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takyon writes:

In a paper published today in the journal Nature, the ALPHA collaboration reports the first ever measurement on the optical spectrum of an antimatter atom. This achievement features technological developments that open up a completely new era in high-precision antimatter research. It is the result of over 20 years of work by the CERN1 antimatter community.

"Using a laser to observe a transition in antihydrogen and comparing it to hydrogen to see if they obey the same laws of physics has always been a key goal of antimatter research," said Jeffrey Hangst, Spokesperson of the ALPHA collaboration.

[...] With its single proton and single electron, hydrogen is the most abundant, simple and well-understood atom in the Universe. Its spectrum has been measured to very high precision. Antihydrogen atoms, on the other hand are poorly understood. Because the Universe appears to consist entirely of matter, the constituents of antihydrogen atoms – antiprotons and positrons – have to be produced and assembled into atoms before the antihydrogen spectrum can be measured. It's a painstaking process, but well worth the effort since any measurable difference between the spectra of hydrogen and antihydrogen would break basic principles of physics and possibly help understand the puzzle of the matter-antimatter imbalance in the Universe.

Additional coverage from The New York Times and National Public Radio.

Observation of the 1S–2S transition in trapped antihydrogen (DOI: 10.1038/nature21040) (DX)

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Phoenix666 writes:

Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have developed an efficient process to rapidly discover new "enediyne natural products" from soil microbes that could be further developed into extremely potent anticancer drugs.

The study highlights microbial natural products as abundant sources of new drug leads. The researchers' discovery process involves prioritizing the microbes from the TSRI strain collection and focusing on the ones that are genetically predisposed to produce specific families of natural products. The scientists say this process saves time and resources in comparison to the traditional approaches used to identify these rare molecules.

The study, led by TSRI Professor Ben Shen, was published in the journal mBio.

Shen and his colleagues uncovered a new family of enediyne natural products, called tiancimycins, (TNMs) which kill selected cancer cells more rapidly and completely in comparison to toxic molecules used in FDA-approved antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) -- monoclonal antibodies attached to cytotoxic drugs that target only cancer cells.

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Phoenix666 writes:

Why does sex exist when organisms that clone themselves use less time and energy, and do not need a mate to produce offspring? Researchers at the University of Stirling aiming to answer this age-old question have discovered that sex can help the next generation resist infection.

Populations that clone themselves are entirely female and do not need sex to reproduce. As sex requires males, and males do not produce offspring themselves, an entirely clonal population should always reproduce faster than a sexual one.

Yet while some animal and plant species can reproduce without sex, such as komodo dragons, starfish and bananas, sex is still the dominant mode of reproduction in the natural world.

Scientists know that sex allows genes to mix, allowing populations to quickly evolve and adapt to changing environments, including rapidly evolving parasites.

However, for sex to beat cloning as a reproduction strategy, there must be large-scale benefits that make a difference to the next generation. The theory has been difficulty to test as most organisms are either wholly sexual or clonal so cannot be compared easily.

A team of experts from the University of Stirling have taken an innovative approach to test the costs and benefits of sex. Using an organism that can reproduce both ways, the waterflea, researchers found sexually produced offspring were more than twice as resistant to infectious disease as their clonal sisters.

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Phoenix666 writes:

When power goes out in the rural town of Soroti in eastern Uganda, store manager Hussein Samsudin can only hope it won't go on so long it spoils his fresh goods.

Another shop owner, Richard Otekat, 37, has to pay a neighbour hourly to use his generator during blackouts as he can't afford to buy one himself, while others simply go without.

However residents of the town, surrounded by thatched huts, rivers and grasslands, hope a new solar plant, which went into operation last week, will bring an end to their electricity woes.

The $19 million (18-million euro), 33-acre solar plant—the first of its kind in East Africa—can produce 10 megawatts of power that is fed into Uganda's national power grid.

The project is crucial as Uganda seeks new ways to bring electricity to the 80 percent of its 40 million-strong population that does not have access to power.

Mud hut, solar panels.

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Phoenix666 writes:

Researchers at The University of Nottingham have developed a break-through technique that uses sound rather than light to see inside live cells, with potential application in stem-cell transplants and cancer diagnosis.

The new nanoscale ultrasound technique uses shorter-than-optical wavelengths of sound and could even rival the optical super-resolution techniques which won the 2014 Nobel Prize for Chemistry.

This new kind of sub-optical phonon (sound) imaging provides invaluable information about the structure, mechanical properties and behaviour of individual living cells at a scale not achieved before.

Researchers from the Optics and Photonics group in the Faculty of Engineering, University of Nottingham, are behind the discovery, which is published in the paper 'High resolution 3-D imaging of living cells with sub-optical wavelength phonons' in the journal Scientific Reports.

Gets my vote for amazing science story of the day.

Fernando Pérez-Cota et al. High resolution 3D imaging of living cells with sub-optical wavelength phonons, Scientific Reports (2016). DOI: 10.1038/srep39326

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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

The legal case of TC Heartland v Kraft Foods may appear to have very little to do with technology, but it could make life a lot harder for patent trolls – thanks to a US Supreme Court decision on Thursday.

The case between the two was brought by Kraft over its Mio Water Enhancer, a mixture of salt and flavorings for those who find regular water too dull. TC Heartland makes a similar product and Kraft contended that some of its intellectual property has been used to make the rival product.

Kraft wanted the case heard in Delaware, a state which has little to do with either company but is a notoriously patent-friendly venue. TC Heartland wants the venue to be in its home state, and has appealed an earlier ruling on the matter.

On Wednesday the Supremes granted certiorari [PDF] to the case, meaning it is on the schedule to be considered. If they rule in TC Heartland's favor, it will eliminate the practice of venue shopping, where companies bring cases in districts where some judges are more favorable and they think they have a better chance of winning.

-- submitted from IRC

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mrpg writes:

A new prehistoric bird species has been discovered in the Canadian Arctic.

A team of geologists at the University of Rochester has discovered a new species of bird in the Canadian Arctic. At approximately 90 million years old, the bird fossils are among the oldest avian records found in the northernmost latitude, and offer further evidence of an intense warming event during the late Cretaceous period.

"The bird would have been a cross between a large seagull and a diving bird like a cormorant, but likely had teeth," says John Tarduno, professor and chair of the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University and leader of the expedition.

Tarduno and his team, which included both undergraduate and graduate students, named the bird Tingmiatornis arctica; "Tingmiat" means "those that fly" in the Inuktitut language spoken in the central and eastern Canadian Arctic (Nunavut territory).

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Phoenix666 writes:

Researchers at Tohoku University have, for the first time, successfully demonstrated the basic operation of spintronics-based artificial intelligence.

Artificial intelligence, which emulates the information processing function of the brain that can quickly execute complex and complicated tasks such as image recognition and weather prediction, has attracted growing attention and has already been partly put to practical use.

The currently-used artificial intelligence works on the conventional framework of semiconductor-based integrated circuit technology. However, this lacks the compactness and low-power feature of the human brain. To overcome this challenge, the implementation of a single solid-state device that plays the role of a synapse is highly promising.

Using the developed network (Fig. 2), the researchers examined an associative memory operation, which is not readily executed by conventional computers. Through the multiple trials, they confirmed that the spintronic devices have a learning ability with which the developed artificial neural network can successfully associate memorized patterns (Fig. 3) from their input noisy versions just like the human brain can.

The Tohoku University research group of Professor Hideo Ohno, Professor Shigeo Sato, Professor Yoshihiko Horio, Associate Professor Shunsuke Fukami and Assistant Professor Hisanao Akima developed an artificial neural network in which their recently-developed spintronic devices, comprising micro-scale magnetic material, are employed (Fig. 1). The used spintronic device is capable of memorizing arbitral values between 0 and 1 in an analogue manner unlike the conventional magnetic devices, and thus perform the learning function, which is served by synapses in the brain.

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Phoenix666 writes:

Canonical, maker of Ubuntu Linux and its Internet of Things variant, has discovered the obvious – that people cannot be trusted to secure their connected devices.

Thibaut Rouffineau, evangelist for Ubuntu Core and the Internet of Things, admitted late last week that developers and IoT device makers know people seldom update the firmware of connected devices. But, he argues, they probably don't realize how bad the security situation has become.

The distro maker says it surveyed 2,000 folks about how they dealt with connected devices. It found that less than a third of respondents (31 per cent) installed updates as soon as they were available. Some 40 per cent never knowingly updated their devices.

"In other words, consumers are leaving their devices open to exploits and hacks, from DDoS attacks to invasions of personal privacy or theft of personal data," said Rouffineau.

Why such disinterest? According to Rouffineau, almost two thirds of respondents felt that keeping software updated – their security – was not their responsibility.

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Phoenix666 writes:

Today, Mi is 33 and founder of a startup that aims to give Chinese kids the kind of education American children receive in top U.S. schools. Called VIPKid, the company matches Chinese students aged five to 12 with predominantly North American instructors to study English, math, science and other subjects. Classes take place online, typically for two or three 25-minute sessions each week.

Mi is capitalizing on an alluring arbitrage opportunity. In China, there are hundreds of millions of kids whose parents are willing to pay up if they can get high-quality education. In the U.S. and Canada, teachers are often underpaid—and many have quit the profession because they couldn't make a decent living. Growth has been explosive. The three-year-old company started this year with 200 teachers and has grown to 5,000, now working with 50,000 children. Next year, Mi anticipates she'll expand to 25,000 teachers and 200,000 children.

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Phoenix666 writes:

It's one of the purest and most versatile materials in the world, with uses in everything from jewelry to industrial abrasives to quantum science. But a group of Harvard scientists has uncovered a new use for diamonds: tracking neural signals in the brain.

Using atomic-scale quantum defects in diamonds known as nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers to detect the magnetic field generated by neural signals, scientists working in the lab of Ronald Walsworth, a faculty member in Harvard's Center for Brain Science and Physics Department, demonstrated a noninvasive technique that can image the activity of neurons.

The work was described in a recent paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and was performed in collaboration with Harvard faculty members Mikhail (Misha) Lukin and Hongkun Park.

"The idea of using NV centers for sensing neuron magnetic fields began with the initial work of Ron Walsworth and Misha Lukin about 10 years ago, but for a long time our back-of-the-envelope calculations made it seem that the fields would be too small to detect, and the technology wasn't there yet," said Jennifer Schloss, a Ph.D. student and co-author of the study.

"This paper is really the first step to show that measuring magnetic fields from individual neurons can be done in a scalable way," said Ph.D. student and fellow co-author Matthew Turner. "We wanted to be able to model the signal characteristics, and say, based on theory, 'This is what we expect to see.' Our experimental results were consistent with these expectations. This predictive ability is important for understanding more complicated neuronal networks."

Quantum sensors I put in my own head, cool. Quantum sensors other people put in my head, not cool.

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takyon writes:

Scientists have created an atomic-scale radio receiver using a diamond crystal and a laser:

Physicists at Harvard have built a radio receiver out of building blocks the size of two atoms. It is, almost certainly, the tiniest radio receiver in the world. [...] The researchers replace some of those carbon atoms with nitrogen atoms, and leave a hole next to each one. That nitrogen atom/hole pair, called a nitrogen-vacancy center, basically creates the first two parts of the radio: the power source and the receiver.

A green laser pointed at the nitrogen-vacancy center excites the electrons in the diamond. That's the power. When a radio wave hits those excited electrons around the nitrogen-vacancy center, it's converted into red light. That's the receiver. It's also one of the reasons nitrogen-vacancy centers are so compelling as a building block for tiny machines -- they are natural light emitters. An electromagnet near the receiver can change the frequency to which the receiver is sensitive. That's the tuner. But at that point, your "radio" is just a glowing red light. It still hasn't made any sounds.

For the last step, a common device called a photodiode converts the red light back to an electrical current, and a speaker or pair of headphones grabs that current and broadcasts it as sound.

Also at Harvard.

Diamond Radio Receiver: Nitrogen-Vacancy Centers as Fluorescent Transducers of Microwave Signals (DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevApplied.6.064008) (DX)

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Phoenix666 writes:

Take a walk down memory lane...

This is going to be long and rambling. If you're going to read it, you may want to wait until you're ill, and can't get out of bed, and your head is filled with cotton, and you're eating painkillers like they were candy. I don't want you to feel pain while reading. Being unconscious and having a speech synthesizer read it to you at high speed is an even better option.

Linux is 20 years old this year. That's a long time. Since I was there from the beginning I thought I'd share some memories of what's happened.

In 1988 I graduated from high school, and got accepted into the University of Helsinki to study computer science. The studies started in September, and also in September I got invited to join Spektrum, the Swedish speaking club for those studying math, physics, chemistry, geography, or computer science.

Spektrum is a social club, which was good, since I was, and remain, shy and socially awkward, and the club provided me with a way to easily meet people when I'd moved into a new city. That's also where I met the only other Swedish speaking new CS student of that year, a guy named Linus Torvalds.

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takyon writes:

Japan has successfully launched the Exploration of Energizing and Radiation in Geospace (ERG) spacecraft using an Epsilon-2 rocket:

Using an upgraded Epsilon rocket, Japan sent its Exploration of Energizing and Radiation in Geospace (ERG) spacecraft into a high-energy orbit that will repeatedly pass through the Van Allen belts to allow the probe to study how geomagnetic storms form. Liftoff from Kyushu Island took place at 8 p.m. Japan Standard Time (6 a.m. EST / 11:00 GMT) [on December 20th].

[...] [The spacecraft] carries with it nine instruments to study the radiation belts: XEP-e (Extremely high-energy electron sensor), HEP-e (High-energy particle sensor – electron), MEP-e (Medium-energy particle sensor – electron), LEP-e (Low-energy particle sensor – electro), MEP-i (Medium-energy particle – ion), LEP-i (Low-energy particle – ion), MGF (Magnetic Field Experiment), PWE (Plasma Wave Experiment), and S-WPIA (Software Wave-Particle Interaction Analyzer). The primary mission is expected to last for one year, with the possibility of an extension.

Reuters emphasizes the solid propellant used by the rocket:

The Epsilon-2 three-stage rocket is part of a new generation of solid propellant rockets and makes it possible for launch costs to be reduced up to one third, according to JAXA. Curbing costs for rocket launches is important as more emerging economies aim to put communication and weather satellites in space and Japan faces stiff competition with U.S. and European rivals such as Arianespace.

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Fnord666 writes:

According to an article on engadget today, Egypt is blocking access to the encrypted messaging application Signal, made by Open Whisper Systems.

Egypt has blocked its residents from accessing encrypted messaging app Signal, according to the application's developer. Mada Masr, an Egypt-based media organization, reported yesterday that several users took to Twitter over the weekend to report that they could no longer send or receive messages while on Egyptian IP addresses. Open Whisper Systems, the team behind the app, told a user asking about a situation that everything was working just as intended on their end. Now that the company has confirmed that the country is blocking access to Edward Snowden's preferred messaging app, it has begun working on a way to circumvent the ban. They intend to deploy their solution over the next few weeks.

Signal can be downloaded here for android and here for ios

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