By Charles Murray – An expanded hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) test system promises to offer a better way to test engineering’s most complex products, from defense aircraft to autonomous cars.
Introduced at this week’s NIWeek 2016 show in Austin, TX, the turnkey HIL Simulators product essentially consists of a new chassis that works with the company’s existing HIL platform. Its open, modular architecture is targeted at high-current applications that need to simulate complex sensor data from such sources as cameras, radar, and RF signals.
For big original equipment manufacturers, such as the automakers, the new HIL simulators offer a more cost-effective way to test their most complex products. “The alternative to HIL is field testing,” Noah Reding, senior business segment manager for real-time test at National Instruments, told Design News.
“In field testing, they need prototype vehicles, which can cost a half-million dollars. And they need test tracks, which can cost $100,000 per day. HIL can significantly reduce cost, because it allows them to do it in the lab.” more> http://goo.gl/QygUSD
By Elizabeth Montalbano – Emeritus Professor 
By Sabine Hossenfelder – After you die, your body’s atoms will disperse and find new venues, making their way into oceans, trees and other bodies.
By Ria Misra – Scientists have theorized for decades that an additional state of matter exists, but despite tantalizing hints to its presence, details about this mystery state have remained elusive—until now.
By Jason Maderer – For the first time ever, 
By Tomas Kellner – The electrons that brew your first cup of coffee in the morning have many different parents. Some were born on a wind farm, while others came from a gas-fired power plant or a water turbine buried deep inside a massive dam. Some even took a brief vacation in a battery.
By Mathias Frisch – Common-cause inferences are so pervasive that it is difficult to imagine what we could know about the world beyond our immediate surroundings without them.
