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  From - The Science Times By -  Margaret Davis   Edited by - Amal Udawatta (Photo : MARIO TAMA/POOL/AFP via Getty Images) A member of the US Air Force deploys a weather ballon aboard the USS. Portland before the NASA's Orion capsule descended to splash down in the Pacific Ocean off Baja California, Mexico, on December 11, 2022. Recently, mysterious balloons have been flying over North America and the US Air Force has shot them down for security reasons. The balloons were believed to be Chinese surveillance vessels initially observed flying American territory in early February. But apart from these balloons, there are some emotional fatalities as well.  Futurism  reports that a solar geoengineering start-up that aims to dim the sun is worried that its balloons might get shot down as well. (Photo : MARIO TAMA/POOL/AFP via Getty Images) A member of the US Air Force deploys a weather ballon aboard the USS. Portland before the NASA's Orion capsule descended to splash down in the Pa

By Peter Hoskins and James FitzGeral BBC NEWS Edited by Amal Udawatta IMAGE SOURCE, GOVERNMENT OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA Image caption, A serial number allowed authorities to verify the capsule Authorities in Western Australia say they have found a tiny radioactive capsule which went missing last month. Emergency services had "literally found the needle in the haystack", they said. A huge search was triggered when the object was lost while being transported along a 1,400km (870 mile) route across the state. Authorities released a close-up picture of the pea-sized capsule - which could cause serious harm if handled - on the ground among tiny pebbles. A serial number enabled them to verify they had found the right capsule, which is 6mm (0.24 inches) in diameter and 8mm long. It contains a small quantity of Caesium-137, which could cause skin damage, burns or radiation sickness. Mining giant Rio Tinto apologised for losing the device, which is used as a density gauge in the mining in

        From BBC News      Eited by  Amal Udawatta, Artificial intelligence (AI) used to seem like science fiction. Now you probably interact with AI every day, without even realising. Most likely it is not a humanoid robot plotting the end of the human race. Instead, think of Siri telling you what the weather is like outside, Google Maps deciding the fastest route to your destination, Gmail filtering out spam emails, or Netflix telling you what movie you might like to watch next. AI is quickly becoming embedded in our day-to-day lives. These are all examples of AI technology processing large amounts of data to find the answer or perform the action you have requested. Artificial intelligence like this generally relies on machine learning – a function that gives systems the ability to learn and improve with experience, using patterns and algorithms rather than explicit instructions. While this might make it seem like the technology itself is intelligent, according to Deakin Associate P

From -  Science News Staff (Science Magazine) Edited by - Amal Udawatta, European satellite duo will study oceans and warming The European Space Agency (ESA) last week approved the $420 million Harmony mission as the next in its Earth Explorer line of science missions, following a competition. Harmony’s two satellites will carry infrared sensors and radar receivers to observe the turbulent waves, winds, and eddies that govern the interchange of heat and gases between the oceans and atmosphere. Scientists know oceans soak up more than 90% of the excess heat of global warming, but they need Harmony’s finer scale observations to explain how—and to calibrate climate models that predict the evolution of these dynamics decades ahead. “We want to study how the oceans and the atmosphere are talking to each other,” says principal investigator Paco López-Dekker, a remote sensing scientist at the Delft University of Technology. After launch in 2029, the Harmony satellites will fly in formation wi

  From - Knowable maagazine ,   By  -  Kurt Kleiner , Edited by Amal Udawatta,    Researchers are developing novel computers made from soft, organic materials (right) that can operate like biological nerve cells (left). These new materials may someday be able to interact with real nerve cells, opening the door to better control of prosthetic limbs, among other uses.-    CREDIT: W. XU   ET AL / SCIENCE ADVANCES   2016 T he human brain is an amazing computing machine. Weighing only three pounds or so, it can process information a thousand times faster than the fastest supercomputer, store a thousand times more information than a powerful laptop, and do it all using no more energy than a 20-watt lightbulb. Researchers are trying to replicate this success using soft, flexible organic materials that can operate like biological neurons and someday might even be able to interconnect with them. Eventually, soft “neuromorphic” computer chips could be implanted directly into the brain, allowing

  From - Smithsonian Magazine Mike Errico Author,  Music, Lyrics Life: A Field Guide for the Advancing Songwriter, Edited by Amal Udawatta, Just as songs repeat in choruses, formations in space take understandable shapes. Pictured here are the large Cartwheel galaxy and two smaller companion galaxies.  NASA / Illustration by Emily Lakiewicz I’m not a scientist—I routinely Google the answers to my daughter’s fourth-grade maths questions—but I do practice a kind of science: I’m a songwriting professor, and up through the Renaissance, music was considered a close relative of math, geometry and astronomy. That may be hard to imagine today, but as I check out the  startling images  that the James Webb Telescope has been beaming back to us since July—the spiraling “cartwheel” galaxies, binary stars and echoes of the Big Bang—I can see the connection. In astronomy, elements “solve” into understandable orbits or familiar chemicals; in music, they “resolve” into choruses and melodies we can sin