Researchers believe they may have found Gherardini’s remains in a convent in Florence
Today's robots are wimps. Even the most powerful can lift only half their weight.
We’ll finally discover who the Mona Lisa was
The identity of Mona Lisa has long been a mystery. Some think Leonardo da Vinci modelled his masterpiece on his mother; others, on a secret male lover. In fact, one art historian identified her just a few decades after the painting was completed as Lisa Gherardini del Giocondo, the wife of a wealthy cloth merchant who commissioned the piece to a then-broke da Vinci. (The fact that the artist named his work La Gioconda was a big clue.) Now, thanks to radiocarbon dating, this hunch may finally be confirmed.
Researchers believe they may have found Gherardini’s remains in a convent in Florence. If the carbon-14 tests confirm that it’s her, scientists will also do DNA tests to determine the colour of her eyes, skin and hair. With that information, they’ll be able to confirm if she is the world’s most famous half-smiler.
The Internet may have met its doom
The Internet could soon be a thing of the past. If we don’t figure out a way to provide data faster, it could collapse by 2023, says Andrew Ellis of Aston University’s School of Engineering and Applied Science. People forget that the Internet is made largely of fiber-optic cables strung across the ocean floor. Those cables can keep up with only so much data, and research suggests we could hit a point where no more information can be crammed into a single fiber. Put simply, the Internet could get full. The repercussions: Spotty service or providers installing more cables, sending Internet prices skyrocketing. And if you think the industry or the government is prepared, you’re wrong. According to engineer and industry pioneer Danny Hillis, “There is no plan B.”
Grocery store checkout lines? Ancient history
The question “cash or card?” will be a distant memory in the not-so-distant future. The Food Marketing Institute predicts that by 2025, customers will no longer wait in lines to check out at grocery stores. Just like a car zipping through an electronic tollbooth, shoppers will walk out of the door and a “frictionless checkout” will automatically account for products in their carts.
The strongest robots will be made from... onions
Today’s robots are wimps. Even the most powerful can lift only half their weight. Worse, they’re inflexible and their movements are herky-jerky. But that wouldn’t be the case if we could outfit them with lightweight, smooth-moving and super-strong artificial muscles. In fact, a machine equipped with robo-biceps could lift 80 times its own weight! The problem is, artificial muscles are expensive. For years, scientists have been trying to make them with costly polymers. But in May 2015, researchers at the National Taiwan University discovered a material so cheap, it literally made them tear up — onions. When they coated onion cells with gold and zapped them with electricity, the cells, like human muscles, bent and contracted.
We’ll be flying on fungus
Those leaves you rake in your garden may fuel your vacation. Researchers at Washington State University have discovered that under certain conditions, a black fungus named Aspergilluscarbonarius ITEM 5010 — which thrives in decaying leaves, soil and fruit — can be used to create hydrocarbons that could help make jet fuel, which is a blend of petroleum products. Not only would this be cost-effective, it would also eliminate the need for complex chemical processes used to make fuels, since the fungus does the work itself. Researchers hope Aspergilluscarbonarius will start to fuel flights within the next five years.
Dark matter will be exposed
Being an astrophysicist is a bit of a grind: Folks studying the cosmos are absorbed by a universe of equations and formulas, but they don’t often get a chance to test them out — the universe is too darn vast. But that’s going to change. By 2024, a powerful radio telescope will help answer the biggest questions plaguing Earth’s biggest brains. The Square Kilometre Array, located in South Africa and Western Australia, will be the world’s fastest, largest radio telescope — and the closest thing we have to a time machine. With it, scientists will peer back billions of years to observe the first black holes, stars and galaxies. It will also become our greatest tool in the search for alien life and test Einstein’s general theory of relativity — that is, our understanding of how time and gravity work. Most exciting, it will help scientists identify dark matter — the enigmatic material composing 85 per cent of our universe.
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( Source : deccan chronicle )
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