Experiments

The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Dragon spacecraft lifts off from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Thursday, Nov. 9, 2023, on the company’s 29th commercial resupply services mission for the agency to the International Space Station. Liftoff was at 8:28 p.m. EST. Credit: SpaceXNASA and the agency’s international partners are sending scientific investigations to the International Space Station on the 30th SpaceX commercial resupply services mission, including tests of technologies to…

The four SpaceX Crew-8 members are pictured inside the SpaceX Dragon “Endeavour” spacecraft shortly after the hatch opened on the forward port of the International Space Station’s Harmony module. From left are, Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin and NASA astronauts Mike Barratt, Jeanette Epps, and Matthew Dominick. Credit: NASAISS transitions with new crew learning the ropes, conducting crucial experiments, and a quartet preparing to depart after months in space.Four new flight engineers are adapting to life aboard…

A a view from inside the OMEGA target chamber during a direct-drive inertial fusion experiment at the University of Rochester’s Laboratory for Laser Energetics. Scientists fired 28 kilojoules of laser energy at small capsules filled with deuterium and tritium fuel, causing the capsules to implode and produce a plasma hot enough to initiate fusion reactions between the fuel nuclei. The temperatures achieved at the heart of these implosions are as high as 100 million degrees Celsius (180 million degrees Fahrenheit). The…

Over the past 15 years, Google has been showcasing thousands of fun, clever, informative, and inspiring experiments coders have made with Chrome, Android, AR, AI, and more. If you weren’t aware, all of those experiments can be found online on the Experiments with Google website. As of February 2024, there are over 1,600 experiments available to try, and while it’s worth scrolling through to see them all, we’ve picked out our five favorites below.Instrument PlaygroundInstrument Playground is an AI-powered Google…

In its first half of the FY24 report, Commonwealth Bank of Australia announced that, through “responsible scaling of AI,” it has already produced more than 50 generative AI use cases. The bank says that it will simplify operational processes and support new customer experiences. Beneath that dry language, it’s worth paying attention to what CBA is doing with AI because it remains the trendsetter with technology, and its experiments with AI are likely to be transformative, particularly with regard to how banks…

His group decided to find out. They built the new, diversified version of AlphaZero, which includes multiple AI systems that trained independently and on a variety of situations. The algorithm that governs the overall system acts as a kind of virtual matchmaker, Zahavy said: one designed to identify which agent has the best chance of succeeding when it’s time to make a move. He and his colleagues also coded in a “diversity bonus”—a reward for the system whenever it pulled strategies from a large selection of choices.When…

Altermagnetism introduces a third magnetic phase, combining the non-magnetization of antiferromagnets with the strong spin-dependent phenomena of ferromagnets. Discovered through international collaboration, this new phase offers significant potential for spintronics, bridging previous gaps in magnetic material applications. Credit: SciTechDaily.comExperiments at the Swiss Light Source SLS prove the existence of a new type of magnetism, with broad implications for technology and research.There is now a new addition to the…

Ivory perforated baton from Hohle Fels Cave, southwestern Germany with four views. Credit: Science Advances (2024). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adh5217 A pair of historians at the University of Tübingen have found evidence that an ancient baton, thought to be a work of art created by early humans thousands of years ago, is actually a device to assist with making rope. In their study, published in the journal Science Advances, Nicholas…

Recalling past events – what happened, when, and where – is a skill only humans were thought to possess.This 'mental time travel' is called episodic memory, and some experts have long argued it sets us apart from other animals, in the way we can make decisions or strategize for the future based on what we've learned in the past.Yet some animal behavior experts don't think humans are unique in this regard. For decades, they have argued that all sorts of animals have episodic-like memories.Birds store food underground and…

Scientists in China have recently conducted experiments on a novel coronavirus strain, GX_P2V. It resulted in a 100%…