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Cats in space: A few words on felines and the space program

Cats. Cats in space. Even better right? I know. Anyway, cats have been helping the space program probably since before you were born. Since 1947 cats have been being studied by the air force to learn about reflexes in micro gravity. The techniques that astronauts use today to deal with weightlessness are derived from watching kittens in a near weightless environment.  Continue reading Cats in space: A few words on felines and the space program

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Closest Comet Approach in 250 Years as P/2016 BA14 Passes Earth Tuesday

March 22, 2016 at approximately 7:30 a.m. CDT comet P/2016 BA14 will buzz earth closer than any comet has in over 250 years. Clearing the way for it’s friend will be comet 252P/LINEAR on Monday, the morning before at around 7:14 a.m. CDT. You will need pro gear to see these so it’s not really an event for the amateur astronomer but a relevant event to our study of comets.  Continue reading Closest Comet Approach in 250 Years as P/2016 BA14 Passes Earth Tuesday

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That time things got heavy man!

Back in September of 2015 scientists detected  a pair of black holes that spun towards each other and combined into an even larger black hole, all taking place about 1.3 billion light years away. These black holes are around 30 times bigger than our own sun and I would assume this event is just what they were hoping for to help shed some light on a bunch of the mysteries surrounding things like gravity, time, space, dark matter, etc.  Continue reading That time things got heavy man!

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Electric Skin created at Berkeley and Stanford

There have been so many news stories lately that convince me we will finally be able to check off cyborg on that list of things my generation is still waiting for. Zhenan Bao, a chemist at Stanford, has used a method called polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) to create a pressure sensitive skin that is 1000 times more responsive than human skin. Meanwhile at Berkeley inSan Fransisco, researchers there weaved nanowire semiconductors with rubber to form a low power pressure sensitive synthetic skin.  Continue reading Electric Skin created at Berkeley and Stanford

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Artificial memories created with mouse tissue

Mnemonic Representations of Transient Stimuli and Temporal Sequences in Rodent Hippocampus In Vitro“. That’s the name of the article published describing how a group of scientists have used pieces of a mouse brain to build a neural circuit that recorded and played back a short term memory similar to a name or place for 10 seconds.  Continue reading Artificial memories created with mouse tissue

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Error Correction is in Everything

Dr. S. James Gates, Jr., a theoretical physicist working on string theory equations, is reporting that certain string theory, super-symmetrical  equations, which describe the fundamental nature of the Universe and reality, contain embedded computer codes. These codes are digital data in the form of 1′s and 0′s. Not only that, these codes are the same as what make web browsers work and are error-correction codes! Gates says, “We have no idea what these ‘things’ are doing there”.  Continue reading Error Correction is in Everything