Be a Space Archaeologist! Explore Sites with Online Platform

If you find the artifact-hunting adventures of Indiana Jones thrilling but a little too gritty, a new online tool will allow you to remotely analyze images of ancient sites taken from space. You can discover their hidden secrets and even protect them from looting and damage.

Welcome to the 21st-century world of space archaeology, in which culturally important ruins can be spotted and decoded via high-resolution images captured by Earth-orbiting satellites. And a platform called GlobalXplorer puts this experience at any user's fingertips, inviting all who have internet connections to assist archaeologists in finding and protecting sites around the world, some of which are yet to be brought to light.

GlobalXplorer, which launched today (Jan. 30), is stocked with imagery representing 77,220 square miles (200,000 square kilometers) of sites located in Peru, creator and space archaeologist Sarah Parcak announced at a press briefing. By scanning "tiles" of the ground, users can identify and flag telltale signs of looting activity or unusual features that could represent an undiscovered structure. Archaeologists and government agencies can then use this data to preserve sites that are in peril and to launch new excavations in unexplored areas, Parcak told reporters. 

The goal was not only to engage people in analyzing archaeological sites, but also to keep these users coming back, Parcak said during a telephone news conference. To that end, the platform includes gaming elements, such as leveling up as users gain proficiency and unlocking "rewards" as experts collect and review users' data. Those rewards can include behind-the-scenes videos and other peeks into thearchaeological process.

Even a GlobalXplorer user with no scientific training can quickly learn to identify shapes in a bird's-eye view of a landscape that send up red flags to archaeologists, Parcak said.

GlobalXplorer users review landscape "tile" images captured in Peru, searching for signs of looting, or features that indicate hidden ruins.

Credit: Designed by Mondo Robot

For example, so-called "looting holes" — pits dug at archaeological sites illegally to remove artifacts for private sale — have a distinct circular appearance, tending to be surrounded by "a shallow donut of earth," Parcak explained. "Where there is one, there are probably dozens to hundreds of them," she said. "Once you've seen what it looks like, it's very easy to recognize."

And variations in plant color, visible through different filters in satellite images, can hint at the health of the vegetation, suggesting if it might be concealing a hidden human-made structure, Parcak said.

Archaeology in general — and projects like GlobalXplorer in particular — can also provide users with some perspective on current global problems, by connecting people to the scope of human history, Parcak added. Ancient civilizations, like modern ones, experienced periods of intense crisis, followed by resilience and recovery. Knowing that cultures from the distant past faced and overcome serious trials can send a message of hope to those who are worried about the challenges faced today, she said.

"It's called 'a platform for humanity' because we're all human beings at the end of the day," Parcak said. "Understanding who we are and where we come from and knowing that we're all the same can connect us in a way that we need right now."

Help Me, Obi-Wan! New Hologram Technology Mimics 'Star Wars'

Princess Leia's holographic plea in the classic film "Star Wars" inspired researchers to work toward a device that could project real-life sci-fi holograms. Now, the futuristic 3D imaging may be one step closer to reality.

A team of physicists at the Australian National University (ANU) invented a tiny device that creates the highest-quality holographic images ever achieved, the scientists said.

Study lead researcher Lei Wang, a Ph.D. student at the ANU Research School of Physics and Engineering, said he first learned about the concept of holographic imaging from the "Star Wars" movies. However, these futuristic-looking 3D images could be used for more practical ends than sending messages from a galaxy far, far away.

"While research in holography plays an important role in the development of futuristic displays and augmented reality devices, today we are working on many other applications, such as ultrathin and lightweight optical devices for cameras and satellites," Wang said in a statement.

Photographs and computer screens display information only in 2D, limiting views to flat images. Holograms, however, allow for the storage and reproduction of all information in 3D, and the technology relies on the ability to accurately manipulate light in three dimensions, the researchers said.

The ANU invention uses a new nanomaterial to create the 3D projections. Millions of tiny silicon pillars, each up to 500 times thinner than a human hair, act as pixel projectors to create the light-based 3D images, said co-lead researcher Sergey Kruk, a professor at the ANU Research School of Physics and Engineering.

"This new material is transparent, which means it loses minimal energy from the light, and it also does complex manipulations with light," Kruk said in the statement.

In lab tests, the device created tiny holograms ranging in size from 0.03 inches to 0.2 inches (0.75 millimeters to 5 mm) wide, at a distance of 0.4 inches (10 mm). While the technology is not yet ready to replace computer screens, with further research, the device could lead to new and better holographic technologies, the scientists said.

The device's ability to display the 3D holograms is only part of what makes it innovative, however, Wang said. Due to its miniature size, the invention could replace bulky camera components or help space missions by reducing the size and weight of optical systems, he said.

In 1936 Soviet scientist Lukyanov built an analog water computer.

In 1936 Vladimir Lukyanov built a water computer that was the world's first computer for solving (partial) differential equations. The operator solved the equations by "playing around" with a series of interconnected tubes filled with water.

According to an article in Wikipedia this type of analog computer called a Water Integrator was built in the Soviet Union as far back as 1928. According to that article the water levels in the various chambers represented stored numbers. The rate of flow between tubes represented mathematical operations. These water computers were used in the USSR for large scale modeling right up into the 1980's when digital computers became more sophisticated.

An article published in the Russian magazine Science and Life in 2000 called the Lukyanov computer one of the monuments of science and technology and claimed that it brought the Soviet Union to the forefront of the development of the analog computer.

Lukyanov's computer was built for the particular purpose of solving the practical problem of cracking in concrete. To solve the cracking problem involved calculating the complex relationships between the material properties of the concrete, the curing process, and environmental conditions. Whereas existing calculation methods did not give quick or accurate solutions, the Lukyanov water computer did. An article here describes the process:You could think of it as a hydraulic computer. Water flows through a series of clear pipes, mimicking the production line of concrete blocks. It lets you see (literally) what would happen if you change the type of cement used or increase the load capacity of the concrete or whatever; just open a valve here or pull a lever there and the machine sloshes away, showing in real time how the water levels rise and fall in various tanks representing material properties, curing time, temperature, and so on.Changes to levels were plotted on graph paper.

These water computers were used successfully in other areas such as geology, metallurgy, thermal physics, and rocket engineering. In the 1970's these computers were still used in 115 manufacturing, research, and educational institutions in the USSR. It was not until the 1980s that digital computers came to surpass the functionality of the "hydraulic integrator" or water computer.

Who Invented the Microwave Oven?

A microwave oven is a kitchen appliance that is in nearly every U.S. home — 90 percent of households have one, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. With the touch of a couple of buttons, this ubiquitous device can boil water, reheat leftovers, pop popcorn or defrost frozen meats in mere minutes. 

The microwave oven was invented at the end of World War II. Yet it took awhile for them to catch on. At first they were too big and expensive, and people didn't trust them because of the radiation they use. Eventually, technology improved and fears faded. By the 2000s, Americans named the microwave oven as the No. 1 technology that made their lives easier, according to J. Carlton Gallawa, author of the Complete Microwave Oven Service Handbook. 

And it was all due to a happy accident with some melted chocolate.

Accidental invention

Percy LeBaron Spencer was a self-taught engineer who had never finished grammar school, according to the Southwest Museum of Engineering, Communication and Computation. While at the Raytheon Corp., he worked on magnetrons — vacuum tubes that produce microwave radiation and are used in radar systems. In 1941, he devised a more efficient way to manufacture them. His innovation allowed production to rise from 17 per day to over 2,600 per day. 

Spencer was testing a magnetron when he noticed that the chocolate bar in his pocket had melted, according to Raytheon’s company history. Intrigued, Spencer tested other foods, including popcorn kernels, and noticed that they all popped. He put an egg near the magnetron and watched as it started to shake and then explode. Spencer realized that the foods had been exposed to low-density microwave energy, according to Gallawa. He next built a metal box and fed microwave power into it. The energy entered the box but could not escape — microwaves do not pass through metal. Spencer discovered that microwaves could cook food faster than convention ovens that used heat. He filed a patent application in 1945. (Spencer went on to receive 150 patents throughout his career, according to the National Inventors Hall of Fame. He died in 1970.)

The first commercial microwave oven was tested in a Boston restaurant in 1947. Later that year, Raytheon introduced the Radarange 1161. It stood 5.5 feet (1.7 meters) tall, weighed 750 lbs. (340 kilograms) and cost $5,000, according to Gallawa. It had to be hooked up to a water line because the magnetron was water-cooled. It took a few years for the public to overcome their initial reluctance but as technology improved, microwave ovens grew in popularity, particularly in the food industry. Restaurants could keep cooked recipes in the refrigerator and heat them to order reducing waste. Other food industry establishments used microwaves for roasting coffee beans and peanuts, defrosting and precooking meat, and even shucking oysters. 

Other industries also found uses for microwave heating. Microwave ovens are also used to dry cork, ceramics, paper, leather, tobacco, textiles, pencils, flowers, wet books and match heads, according to Gallawa.

Tappan, an appliance maker, introduced the first microwave ovens for home use in 1955, but because of their large size — as big as a stove — and high cost — $1,295 — few were sold, according to Gallawa. Raytheon acquired Amana Refrigeration in 1965, and two years later, the Amana Radarange, which could fit on a kitchen counter top, was introduced. It cost just under $500.

Soon after, microwave ovens became more popular than even the dishwasher due to decreasing sizes and costs. In 1975, only 4 percent of U.S. homes had a microwave oven, according to Gallawa; in 1976, the number jumped to 14 percent. Today, approximately 90 percent of households in the United States have a microwave oven, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

How does a microwave work?

Microwave ovens use radio waves set at a specific frequency — 2,450 megahertz with a power ranging from 500 to 1,100 watts, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Food that sits in a microwave oven is bombarded on all sides by the microwaves. Water molecules within the food absorb the microwaves, and the resulting vibrations generate heat and cook the food. Microwaves pass through plastic, glass and ceramic but not metals, which is why it is not recommended to use metal containers or utensils in a microwave oven, according to SciTech.

A magnetron generates the microwaves. According to Engineer Guy, a magnetron is two permanent magnets on either side of a vacuum tube. Microwave radiation is created by the flow of electrons building up magnetic and electric fields, according to Tech-Faq. The microwaves are directed to the oven chamber in order to heat and cook the food.

Microwave safety

Since their initial development, microwave ovens have gotten a bad rap due to their use of microwave radiation. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), microwave ovens are safe when they are used properly and maintained in good condition. While massive amounts of microwave radiation can be harmful, ovens are designed to keep the radiation within the oven and present only when the oven is switched on and the door is shut. A minimal amount of radiation that may leak, primarily through the glass door, is well below international standards.

According to the WHO, several countries and international standards committees have set a product emission limit of 50 watts per square meter at any point 5 centimeters away from the external surfaces of the oven. In practice, microwave emissions are substantially below this limit. Also, exposure decreases rapidly with distance: a person 50 cm from the oven receives about one one-hundredth of the microwave exposure of a person 5 cm away.

The main health concern when it comes to using microwaves is that in general, microwaves heat unevenly and can cause parts of the food to either be under cooked or extremely hot, so caution is needed — as well as a few extra minutes — for the heat to equalize within the food. The primary injury that results from using a microwave oven is a burn resulting from hot food and liquids or the particles of hot food from explosions from foods, such as eggs in their shells, cooking unevenly. 

Nutritional value

There are also concerns about the nutritional value of foods after they have been cooked in a microwave oven. According to the WHO, these concerns are based on misconceptions. There is little to no difference in nutritional value of foods cooked in microwave oven versus a conventional oven, nor does cooking food in a microwave oven make the food radioactive. 

A 1982 article published in Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition reviewed data from several studies on the effects of microwave cooking on the nutritive values of moisture, protein, carbohydrate, lipid, minerals and vitamins. The authors concluded that no significant nutritional differences exist between foods prepared by conventional and microwave methods.

In 2010, a team of researchers from the Universidad Complutense Madrid in Spain cooked a variety of veggies, from artichokes to zucchini, with techniques ranging from boiling to frying to microwaving. Theymeasured the amount of antioxidants present before and after cooking. They found that baking, griddle-cooking and microwaving produced the lowest losses, while boiling and pressure-cooking were the hardest on antioxidants. Frying was somewhere in between. 

The future of microwave ovens

Many microwave ovens today contain sensors that stop themselves when the food has completed cooking, according to SciTech. Samsunghas developed a microwave oven that offers a variety of cooking methods. In addition to defrosting meats and reheating leftovers, the oven can fry and bake. It also has a fermentation cycle that can be used in making fresh dough and yogurt.

A microwave oven from NXP Semiconductors uses solid-state RF (radiofrequency) energy to cook. The microwave oven controls where, when and the amount of energy that is transmitted directly into the food. The result is improved consistency, taste and nutrition, according to NXP. The solid-state device allows for controlling large amounts of energy with high efficiency and with real-time feedback.

Other companies such as Wayv are producing portable, solid-state RF microwave ovens that can be charged via a regular plug, in the car, or with solar chargers. This particular model, which resembles a thermos, can be used for approximately 30 minutes per charge to heat up to 17 fluid ounces (0.5 liters) at a time.

Microwave ovens are also gaining features to be able to connect to mobile technologies, such as the line of LG smart appliances. These appliances have the ability to be turned on remotely from anywhere via a smartphone or other device.

Toyota's New Concept Car Is Designed With 'Kinetic Warmth' in Mind

At the Consumer Electronics Show currently underway in Las Vegas, Nev., several carmakers are showing off their futuristic visions for personal transportation. BMW's i Inside Future concept, for example, has a HoloActive Touch display that floats the control panel above the center console. And Hyundai's Mobility Vision literally connects a car to the home via a portal in the wall. Driver's dock to the house and exit into the living room.

But Toyota wants to make driving more personal. More emotional. The Concept-I, which is strictly a concept car and not slated for production yet, evolves the idea of "fun to drive" to accommodate advances in technology, including autonomous driving. Conceived of at Toyota's CALTY design studio in Newport Beach, Calif., the car — which gives the owner a choice of automated or manual mode — embodies a philosophy that Toyota calls "kinetic warmth."

In a press release, Bob Carter, senior vice president of automotive operations for Toyota, described it by saying, "At Toyota, we recognize that the important question isn't whether future vehicles will be equipped with automated or connected technologies. It is the experience of the people who engage with those vehicles."

That engagement will primarily happen via an A.I. agent nicknamed Yui. Yui interacts with its owner from both the outside and the inside. As a person approaches the car, Yui displays the word "Hello" on the vehicle's exterior. It can even give a charming wink with one of its headlights.

"So imagine when you first get a Concept-I. It's like meeting somebody for the first time, and you share some information," CALTY chief designer Ian Cartabiano told Engadget.

"You learn something about the vehicle, and as the days, weeks, months, years go by, the shared learning from each other basically means you get to know each other," Cartabiano said. "Concept AI and Yui learn and adapt, creating this bond. That bond and that partnership can really create a lot of interesting dynamics."

On the inside, drivers and passengers enter an environment not typical modern car interiors. Instead of black and chrome, the Concept-I is white and gold.

"It's a very serene, soothing, yet beautiful, engaging space, and when you need information on the dashboard or IP, it seems to appear out of the white space," Cartabiano said.

That means no screens on the center dashboard. Instead, the car displays information where its needed and also presents it through a variety of interfaces, including holographic images, sound, vibration and light. Colored lights in the foot wells provide an instant clue about whether the vehicle is in automated or manual drive. Lenses in the rear of the car project video from outside cameras to reduce blind spots.

Over time, the A.I. agent will learn the driver's preferences, including how and where she likes to go. Sensors inside will be able to monitor the driver's emotional state and Yui can adjust the driving or even the route to make the commute more relaxing. And because it's connected to social media, Yui may remind the driver about an errand or suggest a restaurant along the way that it knows the driver has been wanting to try.

Yui could even help keep a driver alert on those long, boring stretches between destinations. 

Gill Pratt, CEO of Toyota Research Institute, spoke to an audience on Wednesday at CES, saying that Yui could be "coupled with the autonomy system" and be used to "engage the driver in conversation," reportedGeekwire.

Toyota, which sold 2.45 million vehicles in the U.S. last year, say it plans to evaluate the car on the road in the next few years.

Building a Google for the Deep, Dark Web

This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

In today's data-rich world, companies, governments and individuals want to analyze anything and everything they can get their hands on – and the World Wide Web has loads of information. At present, the most easily indexed material from the web is text. But as much as 89 to 96 percent of the content on the internet is actually something else – images, video, audio, in all thousands of different kinds of nontextual data types.

Further, the vast majority of online content isn't available in a form that's easily indexed by electronic archiving systems like Google's. Rather, it requires a user to log in, or it is provided dynamically by a program running when a user visits the page. If we're going to catalog online human knowledge, we need to be sure we can get to and recognize all of it, and that we can do so automatically.

How can we teach computers to recognize, index and search all the different types of material that's available online? Thanks to federal efforts in the global fight against human trafficking and weapons dealing, my research forms the basis for a new tool that can help with this effort.

Understanding what's deep

The "deep web" and the "dark web" are often discussed in the context of scary news or films like "Deep Web," in which young and intelligent criminals are getting away with illicit activities such as drug dealing and human trafficking – or even worse. But what do these terms mean?

The "deep web" has existed ever since businesses and organizations, including universities, put large databases online in ways people could not directly view. Rather than allowing anyone to get students' phone numbers and email addresses, for example, many universities require people to log in as members of the campus community before searching online directories for contact information. Online services such asDropbox and Gmail are publicly accessible and part of the World Wide Web – but indexing a user's files and emails on these sites does require an individual login, which our project does not get involved with.

The "surface web" is the online world we can see – shopping sites, businesses' information pages, news organizations and so on. The "deep web" is closely related, but less visible, to human users and – in some ways more importantly – to search engines exploring the web to catalog it. I tend to describe the "deep web" as those parts of the public internet that:

1. Require a user to first fill out a login form,
2. Involve dynamic content like AJAX or Javascript, or
3. Present images, video and other information in ways that aren't typically indexed properly by search services.

What's dark?

The "dark web," by contrast, are pages – some of which may also have "deep web" elements – that are hosted by web servers using the anonymous web protocol called Tor. Originally developed by U.S. Defense Department researchers to secure sensitive information, Tor was released into the public domain in 2004.

Like many secure systems such as the WhatsApp messaging app, its original purpose was for good, but has also been used by criminals hiding behind the system's anonymity. Some people run Tor sites handling illicit activity, such as drug trafficking, weapons and human trafficking and even murder for hire.

The U.S. government has been interested in trying to find ways to use modern information technology and computer science to combat these criminal activities. In 2014, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (more commonly known as DARPA), a part of the Defense Department, launched a program called Memex to fight human trafficking with these tools.

Specifically, Memex wanted to create a search index that would help law enforcement identify human trafficking operations online – in particular by mining the deep and dark web. One of the key systems used by the project's teams of scholars, government workers and industry experts was one I helped develop, called Apache Tika.

The ‘digital Babel fish'

Tika is often referred to as the "digital Babel fish," a play on a creature called the "Babel fish" in the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" book series. Once inserted into a person's ear, the Babel fish allowed her to understand any language spoken. Tika lets users understand any file and the information contained within it.

When Tika examines a file, it automatically identifies what kind of file it is – such as a photo, video or audio. It does this with a curated taxonomy of information about files: their name, their extension, a sort of "digital fingerprint. When it encounters a file whose name ends in ".MP4," for example, Tika assumes it's a video file stored in the MPEG-4 format. By directly analyzing the data in the file, Tika can confirm or refute that assumption – all video, audio, image and other files must begin with specific codes saying what format their data is stored in.

Once a file's type is identified, Tika uses specific tools to extract its content such as Apache PDFBox for PDF files, or Tesseract for capturing text from images. In addition to content, other forensic information or "metadata" is captured including the file's creation date, who edited it last, and what language the file is authored in.

From there, Tika uses advanced techniques like Named Entity Recognition (NER) to further analyze the text. NER identifies proper nouns and sentence structure, and then fits this information to databases of people, places and things, identifying not just whom the text is talking about, but where, and why they are doing it. This technique helped Tika to automatically identify offshore shell corporations (the things); where they were located; and who (people) was storing their money in them as part of the Panama Papers scandal that exposed financial corruption among global political, societal and technical leaders.

Identifying illegal activity

Improvements to Tika during the Memex project made it even better at handling multimedia and other content found on the deep and dark web. Now Tika can process and identify images with common human trafficking themes. For example, it can automatically process and analyze text in images – a victim alias or an indication about how to contact them – and certain types of image properties – such as camera lighting. In some images and videos, Tika can identify the people, places and things that appear.

Additional software can help Tika find automatic weapons and identify a weapon's serial number. That can help to track down whether it is stolen or not.

Employing Tika to monitor the deep and dark web continuously could help identify human- and weapons-trafficking situations shortly after the photos are posted online. That could stop a crime from occurring and save lives.

Memex is not yet powerful enough to handle all of the content that's out there, nor to comprehensively assist law enforcement, contribute to humanitarian efforts to stop human trafficking and even interact with commercial search engines.

It will take more work, but we're making it easier to achieve those goals. Tika and related software packages are part of an open source software library available on DARPA's Open Catalog to anyone – in law enforcement, the intelligence community or the public at large – who wants to shine a light into the deep and the dark.

Christian Mattmann, Director, Information Retrieval and Data Science Group and Adjunct Associate Professor, USC and Principal Data Scientist,NASA

Ultrafast Camera Captures 'Sonic Booms' of Light for First Time

Just as aircraft flying at supersonic speeds create cone-shaped sonic booms, pulses of light can leave behind cone-shaped wakes of light. Now, a superfast camera has captured the first-ever video of these events.

The new technology used to make this discovery could one day allow scientists to help watch neurons fire and image live activity in the brain, researchers say. [Spooky! Top 10 Unexplained Phenomena] 

Science behind the tech

When an object moves through air, it propels the air in front of it away, creating pressure waves that move at the speed of sound in all directions. If the object is moving at speeds equal to or greater than sound, it outruns those pressure waves. As a result, the pressure waves from these speeding objects pile up on top of each other to create shock waves known as sonic booms, which are akin to claps of thunder.

Sonic booms are confined to conical regions known as "Mach cones" that extend primarily to the rear of supersonic objects. Similar events include the V-shaped bow waves that a boat can generate when traveling faster than the waves it pushes out of its way move across the water.

Previous research suggested that light can generate conical wakes similar to sonic booms. Now, for the first time, scientists have imaged these elusive "photonic Mach cones."

Light travels at a speed of about 186,000 miles per second (300,000 kilometers per second) when moving through vacuum. According toEinstein's theory of relativity, nothing can travel faster than the speed of light in a vacuum. However, light can travel more slowly than its top speed — for instance, light moves through glass at speeds of about 60 percent of its maximum. Indeed, prior experiments have slowed light down more than a million-fold.

The fact that light can travel faster in one material than in another helped scientists to generate photonic Mach cones. First,study lead author Jinyang Liang, an optical engineer at Washington University in St. Louis, and his colleagues designed a narrow tunnel filled with dry ice fog. This tunnel was sandwiched between plates made of a mixture of silicone rubber and aluminum oxide powder. 

Then, the researchers fired pulses of green laser light — each lasting only 7 picoseconds (trillionths of a second) — down the tunnel. These pulses could scatter off the specks of dry ice within the tunnel, generating light waves that could enter the surrounding plates.

The green light that the scientists used traveled faster inside the tunnel than it did in the plates. As such, as a laser pulse moved down the tunnel, it left a cone of slower-moving overlapping light waves behind it within the plates.

Streak camera

To capture video of these elusive light-scattering events, the researchers developed a "streak camera" that could capture images at speeds of 100 billion frames per second in a single exposure. This new camera captured three different views of the phenomenon: one that acquired a direct image of the scene, and two that recorded temporal information of the events so that the scientists could reconstruct what happened frame by frame. Essentially, they "put different bar codes on each individual image, so that even if during the data acquisition they are all mixed together, we can sort them out," Liang said in an interview.

There are other imaging systems that can capture ultrafast events, but these systems usually need to record hundreds or thousands of exposures of such phenomena before they can see them. In contrast, the new system can record ultrafast events with just a single exposure. This lends itself to recording complex, unpredictable events that may not repeat themselves in precisely the same manner each time they happen, as was the case with the photonic Mach cones that Liang and his colleagues recorded. In that case, the tiny specks that scattered light moved around randomly.

The researchers said their new technique could prove useful in recording ultrafast events in complex biomedical contexts such as living tissues or flowing blood. "Our camera is fast enough to watch neurons fire and image live traffic in the brain," Liang told Live Science. "We hope we can use our system to study neural networks to understand how the brain works."

The scientists detailed their findings online Jan. 20 in the journal Science Advances.

Original article on Live Science.

Is There an Element Zero?

The periodic table contains a wide array of elements, numbered from one (hydrogen) to 118 (oganesson), with each number representing the number of protons stored within an atom's nucleus. Scientists are constantly working to create new elements by cramming more and more protons into nuclei, expanding the periodic table. The effort sparks curiosity and questions: Can the table be enlarged in the opposite direction? Is it possible to make an element zero? Does it already exist?

"Element zero" has been a matter of conjecture for nearly a century, and no scientist searched more ardently for it than German chemist Andreas von Antropoff. It was Antropoff who placed the theoretical element atop a periodic table of his own devising, and it was also he who thought up a prescient name for it: neutronium.

You don't widely hear Antropoff''s name today, as his Nazi leanings earned the scientist international disgrace. You do, however, hear about neutronium. Today, the term commonly refers to a gaseous substance composed almost purely of neutrons, found within the tiniest, densest stars known to exist: neutron stars.

Neutron stars are the collapsed cores of large stars. Just twenty kilometers wide, they hold the mass of one to three Suns. The incredible mass comes from how they are composed. The stars are made up almost entirely of neutrons clumped together by intense gravity. Neutrons normally exist only within nuclei of atoms, making their congregation an astronomical rarity, and deserving of a cool name, the aforementioned "neutronium". (Image: The structure of a neutron.)

But is the stuff also worthy of the title "element zero"? Neutronium is theoretically devoid of protons, so on face value it fits the bill, as no protons would mean no atomic number. With that said, such a definition would certainly require some creative thinking. Neutronium only dwells under the crushing gravity of a neutron star. Extract a teaspoon of the stuff (roughly equal to the mass of a mountain) and it will decay almost instantly with "tremendous" radioactivity. To consider neutronium a stable element we'd almost need to think of a neutron star as an atomic nucleus.

That's a massive stretch.

(Author's Note: Some learned commenters have correctly pointed out that elements don't have to be long-lasting to be considered elements. This strengthens the case for neutronium as element zero!)

Original article on RealClearScience.

Be like Bill: 5 Ways to Be More Like Bill Gates

Bill Gates is probably the most famous billionaire in the world. With a net worth in the tens of billions, his impact in the world of technology is unparalleled.

Most everyone is familiar with his success in the business world and also his philanthropy.

Most people would love to have success like Bill Gates; however there are very few who have cultivated the necessary habits.

While mimicking some of Bill Gates’ habits probably won’t turn you into a multi-billionaire, it can help you accomplish some of your goals.

So how can you adopt some of Bill Gates’ habits?

Bill Gates is and has always been a voracious reader. In a recent Forbes interview, his father, William H. Gates Sr., revealed that his son was always an extreme bookwork. As a child, Gates Jr. devoured science fiction and even encyclopedias. Everywhere he went, he carried a book with him.

Eventually, the elder Gates had to draw the line somewhere and insisted that his son could continue with his habit as long as he didn’t bring any books to the dinner table.

Today, the younger Gates is still an avid book reader consuming everything from inspiring biographies to philosophical works to intellectual periodicals. However, Bill Gates Jr. now encourages others to pick up the reading habit. He frequently posts lists of his reading material to increase interest.

1. Start Your Day Right

Bill Gates prefers starting off his day by treating his body to some exercise. Each morning he starts his day by spending an hour on the treadmill for his cardio requirements. The list of benefits we gain by starting our day with exercise is exhaustive.

For one, it gives you a metabolism boost throughout the day helping you to burn more calories and lose weight. It also contributes to decrease your stress levels and helps you to remain more focused and energized throughout the day. This will undoubtedly boost your performance as you go through the day. Early morning exercise also benefits you at night as it affords you a better, more restful night’s sleep.

2. Never Stop Learning

There is a lot of value attached to being exposed to various experiences from an early age. When Bill Gates was in the ninth grade his school bought an early personal computer making Gates completely enthralled with the devices.

Gates was allowed to leave his mathematics class to learn programming. The first program he ever created was a Tic-Tac-Toe game. He never looked back. In college, Gates made it a habit of sitting in on classes for which he had never even signed up. Gates continued this thirst for knowledge to this day.

3. Give Credit to Others 

There is little stopping Bill Gates from taking all the credit for his achievements. He is, after all, a genius inventor and one of the richest men in the world. However, Gates has instead opted to live by the philosophy “give credit where credit is due”.

When asked in an interview for the best business decision he ever made, he replied that it was none other than picking the right people for the job and that choosing Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen as a business partner was perhaps the most important decision he has ever made.

The point that Gates highlights is clear. Not only is it important to choose the correct people to help guide us towards success, but we have to practice an attitude of gratitude as well. We must highlight the accomplishments of those whose work we value.

4. Learn From Your Mistakes 

Learning from one’s mistakes is one of the biggest factors in maturity and growth. Bad decisions and their aftermaths furnish us with the most important lessons we can ever learn. Experience cannot be your teacher unless you are willing to heed the lessons.

Bill Gates once related that the success of Microsoft was in part due to the success of his leadership team in recognizing mistakes; mistakes that could prove costly in the future. Gates wasn’t afraid of changing course once a decision showed itself as being ill-advised. Unfortunately, for far too many people, it takes a lot of mistakes to learn a single lesson. Learning from our mistakes helps us to develop wisdom and discernment.

5. Trust Your Judgment 

People who we come across in life will disappoint us and sometimes abandon us. Often they don’t have as clear vision as we do and allowing them to make decisions on our behalf could have disastrous consequences. This illustrates for us why it is important for us to trust ourselves. When Bill Gates came up with the idea for Microsoft his ideas were shot down as impractical.

He envisioned the world in which computer chips would become so powerful that computers and software would soon become ubiquitous. Very few people shared his vision.

However, Gates believed in the purity and clarity of his visions and decided to trust himself. The rest, as they say, is history. While it is good practice to heed sound advice, sometimes the advice we receive reeks of fear and indecision. Indecision and self-doubt leave us in a haze of inactivity. Self-trust means that we will make decisions with our needs and safety at heart.

There is merit in studying the habits of those who have arrived at the pinnacle of success in their various fields. While we don’t wish to clone their success, studying their habits is a way of learning what drives them and makes them tick.

We can then apply these lessons learned in our lives and engineer the type of success that each of us wants. Bill Gates has no equal in the world of technology, managing to bring a fledgling technology into millions of homes. Learning of the habits he cultivated and duplicated them in our lives can go a long way towards bettering our world.