01 Jan Matter Sucked in by Black Holes May Travel into the Future to Get Spit Back Out

A new theory tries to explain the mysterious phenomena that exists at the center of black holes.

Black holes are among the most mysterious places in the universe; locations where the very fabric of space and time are warped so badly that not even light can escape from them. According to Einstein’s theory of general relativity, at their center lies a singularity, a place where the mass of many stars is crushed into a volume with exactly zero size. However, two recent physics papers, published on Dec.10 in the journals Physical Review Letters and Physical Review D, respectively, may make scientists reconsider what we think we know about black holes. Black holes might not last forever, and it’s possible that we’ve completely misunderstood their nature and what they look like at the center, according to the papers. [read: Stephen Hawking’s Most Far-Out Ideas About Black Holes]

Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.livescience.com

01 Jan Machine Learning Can Create Fake ‘Master Key’ Fingerprints

Just like a lock can be picked, any biometric scanner can be fooled. Researchers have shown for years that the popular fingerprint sensors used to guard smartphones can be tricked sometimes, using a lifted print or a person’s digitized fingerprint data. But new findings from computer scientists at New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering could raise the stakes significantly.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.wired.com

24 Dec ​Organic food is worse for the climate than conventionally farmed food

Organically farmed food has a bigger climate impact than conventionally farmed food, due to the greater areas of land required. This is the finding of a new international study involving Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, published in the journal Nature.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.mynewsdesk.com

24 Dec The Clock That Will Last 10,000 Years With Minimal Maintenance

Designed by Danny Hillis, the Clock is designed to run for ten millennia with minimal maintenance and interruption. The Clock is powered by mechanical energy harvested from sunlight as well as the people that visit it. The primary materials used in the Clock are marine grade 316 stainless steel, titanium and dry running ceramic ball bearings. The entire mechanism will be installed in an underground facility in west Texas.

In 02011, The American Astronomy Society published a paper co-written by Danny Hillis that describes how the Clock reckons time over its 10,000-year design lifetime.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: longnow.org

14 Dec How augmented reality is changing the way we work

Augmented and virtual reality technology is still in the very early stages of development, but it’s already rapidly changing how we do business and innovate.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.businessinsider.com

14 Dec In 200 years, humans reversed a climate trend lasting 50 million years, study says

Sourced through Scoop.it from: edition.cnn.com

14 Dec The Arctic Ocean has lost 95 percent of its oldest ice — a startling sign of what’s to come

Over the past three decades of global warming, the oldest and thickest ice in the Arctic has declined by a stunning 95 percent, according the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s annual Arctic Report Card.

The finding suggests that the sea at the top of the world has already morphed into a new and very different state, with major implications not only for creatures such as walruses and polar bears but, in the long term, perhaps for the pace of global warming itself.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.washingtonpost.com