Experiments

It was in 1975, when Carl Resnikoff and his girlfriend, Judith Gipson, took a bucolic ferry ride to Sausalito, a city located on the north end of Golden Gate Bridge, that a revolution in youth culture, music, emotion and imagination would take place. It was on that ride that the two undergraduates took capsules filled with MDMA powder for the very first time. Resnikoff, a biophysics major at Berkeley, had synthesized the drug himself. As the boat cut through the water of the San Francisco Bay, Gipson began to feel “a…

A total solar eclipse scheduled for April 8, 2024, offers an invaluable opportunity for scientific exploration and NASA is set to fund five interdisciplinary projects to capitalize on this. These studies, led by researchers from various academic institutions, will utilize diverse tools including cameras on high-altitude research planes and ham radios. Credit: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani<span class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div…

Google and Microsoft are placing ads into AI experiments without giving brands the choice to opt out. Advertisers are now concerned that their products and services could be promoted next to inappropriate content. Why we care: Brands could potentially be at risk of damage to their reputation should their products or services be advertised next to unsuitable content. Digital marketers are calling on Google and Microsoft to give them the chance to opt out of their ad placement experiments in response. What is…

Toy maker Mattel is experimenting with generative-artificial-intelligence tools including ChatGPT to help its cybersecurity teams, but the company’s head of cybersecurity said the risk of inaccurate results from the new technology is too great to deploy it broadly. Generative AI tools could make cyber analysts’ jobs easier by helping with tedious tasks, like parsing large datasets, freeing employees to do more pressing work, said Tom Le, Mattel’s chief…

A SpaceX Cargo Dragon spacecraft docked to the International Space Station. Credit: NASAThe <span class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>SpaceX</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>Commonly known as SpaceX, Space Exploration Technologies Corp. is a private American aerospace manufacturer and space transport services company that was founded by Elon Musk in 2002. Headquartered in Hawthorne, California, the company designs,…

Science is founded on hard evidence, but ironically, many of the stories we tell about scientists and their experiments are not based on much truth.An apple falling on Newton's head didn't suddenly stimulate his idea of gravity; Darwin's theory of evolution wasn't founded on the beaks of finches.And Benjamin Franklin certainly didn't discover electricity by holding a kite in a storm.It's hard enough to imagine a great scientific mind standing in an open field, trying to attract a bolt of lightning to a metal key without…

At Google I/O, the company announced Search Labs, a space where people can sign up to test Google’s early ideas for Search, like the SGE (Search Generative Experience). The Android maker has now announced that it is starting to open up access to Search LabsHow to access new Search features Those who want to get access to features Google is working on, they can sign up for the waitlist at labs.google.com/search. Those who have already signed up for the waitlist will be notified by email when they can start testing Labs…

Hand-colored lithograph published by Currier & Ives in 1876. This is probably the most widely distributed illustration of the experiment. Franklin is wrongly shown to be holding the string in one hand above the point to which the key is attached. Had he done so, he would have earthed the kite, and the experiment would not have worked. Credit: Bequest of A. S. Colgate, 1962 Illustrations of scientific experiments play a…

Researchers at RIKEN have measured the sound velocity of pure iron at extreme pressures, shedding light on Earth’s core composition and enabling improved measurements for other materials.Scientists have more accurately constrained the composition of the Earth’s core by performing sound-velocity measurements at double the pressure of previous ones.Building on a program started 15 years ago by Alfred Q. R. Baron in the RIKEN Materials Dynamics Laboratory, researchers have finally been able to measure the sound velocity of…

Apple is expected to launch its first AR headset later this year after showcasing it next month during the WWDC 2023 event. It is reported that Apple started experimenting with AR headsets in 2015. Even Samsung is developing its AR/MR headset after shutting down the Gear VR lineup a few years ago. Apple and Samsung are expected to go against each other in the AR/MR headset market later this year. Apple started working on AR headsets in 2015 and used Gear VR for experiments According to Bloomberg’s report, Apple used…