NSF’s newest solar telescope produces first images
The Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope has produced the highest resolution image of the sun's surface ever taken. The image shows a pattern of turbulent, “boiling” gas that covers the entire sun. The cell-like structures -- each about the size of Texas -- are the signature of violent motions that transport heat from the inside of the sun to its surface.
National Science Foundation
Mapping the Wuhan Coronavirus (2019-nCoV)
In response to this ongoing public health emergency, JHU developed an online dashboard to visualize and track the reported cases on a daily timescale; the complete set of data is downloadable as a google sheet. The case data visualized is collected from various sources, including WHO, U.S. CDC, ECDC China CDC (CCDC), NHC and DXY.
John Hopkins University
Ambient Atomic Orbitals
This ambient podcast was recently recommended by Warren Ellis.
Ambient Atomic Orbitals: A collection of mixes that include many different artists of the ambient / experimental genre. Unbroken seamless mixes including field recordings and other snippets.
Tycho - Outer Sunset (Official Audio)
Taken from the upcoming album 'Simulcast' out Feb 28 on Mom + Pop / Ninja Tune: https://tycho.lnk.to/simulcastYo
via Tycho YouTube
Squarepusher - Terminal Slam (Official Video)
‘Terminal Slam’ is directed by Squarepusher's longtime collaborator, Daito Manabe. He is one of the directors and founders of Rhizomatiks, Japan's world-renowned artists, programmers and DJs who have collaborated with a variety of domestic and international artists.
New album ‘Be Up A Hello’ out 31 January
via Squarepusher YouTube
"The Art of Computer Designing"
Osamu Sato is a talented polymath artist from Japan, known for his psychedelic video game scores and his pioneering work on computer graphics.
In 1993, he published the (now highly collectible) book, "Art of Computer Designing: A Black and White Approach," which opens with this amazing incantation: "The computer is a magic box. Many graphic images are hidden inside it."
Boing Boing
Honda. Great Journey.
‘Honda. Great Journey.’ showcases how autonomous driving could take us around the world. Map Project Office and Mori Inc. were commissioned by Honda to create seven concept vehicles suitable for a journey that retraces mankind’s great migration from Africa across the globe to South America.
Honda | Map Project Office
Making air from Moon dust: Scientists create a prototype oxygen plant
Scientists have created a prototype "lunar oxygen plant" by testing a method for extracting oxygen from imitation Moon rocks that could be invaluable for lunar settlements. Not only does the process extract up to 96 percent of the oxygen in the imitation lunar soil, it also leaves behind metals that might be valuable to future crewed missions that venture to the moon, Mars, and beyond.
Astronomy
The Design of Evil (in sci-fi interfaces)
What does an evil interface look like? In the real world, few people believe they’re evil, so it’s problematic to look there for examples. But in sci-fi, we have The Empire. The First Order. Zorg! The Alliance! Norsefire! All evil, and all meant to be unambiguously so.
A short talk by Chris Noessel of Sci-Fi Interfaces
Immune discovery 'may treat all cancer'
Scientists discovered a T-cell and its receptor that could find and kill a wide range of cancerous cells in the lab including lung, skin, blood, colon, breast, bone, prostate, ovarian, kidney and cervical cancer cells. Crucially, it left normal tissues untouched.
BBC News
The Secretive Company That Might End Privacy as We Know It
A little-known start-up helps law enforcement match photos of unknown people to their online images — and “might lead to a dystopian future or something,” a backer says.
The New York Times
How Science Fiction Imagined the 2020s
What ‘Blade Runner,’ cyberpunk, and Octavia Butler had to say about the age we’re entering now.
OneZero
Stardust older than the Earth and sun found in Australian meteorite
Stardust that formed more than 5bn years ago, long before the birth of the Earth and the sun, has been discovered in a meteorite that crashed down in Australia, making it the oldest known solid material on the planet.
The Guardian
These “xenobots” are living machines designed by an evolutionary algorithm
Tiny living robots have been created using cells taken from frog embryos. Each so-called xenobot is less than a millimeter across, but one can propel itself through water using two stumpy limbs, while another has a kind of pouch that it could use to carry a small load. Once it is set loose, a robot’s cells have enough energy to keep it wriggling and squirming for up to 10 days.
MIT Technology Review
The Last Blog
Why is this The Last Blog?
Because it’s the last thing on Earth,
the only thing left.
It’s the last zine, paper airplane,
the last roll of toilet paper.
You are the last reader on earth, on the last computer,
listening to the last album ever made.
This is your last thought. Your last night on earth.
The Last Blog.
TikTok has become the home of modern witchcraft (yes, really)
TikTok's algorithms make it a safe haven for those with an interest in the occult – and they're drawing more and more people into the practice.
Wired
Australia’s fires have pumped out more emissions than 100 nations combined
Climate change is driving climate change.
The wildfires raging along Australia’s eastern coast have already pumped around 400 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, further fueling the climate change that’s already intensifying the nation’s fires.
MIT Technology Review
William Gibson: ‘I was losing a sense of how weird the real world was'
The writer who invented ‘cyberspace’ – and possibly the most influential living sci-fi author – on the challenges of keeping up with a reality even stranger than fiction.
The Guardian