Japan landed its Smart Lander for Investigating the Moon, or SLIM, craft on the surface of the Moon on Jan. 20, 2024. Despite a power issue with the lander, the event holds both political and technical importance. It’s Japan’s first lunar landing – making it only the fifth country in the world to successfully land on the Moon. This is a significant achievement and solidifies Japan’s position as a leader in space technology.While the craft landed successfully on the lunar surface and d ...read more
Our bodies require a range of vitamins and minerals to maintain a healthy balance and keep us in good shape. Some of those – such as vitamin D and magnesium – have strong bonds and work together. Here is how vitamin D and Magnesium impact the body when taken together. What Is Vitamin D? Vitamin D is known as the “sunshine vitamin,” as the body generates it via exposure to ultraviolet light from the sun’s rays. It’s also found in a range of foods such as mushrooms, eggs, and fatty f ...read more
Only about 1 in 4 Americans said that they had trust in the nation’s institutions in 2023 – with big business (1 in 7), television news (1 in 7) and Congress (1 in 12) scraping the very bottom.While institutional trust is decreasing, political polarization is increasing. The majority of Republicans (72%) and Democrats (64%) think of each other as more immoral than other Americans – a nearly 30% rise from 2016 to 2022. When compared with similar democracies, the United States has exhibite ...read more
When you use your fingerprint to unlock your smartphone, your phone is looking at a two-dimensional pattern to determine whether it’s the correct fingerprint before it unlocks for you. But the imprint your finger leaves on the surface of the button is actually a 3D structure called a fingermark.Fingermarks are made up of tiny ridges of oil from your skin. Each ridge is only a few microns tall, or a few hundredths of the thickness of human hair.Biometric identifiers record fingermarks only as 2 ...read more
The fate of old notes is a critical issue for central banks that oversee their disposal. These notes cannot be thrown away like ordinary rubbish. Instead, central banks have developed standards to ensure the disposal is safe and secure. This often involves a type of shredding that slices each note into hundreds of tiny pieces, each typically smaller than about thirty square millimeters. The shredded paper, or increasingly plastic, can then be disposed of, or recycled, off site. Some central bank ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine