subjected to the complete battery, even if some parts fail some of the tests along the way.

    Chips were subject to between 41 and 164 tests, and the algorithm was able to recommend removing 42 to 74 percent of those tests.

    “We have to ensure stringent quality requirements in the field, so we have to do a lot of testing,” says Mehul Shroff, an NXP Fellow who led the research. But with much of the actual production and packaging of chips outsourced to other companies, testing is one of the few knobs most chip companies can turn to control costs. “What we were trying to do here is come up with a way to reduce test cost in a way that was statistically rigorous and gave us good results without compromising field quality.”

    A Test Recommender System

    Shroff says the problem has certain similarities to the machine learning-based recommender systems used in e-commerce. “We took the concept from the retail world, where a data analyst can look at receipts and see what items people are buying together,” he says. “Instead of a transaction receipt, we have a unique part identifier and instead of the items that a consumer would purchase, we have a list of failing tests.”

    The NXP algorithm then discovered which tests fail together. Of course, what’s at stake for whether a purchaser of bread will want to buy butter is quite different from whether a test of an automotive part at a particular temperature means other tests don’t need to be done. “We need to have 100 percent or near 100 percent certainty,” Shroff says. “We operate in a different space with respect to statistical rigor compared to the retail world, but it’s borrowing the same concept.”

    As rigorous as the results are, Shroff says that they shouldn’t be relied upon on their own. You have to “make sure it makes sense from engineering perspective and that you can understand it in technical terms,” he says. “Only then, remove the test.”

    Shroff and his colleagues analyzed data obtained from testing seven microcontrollers and applications processors built using advanced chipmaking processes. Depending on which chip was involved, they were subject to between 41 and 164 tests, and the algorithm was able to recommend removing 42 to 74 percent of those tests. Extending the analysis to data from other types of chips led to an even wider range of opportunities to trim testing.

    The algorithm is a pilot project for now, and the NXP team is looking to expand it to a broader set of parts, reduce the computational overhead, and make it easier to use.