GIMPS project discovers largest known prime number
The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) has discovered the largest known prime number, 277,232,917-1, having 23,249,425 digits. A computer volunteered by Jonathan Pace made the find on December 26, 2017.
Source: https://phys.org/news/2018-01-gimps-largest-prime.html
VW to build autonomous cars with Silicon Valley firm
The world's largest carmaker Volkswagen said Thursday it would work with Silicon Valley firm Aurora to create self-driving cars, hoping to deploy fleets of autonomous taxis to city streets by 2021.
Source: https://phys.org/news/2018-01-vw-autonomous-cars-silicon-valley.html
Magnitude 4.5 earthquake rocks San Francisco Bay Area
A preliminary magnitude 4.5 earthquake shook San Francisco Bay Area residents out of their slumber early Thursday.
Source: https://phys.org/news/2018-01-magnitude-earthquake-san-francisco-bay.html
Hyundai, Aurora to release autonomous cars by 2021
Hyundai Motor Co. said Thursday it will begin selling its first self-driving vehicles by 2021 in partnership with U.S. based self-driving technology startup Aurora Innovation Inc.
Source: https://phys.org/news/2018-01-hyundai-aurora-autonomous-cars.html
Global network of 1000 stations needed to build an Earth observatory
Environmental challenges, climate change, water and food security and urban air pollution are all interlinked, yet each is studied separately. This is not a sustainable situation, for anybody anymore. To tackle this, professor Markku Kulmala calls for a continuous, comprehensive monitoring of interactions between the planet's surface and atmosphere in his article "Build a global Earth observatory," published in Nature, January 4, 2018.
Source: https://phys.org/news/2018-01-global-network-stations-earth-observatory.html
'Mayonnaise effect' explains breakdown of 1929 viscosity equation
Mayonnaise is a staple of almost every household, yet the reason why it's so thick and viscous is a long-standing unsolved problem in physical chemistry: why does adding egg yolk to a runny mixture of oil and water increase the viscosity a thousand-fold? And, more generally, why does the viscosity of all solutions exhibit an unpredictably large increase in viscosity when a large amount of solute or surfactant (such as egg yolk) is added?
Source: https://phys.org/news/2018-01-mayonnaise-effect-breakdown-viscosity-equation.html
Source: https://phys.org/
