Latest News - Page 1019

A research paper on the emergence of life on Earth-like planets titled "Abiogenesis: the Carter argument reconsidered" has been published in the journal International Journal of Astrobiology.

Daniel Whitmire, a retired astrophysicist and current mathematics teacher at the University of Arkansas, has challenged a long-accepted argument by astrophysicist Brandon Carter. Carter argued that the existence of life on Earth is, at best, of neutral value regarding the possibility of life on similar, Earth-like planets elsewhere. In other words, because our awareness of Earth and the life on it hasn't come about by selecting it at random from the collection of all Earth-like planets, Earth and its life can't be considered typical.

However, Whitmire's new theory suggests this is faulty logic. Whitmire used what he calls the conception analogy to show that abiogenesis, the emergence of life from inorganic matter, is likely quite possible on Earth-like planets. Whitmire explained that "one could argue, like Carter, that I exist regardless of whether my conception was hard or easy, and so nothing can be inferred about whether my conception was hard or easy from my existence alone." In this analogy, hard and easy refer to the use or lack of contraception, and both are assigned values in his calculations.

A study on the underground ocean titled "Hydrous peridotitic fragments of Earth's mantle 660 km discontinuity sampled by a diamond" has been published in the journal Nature Geoscience.

Researchers from the Goethe University in Frankfurt have analyzed a rare diamond that formed 660 kilometers (410.1 miles) below the Earth's surface and was sourced from Botswana, Africa. At this depth is the boundary between the lower mantle and the transition zone, the area between Earth's lower and upper mantle. Diamonds from this depth are extremely rare, and the one they found contained numerous inclusions of ringwoodite, the most common mineral at this depth.

The ringwoodite inclusions have high water content and provide evidence that the planet's water cycle includes the interior of the Earth, as slabs of the mantle shift and allow deep-sea sediments to work their way deeper into the Earth, taking water with them. The mineral content of the transition zone indicates it is capable of absorbing six times the amount of water found in the oceans above, but it wasn't known until now if it did actually store any of that water.

NASA recently announced its successfully collided its DART spacecraft into a target asteroid and right before the collision the spacecraft sent back these images.

NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) has been deemed a success in terms of achieving collision with an asteroid located about seven million miles from Earth with a human-made spacecraft. The DART mission is the world's very first planetary defense mission with the goal of demonstrating that an asteroid can be deflected with a spacecraft using a kinetic technique. Dimorphos, the target asteroid, is actually a moonlet, which is the smaller of the two that make up the binary asteroid system.

Dimorphos orbits a larger asteroid Didymos and NASA's goal with DART was to show that Dimorphos' orbit can be changed. The DART spacecraft was equipped with the Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for Optical navigation, or DRACO, which recorded the entire journey to the asteroid, including the final moments before impact. It should be noted that DART was traveling at a ridiculous speed of 14,000 mph when it collided into the surface of Dimorphos, which resulted in the final image seen below failing to fully send back to Earth before the spacecraft was destroyed.

NASA has taken to its social channels to announce that the Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope teamed up for a galactic group project.

The European Space Agency (ESA) has posted to its website detailing the group project that has honed in on the spiral galaxy known as IC 5332, which resides approximately 29 million light years away from Earth within the constellation Sculptor. As explained by the ESA, the above image was captured with Webb's Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), showcasing the spiral galaxies' symmetry due to it appearing face-on to Earth.

It should be noted that the MIRI instrument operates only 7 degrees Celsius above absolute zero, the lowest possible temperature, and that MIRI does require this to capture the mid-infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum. An example of this requirement is Hubble's inability to observe the mid-infrared spectrum as its mirrors aren't cool enough. If researchers attempted to view that spectrum, their observations would be dominated by radiation from the mirrors themselves, hence MIRI's extremely low operating temperature.

Picking up sustained wind speeds of 120 mph, Hurricane Ian pounded the western tip of Cuba with incredibly strong winds and is now making its way toward Florida.

According to reports from AccuWeather, Hurricane Ian has already become the strongest storm to make landfall in Cuba since 2017, and now the major hurricane has picked up intensity growing from a Category 3 hurricane to a Category 4 that is currently traveling over the eastern Gulf of Mexico. Meteorologists expect Ian to make landfall along the west coast of Florida on Wednesday during the late afternoon, hence the warnings that have already been sent out to residents in the danger-zone area that stretches from Tampa to Fort Myers.

Reports indicate that Ian will lose some intensity after breaking into a Category 4 storm as it will experience wind shear, which will disrupt the wind speed. However, AccuWeather forecasters still recommend Florida residents that are deciding to stay within the evacuation zone to prepare for a full-force major hurricane that will bring flooding, rain, high-speed winds, and likely coastal waters rising.

A US intelligence agency has pulled down its newly updated logo as it realized it contained a depiction of a UFO, or more accurately, an Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon (UAP).

As reported by CyberScoop, the US intelligence agency is the main aviation component and is called the National Intelligence Manager for the Air Domain, which serves under the Director of National Intelligence as its principal adviser on air domain issues. The US intelligence agency, also called NIM-Aviation, is the leading intelligence community in the analysis, identification, and integration of intelligence within the air domain. The report revealed that NIM-Aviation changed its official seal to an image that showcased a Russian fighter jet and a UFO.

When the public caught wind of this change, many believed it was a joke of some kind, that was until a spokesperson for the National Intelligence Manager for the Air Domain informed Cyberscoop that it had mistakenly posted an unofficial and incorrect logo. It's not known when the logo was first updated but reports indicate that it may have been posted as early as Saturday night as ufologist Jeremy Corbell tweeted out, "Not a bad new logo for the National Intelligence Manager for Aviation. A Lazar UFO in the official seal? Hahahhahaha. Radical. I still can't believe they did this".

NVIDIA has just published its new GeForce Game Ready 517.48 WHQL drivers which have the best day-0 gaming experience for Overwatch 2, which launches on October 4.

The new GeForce Game Ready 517.48 WHQL drivers will not only be ready for Blizzard's controversial Overwatch 2 launch, but they also include NVIDIA DLSS support for Microsoft Flight Simulator. We've recently seen NVIDIA show off its next-gen GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card with Overwatch 2, running the game at 1440p at 360FPS+ with parts of the game that were pushing over 500FPS+ which is more than impressive.

NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card is so powerful it can run Overwatch 2 at 400FPS, with NVIDIA requesting Blizzard boost the frame cap of Overwatch 2 from 400FPS to 600FPS... and now there's some day-0 support for the game. NVIDIA DLSS performance in Microsoft Flight Simulator on the new GeForce RTX 4090 is 2x faster than the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti, so DLSS being added to the new GeForce Game Ready 517.48 WHQL drivers makes sense.

Intel has officially launched their new 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" CPUs which means motherboard makers can now unleash their new Z790 motherboards: GIGABYTE has unveiled its new Z790 AORUS MASTER flagship Rocket Lake-ready mobo.

GIGABYTE's new custom Z790 AORUS MASTER motherboard features a huge 20+1+2 phase design with each Vcore and Vcc GT holding up to 105 amps with its Smart Power Stage design. You will want to team GIGABYTE's new Z790 AORUS MASTER motherboard with Intel's new flagship Core i9-13900K processor, for sure.

The flagship GIGABYTE Z790 AORUS MASTER motherboard boosts the overclocking potential of your Rocket Lake CPU across all cores, with over 2200 Amps to provide the best power balance. There's more stable power on the Z790 AORUS MASTER, with heat dissipated more efficiently from heavy loading operations or overclocking that would prevent CPU throttling when the chip is overheating.

MSI's new flagship MEG Z790 GODLIKE motherboard has just been detailed, along with a family of Z790 motherboards ready for Intel's newly-launched 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" processors.

The new MSI MEG Z790 GODLIKE motherboard features a beefed-up 26+2 DRPS CPU power phase design with 105A SPS, ready with an all-new next-generation VRM cooling design from MSI. The company is rolling out its flagship Z790 motherboard with an all-aluminum cover under a Wavy Fin Array design, a U-shaped VRM heat sink with Direct Touch Cross heat pipe that provides additional cooling with 7W/mk Thermal Pads with Choke Pads.

MSI has Lightning Gen 5.0 PCIe slots and Gen 5 M.2 SSD support, which offers up to 128GB/sec of bandwidth if you've got a slew of PCIe 5.0 SSDs ready. MSI's new MEG Z790 GODLIKE motherboard features the company's new patented Screwless M.2 Shield Frozr with Magnetic for the ultimate ease of installation.

Intel just launched its new 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" CPU family, with EVGA unveiling two new monster Z790 motherboards in the Z790 DARK KINGPIN and Z790 CLASSIFIED motherboards.

EVGA's new flagship Z790 DARK KINGPIN motherboard is built like a brick sh*thouse with the world record-setting motherboard made on a 14-layer low-loss PCB with a 21-phase VRM, letting you pull every single ounce of performance out of the new Intel 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" CPUs.

The new EVGA Z790 DARK KINGPIN motherboard has dual DDR5 DIMMs that support up to 64GB of DDR5-7000+ memory, native PCIe 5.0 support, PCIe 4.0 M.2 NVMe support, with EVGA's new flagship Z790 motherboard featuring auto-switches the x16 PCIe 5.0 CPU lanes between slots 1 and 2 to provide you with maximum bandwidth no matter where it's installed.

German automaker BMW has shown off its XM plug-in hybrid that also is the first hybrid to be given the proud M badge. The twin-turbo V-8 engine has been designed as a performance Sports Activity Vehicle (SAV) with an "extravagant" design and luxury ambience.

The BMW XM has an overall output of 480 kW and 653 HP that is generated by the combination of the combustion and electric drive system. The eight-cylinder engine feeds into an eight-speed M Steptropnic transmission with propulsive power with maximum overall torque of 590 lb-ft.

XM can accelerate 0 to 60mph in 4.3 seconds, with three different operating modes: ELECTRIC provides speeds up over 85 mph with zero local emissions and a maximum distance up to 55 miles.

Intel has finally unveiled its new 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" CPUs with 6 processors in total unveiled, as well as new Z790 motherboards unleashed.

The company starts off with the flagship Core i9-13900K processor, offering 24 cores (8P+16E) with 68MB of L2+L3 cache in total and a maximum CPU boost clock of 5.8GHz, base power of 125W, and Max Turbo Power of 253W for a price of $589. You can drop the integrated Intel UHD Graphics 770 GPU and grab the Core i9-13900KF, which is identical to the 13900K but is $25 cheaper at $564.

Intel also has the new Core i7-13700K which rolls out with 24 cores (8P+8E) and 54MB of L2+L3 cache in total with a maximum CPU boost clock of up to 5.4GHz, base power of 125W, and Max Turbo Power of 253W for $409, saving $25 once again we've got the KF variant with the Core i7-13700KF for $384.

Intel kicked off its Innovation event today, unveiling everything we need to know about the 13th Gen Core "Rocket Lake" CPUs and the company's first-ever 6.0GHz CPU teased.

The company teased a new 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" CPU with 6.0GHz out of the box, in limited volumes early next year. We should expect Intel to call it the Core i9-13900KS processor in Special Edition form, with KS-series processors being pre-binned we should expect the best power efficiency and of course: stability at ridiculous high CPU clocks.

Intel didn't detail whether the 6.0GHz clocks will be across all of the cores or just a particular number of them, but if it's anything like the Core i9-12900KS "Alder Lake" CPU which had a 5.5GHz all-core, the Core i9-13900KS with 6.0GHz all-core would be very, very nice to see.

AMD has detailed the integrated GPU inside of its upcoming Ryzen 7000 series "Zen 4" processors, with the new Ryzen 7000 series desktop CPUs the first non-G series Ryzen CPUs that pack RDNA 2-based GPUs.

The company has now confirmed that it's using an RDNA 2-based GPU with two Compute Units, based on a 6nm IOD die on the AM5 package, which is a new "disintegrated" way that the new Ryzen chiplet design allows. The chiplet design gives AMD the ability to upgrade and mix chiplets in future-gen Ryzen processors.

As for the RDNA 2-based GPU, it has great video encoding and decoding abilities, with support for decoding and encoding H.264 and H.265 as well as AV1 decoding support. AMD even has DisplayPort 2.0 UHBR10 support in its new Ryzen 7000 series CPU and its integrated RDNA 2-based GPU.

Here we are again: Intel is gearing up for the launch of its Arc A770 graphics card... we guess... as VideoCardz is reporting that new embargo guidelines are going out to GPU reviewers for the Arc A770.

Intel is reportedly launching its new Arc A770 and Arc A750 graphics card at the same time, but we don't know if they'll be launching at the same time. But for the flagship Intel Arc A770 graphics card, unboxings of the Arc A770 take place on September 30, while Arc A770 reviews will reportedly go live on October 5.

Astute readers will realize that Intel is months and months late for the launch of its Arc GPU... but hey, it's only two more weeks, and this time we're not flattening the curve. Intel GPUs should be detailed during the Intel Innovation event being held today in San Francisco for the unveiling of its 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" CPUs.

Intel has finally launched its new Arc A770 graphics card during its Innovation event, with the Intel Arc A770 Limited Edition launching on October 12 starting at $329.

The new Intel Arc A770 graphics card was detailed during Intel Innovation by company CEO Pat Gelsinger, costing $329 and finding itself in a market of graphics cards that are far more expensive than the Arc A770. Inside, the Intel Arc A770 features the full ACM-G10 GPU with 32 Xe-Cores and 16GB of GDDR6 memory (on the Arc A770 Limited Edition) and 8GB of GDDR6 on AIB custom models of the A770.

I don't know why, but Intel took the time to talk about ray tracing domination with its Intel Arc A770 graphics card, where the company claims it has 65% better peak performance versus the competition in ray tracing. Intel, your cards aren't competing with the high-end, and no one buying a $329 is running out to the shops to buy a lower-end GPU for playing games with ray tracing enabled, but hey... investors will love it.

Intel is merely hours away from unveiling its new 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" CPUs with the new range of Raptor Lake processors receiving some official pricing, leaked by Newegg.

Newegg has listed all of Intel's new 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" CPUs ahead of the Intel Innovation event, where we should see the company detail the entire stack of chips. Intel's new Core i9-13900K processor is priced at $660, while the Core i9-13900KF (which drops the integrated GPU) for $630.

Under that, we drop a couple of hundred dollars down to $450 for the Core i7-13700K processor, taking $20 off down to $430 for the Core i7-13700KF (once again, without the integrated GPU). Newegg lastly lists the Core i5-13600K for $330, and shaves another $20 down to $310 for the Core i5-13600KF processor.

We know that NVIDIA has a silicon monster with its flagship new GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card, built for 4K gaming and beyond -- and when we say beyond, we mean 8K gaming -- which the RTX 4090 is tuned perfectly for.

First off you've got an unbelievable amount of GPU horsepower with the AD102 GPU inside of the GeForce RTX 4090, joined by a large 24GB framebuffer, with super-fast GDDR6X memory with 1TB/sec+ of memory bandwidth at your disposal.

But in a new post on NVIDIA's own landing page for 8K HDR gaming on its website, the company explains that the GeForce RTX 4090 lets you play, capture, and watch 8K HDR. If you don't know how good 8K is, it's 4x as many pixels as 4K and 16x as many pixels as 1080p.

Modern Warfare 2 had the most popular Call of Duty beta in the history of the franchise, Activision today confirmed.

Call of Duty is set to explode in October with the release of Modern Warfare 2. All signs point to MW2 shattering previous records and becoming the best-earning game in the series. The game has topped sales charts on Steam and the MW2 beta had more players than any other game in the series. Oddly enough, Activision didn't provide any numbers (the FTC and other worldwide regulators are watching, after all) but expect this to be in the millions.

Rental car giant Hertz has teamed up with oil giant BP to create a new network of electric vehicle charging stations spread across the United States. The stations will be powered by BP pulse, the company's electrification and charging solution, while Hertz continues to aim towards developing its own footprint in the EV market.

Obviously, BP relies heavily on fossil fuels, but has branched out towards electric and renewable products, understanding there is an ongoing market shift away from internal combustion engines. However, the company is stepping up acquisitions in EV technology, along with its own internal research to create new opportunities for itself.

BP Pulse will install the chargers and maintain software and services that Hertz will benefit from, though the general public, taxi and ride-hailing drivers will also have yet another place to recharge.