7,000 Year Old Egyption City Discovered

On November 23rd 2016, the Egyptian Ministries of Antiquities announced that archaeologists there had found the ruins of a 7,000 year old city. The discovery was made 400 meters from the temple of Seti I, during an excavation of parts of Abydos, in Egypt's Sohag province. Researchers say that Abydos was once Egypt's capital city during the fist four dynasties and near the end of the predynastic period.

So far, archaeologists have uncovered huts, remains of pottery, iron tools, and 15 huge graves. Some of the graves were larger than those of the kings of Abydos. It is believed that the size of some of these larger graves indicates that the people who were buried there were very important. They may even have held some high social social standing, during this particular period of Egyptian history, which dates back to 5,316 BCE.

A Scientist Proposes New Theory Of Gravity

On November 8th 2016, Professor Eric Verlinde of the University of Amsterdam published a paper that proposes a new theory of gravity. Professor Verlinde suggests that Dark Matter doesn't really exist. Dark Matter is the name for an invisible substance that scientist believes makes up 27% of all of the mass in the universe. It has been used to explain inconsistencies in the gravitational rotations of galaxies.

The new theory is called Emergent Gravity, and was actually first proposed by Professor Verlinde in a paper he wrote in 2010. In that paper, Professor Verlinde put forth that gravity is not a true force of nature, but it emerges as the result of an exchange of bits of information that are fundamental and stored in space time it self. In his latest work, Professor Verlinde contends that it is this information exchange and not Dark Matter that gives rise to gravitational effects observed across the universe.

Professor Verlinde contends that the bits of information stored in space time are actually the effect of the amount entropy in the universe. Entropy is the second law of thermal dynamics which states that things in a given system tend to move from order to disorder. According to Professor Verlinde, this can also account for what is being called Dark Energy. Dark Energy has been described as gravity's propensity to push objects away from each other and is credited with the accelerated expansion of the universe.  

Adobe Creates Photoshop For Audio

On November 3rd 2016, at its Adobe Max Conference, the company announced that it had created an application that can reproduce human speech. The project code named, VoCo, is what Adobe is calling Photoshop for audio. VoCo allows a user to manipulate a piece of audio simply by editing lines of text. Words can be rearranged to change sentences or inserted where they were never spoken.

Voco works by sampling a large amount of voice data, which takes about 20 minutes. It then breaks down that data into "phonemes." Phonemes are the distinct sounds that make up a particular spoken language. Next, it voice models the speaker, using cadence, stresses, quirks and other artifacts. Then, to reproduce speech, VoCo either finds the word in the 20 minute sample or uses "phonemes" from the raw data to build it.

While users can make edits entirely from the raw data, it is suggested that copying and pasting the existing words sounds more realistic. Right now, the VoCo technology is only a prototype. However, Adobe is considering "watermarking and detection," to prevent fraudulent use. Adobe intends for VoCo to be used to make edits of podcasts, commercial voice overs, and/or audio book recordings.

Scientists Create Artificial Synapse

On September 26th, 2016 a team of scientists from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, announced that they had created an artificial synapse. A synapse is the point where nerve impulses pass between neurons. Dr Joshua Yang, who led the research team believes that this achievement will make it possible for computers to successfully emulate the human brain.

The new technology is an electrical component called a memristor. Dr Yang and his team discovered that a memristor's resistance level is determined by how much electrical charge has passed through it. They found that this mimics the behavior of calcium ions at the junction of two human brain neurons. Dr. Yang and his team believe that this new device could lead to a breakthrough in "brain inspired," or nueromorphic computers.

The human brain has about 100 billion neurons and an estimated 1 quadrillion synapses. Older devices such as transistors and capacitors can work like a synapse, but don't function like a biological system. They don't operate efficiently, create a larger device area, and consume more power. Dr Yang went on to say that with their device, " You don't just simulate one type of synaptic function, but also other important features and actually get multiple synaptic functions together."

Scientists Discover More Galaxies In The Universe

On October 13th 2016, an international team of astronomers announced in a report published in the journal Nature, that they had discovered that the universe is larger than once believed. Using the Hubble Space Telescope, the scientists have determined that the universe may be 10 to 20 time bigger than what was thought, containing 1 or possibly 2 trillion more galaxies.

The team, led by Professor Christopher Conselice of the University of Nottingham in England used the Hubble to create a 3D map made from deep space images taken of the known universe. The deep field images contained 100 to 200 billion galaxies and were the most distant ever photographed. The team then applied new mathematical models to calculate where other galaxies might exist.

When they did the math they found that, for the numbers to add up, the universe has to contain 10 times more galaxies then those known to exist. The team believes that those galaxies are so far away that they are too faint to be seen by our most advanced telescopes. Professor Conselice says, "Who knows what properties we will find when we observe these galaxies with the next generation of telescopes.