North Korea detonated a nuclear device in 2017 equivalent to about 250 kilotons of TNT, a new study estimates, creating an explosion 16 times the size of the bomb the United States detonated over Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945. The new assessment of the 2017 explosion's size is on the high end of previous estimate ranges.
* This article was originally published here
Monday 3 June 2019
Feathers came first, then birds
New research, led by the University of Bristol, suggests that feathers arose 100 million years before birds—changing how we look at dinosaurs, birds, and pterosaurs, the flying reptiles.
* This article was originally published here
* This article was originally published here
How a leap of faith can take science forward
At the movies, scientific discoveries are often portrayed as a Eureka moment in the laboratory. Reality, however, couldn't be more different—early-stage academic inventions often require long cycles of testing, validation and regulatory approvals before they can be turned into something useful, such as a new vaccine.
* This article was originally published here
* This article was originally published here
Defense against wireless attacks using a deep neural network and game theory
A growing number of devices are now connected to the internet and are capable of collecting, sending and receiving data. This interconnection between devices, referred to as the Internet of Things (IoT), poses serious security threats, as cyberattackers can now target computers and smartphones, but also a vast array of other devices, such as tablets, smart watches, smart home systems, transportation systems and so on.
* This article was originally published here
* This article was originally published here
An AI taught itself to play a video game and now it's beating humans
Since the earliest days of virtual chess and solitaire, video games have been a playing field for developing artificial intelligence (AI). Each victory of machine against human has helped make algorithms smarter and more efficient. But in order to tackle real world problems—such as automating complex tasks including driving and negotiation—these algorithms must navigate more complex environments than board games, and learn teamwork. Teaching AI how to work and interact with other players to succeed had been an insurmountable task—until now.
* This article was originally published here
* This article was originally published here
Networking with ghosts in the machine... and speaking kettles
Imagine for just a moment that your kettle could speak? What would it say? How would it feel? More importantly, what on earth would you ask it?
* This article was originally published here
* This article was originally published here
Heat, not drought, will drive lower crop yields, researchers say
Climate change-induced heat stress will play a larger role than drought stress in reducing the yields of several major U.S. crops later this century, according to Cornell University researchers who weighed in on a high-stakes debate between crop experts and scientists.
* This article was originally published here
* This article was originally published here
Phosphorylation of Regnase-1 lets IL-17 run amok
When considering the role of the key immune molecule interleukin (IL)-17, the phrase "too much of a good thing" springs to mind. Because unlike some of its more sedate cytokine cousins which studiously direct the immune response to destroy invading pathogens, IL-17 can get a little carried away. So much so that excess inflammation caused by IL-17 has been implicated in autoimmune disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, and multiple sclerosis.
* This article was originally published here
* This article was originally published here
'Law as Data' explores radical leap for legal analysis
Four thousand years ago, human societies underwent a fundamental transition when the rules governing how people interact shifted from oral custom to written laws: first captured in stone tablets such as the Code of Hammurabi, then migrating to scrolls and eventually printed law books. In recent years, the law has leaped from the analog to the digital, breaking out of the law library and onto any computer, tablet, or phone with an internet connection. This shift has the potential to radically revise how law is experienced, practiced, and studied.
* This article was originally published here
* This article was originally published here
'Organs in a dish' pave the way for personalized medicine in gut and liver disease
One of the most exciting advancements in stem cell research has been the development of organoid systems, which are organ-like three-dimensional structures that mimic their corresponding organ in vivo. In this important review in Digestive and Liver Disease, published by Elsevier, scientists highlight some of the established and exciting novel uses for organoids or "organs in a dish" in gastroenterology and hepatology and look towards the future in this exciting field.
* This article was originally published here
* This article was originally published here
W3C and WHATWG agreement: Single version of HTML, DOM specifications
Having two separate HTML specifications? What's up with that? Stephen Shankland's account of the two in CNET: "for nearly a decade, two separate groups have been issuing separate documents to define Hypertext Markup Language, or HTML, the standard that tells you how to make a web page."
* This article was originally published here
* This article was originally published here
Stanford Doggo: a highly agile quadruped robot
Researchers at Stanford University have recently created an open-source quadruped robot called Stanford Doggo. Their robot, presented in a paper pre-published on arXiv and set to be published by IEEE Explore, exceeds the performance of many state-of-the-art legged robots in vertical jumping agility.
* This article was originally published here
* This article was originally published here
Water management aided by mathematical model of fresh water lenses
A joint Russian-Omani paper was published in Journal of Hydrology. In the 1950s, Russian academician Vladimir Kunin, one of the founders of the Institute of Water Problems in Moscow and the Institute of Deserts in Ashkhabad, discovered and described fresh water lenses in the Karakum desert of Turkmenistan. These lenses float on the top of saline and hypersaline groundwater. The genesis of these lenses and factors controlling fresh water storage, circulation in the lenses, and their resilience to adverse climatic factors and anthropogenic impacts (pumping) were not clear.
* This article was originally published here
* This article was originally published here
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