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Cool hologram generating tabletop. Check the videos. Would be interesting if it could be scaled down..

Makes me think how little we know on sleep ....

Some work by DeepMind on applying reinforcement learning to teach a computer to navigate complex environments. Come for the science - stay for the video: https://goo.gl/8rTx2F

Its doing it again. Anyone wants to play the "explain this" game?

New debates on 'old' topic: https://phys.org/news/2018-01-alien-megastructure-dimming-mysterious-star.html? see blog posts in link for more info

Some locations on Mars are known to have water ice just below the surface, but how much has remained unclear. Dundas et al. used data from two orbiting spacecraft to examine eight locations where erosion has occurred. This revealed cliffs composed mostly of water ice, which is slowly sublimating as it is exposed to the atmosphere. The ice sheets extend from just below the surface to a depth of 100 meters or more and appear to contain distinct layers, which could preserve a record of Mars' past climate. They might even be a useful source of water for future human exploration of the red planet.

no cutting-edge space-related science, but important anyways

The EFF communicate is actually quite inaccurate. This is disappointing from the EFF, though for some part, it is due to the communication from the researchers who "discovered" the attack. PGP itself is not broken, but rather some implementations on some email clients (notably Enigmail, though it was patched several months ago). See https://protonmail.com/blog/pgp-vulnerability-efail/ On the other hand, if you are very keen on security, there is an XSS attack reported on Signal, so… https://thehackernews.com/2018/05/signal-messenger-code-injection.html The *good* recommendation here is actually rather to keep your software stack up to date (surprising, no?) and keep encrypting your emails.

Old data reveal new evidence of europa spouting plumes into space.

"...measured the way people make certain types of decisions and say that their statistical analysis of the results strongly suggests that the brain must store information in discrete form. Their conclusion has significant implications for neuroscientists and other researchers building devices to connect to the brain."

it works! No, of course it doesn't. I've wasted your time just posting this.

Einstein's theory of gravity, General Relativity (GR), has been tested precisely within the Solar System. However, it has been difficult to test GR on the scale of an individual galaxy. Collett et al. exploited a nearby gravitational lens system, in which light from a distant galaxy (the source) is bent by a foreground galaxy (the lens). Mass distribution in the lens was compared with the curvature of space-time around the lens, independently determined from the distorted image of the source. The result supports GR and eliminates some alternative theories of gravity.

No GUTs, no glory

How much did Apollo cost?

Collecting space rocks.

if a geologist hears you calling them rocks they will curse you collectively. I am in a workshop where some of those are present and I constantly remind myself to call them "minerals".

minerals sound much better indeed ... but what is wrong with rocks ? :-)

Another entry by the Planetary Society for the Apollo 11 50th anniversary, this time a podcast series on its political background.

New idea for launcher?

do you have a direct link to the high speed video?

advantages: p-bits run on room temperature and are easier to connect than q-bit.

Thibault, 30, said taking his first steps in the suit felt like being the "first man on the Moon".

Is this for real ?

Very interesting, indeed! I wonder if it even can be beefed up. The devices produce a sustained voltage of around 0.5 volts across a 7-micrometre-thick film, with a current density of around 17 microamperes per square centimetre

You were a bit faster than me! On top is the corresponding paper.