A mammoth tooth uncovered from the Siberian permafrost yields the oldest DNA yet discovered and provides insight into the evolution of the giant beasts. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/worlds-oldest-dna-mammoth-evolution-video…
Tag: Bridges
Pebble Founder Says His New App Brings iMessage To Android With a Little ‘Trickery’
Beeper is a forthcoming app from the founder of Pebble that claims to be a hub for all your messaging services, including support for iMessage on Android. Gizmodo reports: Instead of managing half a dozen apps for keeping in touch with friends, family, and co-workers, Beeper allows you to funnel everything to one interface. According to its website, the app supports…
Wormholes may be lurking in the universe—and new studies are proposing ways of finding them
Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity profoundly changed our thinking about fundamental concepts in physics, such as space and time. But it also left us with some deep mysteries. One was black holes, which were only unequivocally detected over the past few years. Another was “wormholes”—bridges connecting different points in spacetime, in theory providing shortcuts for space travelers. Source: https://phys.org/news/2021-01-wormholes-lurking-universeand-ways.html…
Building the University of the Future
By Jeff Maggioncalda, Coursera CEO Even before COVID-19 changed the ways we live, work, and learn, universities were facing major challenges. Almost half of the higher education institutions in the U.S. had no formal online programs in 2018, and last year, fewer than 50 percent of faculty had ever taught an online course. Meanwhile, universities […]
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Sweden’s New Car Carrier Is the World’s Largest Wind-Powered Vessel
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN: Oceanbird might look like a ship of the future, but it harks back to ancient maritime history — because it’s powered by the wind. The transatlantic car carrier is being designed by Wallenius Marine, a Swedish shipbuilder, with support from the Swedish government and several research institutions. With capacity for 7,000 vehicles, the…
Artificial rope bridges help stop rare primates jumping to extinction
A landslide created a perilously wide gap in the forest canopy on China’s Hainan Island, so researchers made rope bridges to help the endangered Hainan gibbons get across Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2257483-artificial-rope-bridges-help-stop-rare-primates-jumping-to-extinction/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
Is Iceland’s most active volcano about to erupt?
The ice-covered Grímsvötn volcano produced an unusually large and powerful eruption in 2011. Now, says this volcanologist, there are clear signs that Grímsvötn is getting ready to erupt again. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/grimsvotn-iceland-volcano-about-to-erupt…
Apple, Amazon, Google, and Zigbee Alliance Standard For Smart Home Tech On Track For 2021 Release
An anonymous reader quotes a report from MacRumors: Last year, Apple, Amazon, Google, and the Zigbee Alliance, which includes Ikea, Samsung, and Philips, announced a new working group known as “Project Connected Home over IP” that set about developing an IP-based open-source connectivity standard for smart home products, with a focus on increased compatibility, security, and simplified development for manufacturers. The…
Coronavirus hijacks cells, forces them to grow tentacles, then invades others
Cells infected with the new coronavirus grow stringy, tentacle-like arms that act like bridges, allowing the virus to invade other cells. Source: https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-creates-tentacles-to-invade-cells.html
2 views from space: San Francisco Bay
We thought many of you would enjoy these two images from space of one of Earth’s most captivating places: San Francisco Bay. The European Space Agency (ESA) shared the image above on May 15, 2020. It’s a view of San Francisco Bay from the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission, which consists of twin Earth-observing satellites, launched in…read more » Source: https://earthsky.org/todays-image/esa-satellite-image-san-francisco-bay…