Hello, and welcome to The Edge, the newsletter that brings you groundbreaking stories from the frontiers of technology and science.
We’ve got some great stories for you today including manned flying car experiments in Japan, new wormhole research and OnePlus working on a smartwatch. As always, we’ve added extra stories under each article should you find yourself in a curious state of mind.
Through the wormhole
Is interstellar travel becoming a reality? Image credit: Futurism
Physicists: Wormholes Large Enough to Travel Through Are Possible
If new research is to be believed, wormholes that are stable and large enough for people to travel through should be possible to create. For clarification, according to Space.com, a wormhole is “…a theoretical passage through space-time” that “could create shortcuts for long journeys across the universe.”
The downside? The quantum physics necessary for the wormhole is intense. Moreover, creating one of these wormholes would depend on technology that is so far in the future that it makes no sense for science to pursue it now. This, however, doesn’t stop the idea of a functional wormhole from being extremely exciting.
Wormholes only work in conjunction with quantum physics. Additionally, wormholes of existing models were short-lived, very unstable and tiny. And, travelling through them would actually take more time than just going to your destination in the first place.
To work around this, the team of Princeton physicists behind the new research uses a theory that breaks the universe down into five dimensions of warped geometry. Based on that framework, stable and human-sized wormholes could exist and be used, provided the user is an excellent pilot.
These wormholes would whisk travellers 10,000 light-years away in a single second. Thanks to special relativity, Earthly observers would see the journey take 10,000 years. In other words, to an observer watching the journey unfold, it would take 10,000 years to complete.
Take a trip through a wormhole.
Today is…
…International Bacon Day.
Researchers believe that the concept of bacon was invented in China around 1,500 B.C.
71% of people have eggs with their bacon.
Want to try something different? Get fryin’ with some lab-grown bacon.
Other fascinating facts about bacon.
Quick science
Other incredible stories from the world of science and technology
An AI trained on the Bible makes some dark prophecies.
A person’s immune system fought off HIV and won, for the first time ever.
New research shows how bacteria can survive in the vacuum of space
Take to the skies
The car, reimagined. Image credit: Futurism
Japenese Company Tests a Flying Car - With a Human On Board
SkyDrive, a Japenese company working on eVTOL (electric vertical takeoff and landing) vehicles, just completed a test flight of their flying car - with a human on board.
During the test flight, the vehicle hovered several feet off the ground for four minutes. This doesn’t sound like a lot, but it’s an amazing feat considering that very few eVTOL projects have made it off the ground, let alone with a human pilot.
While this is all exciting, there’s a long road ahead. Flying cars can’t yet stay in flight for long enough be useful and the battery packs they use are expensive and heavy.
Cars these days are seriously advanced.
Video of the week
“What Would Happen If Technology Disappeared Tomorrow?
In this great video by Spark, the world is looked at through a technology-free lens. We’ve become almost completely reliant on technology in many ways, so this thought experiment shines some seriously interesting light on how we’d cope without it.
Shift Nudge - learn interface design
Ever wanted to learn how to design user Interfaces? Or do you want to brush up on your UI design skills? Shift Nudge, a great new platform that’s been doing really well on Product Hunt lately, can help you do just that.
Image credit: Shift Nudge
Shift Nudge is a new platform that teaches users the complex, intricate skills of visually beautiful interface design. It does so by balancing accessibility and functionality, letting people learn the art of interface design in an easy-to-use platform.
OnePlus might enter the wearable fight
A new day, a new wearable. Image credit: TechRadar
OnePlus Watch Name Leaks as Ex-employee Reveals it’s Been in the Works For a While
A OnePlus Watch might finally be coming. The rumoured wearable was spotted in a listing on an online regulatory body’s website.
The listing was spotted by 91Mobiles on the IMDA (Infocomm Media Development Authority) website and clearly states the ‘OnePlus Watch’ name. Described as a ‘wearable watch’, the model name is listed as ‘W301GB’. Additionally, according to TechRadar, a former OnePlus employee informed them that the company has "actively been looking into a smartwatch for the last year," meaning that the watch isn’t a shot in the dark.
We look forward to the prospect of OnePlus joining the fray. The wearable market is heavily saturated but also choc-full of amazing technology, so a new addition gets our hearts racing.
The history of wearable tech.
What we’ve been reading
A small selection of the articles we read this week.
U.S. tech stocks are now worth more than the entire European stock market
The coronavirus is most deadly if you are older and male — new data reveal the risks
Belarusian Officials Shut Down Internet With Technology Made by U.S. Firm
Thanks for reading!
We hope you enjoyed this edition of The Edge.
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