From Pluto To Food Grown In Space, NASA Is Having A Great Year. But Even More Mysterious Than Those Discoveries,

Today in the robot takeover: Disney has built a remote-control device that can climb walls  while Singapore scientists created an eerie artificial being that can remember your past conversations (and may haunt your dreams.)

By 2020, there will be enough renewable energy to supply CHN, IND, and BRA combined.

Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) has predicted that by 2020, 26% of the world’s energy will come from renewable sources (solar, wind, hydro). The agency adds that the amount will be higher than the combined energy demands of country’s like China, India, and Brazil. The prediction was based on the assumption that in the next five years, 700 gigawatts will be added to the world’s current renewable energy capacity.

Read more at: http://futurism.com/links/by-2020-there-will-be-enough-renewable-energy-to-supply-chn-ind-and-bra-combined/

Astronomy Photo of the Day: 11/23/15 - The Plieades

November is the month of the Pleiades. When the leaves turn orange and begin to fall in the North, look to the skies, and you will see the Seven Sisters.

Ultimately, the ‘Seven Sisters’ is the common name given to this open star cluster. It stems from the fact that, although the region is dominated by a number of middleaged stars, most nights, only 6 or 7 are bright enough to see.

In fact, the Pleiades contains over 3000 stars.

The cluster is located in the constellation Taurus. It’s is one of the nearest star clusters to Earth and is also the cluster most obvious to the naked eye in the night sky.

Image credit: Marco Lorenzi http://www.glitteringlights.com

Scientists have developed liquid-metal 'nano-terminators' to target cancer cells

My mission is to protect you.

Liquid-metal terminators are generally something to be afraid of – but what if the substance was used to fight cancer instead of wiping out humanity?

That’s exactly what researchers in the US are working on, having developed a biodegradable liquid metal that can be used as a drug delivery technique to target cancer cells.

“The advance here is that we have a drug-delivery technique that may enhance the effectiveness of the drugs being delivered, can help doctors locate tumours, can be produced in bulk, and appears to be wholly biodegradable with very low toxicity,” said Zhen Gu, a biomedical engineer in a joint program at North Carolina’s State University and University at Chapel Hill. “And one of the advantages of this technique is that these liquid metal drug carriers – or ‘nano-terminators’ – are very easy to make.”

Continue Reading.

Physicists Predict The Existence of New Particle in the “Material Universe”

Scientists are predicting the existence of the type-II Weyl fermion. This comes after they realized that a metallic crystal material, called tungsten ditelluride, was exhibiting a strange behavior. While most metals turn into insulators once subjected to a magnetic field, tungsten ditelluride becomes either an insulator or a conductor, which one it becomes ultimately depends on the direction of the subjected magnetic field.

After a team investigated the phenomenon, they predicted the presence of an unexpected particle—the previously mentioned type-II Weyl fermion—which caused the behavior.

Read more at: http://futurism.com/links/physicists-predict-the-existence-of-new-particle-in-the-material-universe/

Physicists Discover A New Phase of Matter

Physicists discover a new phase of matter that exhibits superconductivity at high temperatures and could lead to new battery developments for electronic devices.

Read more at: http://futurism.com/links/physicists-discover-a-new-phase-of-matter/

Reviving Chivalry: Small Favors Can Yield Large Returns

Many people hold the door open for strangers. But what do people give in return?

The research is in Frontiers In Psychology. (full open access)

I never take selfies let alone smiling selfies and I’m hardly ever happy. Lemme see if this actually works

Chasing Storms at 17,500mph

Flying 250 miles above the Earth aboard the International Space Station has given me the unique vantage point from which to view our planet. Spending a year in space has given me the unique opportunity to see a wide range of spectacular storm systems in space and on Earth. 

The recent blizzard was remarkably visible from space. I took several photos of the first big storm system on Earth of year 2016 as it moved across the East Coast, Chicago and Washington D.C. Since my time here on the space station began in March 2015, I’ve been able to capture an array of storms on Earth and in space, ranging from hurricanes and dust storms to solar storms and most recently a rare thunder snowstorm.

Blizzard 2016

Hurricane Patricia 2015

Hurricane Joaquin 2015

Dust Storm in the Red Sea 2015

Dust Storm of Gobi Desert 2015

Aurora Solar Storm 2015

Aurora Solar Storm 2016

Thunderstorm over Italy 2015

Lightning and Aurora 2016

Rare Thunder Snowstorm 2016

Follow my Year In Space on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

The geniuses at MIT have created a Wi-Fi network so high-tech it doesn’t need a password

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology want to change how we connect to Wi-Fi. To avoid the cumbersome network login process, a team has come up with a way to grant computers access to a Wi-Fi network based on their proximity to a router. But what about security?

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