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Jan 11, 2022

MIT Physicists Detect Strange Hybrid Particle Held Together by Uniquely Intense “Glue”

Posted by in categories: engineering, particle physics

In the particle world, sometimes two is better than one. Take, for instance, electron pairs. When two electrons are bound together, they can glide through a material without friction, giving the material special superconducting properties. Such paired electrons, or Cooper pairs, are a kind of hybrid particle — a composite of two particles that behaves as one, with properties that are greater than the sum of its parts.

Now MIT

MIT is an acronym for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It is a prestigious private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts that was founded in 1861. It is organized into five Schools: architecture and planning; engineering; humanities, arts, and social sciences; management; and science. MIT’s impact includes many scientific breakthroughs and technological advances.

Jan 11, 2022

Predicting the next NBA MVP using Machine Learning

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

Train and validate a machine learning model on data of historical NBA MVP candidates to forecast the 2021–2022 season MVP.

Jan 11, 2022

Prager Metis sets up first CPA firm in metaverse

Posted by in categories: augmented reality, blockchains, business, space, virtual reality

Prager Metis has become the first CPA firm to open up a metaverse headquarters. The firm, which in real life is based in New York, is setting up shop in Decentraland, a 3D virtual world, as part of a joint venture with Banquet LLC, a metaverse studio.

The firm purchased the piece of virtual real estate on Dec. 28, a three-story digital structure. On the first floor is an open floor plan that doubles as a gallery space for nonfungible tokens from Prager Metis clients along with a large entertainment area. The second floor will provide more of a working space with meeting rooms and conference capabilities. The third floor will serve as a rooftop space where Prager Metis intends to host events and even live entertainment.

The metaverse has been attracting attention ever since Facebook’s parent company announced a name change last October to Meta to highlight its interest in developing technology for virtual reality and augmented reality. More businesses have followed suit in setting up shop in the metaverse. Prager Metis isn’t the first firm to dip its toes in the waters: PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Hong Kong firm announced last month that it had bought virtual land on another metaverse platform, the Sandbox, but Prager Metis is going further by setting up an actual headquarters in Decentraland. It plans to focus on advisory services for clients and potentially for other accounting firms as well. The firm already has clients who have entered the rapidly growing market for nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, which use blockchain technology to create collectibles and artwork that people bid on to buy and trade.

Jan 11, 2022

Research Shows Gravitational Action of Sun and Moon Influences Behavior of Plants and Animals

Posted by in categories: biological, space

Research conducted at the University of Campinas in Brazil was driven by observations of fluctuations in autoluminescence caused by seed germination in cycles regulated by gravitational tides.

The rhythms of activity in all biological organisms, both plants and animals, are closely linked to the gravitational tides created by the orbital mechanics of the Sun-Earth-Moon system. This truth has been somewhat neglected by scientific research but is foregrounded in a study by Cristiano de Mello Gallep at the University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, and Daniel Robert at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom. An article on the study is published in the Journal of Experimental Botany.

“All matter on Earth, both live and inert, experiences the effects of the gravitational forces of the Sun and Moon expressed in the form of tides. The periodic oscillations exhibit two daily cycles and are modulated monthly and annually by the motions of these two celestial bodies. All organisms on the planet have evolved in this context. What we sought to show in the article is that gravitational tides are a perceptible and potent force that has always shaped the rhythmic activities of these organisms,” Gallep told Agência FAPESP.

Jan 11, 2022

‘Fully Undetected’ SysJoker Backdoor Malware Targets Windows, Linux & macOS

Posted by in category: cybercrime/malcode

The malware establishes initial access on targeted machines, then waits for additional code to execute.

A brand-new multiplatform malware, likely distributed via malicious npm packages, is spreading under the radar with Linux and Mac versions going fully undetected in VirusTotal, researchers warned.

The Windows version, according to a Tuesday writeup from Intezer, has only six detections as of this writing. These were uploaded to VirusTotal with the suffix “.ts,” which is used for TypeScript files.

Jan 11, 2022

Scientists Say the Universe Itself May Be “Pixelated”

Posted by in categories: particle physics, quantum physics, space

Here’s a brain teaser for you: scientists are suggesting spacetime may be made out of individual “spacetime pixels,” instead of being smooth and continuous like it seems.

Rana Adhikari, a professor of physics at Caltech, suggested in a new press blurb that these pixels would be “so small that if you were to enlarge things so that it becomes the size of a grain of sand, then atoms would be as large as galaxies.”

Adhikari’s goal is to reconcile the conventional laws of physics, as determined by general relativity, with the more mysterious world of quantum physics.

Jan 11, 2022

“Extreme low power” chip with energy harvesting provides lifetime battery solution for remote controls

Posted by in categories: computing, sustainability

UEI “Extreme Low-Power” chip for Bluetooth, voice remote controls with energy-harvesting in order to provide lifetime battery life.


Most people probably don’t mind changing batteries in remote controls every so often, but it contributes to e-waste especially if you’re not using rechargeable batteries, and I always find it’s pain as I don’t usually have stock, or don’t feel like waiting for several hours to recharge the batteries.

Universal Electronics Inc, or UEI for shorts, claims to have a solution with a family of QuickSet-certified chips using “Extreme Low-Power”, energy-harvesting and “high-performance technology” that would provide lifetime battery life to Bluetooth, voice remote controls. The main goal is “to help transition the world towards a more sustainable future, by reducing primary battery waste throughout the life of the product, which in turn reduces the cumulative CO2 footprint”.

Continue reading “‘Extreme low power’ chip with energy harvesting provides lifetime battery solution for remote controls” »

Jan 11, 2022

Researcher develops new tool for understanding hard computational problems that appear intractable

Posted by in categories: computing, information science, mathematics

The notion that some computational problems in math and computer science can be hard should come as no surprise. There is, in fact, an entire class of problems deemed impossible to solve algorithmically. Just below this class lie slightly “easier” problems that are less well-understood—and may be impossible, too.

David Gamarnik, professor of operations research at the MIT Sloan School of Management and the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society, is focusing his attention on the latter, less-studied category of problems, which are more relevant to the everyday world because they involve —an integral feature of natural systems. He and his colleagues have developed a potent tool for analyzing these problems called the overlap gap property (or OGP). Gamarnik described the new methodology in a recent paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Jan 11, 2022

What Lifestyle Habits Can Put You At Risk Of A Brain Stroke?

Posted by in category: neuroscience

Strokes are among the leading cause of long-term disability in the elderly, although most can be avoided by adopting a healthy lifestyle.

Jan 11, 2022

Mars Missions 2022: 4 ways we’re looking for ancient alien life on the Red Planet

Posted by in category: alien life

We are getting closer to discovering if life existed on the Red Planet.


Scientists are gathering evidence of Mars’ past habitability through several ongoing missions, including Perseverance, Curiosity, Zhurong, and Exomars.