Science and Tech

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we have all been isolated from the rest of humanity for quite a while. Hunger is also something that we have all experienced as well. Scientists have discovered that these two states of hunger and isolation are linked.

Imagine playing video games by only using your mind. No controller. No keyboard and mouse. Or moving an object somewhere by just thinking about it. Such a superpower sounds familiar in science fiction or in your wildest dreams. But now, scientists and engineers are turning this superpower into a reality. The technology known as a brain-computer interface is enabling computers to read our minds and carry out the tasks in our thoughts.

On November 2nd, company X-Energy announced that their preliminary design for a production facility of nuclear TRISO fuel had been completed. If this project is to finish, it is another step towards improvement in nuclear power sources and cleaner energy for all.

“We spend our lives learning many things, only to discover (again and again) that most of what we've learned is either wrong or irrelevant,” writes Chuck Klosterman in But What If We’re Wrong?, a book devoted to the idea that it’s foolhardy to be certain of… well, basically anything. Consider it, though: most of history consists of old ideas being overturned by new ones, and some of the things people faithfully believed in just decades ago are laughable today.

The Middle Pleistocene (also called the Chibanian), which took place from 774,000 to 129,000 years ago, is a complicated period in paleoanthropological history. Although it saw the rise of Homo sapiens in Africa and Homo neanderthalensis in Europe, along with many of their contemporaries, little is known about it, and to make matters worse, the terminology used is often vague and contradictory.

On November 15th, 2021, the Russian government blew up their own satellite, the Cosmos 1408. The debris caused by the explosion has already endangered the lives of astronauts in outer space. Following the explosion, astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) received commands to find shelter in case of collison with oncoming space debris from the satellite. The ISS was unharmed, but this crisis serves as a warning of what similar decisions could mean for the future of satellites orbiting our Earth.

The Ship of Theseus is one of the most famous paradoxes in history. It raises the question: if the entire ship was replaced with new parts, then is it still the same ship?

Each year, the national blood supply shortage grows, so much that we have now reached a critical status; so, here’s how Stanford Researchers plan to fix that.

On September 24th, Apple released the iPhone 13 along with the 13 mini, 13 Pro, and the 13 Pro Max. Apple provided many new colors with the iPhone 13, including shades of blue, pink, and white. Similar to previous iPhones, beginning with the iPhone 7, the iPhone 13 is water-resistant. The iPhone 13 looks a lot like the iPhone 12 but with two main updates -- display and cameras. 

In mid-October, the 2021 Nobel Prize in Economics recipients were announced to be Professors David Card (UC Berkeley), Joshua Angrist (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), and Guido Imbens (Stanford). Their 1:1:2 split of an over-one-million-US-dollar prize is their reward for their pioneering work of “natural experiments” in economic sciences.