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Scientists have discovered how algae that survive in very low levels of light are able to switch on and off a weird quantum phenomenon that occurs during photosynthesis. The function in the algae of this quantum effect, known as coherence, remains a mystery, but it is thought it could help them harvest energy from the sun much more efficiently. Working out its role in a living organism could lead to advances such as better organic solar cells.

very very nice! we tried already a few years back to find an angle to see how we could study quantum phenomena occuring in plants and photosynthsis is one of the great examples since somehow plants manage to make the phenomena work for them at elevated temperatures, a feat in itself ... any good idea most welcome!!!

Anna maybe? Joe?

"A new study of chickens overturns the popular assumption that evolution is only visible over long time scales. By studying individual chickens that were part of a long-term pedigree, the scientists led by Professor Greger Larson at Oxford University's Research Laboratory for Archaeology, found two mutations that had occurred in the mitochondrial genomes of the birds in only 50 years."

We humans take for granted our remarkable ability to predict things that happen around us. Here, a deep learning model trained from real-world videos and a 3D graphics engine was able to infer physical properties of objects against humans.

"A new Angry Birds-style game is set to help launch a new understanding of quantum science. Some find the concepts of quantum science confusing or unintuitive. Einstein even called quantum effects "spooky." To help people better understand some of the core concepts of quantum science, the Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC) at the University of Waterloo is launching a game - the Quantum Cats" Looking forward to see the ACT winning the Quantum Cats competition :)

Plants have many valuable functions: They provide food and fuel, release the oxygen that we breathe, and add beauty to our surroundings. Now, researchers wants to make plants even more useful by augmenting them with nanomaterials that could enhance their energy production and give them completely new functions, such as monitoring environmental pollutants.

A nanolaser, a thousand times thinner than a human hair.

In the wake of the financial crisis, many started questioning different aspects of the economic formalism. Here a mathematical "dynamic" alternative to economic utility theory (which has also been the target of some famous recent attacks, see prospect theory) is developed and applied to the St. Petersburg coin tossing paradox. A good read at http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/chaos/26/2/10.1063/1.4940236

A revolutionary new type of laser (fiber laser) is promising major advances in remote sensing of greenhouse gases.The new laser can operate (bed tuned) over a large range within the infrared light spectrum.

Reads too good to be true .... where is Isabelle when we need her ? :-)

Nice story telling. (watch the video) The materials are actually cool, but the venus flytrap pitch (hinting at a biomimetic success) or the embodied intelligence speech are "a bit" of a stretch,

Amazing engineering feat: 1 nm transistor. Besides we can argue Moore law is still OK, dennard scaling is gone and with it the performance boost, as alluded subtly. Link article: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/354/6308/99.full

A free software tool that could revolutionize the drone industry to design and build your own drone/aircraft/fighter with a 3-D online software that generates aerodynamic information (maybe optimization also) about your own design.

The quest for finding Planet Nine is meant to stay apparently.

Random branches are collected, scanned to 3D, and connected with servos. Then a neural network is trained to control this "robot".

In the Planetary Science Vision 2050 Workshop a cool concept for a magnetic dipole sitting at Mars L1 with an estimated field of 1-2 Tesla was proposed to shield Mars from Solar Winds and provide an elementary magnetic shielding to Mars.

"What if running the 26.2 miles of a marathon only felt like running 24.9 miles, or if you could improve your average running pace from 9:14 minutes/mile to 8:49 minutes/mile without weeks of training?"

I thought the point of running a marathon was to make the effort :)

"Gravity spoils the symmetry regardless of whether magnetic monopoles exist or not. This is shocking. The bottom line is that the symmetry cannot exist in our universe at the fundamental level because gravity is everywhere"

encouraging trend

very relevant initiative and full of interesting questions