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The Startling Truth About What Happens to Your Eyes While You Sleep

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ETH Zurich researchers found that pupil size changes during sleep, indicating shifts in brain activity. This could help diagnose sleep and neurological disorders. Our eyes are typically closed when we sleep. However, beneath our closed eyelids, a flurry of activity takes place. A team of researchers, led by principal investigators Caroline Lustenberger, Sarah Meissner, and [...] http://dlvr.it/TJNdsF
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Alphabet's Taara chip uses light beams to provide high-speed internet

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Alphabet has announced a new development for Taara's technology that could lead to low-cost, high-speed internet connectivity, even in far-flung locations. Taara's general manager, Mahesh Krishnaswamy, has introduced the Taara chip, a silicon photonic chip that uses light to transmit high-speed data through the air. The Taara chip is abut the size of a fingernail, far smaller than the technology the Alphabet division has been using. Taara Lightbridge, which is what its first-generation technology is called, is the size of a traffic light and uses a system of mirrors and sensors to physically steer light to where it needs to go. The new chip uses software instead.  Taara is a project under X, Alphabet's moonshot factory. The high speed wireless optical link technology underpinning the project was originally developed for X's Project Loon internet broadcasting balloons. Alphabet pulled the plug on Loon in 2021 and focused on Taara instead, using its technology to beam ...
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Scientists Have Uncovered One of the Oldest Birds Ever – And It’s Unlike Anything We’ve Seen

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Scientists discovered two Jurassic bird fossils in China, pushing back bird diversification by 20 million years. One, Baminornis zhenghensis, had a short tail and mixed dinosaur-like and bird-like traits. The second, an isolated furcula, may belong to Ornithuromorpha but requires further study. A research team led by Professor Min Wang from the Institute of Vertebrate [...] http://dlvr.it/TJJxjn
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'Squeezed' light might produce breakthroughs in nano-sized electronics

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It's one thing to produce nanoscale devices, but it's another to study and improve on them — they're so small they can't reflect enough light to get a good look. A breakthrough might make that possible, however. UC Riverside researchers have built technology that squeezes tungsten lamp light into a 6-nanometer spot at the end of a silver nanowire. That lets scientists produce color imaging at an "unprecedented" level, rather than having to settle for molecular vibrations. The developers modified an existing "superfocusing" tool (already used to measure vibrations) to detect signals across the entire visible spectrum. Light travels in a flashlight-like conical path. When the nanowire's tip passes over an object, the system records that item's influence on the beam shape and color (including through a spectrometer). With two pieces of specrtra for every 6nm pixel, the team can create color photos of carbon nanotubes that would otherwise appear...
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