Does practice really makes the man perfect?

Hours of practice isn't guaranteed to turn you into an expert. Sorry to bust your dreams here, scientists have debunked the myth once and for all, and shown that, while some people can become an expert with 10,000 hours of practice - or less - many can't, and there's a whole lot more involved than just hard work.

The researchers came to this conclusion after analysing data taken across six previous studies of chess competitions (1,082 subjects in total) and eight studies of musicians (628 subjects), and looking for any kind of correlation between practice and success. What they found was that, well, there kinda wasn't one, and there were huge variations in how much of a role practice seemed to have played in success.

"One chess player, for example, had taken 26 years to reach a level that another reached in a mere two years. Clearly, there's more at work than just the sheer volume of hours practiced, the study argues."

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Hydrogen powered Tram

Liang Jianying, chief engineer of Sifang Co, a wholly-owned subsidiary of China South Rail Corporation, said on Thursday the new tram is the only hydrogen powered vehicle in the field and makes China the only country to have mastered the technology. 

Hydrogen fuel cells are a new clean energy source, widely used in the automobile industry, but lagging behind in the field of rail transit. "It took two years for Sifang to solve key technological problems, with the help of research institutions," state-run Xinhua news agency quoted Liang as saying without mentioning when the tram would be operational. 

The tram can be refilled with hydrogen in three minutes and can then run for 100km at speeds as high as 70 kmph. "The average distance of tramcar lines in China is about 15km, which means one refill for our tram is enough for three round trips," Liang said, adding the overall running costs will be greatly reduced. Each tram has over 60 seats and can carry 380 passengers.

Is Poverty Genetic?

Why do poor children perform worse in school? A researcher looks into this and finds physical differences between the brains of the rich and the poor but children aren't born with these differences.

Or money is just a simple human creation to which we give more preference than any other thing in this universe. If we scale the happiness of Bill Gates and an average person, then average person is more happier than him in most of the cases. Are we earning to be happy?

Co-operation

Co-operation and community are just as essential to our survival as selfishness. Tracey Mills studies some of the oldest microorganisms, he found that even the simplest creatures of this planet are capable of co-operation, he studied how different strains of marine bacteria defend themselves against predators, surprisingly the bacteria that makes the anti-biotics sacrificed themselves to protect others. Down at these level as well we see altruism, self-sacrifice for the good of the community. Theory of evolution holds this, we wouldn't have been born without altruism, so as universe.

The immortal Jellyfish

This immortal species cannot die. It achieves this by aging backward after sexual maturity, going through reverse puberty so it can start the cycle again and if the jellyfish is injured or sick, it returns to its polyp stage over a three-day period, transforming its cells into a younger state that will eventually grow into adulthood all over again.

Turritopsis typically reproduces the old-fashioned way, by the meeting of free-floating sperm and eggs. And most of the time they die the old-fashioned way too.

But when starvation, physical damage, or other crises arise, "instead of sure death, Turritopsis transforms all of its existing cells into a younger state," said study author Maria Pia Miglietta, a researcher at Pennsylvania State University. The jellyfish's cells are often completely transformed in the process. Muscle cells can become nerve cells or even sperm or eggs. It could also applied to human beings because human and jellyfish are not genetically very different.

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What do world's fastest computer do?

How fast is the Titan? Its theoretical top speed is 27 petaflops, which doesn't sound that impressive unless you know that it means 27,000 trillion calculations per second. That's hundreds of thousands times faster than your top-of-the-line PC. Unlike your PC, though, Titan won't fit on a desktop; it occupies a space the size of a basketball court.

Researchers plan to use it to run detailed simulations of the Earth's climate, which may yield ideas on how to lessen global warming. They also may use it to help design super-efficient internal combustion engines and solar panels, and to run biological simulations that will help speed the testing of new drugs. On the pure science level, Titan could help scientists simulate the breaking of the bonds that hold molecules together, giving them new insights into one of the most important processes in nature.

Is time an illusion?

Einstein baffles us asserting "time" is not running at the same rate everywhere. Einstein mathematics show that the time given by a clock depends on that clock relative motion with respect to an observer. This phenomenon called "time dilation" amounts to the alteration of "time" with motion. There is also gravity-time-dilation. Einstein's prediction made in the early 20th century has been verified experimentally by Hafele and Keating in 1971 and confirmed over and over since. The experiments consisted of identical atomic clocks, some flying in planes around the globe and a reference clock left on the ground playing the role of the observer; the time differences coincided precisely to Einstein's calculations!

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World's most advanced humanoid robot

Atlas is a high mobility, humanoid robot designed to negotiate outdoor, rough terrain. Atlas can walk bipedally leaving the upper limbs free to lift, carry, and manipulate the environment. In extremely challenging terrain, Atlas is strong and coordinated enough to climb using hands and feet, to pick its way through congested spaces.

Articulated, sensate hands will enable Atlas to use tools designed for human use. Atlas includes 28 hydraulically-actuated degrees of freedom, two hands, arms, legs, feet and a torso. An articulated sensor head includes stereo cameras and a laser range finder. Atlas is powered from an off-board, electric power supply via a flexible tether.

Are we alone in the universe?

While it's true that life arose quickly on Earth (within the planet's first few hundred million years), the researchers point out that if it hadn't done so, there may not have been enough time for intelligent life — humans — to have evolved. So, in effect, we're biased. It took at least 3.5 billion years for intelligent life to evolve on Earth, and the only reason we're able to contemplate the likelihood of life today is that its evolution happened to get started early. This requisite good luck is independent of the actual probability of life emerging on a habitable planet.

On the other hand, if life arose simply by the accumulation of many specific chemical accidents in one place, it is easy to imagine that only one in, say, a trillion trillion habitable planets would ever host such a dream run. Set against a number that big — and once you decide a series of unlikely accidents is behind the creation of life, you get enormous odds very easily — it is irrelevant whether the Milky Way contains 40 billion habitable planets or just a handful. Forty billion makes hardly a dent in a trillion trillion.

Let's see what your statistics say after viewing this video.

Human head transplant

In 1970, the head of the monkey was transplanted onto the body of another at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in the US but they weren't able to fuse the spinal cords which means the monkey recipient couldn’t move its new head, it was able to achieve assisted breathing, but it died in a mere nine days following the procedure.

"The recipient's head is then moved onto the donor body and the two ends of the spinal cord – which resemble two densely packed bundles of spaghetti – are fused together,” says Thomsons. "To achieve this, Canavero intends to flush the area with a chemical called polyethylene glycol, and follow up with several hours of injections of the same stuff. Just like hot water makes dry spaghetti stick together, polyethylene glycol encourages the fat in cell membranes to mesh.”

Brain control drone

If the prospect of using a computer or a joystick to control a drone sounds like too much work, this robot may be the answer. The flying drone (dressed here in a monkey costume of sorts) can be controlled by brain waves.A specially designed brain-wave device, which can be used by people with disabilities, controls the flying drone.

Are there parallel universes?

The researchers proposed that such universes really exist and they interact with each instead of evolving independently. They also claimed that these universes influence each other by a subtle repulsive force, which could explain some of the irregularities in quantum mechanics that have puzzled scientists for a long time.

Wiseman and colleagues posit that the universe that we know of is just one of many worlds, some of which are nearly identical to ours and most very different from our world, which makes it possible that in some universes, the asteroid that annihilated the dinosaurs may have missed Earth or you could have been born in a different country.

The researchers also proposed that these worlds existed side by side from the beginning of time and that the universal force of repulsion between nearby worlds gives rise to all quantum phenomena that tend to make these worlds more dissimilar.

The future is here

The Mercedes-Benz F 015 Luxury in Motion research car and its immersive user experience is an innovative perspective into the future of mobility.

This 5.2-metre-long roadgoing spaceship is powered by hydrogen, generates its own electricity, emits no carbon dioxide and has a total range of 684 miles - oh, and let's not forget, is capable of driving itself. The body structure is a hybrid of carbon fibre reinforced plastic, aluminium and high-strength steel, so it's as rigid and strong as a standard Mercedes production model but is around 40% lighter.

It even has driver's seat facing away from the road. Self-driving cars could replace 14 regular cars, so long as people were happy to car pool and allow an average of 15 percent extra commuting time. And on top of that, parking space requirements would drop by 80 percent. Predicted to hit roads by 2020.

Are we made of stars?

Carbon, nitrogen and oxygen atoms in our bodies, as well as atoms of all other heavy elements, were created in previous generation of stars over 4.5 billion years ago. Because humans and every other animal as well as most of the matter on Earth contain these elements, we are literally made of star stuff, said Chris Impey, professor of astronomy at the University of Arizona.

This reaction continues in stars today as lighter elements are converted into heavier ones. Relatively young stars like our Sun convert hydrogen to produce helium, just like the first stars of our universe. Once they run out of hydrogen, they begin to transform helium into beryllium and carbon. As these heavier nuclei are produced, they too are burnt inside stars to synthesise heavier and heavier elements. Different sized stars play host to different fusion reactions, eventually forming everything from oxygen to iron. Eventually at iron, there is no energy released at all. And for elements beyond iron more energy is need for fusion than gravitational pressure can provide.

Is Teleportation possible?

A team of international researchers have successfully teleported a quantum bit (qubit) over a record distance of 143 kilometers (89 miles), between the Canary Islands of La Palma and Tenerife. This distance is significant, as it is roughly the same distance to low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites — meaning it is now theoretically possible to build a satellite-based quantum communication network.

Now, before you get too excited, quantum teleportation isn’t the same as the teleporters found in Star Trek or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but the concept is similar. Basically, the scientists entangled some photons in La Palma, and then used a high-powered laser to fire one of those photons across the sea to a receiving station in Tenerife. Then, when the quantum state of one photon is altered, the quantum state of the second photon — despite being 90 miles away — is immediately altered, faster than the speed of light, without even the smallest of delays. In essence, we’re talking about quantum stateteleportation — rather than the teleportation of actual matter.

La Palma and Tenerife are two island located in Spain.

In the long term, though, a quantum network could form the backbone of an internet populated by quantum computers. In theory, each quantum processor/computer connected to the quantum network could be instantly linked to every other computer via an entangled pair of photons.

The next step, then, is to launch a satellite capable of sending and receiving teleported qubits. This is no easy task, and probably unlikely to happen for at least a few years. We’re moving quickly, though: Just two years ago, the record distance for quantum teleportation was 16km, set by a Chinese research team. Earlier this year, they broke their own record and teleported photons over 97km — and now, a few months later, we’re at 143km.

EEG headband

Electroencephalography(EEG) refers to the recording of the brain's spontaneous electrical activity over a short period of time, usually 20–40 minutes. This is done by measuring the voltage fluctuation resulting from ionic current flows within the neurons of the brain. It has various application in various fields like for instance you can move an avatar in a video game mentally or if we talk about computer why bother to have a mouse or a keyboard, why not simply have, everything done mentally. Walk into your room, you have headband, you just mentally control the light, control the TV, surf the web, type by thinking about it. One day our children would ask us, how could you live in a world where you had to touch the screen, touch the keyboard touch the steering wheel.

Metamaterials

This is what metamaterials theoretically can do: They guide light around an object, rather than reflect or refract the light. So to the light waves -- and the human eye that perceives them -- the object might as well not even be there. If the light waves can be guided by the metamaterials around the object and back to its original course, the object wouldn't cast a shadow, either. This is another goal of using metamaterials to create cloaking devices.

To simplify it, Duke University's David R. Smith suggests this: Imagine a fabric woven of thread. In this fabric, light is only allowed to flow over the threads (meaning it can't travel into the nooks and crannies between the threads). If you punch a hole in the fabric with a pin, light will go around the hole and resume its original course of travel, since light can only travel over the thread. So to the light waves, the hole doesn't exist. If you put an object in the hole, the light waves would go around the object too, effectively rendering the object invisible.

For one thing, we don't currently have the technology to manufacture materials on the small scale required to manipulate light waves. Light wavelengths are measured in nanometers (billionths of a meter), and the metamaterials needed to block light must be even smaller than that. Another challenge is that a metamaterial cloaking device would have to be arranged to manipulate light on the entire visible spectrum, because different colors exist on different wavelengths. And lastly, a cloaking device would plunge a person on the inside into darkness, as the light that would normally reach him or her would be diverted around the cloaking device. One demand of the DARPA project is that it be asymmetrical . This means that the wearer on the inside should be able to see out, but he or she would be invisible to anyone outside the suit. Once these problems are worked out, the army of the future may be very hard to spot.

Take chances

You’ll learn, as you get older, that rules are made to be broken. Be bold enough to live life on your terms, and never, ever apologize for it. Go against the grain, refuse to conform, take the road less traveled instead of the well-beaten path. Laugh in the face of adversity, and leap before you look. Dance as though EVERYBODY is watching. March to the beat of your own drummer. And stubbornly refuse to fit in.

Happiness

What is Fear?