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NASA launches $5 million contest to find CubeSats for deep space missions

As reported on Engadget. by Mariella Moon Attention, scientists, hobbyists and anyone in between who can design a mean CubeSat, or a mini cube-like satellite, for space exploration: registration is now open for NASA’sCube Quest contest, and the agency’s giving out cash prizes worth a total of $5 million. NASA’s no stranger to holding competitions in an effort to tap into the brilliant minds of folks outside their roster of employees, but this one is…

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Scientists discover one of the most Earthlike planets yet

As reported on The Verge. By Ellis Hamburger Can Gliese 832c support life, or is it just a super-Venus? Sci News is reporting that astronomers at the University of New South Wales have discovered an Earthlike planet just 16 light-years away. The planet, dubbed Gliese 832c, is orbiting a red dwarf star half the mass and radius of our own sun. Gliese 832c has an orbital period of about 35 days, and a mass more than five times…

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Scientists discover massive ocean of water 400 miles underground

As reported on The Verge. By Kwame Opam Researchers at Northwestern University have found evidence for a massive reservoir of water deep within the Earth’s mantle. The reservoir, which is said to be three times the volume of the oceans on the surface, is contained within highly-pressurized rock known as ringwoodite. The scientists hope that their findings, recently published in the journal Science, can shed light on where Earth’s oceans came from. THREE TIMES THE VOLUME OF THE…

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A bitter war between chimps in the 1970s might be explained with social networking software

As reported on The Verge. By Josh Lowensohn 43 years ago, a group of chimpanzees that were once living peacefully in Tanzania’s Gombe Stream National Park suddenly split in two — one in the north area of the park, and the other in the south. The members, who once cohabited the same area, eventually became so territorial that those unlucky enough to wander into the rival group’s area without protection were killed, often brutally. WHAT HAPPENS WITH CHIMPS…

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Scientists can trace your ancestors to within 30 miles using DNA

As reported on Engadget. BY STEVE DENT You might know where your forebears lived a few generations prior, but how about the exact village they came from — 1,000 years ago? Thanks to DNA sequencing, it’s now possible to find that out in many cases according to researchers from the University of Sheffield in the UK. The aptly-named GPS or Geographic Population Structure tool was modeled using more than 100,000 DNA signatures called AIMs (ancestry-informative markers). Since those are often typical…

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See the astonishing real-life space photos that inspired ‘Cosmos’

As reported on The Verge. By Valentina Palladino NASA tweeted that it created a new album on its Flickr account with a few never-before-seen images of celestial bodies, in conjunction with Sunday’s premiere of Cosmos. Mixed with some old photos, the entire album of 43 images shows how the parts of our universe we don’t see can be amazing, scary, and beautiful all at once. Some of the photos depict phenomena seen on the 13-episode series, which remakes and pays tribute…

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‘Particle Fever’ takes you inside the epic search for the Higgs Boson

As reported on The Verge. By Russell Brandom On July 4th, 2012, the particle physics laboratory CERN announced the news. After more than 20 years of research and preparation, they’d finally found the Higgs boson, or a particle that looked an awful lot like it. It was touted as the last piece in the jigsaw puzzle of modern particle physics, justifying decades of theory and billions of dollars in experiments. The 17-mile, $4.4 billion Large Hadron…

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Lawrence Livermore Lab wins $45 million to create the most powerful laser ever built

As reported on The Verge. By Russell Brandom Today, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory joined the cutting edge of laser research, receiving $45 million dollars to build a laser system of unprecedented power for a European Union project outside of Prague. The project, called ELI-Beamlines, is developing something called a “High repetition-rate Advanced Petawatt Laser System” (HAPLS), which employs short, frequent bursts of intensely high-powered lasers reaching power greater than 1,000,000,000,000,000 watts. If successful, it will be the…

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World’s most precise atomic clock will still be spot-on in 5 billion years

As reported on Engadget. BY CHRIS VELAZCO Most of us only pay attention to time when it’s causing headaches, but the same can’t be said of a team of researchers working out of the University of Colorado at Boulder. Led by National Institute of Standards and Technology fellow Jun Ye, they’ve crafted an atomic clock that can keep precise time for billions of years, a world record. This hefty new timekeeper can tick off the seconds…

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The Physics of a Front-Wheel Drive Muscle Car

As reported on Wired. BY RHETT ALLAIN Check out this 736 horsepower Volkswagen Golf. Yes, most traditional muscle cars are rear-wheel drive instead of front-wheel drive. What is the difference? Of course there is an issue when the front wheels are used for both steering and power. But there is something else – traction. Fake Forces The best way to look at frictional forces on the tires for a car is to consider fake forces. Trust…

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