Science

Scientists create never-before-seen form of matter

Harvard and MIT scientists are challenging the conventional wisdom about light, and they didn’t need to go to a galaxy far, far away to do it… The discovery runs contrary to decades of accepted wisdom about the nature of light. Photons have long been described as massless particles which don’t interact with each other – shine two laser beams at each other, he said, and they simply pass through one another.

Sounds like a science fiction. A bizarre plant which produces both tomatoes and potatoes, providing a ‘veg plot in a pot’, has been launched in the UK.

Here’s another major horticultural breakthrough from Thompson & Morgan! Specially hand-grafted plants producing potatoes AND tomatoes are now available to UK home gardeners for the first time. Above the ground harvest more than 500 cherry tomatoes with a Brix level of 10.2 – that’s sweeter than supermarket tomatoes. Fruits also have just the right level of acidity that only the tastiest tomatoes have.

But That’s not All… Below the ground harvest heavy yields of delicious white potatoes which are incredibly versatile. You can boil them, mash them, roast them or make chips. That’s right! From one plant you can harvest tomatoes AND potatoes.

Ipswich-based horticultural firm Thompson and Morgan said the hybrid plants were not genetically modified.  Read More or Buy it Here

Graphene may be the material of the future

It’s super strong, super slim and almost transparent, but why all the fuss about a one-atom-thick sheet of carbon? … It’s likely that graphene – said to be hundreds of times stronger than steel and able to conduct electricity at super high-speed – will be used in many gadgets, vehicles and constructions. Read More

Veggie delight: Bill Gates-backed US firm creates plant-based egg

Veg egg! In some good news for vegetarians, an artificial egg made entirely from plants has been developed by food scientists at a US company.

The company has successfully created faux mayonnaise and a variety of baked goods using the egg substitute.

The eggs are made from a “simple, but awesome species of peas,” sorghum and “11 plants (in total) that are particularly awesome,” FoxNews.com quoted the company CEO Josh Tetrick as saying. Read More

Are we close to making human ‘mind control’ a reality?

Using electrical brain recordings and a form of magnetic stimulation, Rajesh Rao sent a brain signal to Andrea Stocco on the other side of the UW campus, causing Stocco’s finger to move on a keyboard.

While researchers at Duke University have demonstrated brain-to-brain communication between two rats, and Harvard researchers have demonstrated it between a human and a rat, Rao and Stocco believe this is the first demonstration of human-to-human brain interfacing.

“The Internet was a way to connect computers, and now it can be a way to connect brains,” Stocco said. “We want to take the knowledge of a brain and transmit it directly from brain to brain.” … Read More

Are window blinds the future of power generation? Deakin University researchers think so

Imagine a future where you run household appliances with electricity generated by window blinds. Such a future might seem far-fetched, but not to Deakin University PhD student Gayathri Devi Rajmohan.

Ms Rajmohan is working on harnessing the sun’s rays through solar panels that are thin and flexible enough to be made into products such as window blinds and backpacks or attached to car roofs. Read More

~ Team SD