Taking soil to space could help make other planets habitable

Spacecraft and planetary colonies need to be designed to become living ecosystems if we are to live in outer space. By Richard Gray.

Continue reading...

Children of Men Might Be the Most Relevant Film of 2016

On Christmas day, 2006, a curious twist on the Nativity debuted in a handful of movie theaters. Directed and co-written by Mexican auteur Alfonso Cuarón, Children of Men told the story of (decade-old spoiler alert) a near-future dystopia in which women are inexplicably unable to have babies — a state of affairs upended by the advent of a miraculous pregnancy. The film is set in the deteriorating cities and countryside of southeastern England — vividly rendered with alarming realism and minimal use of sci-fi futurism...

Continue reading...

New York to Paris flight diverts to Republic of Ireland to use toilets

A transatlantic flight diverted to the Republic of Ireland after crew requested a landing so that passengers could use an airport's toilets. The New York to Paris flight landed at Shannon Airport after 07:30 local time. It has been reported that the 172 passengers had an "urgent need" to use the toilet after the facilities on board became unusable. The crew asked for engineers to be on standby to service the aircraft's toilets when it landed.

Continue reading...

Scientists say your “mind” isn’t confined to your brain, or even your body

You might wonder, at some point today, what’s going on in another person’s mind. You may compliment someone’s great mind, or say they are out of their mind. You may even try to expand or free your own mind. But what is a mind? Defining the concept is a surprisingly slippery task. The mind is the seat of consciousness, the essence of your being. Without a mind, you cannot be considered meaningfully alive. So what exactly, and where precisely, is it?

Continue reading...

Scientists created the thinnest wires yet made of atoms coated in diamonds

Put together diamonds, copper, and sulfur, and you can make the thinnest wires humanly possible. These nanometer-scale wires could help shrink electronic circuits, cramming more computing power into ever-smaller devices, and allow researchers to explore exotic material physics. A team of scientists from Stanford University and the US Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory recently took molecule-sized diamond fragments, attached them to atoms of sulfur, and dropped them into a solution with copper atoms. The result: a wire three atoms across sheathed in diamond.

Continue reading...

Superflex’s robot suit is meant to help mobilize aging populations

Wearable tech is often geared toward the super-fit or the able-bodied, whether it’s tracking intense activities or your basic daily step count, but one company in Silicon Valley is focusing instead on building a “smart” suit for the aging population.

Continue reading...

Gift of the fungi: Mushrooms — yes, mushrooms — could help save the world

Earlier this month, mushrooms momentarily sprouted into the news when two studies from Johns Hopkins and New York University found that a single magic mushroom trip (a mushroom with the naturally occurring psychedelic ingredient psilocybin) produced immediate, substantial and prolonged improvements in the levels of anxiety, depression and hopelessness for cancer-stricken patients. The studies also noted significant increases in quality of life, life meaning and optimism for participants. Though studies measuring the effects of a positive mental outlook on fighting cancer are largely inconclusive, it was nonetheless a positive development...

Continue reading...