General science advances thread

[ScienceRocks]

3D printed concrete castle and plans to create and sell a concrete printer kit for about $30,000 to $50,000 that can print two story houses

[In Minnesota, contractor Andrey Rudenko is currently working on a project of gargantuan proportions that seems to be stretching and exploring the limits of 3D printing technology. Using a printer that was substantially modified and expanded, he has printed a concrete castle in his own backyard. And at 3 by 5 meters, this concrete structure is the world's first 3D printed concrete castle, and one of the largest objects that has, up till now, ever printed with 3D printing technology.


Contour crafting has been under development for several years but has not gotten to commercialized production of houses. There were ten houses built in China using 3D printing earlier this year. This project could soon bring 3Dhouse printing to the popular Maker movement and building contractors.

 

[ScienceRocks]

Newly discovered cave art is likely the work of Neanderthals
James Sullivan | Science Recorder | September 01, 2014

While the word Neanderthal typically conjures up the image of primitive, brutish cave-men, some newly discovered cave etchings at Gorham’s Cave near the Strait of Gibraltar suggest that there is likely more to our distant hominid ancestors than was previously thought, The Associated Press reports. Like modern day humans, Neanderthals may have been capable of expressing abstractions.

The study, which was published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, examined rock grooves covered in sediment. Prior to this discovery, archaeologists found Neanderthal tools buried in the same sediment, suggesting that the etchings were around at the time of the Neanderthals.

Read more: Newly discovered cave art is likely the work of Neanderthals Science Recorder

A series of lines scratched into rock in a cave near the southwestern tip of Europe could be proof that Neanderthals were more intelligent and creative than previously thought.

The cross-hatched engravings inside Gorham's Cave in Gibraltar are the first known examples of Neanderthal rock art, according to a team of scientists who studied the site. The find is significant because it indicates that modern humans and their extinct cousins shared the capacity for abstract expression.

The study, released Monday by the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, examined grooves in a rock that had been covered with sediment. Archaeologists had previously found artifacts associated with Neanderthal culture in the overlying layer, suggesting that the engravings must be older, said Clive Finlayson, one of the study's authors.

"It is the last nail in the coffin for the hypothesis that Neanderthals were cognitively inferior to modern humans," said Paul Tacon, an expert in rock art at Australia's Griffith University. Tacon, who was not involved in the study, said the research showed that the engravings were made with great effort for ritual purposes, to communicate with others, or both.

"We will never know the meaning the design held for the maker or the Neanderthals who inhabited the cave but the fact that they were marking their territory in this way before modern humans arrived in the region has huge implications for debates about what it is to be human and the origin of art," said Tacon.

Study Claims Cave Art Made by Neanderthals - ABC News

 

[ScienceRocks]

New fossils found in Argentina represent the most complete giant sauropod dinosaur ever discovered.

Scientists say they have 70% of the key bones needed to fully describe the creature, Dreadnoughtus schrani.

Continue reading the main story

At 26m from head to tail, Dreadnoughtus was longer than two London buses parked end to end
It means they can confidently estimate its great bulk - a beast that measured 26m from head to tail and weighed in at almost 60 tonnes.

Remarkably, the skeletal analysis reveals Dreadnoughtus was still growing at the time of its death.

Quite how large the dino might have become, no-one can say.

The Patagonian rocks from which it was pulled suggest that the young animal's life was cut short in a catastrophic flood.

A detailed write-up on the 77-million-year-old fossils appears in the journal Scientific Reports.

The study group's leader is Kenneth Lacovara from Drexel University, Philadelphia, US.

He told the BBC that the dinosaur's enormous size would have been intimidating.

And for that reason, he has given the beast a name that recalls the massive battleships that revolutionised naval warfare in the early 1900s.

"Dreadnoughtus was huge, and in its environment there would have been nothing that could have preyed on it; it was essentially impervious to attack," he explained.

"And that evoked in my mind those turn-of-the-last-century battleships - the first really big steel battleships - that were also impervious to attack from the other ships that existed at that time. So, what better name than 'dread nought' - 'fears nothing'."

Dreadnoughtus was one of the so-called titanosaurs.

These immense, long-necked, plant-eating dinos were the most massive beasts ever to plod the Earth's land surface.

These immense, long-necked, plant-eating dinos were the most massive beasts ever to plod the Earth's land surface.

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Ken Lacovara: "Previous skeletons have been so fragmentary"

Some, such as Argentinosaurus - a previous South American discovery - could even have topped the scales at close to 100 tonnes.

But such estimates are based on very fragmentary evidence. In the case of Argentinosaurus, this is just half-a-dozen vertebrae in its mid-back, a few hip pieces and a shin bone.

And this is why Dreadnoughtus is generating so much excitement.

Although its skull has not survived, almost half of the rest of the skeleton has been preserved.

And when you consider just the key bone groups, more than two-thirds of the complete animal is present in fossil form.

 

[ScienceRocks]

Korea made graphene nickel composite that were up to 4 times stronger than Titanium
Nature - Korean researchers developed graphene copper composite material that is 50% stronger than titanium and a graphene nickel composite that is 4 times stronger than titanium.

They demonstrated a new material design in the form of a nanolayered composite consisting of alternating layers of metal (copper or nickel) and monolayer graphene that has ultra-high strengths of 1.5 and 4.0 GPa for copper–graphene with 70-nm repeat layer spacing and nickel–graphene with 100-nm repeat layer spacing, respectively. The ultra-high strengths of these metal–graphene nanolayered structures indicate the effectiveness of graphene in blocking dislocation propagation across the metal–graphene interface. Ex situ and in situ transmission electron microscopy compression tests and molecular dynamics simulations confirm a build-up of dislocations at the graphene interface.

The copper-graphene composite that has 500 times the tensile strength of copper (1.5 gigapascals), and a nickel-grapehene composite that has 180 times the tensile strength of nickel (4 gigapascals). This is still some way off graphene’s tensile strength of 130 GPa — which is about 200 times stronger than steel (600 MPa) — but it’s still very, very strong. At 1.5 GPa, copper-graphene is about 50% stronger than titanium, or about three times as strong as structural aluminium alloys.

 

[ScienceRocks]

http://phys.org/news...-cryogenic.html

A new concept in metallic alloy design – called "high-entropy alloys" - has yielded a multiple-element material that not only tests out as one of the toughest on record, but, unlike most materials, the toughness as well as the strength and ductility of this alloy actually improves at cryogenic temperatures. This multi-element alloy was synthesized and tested through a collaboration of researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley and Oak Ridge National Laboratories.

"We examined CrMnFeCoNi, a high-entropy alloy that contains five major elements rather than one dominant one," says Robert Ritchie, a materials scientist with Berkeley Lab's Materials Sciences Division. "Our tests showed that despite containing multiple elements with different crystal structures, this alloy crystalizes as a single phase, face‐centered cubic solid with exceptional damage tolerance, tensile strength above one gigapascal, and fracture toughness values that are off the charts, exceeding that of virtually all other metallic alloys."

 

[ScienceRocks]

Drone helps RCMP find missing family in Dartmouth woods
Family of 3 found near Topsail Lake

RCMP in Nova Scotia used a drone to find a family missing in the woods in Dartmouth Saturday night.

On Saturday night a couple and their 17 year old left to go hiking around 4:30 p.m., off Highway 107.

They become disoriented and called police around 8:30 p.m.

Police say they sent up one of their unmanned aerial vehicles and it found the family in a heavily wooded area near Topsail Lake.

Officers and police dogs were able to walk the family out of the woods around 2 a.m. on Sunday.

Nova Scotia RCMP bought five drones earlier this summer. Each machine costs around $30,000.

Drone helps RCMP find missing family in Dartmouth woods - Nova Scotia - CBC News


Drones are cool and helping people all the time!

 

[ScienceRocks]

Nanostructured ceramics could be used to build lighter, stronger airplanes and batteries

A new type of material, made up of nanoscale struts crisscrossed like the struts of a tiny Eiffel Tower, is one of the strongest and lightest substances ever made.

If researchers can figure out how to make the stuff in large quantities, it could be used as a structural material for making planes and trucks, as well as in battery electrodes.

 

[boedicca]

Genetically Modified Microhumans.....

Developers of artificial micro-humans, or ‘mini GM humans,’ are hoping to release their technology on the market by 2017.
No this isn’t a sci-fi joke. Scientists are developing artificial humans in the same vein as GM plants with the hope that these creations will replace the need for using animals in laboratory testing.

Artificial humans will be ‘farmed’ with interacting organs that can be used in drug tests, speeding up the process of FDA and other government regulatory approvals, and supposedly without damaging rats or other animals currently used in laboratories. The GM humans will contain smartphone-sized microchips that will be programmed to replicate up to 10 major human organs.

Each GM human will be tiny – roughly the size of a microchip itself, simulating the response of humans to substances inhaled, absorbed in the blood, or exposed to in the intestinal tract....


Mad Science Genetically Modified Micro Humans to be Farmed for Drug Testing by 2017 Alex Jones Infowars There s a war on for your mind

 

[Old Rocks]

Micro-humans? Is that really what you and Jones read into this? Lordy, lordy!

 

[Old Rocks]

3D printed concrete castle and plans to create and sell a concrete printer kit for about $30,000 to $50,000 that can print two story houses

[In Minnesota, contractor Andrey Rudenko is currently working on a project of gargantuan proportions that seems to be stretching and exploring the limits of 3D printing technology. Using a printer that was substantially modified and expanded, he has printed a concrete castle in his own backyard. And at 3 by 5 meters, this concrete structure is the world's first 3D printed concrete castle, and one of the largest objects that has, up till now, ever printed with 3D printing technology.


Contour crafting has been under development for several years but has not gotten to commercialized production of houses. There were ten houses built in China using 3D printing earlier this year. This project could soon bring 3Dhouse printing to the popular Maker movement and building contractors.

Interesting, and an advance. BUT! You have to have rebar in a concrete structure, otherwise, it is a hazard.

 

[Abishai100]

DNA Gossip

The primary reason that American comic books have such a cult following is because they characterize modern age scientific fascination with genetic modification. Special comic book avatars such as Flash and She-Hulk exhibit traits of super-human strength or speed and encourage discussion about genetic transformation of the human body (or brain).

These avatars are the modern day political cartoon characters, inviting readers to comment on the dangers and the intrigue of science itself.

Serpentor, a super-genetic mutant soldier from the paramilitary comic book stylized franchise "G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero" (Hasbro & IDW), encourages people to ponder the impact of scientific progress. Has science made us more sensitive (i.e., psychoanalysis) or more savage (i.e., nuclear weapons)?

Using art to discuss the politics behind science is a sign of modernity, and perhaps the Internet facilitates the dissemination of such dialogue.





Serpentor RAH - G.I. Joe Wiki - Joepedia - GI Joe Cobra toys

 

[ScienceRocks]

Researchers develop world's thinnest electric generator

Researchers from Columbia Engineering and the Georgia Institute of Technology report today that they have made the first experimental observation of piezoelectricity and the piezotronic effect in an atomically thin material, molybdenum disulfide (MoS2), resulting in a unique electric generator and mechanosensation devices that are optically transparent, extremely light, and very bendable and stretchable.

Read more at: Researchers develop world s thinnest electric generator

 

[ScienceRocks]

Physicists build reversible tractor beam

Physicists build reversible tractor beam - Newsroom - ANU

Laser physicists have built a tractor beam that can repel and attract objects, using a hollow laser beam that is bright around the edges and dark in its centre.

It is the first long-distance optical tractor beam and moved particles one fifth of a millimetre in diameter a distance of up to 20 centimetres, around 100 times further than previous experiments.

“Demonstration of a large scale laser beam like this is a kind of holy grail for laser physicists,” said Professor Wieslaw Krolikowski, from the Research School of Physics and Engineering.

The new technique is versatile because it requires only a single laser beam. It could be used, for example, in controlling atmospheric pollution or for the retrieval of tiny, delicate or dangerous particles for sampling.

The researchers can also imagine the effect being scaled up.

“Because lasers retain their beam quality for such long distances, this could work over metres. Our lab just was not big enough to show it,” said co-author Dr Vladlen Shvedov, a driving force behind the ANU project, along with Dr Cyril Hnatovsky.

 

[ScienceRocks]

Scientists resurrect 700-year-old viruses

(Phys.org) —Eric Delwart of the Blood Systems Research Institute in San Francisco and colleagues have found two 700-year-old viral sequences in frozen caribou dung in an arctic ice patch. The researchers isolated part of a viral RNA genome and the complete genome of a DNA virus. They infected living plants with the DNA virus. The study appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Read more at: Scientists resurrect 700-year-old viruses

 

[ScienceRocks]

28 October 2014 - A new £97m Met Office supercomputer will cement the UK's position as a world leader in weather and climate prediction.

The weather's volatility has long been a popular British conversation topic - but the Government's plans for a new £97m supercomputer unveiled today will cement the UK's position as a world leader in weather and climate prediction.

This supercomputer will be 13 times more powerful than the current system used by the Met Office and will have 120,000 times more memory than a top-end smartphone.

Enabling forecast updates every hour and the ability to provide very high detail weather information for precise geographical areas, the world-leading High Performance Computer (HPC) will help the UK to predict disruptive weather events such as flooding, strong winds, fog and heavy snowfall more effectively.

The supercomputer's impressive computing power also opens up the potential for higher resolution models, which would have the ability to pinpoint more detail for small scale, high-impact weather. For example applying very high resolution (300m) models could help better determine the risk and timing of fog over airports.

Scientists will also explore the benefits of adapting the resolution to improve UK winter forecasts out to months ahead, and assessing the specific regional impacts of climate change such as floods, droughts and heatwaves.

97m supercomputer makes UK world-leader in weather and climate science - Met Office

 

[ScienceRocks]

DARPA-Funded Researchers Have Tested a Drone That Can Learn

Almost seven years ago, we learned that DARPA was investing millions of dollars in neuromorphic chips. That's a fancy term for a computer chip that mimics a biological cortex—a brain chip. Today, researchers are getting closer. And of course, they're putting those brain chips in drones.

Responding to DARPA's challenge, HRL Laboratories' Center for Neural and Emergent Systemsjust tested a tiny drone with a prototype neuromorphic chip. The drone packs 576 silicon neurons that communicate through spikes in electricity and respond to data from optical, ultrasound, and infrared sensors. And thanks to that brain-like chip, the little robot doesn't necessarily need a human to tell it what to do. It can learn and act on its own.

 

[ScienceRocks]

Japan's levitating maglev train reaches 500km/h (311mph)

Train fans have experienced the speed of super-fast maglev trains, during test runs for members of the public in central Japan.

http://www.bbc.co.uk...d-asia-30067889

 

[ScienceRocks]

Martin Jetpack closer to takeoff in first responder applications

Last year's redesign of the long-awaited Martin Jetpack was accompanied by plans to begin commercial sales in 2014, starting with emergency response services and individual sales to follow thereafter. The release date for the first responder Jetpack has since been revised to 2016, a prediction bolstered by the fresh announcement of a partnership between Martin Aircraft Company and US company Avwatch to develop air-based, first responder solutions for the US Department of Homeland Security and Department of Defense.

 

[ScienceRocks]

So DARPA is going to build atom replicators (APM / Molecular Manufacturing) for ...2019 (Development starting in Mars 2015). (self.Futurology)
submitted 22 hours ago * by Valmond

I'm closely following what I can concerning Atomically Precise Manufacturing (search for anything with Dr Eric Drexler) and when DARPA launched a round searching contracts to bridge the atomic processing fabrication from the atomic level with that of the millimetre range in September, I knew something big was coming.

To deposit a candidature you had til somewhere in November (too late now!) and they will check all that out and choose with whom they will work. This is supposed to be done in March 2015.

And than I stumbled on this Document (Warning, direct download link to pdf) on this Website.

They have an actual timeline (!!) for the development of APM and it is 48 months (!!!) so ... March 2015 + 48 months is 2019...

In one of the latest videos with Dr Drexler (who have lately advocated for the exact same planning as DARPA seems to take, feedstocks + assembly), he also hints that 'it might be coming faster than you think' (paraphrasing, but that's the idea).

 

[ScienceRocks]

MIT unveil the cheetah robot that can run and jump on its own power

Engineers have revealed a robot that runs on batteries at speeds of more than 10mph, jump 16 inches and gallop for at least 15 minutes while using less power than a microwave.

The robot is called the cheetah, named after the creature that inspired its creation by engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, MA.