The first-ever photograph of a black hole will be released at 1300 GMT (1830 IST) on Wednesday in Shanghai, according to the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

The black hole data of the photograph were captured by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), an international cooperation programme jointly established by more than 200 researchers around the world.

The programme had its first full run in April 2017, collecting data of black holes with eight telescopes around the globe, including one in the South Pole.

According to scientists, the EHT has collected image data of two super-massive black holes with the largest apparent event horizons: Sagittarius A at the centre of the Milky Way and M87 in the centre of the Virgo A galaxy.

The photo will be released at 1300 GMT on Wednesday at press conferences simultaneously taking place in Shanghai, Taipei, Tokyo, Washington, Brussels and Santiago. The achievement will be co-announced by EHT and CAS at the event in Shanghai.

A black hole is defined by NASA as a volume of matter packed into a relatively small area. This matter has a gravitational force that is so strong, even light can't escape and where time and space are warped.

Almost a century ago, Albert Einstein studied images of stars, helping him form his general theory of relativity which predicted the existence of black holes. Einstein argued that when stars die, they leave behind a core. If that core is three times the mass of the sun, the force of gravity is sufficient to overwhelm all other nearby forces and a black hole is formed.

The first-ever photograph of a black hole will be released at 1300 GMT (1830 IST) on Wednesday in Shanghai, according to the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). The black hole data of the photograph were captured by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), an international cooperation programme jointly established by more than 200 researchers around the world.

The first-ever photograph of a black hole will be released at 1300 GMT (1830 IST) on Wednesday in Shanghai, according to the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). The black hole data of the photograph were captured by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), an international cooperation programme jointly established by more than 200 researchers around the world. The programme had its first full run in April 2017, collecting data of black holes with eight telescopes around the globe, including one in the South Pole. According to scientists, the EHT has collected image data of two super-massive black holes with the largest apparent event horizons: Sagittarius A at the centre of the Milky Way and M87 in the centre of the Virgo A galaxy. The photo will be released at 1300 GMT on Wednesday at press conferences simultaneously taking place in Shanghai, Taipei, Tokyo, Washington, Brussels and Santiago. The achievement will be co-announced by EHT and CAS at the event in Shanghai. A black hole is defined by NASA as a volume of matter packed into a relatively small area. This matter has a gravitational force that is so strong, even light can't escape and where time and space are warped. Almost a century ago, Albert Einstein studied images of stars, helping him form his general theory of relativity which predicted the existence of black holes. Einstein argued that when stars die, they leave behind a core. If that core is three times the mass of the sun, the force of gravity is sufficient to overwhelm all other nearby forces and a black hole is formed.

First-ever photograph of black hole to be unveiled today

Chinese neuroscientists have gained a deeper understanding of how people simultaneously recognize the face of a child, while at the same time visually resolving individual eyelash hairs.

The study, published on Thursday in the journal Neuron, has shown how human and non-human primates manage to conserve local high-resolution information from early to intermediate areas of the visual hierarchy to fulfill the hard task.

The idea that sensory transformation discards low-level detail to yield invariant classification is a central core of many models of brain function. As the complexity of the object or scene representation increases along the hierarchy, the visual resolution dramatically decreases.

However, researchers were perplexed by how people are able to effortlessly combine the fast coarse (global) information and slower fine (local) information together into a coherent perception of the world.

Primates can identify objects in the 10-degree central visual field within 150 milliseconds, suggesting an initial fast cascade of largely feedforward processing.

A lab led by Wang Wei at the Institute of Neuroscience of the Chinese Academy of Sciences revealed the unexpected neural clustering that preserves the visual acuity from macaque visual cortical areas V1 into V4, enabling the spatiotemporal separation of processing local and global features along the hierarchy.

The researchers particularly focused on spatial analysis in V4, which links the analysis of local features by V1 and V2 with the global object representation. Spatial resolution is often measured as spatial frequency (SF) discrimination.

Surprisingly, they discovered that clustered "islands" of V4 neurons, selective for high SFs, are up to 12 cycles per degree, far exceeding the average optimal SFs of V1 and V2 neurons at similar retinal eccentricities. These neural clusters violate the inverse relationship between visual acuity and retinal eccentricity.

The clustered neurons with high-SF selectivity were found to respond 10 milliseconds later than those in low-SF domains, providing direct neural evidence for the coarse-to-fine nature of human perception at intermediate levels of the visual processing hierarchy.

The study for the first time showed an unexpected compartmentation of area V4 into SF-selective functional domains that extend to high visual acuity.

Higher acuities are preserved to later stages of the visual hierarchy where more complex visual cognitive behavior occurs, and they may begin to resolve the long-standing paradox concerning fine visual discrimination in visual perception.

Chinese neuroscientists have gained a deeper understanding of how people simultaneously recognize the face of a child, while at the same time visually resolving individual eyelash hairs

Chinese neuroscientists have gained a deeper understanding of how people simultaneously recognize the face of a child, while at the same time visually resolving individual eyelash hairs. The study, published on Thursday in the journal Neuron, has shown how human and non-human primates manage to conserve local high-resolution information from early to intermediate areas of the visual hierarchy to fulfill the hard task. The idea that sensory transformation discards low-level detail to yield invariant classification is a central core of many models of brain function. As the complexity of the object or scene representation increases along the hierarchy, the visual resolution dramatically decreases. However, researchers were perplexed by how people are able to effortlessly combine the fast coarse (global) information and slower fine (local) information together into a coherent perception of the world. Primates can identify objects in the 10-degree central visual field within 150 milliseconds, suggesting an initial fast cascade of largely feedforward processing. A lab led by Wang Wei at the Institute of Neuroscience of the Chinese Academy of Sciences revealed the unexpected neural clustering that preserves the visual acuity from macaque visual cortical areas V1 into V4, enabling the spatiotemporal separation of processing local and global features along the hierarchy. The researchers particularly focused on spatial analysis in V4, which links the analysis of local features by V1 and V2 with the global object representation. Spatial resolution is often measured as spatial frequency (SF) discrimination. Surprisingly, they discovered that clustered "islands" of V4 neurons, selective for high SFs, are up to 12 cycles per degree, far exceeding the average optimal SFs of V1 and V2 neurons at similar retinal eccentricities. These neural clusters violate the inverse relationship between visual acuity and retinal eccentricity. The clustered neurons with high-SF selectivity were found to respond 10 milliseconds later than those in low-SF domains, providing direct neural evidence for the coarse-to-fine nature of human perception at intermediate levels of the visual processing hierarchy. The study for the first time showed an unexpected compartmentation of area V4 into SF-selective functional domains that extend to high visual acuity. Higher acuities are preserved to later stages of the visual hierarchy where more complex visual cognitive behavior occurs, and they may begin to resolve the long-standing paradox concerning fine visual discrimination in visual perception.

Watch: Chinese scientists reveal how brain decodes visual information effortlessly

The temperature of oceans in 2017 reached a record high, putting the marine ecosystems in jeopardy, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) said.

Compared to 2015, the extra heat in the upper two kilometres of sea water across the globe in 2017 was 700 times the energy China&#39;s electricity used in 2016, the CAS said in a report.

The Atlantic and Antarctic oceans warmed up the fastest, as warming has already taken place in most of the other seas, state-run Xinhua news agency quoted the report as saying.

The marine ecosystems remain in jeopardy as a result, with coral reefs and the creatures that live on them threatened, researchers at the institute said.

The expansion caused by warming contributes to rising of sea levels, while more sea ice and ice shelves will melt and ocean currents will be affected.

The heat content of the ocean is a key indicator of climate change. Due to its high specific heat capacity, sea water contains the main signals, as it stores 90 per cent of the energy for global warming, it said.

The Atlantic and Antarctic oceans warmed up the fastest, the academy said.

The temperature of oceans in 2017 reached a record high, putting the marine ecosystems in jeopardy, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) said. Compared to 2015, the extra heat in the upper two kilometres of sea water across the globe in 2017 was 700 times the energy China's electricity used in 2016, the CAS said in a report. The Atlantic and Antarctic oceans warmed up the fastest, as warming has already taken place in most of the other seas, state-run Xinhua news agency quoted the report as saying. The marine ecosystems remain in jeopardy as a result, with coral reefs and the creatures that live on them threatened, researchers at the institute said. The expansion caused by warming contributes to rising of sea levels, while more sea ice and ice shelves will melt and ocean currents will be affected. The heat content of the ocean is a key indicator of climate change. Due to its high specific heat capacity, sea water contains the main signals, as it stores 90 per cent of the energy for global warming, it said.

2017 sees warmest ocean on record: Chinese academy