Technology and Science Highlights of the Week #21 August 2024
Omreon Technology
Cybersecurity solutions, software development, IT outsourcing, data analytics and consulting services.
Neuralink has successfully implanted a second patient with a device designed to allow paralyzed patients to communicate and navigate using only their thoughts, startup owner Elon Musk says
Neuralink is in the process of testing an implant designed to help people with spinal cord injuries. The device allowed the first patient to play video games, surf the internet, post on social media, and move the cursor on his laptop.
“I don't want to jinx it, but it seems to have gone extremely well with the second implant, There’s much signal, many electrodes,” Musk said.
Nissan showed Tuesday what it called a "cool paint" to keep people inside vehicles cooler, although the coating is six times thicker, making commercialization still a challenge.
The cool paint lowered the cars' roof-panel temperature by 12 degrees Celsius (22 degrees Fahrenheit) and the interiors by 5 C (9 F), according to Nissan.
Nissan's paint was developed with Radi-Cool of China, which developed a film, fabric and coating that cut heat. Radi-Cool works with various other Japanese companies, offering cooler-feeling hats and sun parasols. Nissan is the only Japanese automaker partnering with Radi-Cool.
领英推荐
A new study of meteors flying at 90 kilometers (55 miles) has found that these meteors leave behind a permanent glowing trail, something that does not happen with meteors burning up at higher altitudes.
Meteors are usually fleeting events: a particle of cosmic dust leaves a fiery trail as it streaks through the atmosphere, and then disappears instantly. However, sometimes meteors leave behind a long afterglow called a persistent plume. Astronomers have been noting these phenomena for more than a century, but questions about their origin remained unanswered.
Recently, the first systematic study of persistent plumes has shown that the key factor influencing the appearance of a plume is the meteor’s altitude in the atmosphere, not its speed or brightness, Science News reports.
Materials scientists from China have turned a common defect in metal alloys into a component that increases their strength. The specialists created pure gold with nano-sized holes evenly distributed throughout the metal. The new method made the material lighter, stronger, and more flexible, which may expand the possibilities of using such gold.
The ancient Babylonians saw a lunar eclipse as a harbinger of doom, so reading the signals hidden in the shadows that devoured the moon was an important science. This led to the creation of a series of texts documenting how to make various eclipse predictions.
“Babylonian astrology was a branch of divination based on the belief that events in the sky were coded signs placed there by the gods as warnings to those on Earth. The astrological observation was part of a complex method of protecting the king and regulating his behavior following the wishes of the gods,” the authors of the study write.
See You Next Week with News!