(Inside Science) -- When a song plays on the radio, there are invisible forces at work that go beyond the creative scope of the writing, performing and producing of the song. One of those ineffable qualities is audio mastering, a process that smooths out the song and optimizes the listening experience on any device. Now, artificial intelligence algorithms are starting to work their way into this undertaking.
"Mastering is a bit of a black art," explained Thomas Birtchnell, a researcher at ...read more
Although we weren’t here to observe the birth of our own solar system, astronomers have developed a relatively informed picture of how it likely happened, based on observations of our present-day home and the infant planets forming around other stars. But every so often, something throws a wrench in our theories, and that may have just happened — researchers have discovered interesting new properties of Saturn and its moons that contradict our current models for how the solar system ...read more
Buried among 77 other people from her village in western Sweden are the bones of a 20 year-old woman. Now an analysis of DNA extracted from her teeth reveals what likely killed her. An international team of researchers has discovered the woman, who died some 5,000 years ago, had the oldest known case of the plague.
The finding suggests the world’s first plague epidemic took out her community and vast swaths of the Neolithic farming population in Europe. If confirmed, the notorio ...read more
Although 54 percent of adults in the United States have registered as organ donors, just one in three people die in a way that allows for organ donation. That leaves more than 100,000 people in the United States waiting for a transplant. Many will die waiting.
Because demand for organs outpaces supply and probably always will, researchers have looked to xenotransplantation — placing animal organs into human bodies — as an alternative. However, getting to the point where xenotra ...read more
Moon-bound
Tomorrow, at about 1:30 p.m. EST (2:30 a.m. on Dec. 8 local time), China’s robotic Chang'e-4 mission will launch on a Long March 3B rocket, headed for the lunar surface.
After launching, the spacecraft will spend 27 days traveling to the moon. Upon arrival at our rocky satellite, an accompanying lander, which doubles as a rover, will descend towards the surface. The craft will touch down in the Von Kármán Crater in the South Pole‐Ait ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine