Life
Bright flash of light marks incredible moment life begins when sperm meets egg telegraph.co.uk v
An explosion of tiny sparks erupts from the egg at the exact moment of conception.
DNA Tech
Chemists use DNA to build the world's tiniest thermometer phys.org
These nanoscale thermometers open many exciting avenues in the emerging field of nanotechnology, and may even help us to better understand molecular biology. "There are still many unanswered questions in biology," adds Prof. Vallée-Bélisle, "For example, we know that the temperature inside the human body is maintained at 37° C, but we have no idea whether there is a large temperature variation at the nanoscale inside each individual cell."
Genetics startup Twist Bioscience is working with Microsoft to store the world’s data in DNA techcrunch
Twist Bioscience, a startup making and using synthetic DNA to store digital data, just struck a contract with Microsoft and the University of Washington to encode vast amounts of information on synthetic genes.
AI
Inside OpenAI, Elon Musk’s Wild Plan to Set Artificial Intelligence Free wired
When some of Silicon Valley’s most powerful companies caught wind of the project, they began offering tremendous amounts of money to OpenAI’s freshly assembled cadre of artificial intelligence researchers, intent on keeping these big thinkers for themselves. The last-minute offers—some made at the conference itself—were large enough to force Musk and Altman to delay the announcement of the new startup. “The amount of money was borderline crazy,” says Wojciech Zaremba, a researcher who was joining OpenAI after internships at both Google and Facebook and was among those who received big offers at the eleventh hour.
Robotics
Theme park's 'robot kingdom' seeks to upend Japan's service industry asia.nikkei
"Robots will arrive in this kingdom one after another, and the time will come when those technologies will be in use worldwide," Hideo Sawada, president of the park's operator, told reporters Thursday. The androids will include a chef that can cook okonomiyaki (a Japanese pancake), a bartender that can mix no fewer than 10 cocktails and a wait staff ready to serve and clean up after visitors.
US Military
Knock op': How the U.S. is trying to avoid bombing civilians washingtonexaminer
U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. Peter Gersten, the deputy commander for the operation in Iraq and Syria, decided it was time to borrow a page from the Israeli playbook, and employ a tactic known as a "knock operation."
We went as far as actually to put a Hellfire [missile] on top of the building and air burst it so it wouldn't destroy the building, simply knock on the roof to ensure that [a woman and her children] were out of the building. And she cleared the building, and we began to process the strike, Gersten said.
But despite doing this to avoid killing civilians, the woman is question was seen going back into the building after the initial air blast and just before a second bomb destroyed the target.
See also U.S. adopts Israeli ‘knock’ tactic to reduce civilian deaths in ISIS fight
North Korea
Obama: U.S. ‘setting up shield’ to block North Korean threats sltrib v
"One of the things we have been doing is spending a lot more time positioning our missile defense system so that even as we try to resolve the underlying problem of nuclear development inside of North Korea, we're also setting up a shield that can at least block the relatively low-level threats they are posing right now."
See also Why North Korean threat is a more urgent issue for next U.S. President
N. Korea builds mock up of South's presidential palace for target practice cbsnews
An official from the South's Joint Chiefs of Staff, who didn't want to be named, citing office rules, said the information came from an analysis of South Korean satellite imagery.
UK
The announcement of her suspension came after pressure mounted on the MP, with Mr Cameron saying during Prime Minister's Questions it was "quite extraordinary" that Labour had not withdrawn the whip from her over what he suggested were "racist" comments.
EU
EU referendum: Will Turkey's EU hopes affect UK vote? bbc
Campaigners wanting to leave the EU say such a further enlargement could result in a migration "free-for-all" and pose a "serious and direct threat" to UK public services. Is there any truth in this?
Pro-EU campaigners have also pointed out that if the UK votes to leave, it will have no say over the matter and could still find itself bound by freedom of movement rules like Norway, which is outside the EU but part of the European Economic Area.
UN
UN chief urges nuclear test ban treaty ratification washingtonpost
Ban called on [U.S., China, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea] “to sign and ratify the treaty without further delay.”
Society
Firm with rainbow logo won't design rainbow logo for gay-friendly Fargo church bismarcktribune
A Fargo company says it declined to do business with a gay-friendly church because the church asked the company to design a logo that included a rainbow, a universal symbol of the gay community.
Here's a question - is it realy 'gay-friendly' to encourage people to feel comfortable in their sin or to think that God is OK with it? It's actually dreadfully hateful to bar the entry into heaven by minimizing or denying God's hatred of sin so that people don't feel the weight and flee the wrath to come. How much worse it will be for those who do this evil thing! (Matt 23:13, James 3:1, etc)
Why a Swede got Ikea to ditch a nuclear family sign thelocal.se
“More room between tables for you and your mum and dad in the family corner,” the sign promised.
Hurtig said she got a knot in her stomach and immediately took a snap of the sign. She sent the photo to Ikea via Facebook and asked them to take the sign down.
Florida School District Passes Transgender Bathroom Ban patch
The school district reportedly began allowing transgender students to select their bathrooms about two months ago. A complaint from a father, however, prompted board members to re-examine the decision. The man’s son, several media outlets have reported, contended his child’s privacy rights were being violated because he feels uncomfortable sharing a restroom with a fellow student who was born a female but identifies now as a male.
Space
Putin orders Russian space programme shake-up after launch delayed in.reuters
With moments to go before the launch of an unmanned Soyuz rocket, officials had to postpone it early on Wednesday morning because a fault was uncovered with the rocket. They rescheduled for 24 hours later, but there was uncertainty about whether the second attempt would go ahead.
Stunning New Mars Images Bring The Planet’s Surface Into Focus all-that-is-interesting
To map the surface of Mars with intense detail, a group of scientists at University College London used a “revolutionary” imaging technique called Super-Resolution Restoration (SRR).
SRR “reveals objects at a resolution up to five times greater” than other previous images of the planet.
Creatures
Scientists Have Developed Shark Vision theatlantic
Finding biofluorescence in so many sea animals led Gruber to wonder what advantage it conferred upon a species. He and his co-authors have begun to answer that question for two biofluorescent sharks, the Atlantic-dwelling chain catshark and the Pacific-living swell shark.
This article assumes there's a naturalist, evolutionary cause behind every feature. But, really, these sharks scream an amazing and diverse Creator with layers upon layers of thought and design! Unfortunately the motivation here is worship of the creature (c.f. Rom 1:21-23):
Ultimately, Gruber hopes seeing the world through other animals’ eyes will have practical benefits. It’s hard to convince people about the importance of protecting the ocean, he says, when they can’t relate to the animals that live there. People may think of marine creatures as mysterious, or scary, or simply food. But if we put ourselves into their perspective, Gruber believes, “It could draw us closer to these species.”
Others...
SCIENTISTS GET FIRST LOOK AT ETHIOPIA'S UNCHARTED, DEADLY HOT SPRING popsci
The pictures remind me of science projects when I was a kid :)
21 award-winning shots from military photographers businessinsider
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