Solar System: 2015 Year In Review

You just scrolled over a high-res segment of the Andromeda galaxy. How does NASA get its photos to look so spectacular? The same way as everyone else.

Scientists extend an atom’s lifetime with a mirror

Scientists from Chalmers University of Technology have been able to extend the lifetime of an artificial atom, allowing it to remain charged for up to ten times longer. They achieved this by placing the artificial atom in front of a short circuit, which acts as a mirror. The distance between the atom and the mirror affects how long the atom “lives,” which is the time from when an atom is charged to when it returns to its ground state.

Research team leader and Professor of Physics Per Delsing says, “We can vary the lifetime of the atom by changing the distance between the atom and the mirror. If we place the atom at a certain distance from the mirror the atom’s lifetime is extended by such a length that we are not even able to observe the atom.”

Know more at: http://futurism.com/links/scientists-extend-an-atoms-lifetime-with-a-mirror/

China and the US create a ‘space hotline’ to avoid conflicts

Scientists Discover How Loneliness Can Kill

Loneliness can increase the risk of premature death by 14 percent in older adults, according to a study published Monday that posits a physiological basis for the phenomenon. The dangers of social isolation have long been known but its effects on the body have not been well understood, the researchers said in the work published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences/PNAS. Led by University of Chicago psychologist John Cacioppo, the research team had previously identified a link between solitude and both a heightened expression of genes involved in inflammation and a diminution in the activity of other genes that play a role in the body’s antiviral responses. The result is a weakened immune systems that makes a person who lives alone more vulnerable to illness. In their latest research, the researchers looked at leukocytes, white blood cells that the immune system uses to protect against bacteria and viruses. They found the same shift in genetic expression in the white blood cells of people who lived alone and in social isolation. They also found that loneliness predicted the gene behavior a year or more in advance and conversely that gene expression predicted loneliness measured a year or more later. (Source)

You may also like: 

The Science on Sleep Paralysis

Emotional Pain Counts Too

Girl With Half a Brain

Kryptos is an encrypted sculpture by the American artist, Jim Sanborn, that is located on the grounds of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Langley, Virginia. Since its dedication on November 3, 1990, there has been much speculation about the meaning of the encrypted messages it bears. Of the four messages, three have been solved, with the fourth remaining one of the most famous unsolved codes in the world. The sculpture continues to provide a diversion for cryptanalysts, both amateur and professional, who are attempting to decipher the final section. The sculptor has given clues on several occasions.

The solved messages can be read here: [x]

(Fact Source) For more facts, follow Ultrafacts

Women are better coders, research shows

Researchers from the computer science departments at California Polytechnic State University and North Carolina State University gathered data from nearly 1.4 million GitHub users, and the results are in: Women are better at writing code. The researchers also found proof of a specific bias.

Follow @the-future-now​

Scientists Make New Form of Gold That’s Nearly as Light as Air

Researchers in Switzerland have been able to produce gold foam that is almost as light as air. In fact, 98% of it consists of air; the rest is made up of 20-carat gold and milk protein. According to materials scientist Raffaele Mezzenga from ETH Zurich, this gold aerogel is a thousand times lighter than any other gold alloy, is lighter than water, and is almost as light as air itself.

Read more at: http://futurism.com/links/scientists-make-new-form-of-gold-thats-nearly-as-light-as-air/

Physicists have broken the record for the most accurate clock ever built

This could redefine what a second is.

Physicists in Germany have built the most accurate timepiece on Earth, achieving unprecedented levels of accuracy with a new atomic clock that keeps time according to the movements of ytterbium ions.

Called an optical single-ion clock, the device works by measuring the vibrational frequency of ytterbium ions as they oscillate back and forth hundreds of trillions times per second between two different energy levels. These ions are trapped within an ‘optical lattice’ of laser beams that allows scientists to count the number of ytterbium 'ticks’ per second to measure time so accurately, the clock won’t lose or gain a second in several billion years.

Until very recently, our most accurate time-keepers were caesium atomic clocks - devices that contain a 'pendulum’ of atoms that are excited into resonance by microwave radiation. It’s on these clocks that the official definition of the second - the Standard International (SI) unit of time - is based.

How astronauts train underwater in NASA’s neutral buoyancy lab, which includes a full sized mock-up of the ISS.