Weekly Science Picks
FollowIt’s Sunday again! It’s our time to give a brief review of the most amazing science and technology news that have appeared on the web during this week. The task was quite challenging, but we made it. We proudly present you the top stories of this Weekly Science Picks.
Will we ever… travel in wormholes?
The universe is huge. Travelling at light speed to the nearest star would take more than four years. Venturing to the other side of the galaxy? More than 100,000 years. So what’s an intrepid space traveller to do?
Airliners should broadcast location every 15 minutes, says Inmarsat expert
Inmarsat, which analysed the eight satellite “pings” from the missing MH370 to determine that it crashed in the southern Indian Ocean, already offers a service which costs $1 per hour to provide rapid updates. This service were used by Air France, and helped rescue services determine where flight 447 crashed into the sea off Brazil.
What on earth is urban mining?
There is a wealth of valuable metals – gold, silver, copper, rare earths – that can be extracted, processed and reused from products, which is what we call ‘urban mining’. This saves energy, water and landfill, but it could also deliver benefits to our national economy.
Autism begins in pregnancy, according to study: Cortical layers disrupted during brain development in autism
Researchers have published a study that gives clear and direct new evidence that autism begins during pregnancy. The researchers analyzed 25 genes in post-mortem brain tissue of children with and without autism. These included genes that serve as biomarkers for brain cell types in different layers of the cortex, genes implicated in autism and several control genes.
That’s all for this Sunday. Until next meeting, stay thirsty for new scientific stories.