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CraigD

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Post and discuss interesting articles & videos about science and technology.

You don't need to be an expert - just interested in the wonders of modern science, technology, and the history of these fields.

Please keep it rational, and post articles from reputable sources.
Try not to editorialise headlines and keep the copy to just a paragraph with a link to the original source. When quoting excerpts from articles, I think the best method is to italicise the copy, and include a link to the source.

Have some fun with your comments and discussions... just keep the sources legitimate.

Other threads:
The Break Room has a number of other popular threads, so there is no need to post material here that is better suited to these other threads:

- Covid19-Coronavirus updates and news
- Conspiracy Thread Free For All
- The *religious* discussion thread


Please enjoy!
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.

Groundbreaking A.I. brain surgery helps NY quadriplegic man regain movement

A Long Island man is giving hope to 100 million people thanks to a groundbreaking surgery.

Artificial intelligence has helped a quadriplegic man regain feeling and movement in his arm and hand years after an accident left him paralyzed.

"Now I can reach to my check, reach to my chin," Keith Thomas said.


 
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Team claims to successfully replicate LK-99, raising hopes of a new kind of superconductor

The world could be a step closer to a new kind of superconductor that physics enthusiasts are likening to the invention of the transistor.

On Tuesday, a team at the Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China, said it had successfully synthesized the LK-99 crystal, as well as verified that the material could levitate slightly on both orientations of a magnetic field. If so, that increases hopes that a superconductor that works at room temperature and ambient pressure could be manufactured, a potential breakthrough that has been described as the “holy grail of physics.”
That would have far-reaching effects ranging from desktop quantum computers to ultraefficient continent-spanning power lines that could address climate change.
 
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UPDATE 2-US scientists repeat fusion ignition breakthrough for 2nd time



Lawrence Livermore achieved a net energy gain in a fusion experiment using lasers on Dec. 5, 2022. The scientists focused a laser on a target of fuel to fuse two light atoms into a denser one, releasing the energy.

That experiment briefly achieved what’s known as fusion ignition by generating 3.15 megajoules of energy output after the laser delivered 2.05 megajoules to the target, the Energy Department said.

In other words, it produced more energy from fusion than the laser energy used to drive it, the department said.
 
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https://futurism.com/the-byte/james-webb-telescope-giant-question-mark


"It is probably a distant galaxy, or potentially interacting galaxies (their interactions may have caused the distorted question mark-shape)," representatives of the Space Telescope Science Institute, which manages the telescope's science operations, told the outlet.

Since it appears red in the observation, it's quite far away, according to the institute.



 
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Cool video about fractals in nature.

 
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Scientists recreate an iconic Pink Floyd song by scanning listeners' brains


The 29 participants had pharmacoresistant epilepsy and intracranial grids or strips of electrodes which had been surgically implanted to aid in their treatment. Researchers utilized these electrodes to record activity across multiple auditory regions of the individuals’ brains that process aspects of music like lyrics and harmony — while the participants actively listened to Another Brick in the Wall, Part 1. The entirety of the recordings took place at Albany Medical Center, in upstate New York.


Scientists used AI to analyze then create a copy of the words and sounds participants had heard. Though the final product was quite muffled, but the song is clear to anyone listening so you can check it out for yourself. The researchers are also confident that they could increase its quality in future attempts.


https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3002176



 
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Team claims to successfully replicate LK-99, raising hopes of a new kind of superconductor

The world could be a step closer to a new kind of superconductor that physics enthusiasts are likening to the invention of the transistor.

On Tuesday, a team at the Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China, said it had successfully synthesized the LK-99 crystal, as well as verified that the material could levitate slightly on both orientations of a magnetic field. If so, that increases hopes that a superconductor that works at room temperature and ambient pressure could be manufactured, a potential breakthrough that has been described as the “holy grail of physics.”
That would have far-reaching effects ranging from desktop quantum computers to ultraefficient continent-spanning power lines that could address climate change.

LK-99 isn’t a superconductor — how science sleuths solved the mystery


Researchers seem to have solved the puzzle of LK-99. Scientific detective work has unearthed evidence that the material is not a superconductor, and clarified its actual properties.

The conclusion dashes hopes that LK-99 — a compound of copper, lead, phosphorus and oxygen — marked the discovery of the first superconductor that works at room temperature and ambient pressure. Instead, studies have shown that impurities in the material — in particular, copper sulfide — were responsible for the sharp drops in electrical resistivity and partial levitation over a magnet, which looked similar to properties exhibited by superconductors.

“I think things are pretty decisively settled at this point,” says Inna Vishik, a condensed-matter experimentalist at the University of California, Davis.
 
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LK-99 isn’t a superconductor — how science sleuths solved the mystery


Researchers seem to have solved the puzzle of LK-99. Scientific detective work has unearthed evidence that the material is not a superconductor, and clarified its actual properties.

The conclusion dashes hopes that LK-99 — a compound of copper, lead, phosphorus and oxygen — marked the discovery of the first superconductor that works at room temperature and ambient pressure. Instead, studies have shown that impurities in the material — in particular, copper sulfide — were responsible for the sharp drops in electrical resistivity and partial levitation over a magnet, which looked similar to properties exhibited by superconductors.

“I think things are pretty decisively settled at this point,” says Inna Vishik, a condensed-matter experimentalist at the University of California, Davis.

As a runner up:

MIT engineers create an energy-storing supercapacitor from ancient materials​

MIT engineers have created a “supercapacitor” made of ancient, abundant materials, that can store large amounts of energy. Made of just cement, water, and carbon black (which resembles powdered charcoal), the device could form the basis for inexpensive systems that store intermittently renewable energy, such as solar or wind energy. .......

Ulm says that the system is very scalable, as the energy-storage capacity is a direct function of the volume of the electrodes. “You can go from 1-millimeter-thick electrodes to 1-meter-thick electrodes, and by doing so basically you can scale the energy storage capacity from lighting an LED for a few seconds, to powering a whole house,” he says.

Depending on the properties desired for a given application, the system could be tuned by adjusting the mixture. For a vehicle-charging road, very fast charging and discharging rates would be needed, while for powering a home “you have the whole day to charge it up,” so slower-charging material could be used, Ulm says.

“So, it’s really a multifunctional material,” he adds. Besides its ability to store energy in the form of supercapacitors, the same kind of concrete mixture can be used as a heating system, by simply applying electricity to the carbon-laced concrete.

Ulm sees this as “a new way of looking toward the future of concrete as part of the energy transition.”

https://news.mit.edu/2023/mit-engineers-create-supercapacitor-ancient-materials-0731
 
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EV sales now 19% of all new car sales

According to EV-Volumes data, shared by Jose Pontes, 1,260,470 new passenger plug-in electric cars were registered globally in June. That's about 38 percent more than a year ago and about 19 percent of the total market.


1692542056252.jpeg


It means that close to one in five new passenger cars registered that month was rechargeable. Together with non-rechargeable hybrids, a third of the global market was electrified.
 
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Pioneering wind-powered cargo ship sets sail


The Pyxis Ocean's maiden journey, from China to Brazil, will provide the first real-world test of the WindWings - and an opportunity to assess whether a return to the traditional way of propelling ships could be the way forward for moving cargo at sea.


1692627297541.jpeg


Folded down when the ship is in port, the wings are opened out when it is in open water. They stand 123ft (37.5m) tall and are built of the same material as wind turbines, to make them durable.

Enabling a vessel to be blown along by the wind, rather than rely solely on its engine, could hopefully eventually reduce a cargo ship's lifetime emissions by 30%.
 
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Ultra-hot carbon batteries promise super-cheap heat and energy storage​


We've written before about Rondo's "brick toaster" heat batteries, which propose a solution: use cheap renewable energy to heat up regular old clay bricks in insulated containers, then recover that energy as needed at about one-fifth the cost of a chemical battery, in the form of process heat at up to 1,500 °C (2,700 °F). Using cheap, abundant materials, Rondo hopes to deploy this solution at colossal scale, with no less of a goal than reducing global CO2 emissions by 15% within 15 years.

Antora believes its carbon-based system could be even cheaper and more useful, because it can store energy at upwards of 2,000 °C (3,632 °F), changing the way the energy can be extracted, both as heat, and also as electricity through super-efficient thermophotovoltaic panels.

Co-founder and CEO Andrew Ponec explained Antora's choice of carbon blocks in a Medium post, but in essence:

  • As a waste product of several other industrial processes and a common input to the metals industry, these blocks are available in virtually unlimited quantities, through well established supply chains
  • "Among the least expensive bulk thermal storage materials available," with a materials cost around US$1/kWh – about 50 times cheaper than lithium-ion batteries
  • They're non-toxic, conflict-free, and cause no environmental issues in solid form
  • High thermal conductivity, and high mechanical strength that increases as it gets hotter, gives solid carbon the ability to rapidly absorb large amounts of energy
  • The blocks remain solid at upwards of 3,000 °C (5,432 °F), roughly twice the temperature at which steel melts, sidestepping many issues found with molten salts, and other liquid heat storage media
  • High energy density makes these carbon blocks easy to transport, and gives Antora's heat batteries a small footprint on site
  • They're compatible with ultra-high temperature applications
https://newatlas.com/energy/antora-carbon-heat-battery/
 
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This inexpensive kit can make your gas car electric


“Retrofitting uses what we already have,” he says. “I wanted to take it further by replacing as little of my car as possible. A big sell for retrofitting should be to save money, as you aren’t buying a whole new car. Like me, I think a lot of people want to drive electric for both environmental reasons but also skyrocketing fuel prices. They simply can’t afford it.”
He estimates that the kit could cost around AU$5,000 (around $3,100), or a tenth as much as a gas-to-electric conversion costs now.

The design would give the car around 62 miles of electric range before it switches back to the internal combustion engine. But for a typical commute, that’s far enough that someone could rely solely on electricity most of the time."

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I could see taking a hard look at such a system for a mostly city used gas vehicle.
 
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Talking to the Amazon thanks to AI: 'In six months we will have a conversation with an ecosystem'​


What if nature literally has a voice, would we treat her better? With that in mind, Milan Meyberg founded Emissary of GAIA. Because what initially sounds abstract can quickly become reality thanks to the rapid developments in the field of AI. “I expect that in six months we will be able to have a conversation with an ecosystem.”

“Imagine if nature could represent itself in conversations about nature, how would that work?”, Meyberg begins. “That thought may be abstract. But the rise of AI language programs like ChatGPT makes this very possible. If you train a language program on data about an ecosystem, an AI can use that data to create a character with which we can have a conversation.”

https://www.change.inc/ict/praten-m...oeren-we-een-gesprek-met-een-ecosysteem-40531
 
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Google DeepMind’s AI Weather Forecaster Handily Beats a Global Standard​

Machine learning algorithms that digested decades of weather data were able to forecast 90 percent of atmospheric measures more accurately than Europe’s top weather center.
1700128816843.png

https://www.wired.com/story/google-deepmind-ai-weather-forecast/
 
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New carbon material sets energy-storage record, likely to advance supercapacitors​


Guided by machine learning, chemists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory designed a record-setting carbonaceous supercapacitor material that stores four times more energy than the best commercial material. A supercapacitor made with the new material could store more energy — improving regenerative brakes, power electronics and auxiliary power supplies.

“By combining a data-driven method and our research experience, we created a carbon material with enhanced physicochemical and electrochemical properties that pushed the boundary of energy storage for carbon supercapacitors to the next level,” said chemist Tao Wang of ORNL and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Wang led the study, published in Nature Communications, with chemist Sheng Dai of ORNL and UTK.

“This is the highest recorded storage capacitance for porous carbon,” said Dai, who conceived and designed the experiments with Wang. “This is a real milestone.”

https://www.ornl.gov/news/new-carbo...storage-record-likely-advance-supercapacitors
 
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AI Discovers That Not Every Fingerprint Is Unique

Columbia engineers have built a new AI that shatters a long-held belief in forensics–that fingerprints from different fingers of the same person are unique. It turns out they are similar, only we’ve been comparing fingerprints the wrong way!



 
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Woman claims, "I was 'gang raped' in the metaverse"​


A woman has revealed she was 'virtually gang raped' by four male avatars in Meta's Horizon Worlds - and she said the trauma is similar to a real-world assault.

The attack saw the male avatars mobbing her character, yelling abuse at her and taking photos in-game, with one jeering attacker making a very crude suggestion over what she should do with the images.

Some people may engage in such offensive behaviors in VR settings because they feel detached from their real-world identities and believe they can act without facing any repercussions.

Another issue potentially is that on some VR platforms, aggressive and violent behavior is 'encouraged and rewarded.’

She said that the feelings such attacks can evoke are very real.


https://www.dailymail.co.uk/science...averse-trauma-similar-real-world-assault.html
 
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Fyi, consumer desktop 3D printers are developing further lately in some pretty significant ways, offering capabilities that till now have been available only in more expensive commercial models.

One I'm looking at ordering to help with some 3D projects:

https://bambulab.com/en-ca/x1

But if, as Bambu Lab's CEO said in a Sept. interview, their next gen 3d printer were to come out relatively soon, with larger print capability, I'd possibly wait.


Another interesting one that's just hitting the market - a desktop pellet printer:

https://3dprinting.com/news/naw-unveils-desktop-3d-pellet-printer-on-kickstarter/
 
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New material found by AI could reduce lithium use in batteries​


A brand new substance, which could reduce lithium use in batteries, has been discovered using artificial intelligence (AI) and supercomputing.

The findings were made by Microsoft and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), which is part of the US Department of Energy.

Scientists say the material could potentially reduce lithium use by up to 70%.

Since its discovery the new material has been used to power a lightbulb.

Microsoft researchers used AI and supercomputers to narrow down 32 million potential inorganic materials to 18 promising candidates in less than a week - a screening process that could have taken more than two decades to carry out using traditional lab research methods.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-67912033?ref=newsletters.holoniq.com
 
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Meet 'Groq,' the AI Chip That Leaves Elon Musk’s Grok in the Dust​

Two AI companies are claiming the science fiction term, “Grok,” as their own, but only one is turbocharging the AI industry.


Groq, an AI chip company, wants everyone to forget about Elon Musk’s snarky chatbot with nearly the same name, Grok. Lightning-fast demos from Groq went viral this weekend, making current versions of ChatGPT, Gemini and even Grok look sluggish. Groq claims to provide “the world’s fastest large language models,” and third-party tests are saying that claim might hold up.

In a split second, Groq produces hundreds of words in a factual answer, citing sources along the way, according to a demo posted on X. In another demo, founder and CEO Jonathon Ross let a CNN host have a real-time, verbal conversation with an AI chatbot halfway across the world on live television. While ChatGPT, Gemini, and other chatbots are impressive, Groq could make them lightning-fast. Fast enough to have practical use cases in the real world.

https://gizmodo.com/meet-groq-ai-chip-leaves-elon-musk-s-grok-in-the-dust-1851271871
 
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