Magnetic effect without a magnet

Electric current is deflected by a magnetic field—in conducting materials, this leads to the so-called Hall effect. This effect is often used to measure magnetic fields. A surprising discovery has now been made at TU Wien, in collaboration with scientists from the Paul Scherrer Institute (Switzerland), McMater University (Canada), and Rice University (U.S.): an exotic metal made of cerium, bismuth and…

Research reveals stellar kinematics of the galactic disc

By using a sample of 118945 red giant branch (RGB) stars from the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) and Gaia, Dr. Wu Yaqian from the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC) investigated the stellar kinematics of the galactic disc in 7 Source: https://phys.org/news/2021-02-reveals-stellar-kinematics-galactic-disc.html…

Anthony Levandowski Closes His Church of AI

The first church of artificial intelligence has shut its conceptual doors. From a report: Anthony Levandowski, the former Google engineer who avoided an 18-month prison sentence after receiving a presidential pardon last month, has closed the church he created to understand and accept a godhead based on artificial intelligence. The Way of the Future church, which Levandowski formed in 2015, was…

Can air pollution help us find alien life?

To find alien life in our universe, scientists have considered searches for optical lasers or even giant energy-harvesting structures known as Dyson spheres. Now they’re suggesting a more mundane sort of search, a hunt for air pollution in exoplanet atmospheres. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/can-pollution-help-us-find-alien-life…

Swarm of black holes discovered

For the first time, astronomers have detected the presence of a throng of black holes crowding near the center of an ancient globular cluster. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/group-black-holes-found-globular-cluster-ngc-6397…

Did Facebook Inflate Its Advertising Metrics?

Business Insider reports:
Facebook executives knew for years its “potential reach” advertising metric was inflated and overruled an employee warning to adjust it to avoid a revenue hit, plaintiffs of a lawsuit against the social media giant argued in an unredacted court filing. Gizmodo writes:
In a nutshell, this class action suit, which was first filed back in 2018, alleges that Facebook massaged…

Dogecoin Has a Top Dog Worth $2.1 Billion

The dogecoin market has a pack leader. From a report: Records show that a person, or entity, owns about 28% of all of the cryptocurrency in circulation — a stake worth about $2.1 billion at current prices [Editor’s note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source]. The holder’s identity isn’t known, which is common in the opaque world of digital currencies….

IBM Explores Sale of IBM Watson Health

IBM is exploring a potential sale of its IBM Watson Health business, WSJ is reporting, citing people familiar with the matter, as the technology giant’s new chief executive moves to streamline the company and become more competitive in cloud computing. From a report: IBM is studying alternatives for the unit that could include a sale to a private-equity firm or industry…

Uber Loses Gig Workers Rights Challenge in UK Supreme Court

Uber has lost a long running employment tribunal challenge in the UK’s Supreme Court — with the court dismissing the ride-hailing giant’s appeal and reaffirming earlier rulings that drivers who brought the case are workers, not independent contractors. From a report: The case, which dates back to 2016, has major ramifications for Uber’s business model (and other gig economy platforms) in…