Scientists uncloak another dimension in time travel

It was H.G. Wells who coined the idea of travelling through the fourth dimension to the future or the past in what he famously called The Time Machine.

Now a group of US scientists claims to have managed a similar feat - stopping time for a fraction of a second, but long enough to "cloak" an event.

Moti Fridman from Cornell University and Robert Boyd from the University of Rochester, both in the state of New York, used a laser and "time lenses" to achieve what they call "temporal cloaking" to make something disappear from view as if it never happened.

The pair outline the experiment in the international journal Nature today.

The scientists looked at a technique developed by others in which splitting up light rays "spatially" around an object can render it invisible, and applied the concept of doing so with time.

The time lenses divided light rays into the blue ones, which move faster, and the red ones which move slower.

These were channelled around a 1cm target of fibre, as a second laser shot a particular light into it to produce the "event".

The difference in speed created a tiny temporal gap long enough to be recorded, in which the event could not be seen. Dr Fridman said the effect was clearly detectable by turning the time lenses on and off. "As soon as I activated the cloaking, the event disappeared," he said. "You can see light, then there isn't light, then there is."

This "hole in time" lasted for about 40 trillionths of a second.

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World-first hybrid shark

The world's first hybrid shark - a cross between two black-tips has been found off the east coast of Australia.

Researchers found 57 of the new sharks along 1200 miles of coastline between New South Wales and Queensland, saying the interbreeding may be a response to climate change or fishing patterns.

Like the two parent species, the common black-tip and the Australian black-tip, the new shark is not considered dangerous - and scientists say there is no risk of the hybrids leading to a Jaws-style "mega-shark".

The hybrids were found at five locations and identified using genetic testing and body measurements. While the two parent black-tip species are closely related, they grow to different maximum sizes and are genetically distinct.

Dr Colin Simfendorfer, from James Cook University, said finding the hybrids was "very unusual".

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Dustbin-sized camera that captures speed of light

A super-fast camera, which is the size of a dustbin, is capable of capturing the speed of light.

The camera can show a bullet-shaped pulse of light travelling from one end of a laboratory flask to another in a fraction of a second but Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) said that it would take some time for the camera to be commercially available.

Researchers at MIT's 'blue-sky science' think tank envisage that super-fast photography could benefit mankind within 10 years and could even lead to hand-held medical scanners being used in hospitals.

The camera, which captures images at one trillion exposes per second, can also produce 3D images, as it is competent of 'seeing' photons of light even inside objects.

The device was created by adapting a 'streaker tube' - used by chemists to scan and capture light. It can record the progress of light pulses through a flask of liquid.

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The man who discovered Pluto remains to be launched to the stars

Clyde William Tombaugh was an American astronomer. He is best known for discovering the dwarf planet Pluto in 1930. He also discovered many asteroids and is also called for serious scientific research of unidentified flying objects.

In memory of the first American to discover a planet in our solar system, the piano-sized New Horizons spacecraft carries a small aluminium canister containing some of Tombaugh's cremated remains, donated by his family. These remains will fly past Pluto with New Horizons on July 14, 2015, and then on past Kuiper Belt objects in the succeeding years. New Horizons will eventually escape our solar system altogether and enter interstellar space. As such, Tombaugh's remains have become the first to be launched to the stars.

The memorial canister, about two inches wide and half-an-inch tall, is attached to the inside, upper deck of the spacecraft. It also includes an inscription penned by Stern:

Interned herein are remains of American Clyde W. Tombaugh, discoverer of Pluto and the solar system's "third zone." Adelle and Muron's boy, Patricia's husband, Annette and Alden's father, astronomer, teacher, punster, and friend: Clyde W. Tombaugh (1906-1997).

(Source)

Live human heart grown in lab

Scientists are growing human hearts in laboratories, offering hope for millions of cardiac patients.

American researchers believe the artificial organs could start beating within weeks.

The experiment is a major step towards the first ‘grow-your-own’ heart, and could pave the way for livers, lungs or kidneys to be made to order.

The organs were created by removing muscle cells from donor organs to leave behind tough hearts of connective tissue. Researchers then injected stem cells which multiplied and grew around the structure, eventually turning into healthy heart cells.

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Sexual cannibalism among spiders

Sexual cannibalism is the act of one partner eating the other after sex. In the orb-web spider, the female tries to grab and wrap up the male at the onset of mating so she can snack on him during sex.

Female black-widow spiders and praying mantis most often eat their partners after sex. Now, a new study has found that this creepy cannibalism may be meant for having healthier babies.

Researchers at the University of Hamburg in Germany found that male orb-web spiders make this ultimate evolutionary sacrifice for the good health of his offspring.

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Horses can't vomit

Horses are non-ruminant herbivores. This means that horses have only one stomach, as do humans.

The digestive system of the horse is somewhat delicate. Horses are unable to regurgitate food, except from the esophagus. Thus, if they overeat or eat something poisonous, vomiting is not an option.  They also have a long, complex large intestine and a balance of beneficial microbes in their cecum that can be upset by rapid changes in feed. Because of these factors, they are very susceptible to colic, which is a leading cause of death in horses.

(Source)

Britain's longest married couple

A couple from Bradford who tied the knot in 1925 could be the UK's longest married husband and wife.

Karam Chand was born in a small rural village in the Punjab in northern India in 1905. His family worked in farming and, in keeping with the custom of the time, he married at a young age.

His bride Kartari was born in the same district in 1912. According to their passports, that currently makes Mr Chand 106 and his wife 99 years old.

They wed in a typical Sikh ceremony in December 1925 and have just celebrated their 86th year together as a married couple, which they think may qualify them as the UK's longest married husband and wife. Mr Chand came with his family to Bradford in 1965.

The couple have eight children, 27 grandchildren and 23 great grandchildren.

(Source)

Indian boy breaks world record after being born with thirty four fingers and toes

A one-year-old boy in India has broken a world record after being born with 34 fingers and toes.

Akshat Saxena had seven fingers on each hand and ten toes on each foot, according to a spokesman for Guinness World Records.

The child, from Uttar Pradesh in northern India, has since had a series of surgeries to amputate the excess digits. Akshat was born last year without thumbs so doctors are working to reconstruct these out of the fingers they have removed.

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The world's thinnest laptop

Acer has unveiled the world’s thinnest laptop - an 'ultrabook' which is just 15mm at its thickest point, two crucial millimetres less than MacBook Air.

It's one of the first 'ultrabooks' - slim, Intel-powered PC laptops built to fight off MacBook Air, and tablets such as iPad.

The Aspire S5 weighs just under 3lbs(1.35 kg) and has a battery claimed to several weeks - but springs to life in just 1.5 seconds.

The S5 will have a 13.3-inch LCD monitor, a magnesium-aluminum alloy cover and an ultra-fast ‘Thunderbolt' data port which has a range of media inputs previously only available on similar Apple machines.

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Brain stays active after you get decapitated

At one time in history, decapitation was one of the preferred methods of execution. There's nothing more final than the severing of one's head. But how quick is it? If your head were cut off, would you still be able to see or otherwise move it, even for just a few seconds?

This concept perhaps first appeared during the French Revolution, the very time period in which the guillotine was created. On July 17, 1793, a woman named Charlotte Corday was executed by guillotine for the assassination of Jean-Paul Marat, a radical journalist, politician and revolutionary. After the blade dropped and Corday's head fell, one of the executioner's assistants picked it up and slapped its cheek. According to witnesses, Corday's eyes turned to look at the man and her face changed to an expression of indignation.

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The Smurfs Village

(AP Photo/Sergio Torres) Source: AP

The inhabitants of a Spanish village which was painted entirely blue for the filming of box-office smash hit The Smurfs movie voted to keep their houses a vivid shade of azure, instead of returning to traditional white.

The 221 residents of Juzcar, in southern Spain, were promised by Sony Pictures six months ago that their homes would be returned to their former dazzling white state but found The Smurfs animated movie brought them an unexpected lifeline in tough economic times.

Juzcar became the world's first official Smurf Village and, whereas 300 tourists a year would pass through, an estimated 80,000 have been to see "Smurftown" in the past six months.

The village put it to a vote and the inhabitants overwhelmingly decided - 141 in favour to 33 against - that their homes should stay painted entirely in that unique hue, Smurf blue.

The village has eagerly embraced its new role, holding events such as a Smurf moonlight fun run, Smurf painting competitions and permanently running Smurf trade fairs. There are even Smurf-themed weddings to keep fans of the squeaky little blue folk coming.

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Genetically modified monkeys born in US

The world's first genetically modified monkeys have been created in the US, with researchers fusing cells from up to six different embryos.

Until now, rodents have been the primary creatures used to make chimeras, a lab animal produced by combining two or more fertilised eggs or early embryos together.

Scientists have long been able to create "knockout" mice with certain genes deleted in order to study a host of ailments and remedies, including obesity, heart disease, anxiety, diabetes and Parkinson's disease.

Attempts to do the same with more complicated primates have failed in the past, but scientists in the western US state of Oregon succeeded by altering the method used to make mice.

The breakthrough came when they mixed cells together from very early stage rhesus monkey embryos, in a state known as totipotent, when they are able to give rise to a whole animal as well as the placenta and other life-sustaining tissues.

The experiment produced three healthy male rhesus monkeys they named Roku, Hex and Chimero, with gene traits from all of the separate embryos used to meld them.

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Gold - plated dosa

The humble dosa – a pancake made from rice batter and lentils – may be very popular in southern India, but the country’s newly prosperous middle classes can now relish a gold-plated version of this dish.

Dosa come in many varieties, for example plain or with a potato masala filling. And they are not very expensive, costing between 50 and 100 Rupees (94-$1.90, 60p-£1.20).

But the Raj Bhog restaurant, in the southern Indian city of Bengaluru (Bangalore), now offers dosa covered in a coating of pure gold.

The luxury comes at a price. Each gold dosa costs the princely sum of 1011 Indian Rupees (£12.25; $19).

Diners are promised that they can tuck into one milligram of gold, spread out over 12 cm by 12 cm of pure gold foil. The gold is added to each dosa in the final wrap – very much like adding a thin sheet of cheese or butter while applying the finishing touches to the dish.

For the restaurant it is probably just an innovative way of marketing itself, an attempt to stand out in Malleswaram, an upmarket area of India’s IT capital Bengaluru.

(Source)

World's shortest women

A high school student in central India was recognized as the world's shortest woman by Guinness World Records on Friday as she turned 18 and said she hopes to earn a degree and make it in Bollywood.

Jyoti Amge stood just 62.8 centimeters (24.7 inches) tall — shorter than the average 2-year-old — when Guinness representatives visiting from London measured her at a ceremony attended by about 30 relatives and friends in the town of Nagpur, in Maharashtra state.

A teary-eyed Amge, dressed in one of her finest saris, called the honor an "extra birthday present" and said she felt grateful for being small, as it had brought her recognition. After receiving a plaque, she and her guests cut a birthday cake.

"I have put Nagpur on the world map. Now everyone will know where it is," said Amge, who says she dreams of one day becoming a Bollywood film star as well as pursuing a university degree after she finishes high school this year.

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The oldest pair of socks from the 4th century

These socks were made in the 4th to 5th century, and were excavated in Egypt at the end of the 19th century. They have a divided toe and are designed to be worn with sandals.

They were made in the technique nålbindning, sometimes called knotless netting or single needle knitting - a technique closer to sewing than knitting. These socks were made using three-ply wool.
Some believe that this technique was a forerunner of the faster method of knitting with two or more needles.

(Source)

Happy New Year!