Russian-born entrepreneur co-founded the Breakthrough science prize.
Yuri Milner was pretty much destined to do something in science. Born in Moscow in November 1961, he was named after Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, who, about six months earlier, had become the first person to venture into outer space. Inspired by Carl Sagan and others, Milner majored in physics at Moscow State University. Then, in the middle of earning a Ph.D. in particle physics, he quit. Eventually, he started his own i ...read more
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Sites of ancient conflicts reignite a debate over when members of our species first took up arms against each other.
The skull, though weathered from millennia of brutal heat and scouring sands, is unmistakably human. Unmistakable, too, are the signs of a violent death: massive fractures from the blunt force of a weapon wielded by another human. The shattered cranium is one of several from a site in Kenya known as Nataruk, where, long ago, a band of hunter-gatherers met its end. Described i ...read more
A healthy man in his 30s starts lifting weights, and his physical condition worsens.
Jay, a physician in his early 30s, was a healthy guy who ran 6 miles a day, loved nature and animals, and spent free time hiking and biking. One summer, he decided to start weight training. The problem started simply. He had finished a training session at the gym, doing upper and lower body exercises with barbells and finishing with sit-ups. A few days later, he felt more sore than usual. “My neck fee ...read more
A band of Seattle computer scientists is on a mission to make artificial intelligence actually intelligent.
Nestled among Seattle’s gleaming lights on a gloomy September day, a single nonprofit wants to change the world, one computer at a time. Its researchers hope to transform the way machines perceive the world: to have them not only see it, but understand what they’re seeing. At the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (AI2), researchers are working on just that. AI2, ...read more
Sample Drill
Like the Mars Curiosity rover, AREE’s drill would let scientists see into Venus’ interior — and past.
Wind Turbine
Venus’ winds would spin AREE’s fan blades, generating energy that’s stored in a spring.
Seismometer
Astronomers know little about Venus’ interior, and that impedes our understanding of how planets form. So one prime objective is to set up “Earth’s Twin” with a seismometer, which measures geologic activity. ...read more
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Tracing each illness back to the start of symptoms, Frankovich has managed to find clusters: groups of children from the same school or neighborhood who had all come down with the condition in the same month; individuals with a true, physical connection, like the family of three brothers Swedo had studied years before. In the course of her investigation, a host of alternate infections have emerged: not just strep, but bacterial mycoplasma, influenza, sinusitis, pneumonia and others.
By 2015, Fra ...read more
