THIS SALAD WAS GROWN IN ANTARCTICA
Scientists at Germany’s DLR Institute of Space Systems were successfully able to grow eight pounds of greens, 70 radishes, and 18 cucumbers without soil. Temperatures outside reached -6 degrees fahrenheit. Source: vice.com
INTRODUCING STRIPE BILLING
Today, we’re excited to launch Stripe Billing, a new suite of tools to help companies of all sizes automate, optimize, and scale recurring business models. This new product is an evolution of Stripe Subscriptions and adds many new features. Source: stripe.com
BRING ME A SHRUBBERY: HOW TINY TREES MIGHT FIT IN THE BIOFUEL FUTURE
Today, biofuels may conjure images of ears of corn or Priuses for US readers, but the domestic industry has been as much about politics lately as it has been about scientific innovation. While researchers and scientific organizations have looked into finding green energy sources in everything from human waste to humble algae,state and federal governments continue to tangle over how much of a priority this area should be.
Read moreTHERE’S GROWING EVIDENCE TESLA’S AUTOPILOT HANDLES LANE DIVIDERS POORLY
Thankfully, this crash was different in one important respect: there was a working highway safety barrier in front of the concrete divider. As a result, the crash was much less severe and the driver was able to walk away. Source: arstechnica.com
A FORMER NASA SCIENTIST ALMOST LOST HIS HEARING BECAUSE OF A TOILET LID
Freak accidents happen all the time, but few are quite as bizarre as the tale of Philip Metzger, a former NASA planetary physicist who almost lost his hearing after dropping a toilet lid. Source: vice.com
OVER 3,000 GOOGLE EMPLOYEES SIGNED A LETTER DEMANDING GOOGLE LEAVE THE ‘BUSINESS OF WAR’
This week over 3,000 Google employees—about 3 percent of the company—signed a letter to the company CEO Sundar Pichai demanding that Google end its contract with the Pentagon to develop AI systems for military drones. Source: vice.com
VIRGIN HYPERLOOP ONE SHOWS OFF NEW FUTURISTIC TRAVEL POD
It’s an interesting time for Virgin Hyperloop One, which saw one of its board members arrested on fraud and embezzlement charges in Russia last week and three other high-profile directors departing the board, according to Bloomberg. But that hasn’t stopped the futuristic-transport startup from showing off its latest pod prototype, first for the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia and now for the rest of us via the video above.
Read moreNASA HIRES LOCKHEED MARTIN TO BUILD QUIET SUPERSONIC X-PLANE
The space agency announced today (April 2) that it has awarded the aerospace company Lockheed Martina $247.5 million contract to design and build a new X-plane, known as the Low-Boom Flight Demonstrator (LBFD), which may soar silently over the U.S. by 2022. Source: space.com
WILL THIS “NEURAL LACE” BRAIN IMPLANT HELP US COMPETE WITH AI?
That work has been going on since early 2000, and really is motivated from our early work in developing new classes of nanoelectronic devices based on nano-scale wires on a chip-based platform. But ultimately, biology is very much three-dimensional. While one can stick something more or less planar into a tissue in three dimensions, it’s really not the way biology behaves—a lot of the connectivity in three dimensions is important.
Read morePOROUS SILK FIBER TRAPS HEAT, HIDES A RABBIT FROM IR CAMERA
To mimic polar bear hair and to turn it into a weavable thread, the researchers turned to another natural fiber: silk. Instead of using the silk fiber directly, the silk was purified and dissolved in a liquid. The solution was then spun and extruded through a ring that was cooled. The idea is that the cold ring freezes the silk as it passes through. Depending on the temperature of the ring and the speed at which the fiber is drawn through the ring, however, the silk can start to freeze before it reaches the ring. So researchers tried to hit a sweet spot in balancing temperature and draw speed.
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