Dark Matter Might Clump to Form Planets

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A new theory suggests dark matter could coalesce into massive structures. A new theory says physics might allow dark matter to form into compact objects, like planets. But don’t try to walk on such a world. (Credit: NASA) Dark stars may not just be for Grateful Dead fans anymore. In a new paper uploaded to arXiv, Rutgers University astrophysics professor Matthew R. Buckley puts forth a truly wild hypothesis: It might be possible to build worlds out of dark matter. But the whole thing cam ...read more

Network of Bees

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By: Russ Campbell There is a lot to learn from bees. The survival of the hive depends on the combined efforts of the entire colony. In Conetoe (pronounced KUH-nee-tah), North Carolina Reverend Richard Joyner and his family of youth beekeepers are tending to bees and building community, one hive at a time. Reverend Joyner is the force behind the Conetoe Family Life Center, created to address the fact that in one year, he conducted more than 30 funerals for people under 50 who had died from chroni ...read more

Flashback Friday: The look of a convict’s face could determine whether he gets the death penalty.

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Photo: flickr/Thomas Hawk Despite evidence to the contrary, many like to think that the U.S. justice system works pretty well. This is especially true when it comes to the ultimate punishment — the death penalty. But as we know, not everyone on death row is guilty. So where does the process go wrong? Here, researchers tested whether snap judgements of peoples’ faces affected whether they were given the death penalty. To do so, the researchers had volunteers judge the &ldq ...read more

“Brain Training” Doesn't Work?

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Lumosity “brain training” games have no beneficial effects on cognition, according to a paper just published in the Journal of Neuroscience. According to the authors, led by UPenn psychologist Joseph W. Kable, Lumosity “appears to have no benefits in healthy young adults above those of standard video games.” In the study, 128 young adults were randomly assigned to either 10 weeks of Lumosity training, or a control condition: 10 weeks of playing normal, non-brain-based on ...read more

DARPA Is Spending $65 Million to Meld Mind and Machine

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(Credit: Shutterstock) The U.S. defense agency that specializes in “out-there” science and technology endeavors is on a quest to bridge the gap between brain and computer. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) recently awarded $65 million to six different teams that will begin developing neural implants that convert neural activity into 1s and 0s of digital code. It’s all part of the agency’s Neural Engineering System Design program that was announced by ...read more

The Smallest Star Known to Humankind

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This artist’s rendering compares EBLM J0555-57Ab to both Jupiter and TRAPPIST-1. (Credit: A. Boetticher et al., 2017) A team of astronomers at the University of Cambridge was on the lookout for new exoplanets when they came across an exciting accidental discovery: They found the smallest star measured to this day. This tiny new star, which is being called EBLM J0555-57Ab, is about 600 light-years from Earth, and has a comparable mass (85 Jupiter masses) to the estimated ma ...read more

New, Noninvasive Imaging Technique Finds Heart Disease Before It Hurts

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Mapping fat accumulation around arteries in the heart. (Credit: A.S. Antonopoulos et al., Science Translational Medicine (2017)) A new, noninvasive imaging method lets researchers pick up on the warning signs of heart disease long before a heart attack or stroke can take place. The noninvasive technique uses current computed tomography (CT) scanning technology to analyze images of fatty deposits lining blood vessels in order to flag potentially dangerous inflammation. Using the data from heart ...read more

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