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Russia's record wheat harvest sees it replace US as agricultural superpower


RT
Mon, 13 Nov 2017 12:38 UTC
putin wheat field
The US is being pushed out of the grain market as Russia's bumper wheat harvest has dragged down prices to record lows. Russian agricultural exports are booming thanks to a weaker national currency and massive investment.

"We are pushing America aside in some markets, and we are satisfied with this," said Russia's Agriculture Minister Aleksandr Tkachev.

This year Russian farmers are expected to harvest the biggest crop in over a century. Russia will produce at least 83 million tons of wheat in the current growing season, according to estimates by The Wall Street Journal.

Comment: That's non-GMO frankenfood wheat, by the way.

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Jupiter

Stunning new photos of Jupiter received from Juno probe


The Space Academy
Tue, 07 Nov 2017 18:15 UTC
jupiter photos 2017
© NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Gerald Eichstädt/Seán Doran
In the most recent flyby, as with the previous eight, Juno's flyby started over Jupiter's north pole.
Traveling above Jupiter at more than 130,000 miles per hour, NASA's $1 billion Juno probe took its ninth set of stunning flyby images on October 24. But the sun slipped between the giant planet and Earth for more than a week, blocking the spacecraft from beaming home its precious bounty of data.

Now that the conjunction is over, however, new raw image data from Juno's ninth perijove - as the spacecraft's high-speed flybys are called - has poured in. Researchers posted it all online on Tuesday, and a community of amateurs and professionals has been busily processing the data to yield colorful and stunning new pictures of Jupiter.

"Brand new Jupiter pics from @NASAJuno Perijove 09! What a blimmin' gorgeous/diabolical planet," Seán Doran, a UK-based graphic artist who regularly processes NASA images, tweeted on Tuesday.

Below are some fresh, close-up images of Jupiter, along with other unbelievable views captured from earlier perijoves.
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Green Light

Lamborghini creates world's first 'self-healing' sports car


UK Telegraph
Sun, 12 Nov 2017 12:56 UTC
Lamborghini-terzo-millennio
Lamborghini has created the world's first self-healing sports car. The Terzo Millennio, which translates as third millennium in Italian, has the ability to detect and repair cracks in its body work.

Using sensors the car can conduct its own health check to detect any damages and self-repair itself by filling the crack with nanotubes to prevent it spreading.

The super car was created in collaboration with researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston.

Comment: Have you ever noticed the contrast between human technological development and human moral development?

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Magnify

Brain cell navigation system decoded


Neuropsychotherapist
Sat, 11 Nov 2017 20:25 UTC
Embryonal brain development
© KIT, Weth
Embryonal brain development in the petri dish: During growth, axons (green) of retina neurons read biochemical signals by means of a growth cone (magenta) equipped with molecular antennas at their ends and guide them to their targets to correctly interconnect the visual system of the brain.
The human brain contains roughly 100 billion neurons. Information among them is transmitted via a complex network of nerve fibers. Hardwiring of most of this network takes place before birth according to a genetic blueprint, that is without external influences playing a role. Researchers of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have now found out more about how the navigation system guiding the axons during growth works. This is reported in the eLife magazine.

Total length of the nerve fiber network in the brain is approximately 500,000 km, more than the distance between Earth and the moon. Growth of the nerve fibers is controlled by a navigation system to prevent incorrect hardwiring. But how exactly do the nerve fibers find their target region during growth? "This is similar to autonomous driving in road traffic," says Franco Weth of the Cell and Neural Biology Division of the Zoological Institute. Vehicles exchange information with each other and with signal transmitters at the roadside to reach their destination. In case of nerve fibers, sensor molecules at their ends serve as antennas. With them, they receive guiding signals in the form of proteins that are positioned along the way, in the target area, and on other fibers crossing the path. Having arrived at the target, axons form interconnections with other neurons, the synapses.
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Better Earth

Sponge City Initiative project: China is building 30 'sponge cities' that aim to soak up floodwater and prevent disaster

Leanna Garfield
Business Insider
Sat, 11 Nov 2017 20:16 UTC
Yanweizhou Park in Jinhua, eastern China

Yanweizhou Park in Jinhua, eastern China
Like many places around the world, Chinese cities are considering ways to combat flooding in the face of climate change. Increased urban development has made flooding worse, and has turned some neighborhoods into vulnerable waterfront locations.

In 2010, landslides from flooding killed approximately 700 people and left over 300 missing in three-quarters of China's provinces. Just this July, heavy rains pummeled southern China, flooding towns, destroying homes, and killing at least 56 people.

In recent years, fatal floods like these have become regular occurrences. The number of Chinese cities struck by floods has more than doubled since 2008, according to The Economist. Some scientists say that rising global temperatures are making rainfall from storms more destructive and frequent.

The Chinese government is now pursuing an idea that could alleviate the problem: sponge cities.
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Rocket

NASA to test 'space lasers' for communications


RT
Sat, 11 Nov 2017 12:45 UTC
AntAntares rocket carrying the S.S. Gene Cernan Cygnus
© Orbital ATK / Facebook
Antares rocket carrying the S.S. Gene Cernan Cygnus
Saturday marks the day that humanity takes one step closer to the science-fiction realm with space lasers. An American aerospace firm is aiming to create 200 megabits per second (Mbps) connections in space using satellites equipped with lasers.

If successful, this new tech could pave the way for networks of satellite-connected devices to send data, which will be useful for military, tech, and meteorological agencies, to and from space via laser connections. The launch of the new satellites is scheduled for 7am ET on Saturday from Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.

The company, Orbital ATK, will send its Cygnus spacecraft, complete with NanoRacks CubeSats satellites, to the International Space Station. NASA is hoping that the mission will highlight the importance of small sensor spacecraft to the future of space exploration.
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Moon

Russian billionaire seeks to fund private mission to Saturn moon in search of extra-terrestrial life


RT
Fri, 10 Nov 2017 23:17 UTC
Enceladus
© NASA
Enceladus
Speaking at a Seattle conference, 'A New Space Age', Milner said his science team believes there are three potential locations for extra-terrestrial lifeforms in our solar system: under the surface of Mars, Jupiter's moon Europa, and "the most promising candidate," Enceladus.

Located 1.27 billion miles away from Earth, Enceladus has a surface temperature below -200 Celsius, but is thought to harbor a giant hot sub-surface ocean that shoots up plumes of material hundreds of miles up.

"We formed a little workshop around this idea: Can we design a low-cost, privately funded mission to Enceladus which can be launched relatively soon, and that can look more thoroughly at those plumes, try to see what's going on there?" Milner outlined.

Comment: Milner has to look no further than this strange planet if he's looking for signs of 'extra-terrestrial' life.

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Jet1

China reveals model of a 7,680mph hypersonic strike aircraft on state TV

Harry Pettit
Daily Mail
Thu, 09 Nov 2017 18:06 UTC
chinese glider
© CCTV
Chinese state media has revealed the country's first ever images of a model (pictured) of its hypersonic glide vehicle, a nuclear weapons expert has claimed. The secretive missile delivery craft, known as the DF-ZF, could travel at up to ten times the speed of sound.
Chinese state media has revealed the country's first ever images of a model of its hypersonic glide vehicle, a nuclear weapons expert has claimed.

The secretive missile delivery craft, known as the DF-ZF, could travel at up to ten times the speed of sound (7,680 mph/12,360 kph) according to some estimates.

Its speed will ensure the country's nuclear threat can reliably breach the United States' ballistic missile defence shield, which fires incoming strikes out of the air.

The model was briefly shown during a State-run TV special covering the country's JF-12 hypersonic wind tunnel.

The innovative setup is the largest of its kind in the world and is capable of testing missiles and aircraft up to 6,900mph (11,100kph).

The news follows a US Navy announcement yesterday that it had successfully test fired a hypersonic missile that could hit 'anywhere in the world' within an hour.
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Black Cat

Scientists hope to clone 500,000 year old lion cub

Anthony Blair
The Sun
Thu, 09 Nov 2017 17:35 UTC
lion cub
© VERA SALNITSKAYA/THE SIBERIAN TIMES
The lion was found frozen in ice in Siberia, Russia.

It survived almost intact for tens of thousands of years, and its fur and facial features are clearly visible.

It was found with its face resting on its paw.

The cub is believed to have been between one and two months old when it died, but experts haven't yet found out how it died.

The body was spotted on the bank of a river by villager Boris Berezhnov in the Abyisky district of Yakutia.
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Fireball 3

Extinction of dinosaurs may not have occurred had the asteroid struck in different place


RT
Fri, 10 Nov 2017 15:20 UTC
Artwork depicting extinction of dinosaurs.
© Getty Images
Artwork depicting extinction of dinosaurs.
The catastrophic asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago may not have been so devastating had it hit almost anywhere else on earth. It means dinosaurs could still rule the earth and humans may never have evolved at all.

That's according to new research by Japanese scientists Kunio Kaiho and Naga Oshima, who published their findings Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports. They posit the asteroid, known as the Chicxulub Impactor, which smashed into what was then a shallow sea in modern day Mexico, would not have been so devastating if it hit about 87 percent of anywhere else on the planet.

The roughly six mile (10km) wide asteroid created a crater more 110 miles (176km) across when it smashed into our planet. The collision released more than 1 billion times as much energy as the atomic bomb detonations which destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the close of WW2.
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