discuss Science & Technology news & discussion

[CraigD]

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!

 

[koolishman]

OpenAI’s CEO confirms the company isn’t training GPT-5 and ‘won’t for some time’​

Speaking at an event at MIT, Altman was asked about a recent open letter circulated among the tech world that requested that labs like OpenAI pause development of AI systems “more powerful than GPT-4.” The letter highlighted concerns about the safety of future systems but has been criticized by many in the industry, including a number of signatories. Experts disagree about the nature of the threat posed by AI (is it existential or more mundane?) as well as how the industry might go about “pausing” development in the first place.


At MIT, Altman said the letter was “missing most technical nuance about where we need the pause” and noted that an earlier version claimed that OpenAI is currently training GPT-5. “We are not and won’t for some time,” said Altman. “So in that sense it was sort of silly.”

 

[koolishman]

Baby cod seem to be drawn to the lullaby of wind turbines​

Offshore wind is one of the fastest-growing sources of renewable energy, and with its expansion comes increasing scrutiny of its potential side effects. Alessandro Cresci, a biologist at the Institute of Marine Research in Norway, and his team have now shown that larval cod are attracted to one of the low-frequency sounds emitted by wind turbines, suggesting offshore wind installations could potentially alter the early life of microscopic fish that drift too close.

 

[Cal2]

The Massive ‘Batteries’ Hidden Beneath Your Feet​

Aquifer thermal energy storage can use groundwater to heat and cool buildings—decarbonizing homes and businesses in the process.

WHEN RAINWATER FALLS, it soaks down into an aquifer, a layer of porous rock or loose materials like sand or gravel. For thousands of years, humans have been digging into these bands of liquid to bring up drinking water. But interest is growing in another clever use for these subterranean pools: aquifer thermal energy storage, or ATES.

A battery holds energy to be used later. Aquifers can be leveraged to do something similar: They can exploit the insulating properties of the Earth to conserve thermal energy and transfer it to and from buildings above ground. The temperature of water in an aquifer tends to stay fairly stable. This provides a way to heat and cool nearby structures with energy stored in water, instead of burning natural gas in furnaces or tapping into fossil-fuel-derived electricity to run air conditioners.

ATES systems consist of two separate wells—one warm, one cold—that run between the surface and the aquifer below. In the winter, you pump groundwater up from a warm well that’s around 60 degrees Fahrenheit, and run it through a heat exchanger. Combined with a heat pump, this process extracts heat from the groundwater to keep the structures’ interiors warm.

Then you pump that now-cooler groundwater down into the second well. This gives you a cold pool of water—around 45 degrees F—to pump out of in the summer to chill buildings. “You heat up the groundwater by taking out the heat from the building and directly inject it into the other well,” says hydrogeologist Martin Bloemendal, who studies ATES at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. “Then in winter, you extract from your warm well.” This process alternates indefinitely as the seasons roll on because the groundwater is reused, not consumed. The system could even take advantage of brackish or contaminated aquifers that can’t be tapped for drinking water.

https://www.wired.com/story/the-massive-batteries-hidden-beneath-your-feet/

 

[Cal2]

New recipe makes concrete that absorbs more CO2 than it emits​

Concrete is one of the most common materials on Earth, thanks to its high strength and low cost – but it’s also one of the largest single sources of carbon dioxide emissions. Engineers at Washington State University (WSU) have developed a new method for making concrete that absorbs more carbon than it emits. ........

For the new study, the WSU researchers investigated a new method involving biochar, a charcoal made from organic waste. While biochar has been added to cement before, this time the team treated it first using concrete washout wastewater. This boosted its strength and allowed a higher proportion of the additive to be mixed in. But most importantly, the biochar was able to absorb up to 23% of its own weight in carbon dioxide from the air around it. .....

The total gains could be even better, the team says, if downstream differences were accounted for in their analysis. For example, using biochar for environmentally friendly purposes like this concrete diverts the biomass it’s made of away from other fates that could potentially release more CO2. Plus, the new concrete would be expected to continue absorbing CO2 during its working lifetime of several decades.

Importantly, the biochar-concrete also retains its strength. When measured after 28 days, the compressive strength of the concrete was 27.6 MPa (4,003 psi), which is around that of regular concrete.

https://newatlas.com/materials/carb..._term=0_65b67362bd-ada72c35ea-[LIST_EMAIL_ID]

 

[Cal2]

Shooting down missiles, squeezing water from nothing: Why Israel is the innovation nation​

It’s often said of Israel that in a land devoid of natural resources, they had to build an economy based on their human capital.

Tack on a deliberate government focus on driving innovation, and it’s part of why the country has long punched well above its weight in the tech field. Israel routinely ranks number one in the world for per-capita startups, and it has a rate of tech investment that has been as much as 28 times higher than the United States. ....

Israel is a weird place, with any number of strange conditions that don’t really exist anywhere else on Earth: Small size, lack of water, heavy immigrant population, unusually hostile neighbours. The result is that the country’s scientists keep inventing their way out of uniquely Israeli problems — while unwittingly creating technologies with global appeal.

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/othe...1&cvid=c96ee0e95aa64ed491800f1746eaf818&ei=16

 

[Cal2]

Gene-Editing An Ancient Crop To Help Feed The World​

A crop that has been farmed for thousands of years has been gene-edited by Israeli scientists – so it can be cultivated on a large scale.

Cowpea is a staple in sub-Saharan Africa, where it has always been picked by hand. The stalks don’t naturally stand upright, making it impossible to harvest by machine.

Until now. The agri-tech company BetterSeeds has re-coded the plant’s genetic makeup, so it’s suitable for mechanized harvesting, and can help address the world’s food security concerns.

“We are facing a huge shortfall in the supply of plant-based proteins, namely soybean, due to climate change. If I had to choose one crop to focus on, it would be cowpea,” says Ido Margalit, the company’s CEO.

“Cowpea has the capability to fill in this gap pending its redesign to make it fit for mass scale cultivation which is exactly what BetterSeeds is doing. Cowpea will help to feed the world.

Gene editing should not be confused with Genetically Modified Organism (GMO), whereby genetic material from one species is transferred to another to create a new trait.

Instead, gene editing in agriculture is a precise tool that enables targeted modifications to the DNA of a plant without adding foreign material.

“This technology can be instrumental in developing crops that are more resilient against pests, more nutritious, and easier to harvest.”

https://nocamels.com/2023/04/gene-editing-an-ancient-crop-to-help-feed-the-world/

 

[Cal2]

Designing The Enzymes That Mother Nature Didn't​

Today insulin, and a plethora of other products like alcohol, antibiotics, vitamins, and citric and lactic acid, are made through fermentation – chemical processes caused by organisms like bacteria, yeasts, and fungi.

But they are still complicated processes, and manufacturers cannot scale up production to meet the demand for all of the food, pharmaceutical, and cleaning products that we use daily.

Israeli startup Enzymit has simplified things. CEO Gideon Lapidoth says his company’s computer algorithms can design “new to nature” enzymes to order.

“Enzymes are the basic elements you need for life,” he says. “Right now, there’s an enzyme in your eye that’s converting light energy into chemical energy, and that’s how your brain sees the world. And when plants photosynthesize, an enzyme takes light energy and turns it into sugar.” .....

Enzymes are the proteins that create a chemical reaction. Enzymit tells its algorithm a specific protein sequence that results in an enzymatic process, and inputs the traits it desires – like being extremely heat resistant. The algorithm then generates a new sequence that, when created industrially, will preserve all the functionalities of the original protein.

The algorithm generates enzyme designs on computers and translates it into DNA code. Enzymit works with several companies around the world that literally print the DNA to be used in industrial processes. Beyond that, the startup also employs its algorithms in its own sophisticated machine to create enzymes. ......

“It’s almost like ordering something from Amazon. You go on the website, type in your sequence or design, they send you DNA, you put the DNA into bacteria, and the bacteria produces your protein,” explains Lapidoth. ......

“We know we can do pretty much everything with enzymes. It sounds like I’m exaggerating, but I’m not. We just didn’t have the right enzymes until now.”

https://nocamels.com/2023/04/designing-the-enzymes-that-mother-nature-didnt/

 

[Cal2]

Aussie Company to 3D Print Space Plane​

Australian startup Hypersonix Launch Systems, based in Brisbane, has partnered with Rocket Lab USA for the first test launch of its 3D printed spaceplane, the DART AE scramjet.
Hypersonix was selected last month by the US Defense Innovation Unit for a program testing hypersonic platforms and components, capable of operating in a “representative environment”.
The launch will take place next year, using Rocket Lab’s Hypersonic Accelerator Suborbital Test Electron rocket. The DART AE is capable of flying at speeds faster than five times the speed of sound, with a non-ballistic flight pattern, acceleration, 1000km range and flexible engine burns. ....

“All these new technologies came along to make aircraft technology more efficient, faster, safer … So, spaceplanes, particularly these scramjet engines, are the next technological leap in access to space.”

https://3dprinting.com/news/aussie-company-to-3d-print-space-plane/

 

[Cal2]

US Supreme Court rejects computer scientist's lawsuit over AI-generated inventions​

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a challenge by computer scientist Stephen Thaler to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's refusal to issue patents for inventions his artificial intelligence system created.

The justices turned away Thaler's appeal of a lower court's ruling that patents can be issued only to human inventors and that his AI system could not be considered the legal creator of two inventions that he has said it generated.

Thaler founded Imagination Engines Inc, an advanced artificial neural network technology company based in Saint Charles, Missouri. According to Thaler, his DABUS system, short for Device for the Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience, created unique prototypes for a beverage holder and emergency light beacon entirely on its own.

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/money/top...1&cvid=99f8fec322b14706bc23f0ef8ba3012f&ei=55

 

[koolishman]

Plastic Particles Can Alter Sex Hormones​

Amid rising evidence that additives designed to improve plastics also disrupt sex hormones, a Rutgers laboratory trial shows that plastic itself can do likewise when inhaled at moderate levels.

Previous studies focused on chemicals such as bisphenol-A (BPA) that make plastics stiffer or more flexible. These findings spurred ongoing efforts to find safer plastic additives.

The Rutgers study showed that microscale and nanoscale particles (MNPs) of polyamide, a common plastic better known as nylon, produced endocrine-disrupting effects when inhaled by female lab rats in concentrations experienced by humans.

The disruption of sex hormones delivered by the endocrine system could help explain health issues such as increasing obesity and declining fertility.
https://particleandfibretoxicology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12989-023-00525-x

 

[koolishman]

A myth no more: Cranberry products can prevent urinary tract infections for women​

Peer-reviewed research

Drinking cranberry juice has long been a mythical prevention strategy for women who develop a urinary tract infection – and new medical evidence shows consuming cranberry products is an effective way to prevent a UTI before it gets started. A global study looking at the benefits of cranberry products published in Cochrane Reviews has determined cranberry juice, and its supplements, reduce the risk of repeat symptomatic UTIs in women by more than a quarter, in children by more than half, and in people susceptible to UTI following medical interventions by about 53%.

https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD001321.pub6/full

 

[koolishman]

Blood–Brain Barrier Breached by Microplastics​

Among the biggest environmental problems of our time, micro- and nanoplastic particles (MNPs) can enter the body in various ways, including through food. And now for the first time, research conducted at MedUni Vienna has shown how these minute particles manage to breach the blood-brain barrier and as a consequence penetrate the brain. The newly discovered mechanism provides the basis for further research to protect humans and the environment. The study results were recently published in the scientific journal nanomaterials.

https://www.mdpi.com/2079-4991/13/8/1404

 

[koolishman]

Study Finds ChatGPT Outperforms Physicians in High-Quality, Empathetic Answers to Patient Questions​

A new study published in JAMA Internal Medicine led by John W. Ayers, Ph.D., from the Qualcomm Institute at University of California San Diego provides an early glimpse into the role that AI assistants could play in medicine. The study compared written responses from physicians and those from ChatGPT to real-world health questions. A panel of licensed healthcare professionals preferred ChatGPT’s responses 79% of the time and rated ChatGPT’s responses as higher quality and more empathetic.

“The opportunities for improving healthcare with AI are massive,” said Ayers, who is also vice chief of innovation in the UC San Diego School of Medicine Division of Infectious Disease and Global Public Health. “AI-augmented care is the future of medicine.”

 

[koolishman]

FDA approves 1st pill made from human poop​

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the first pill manufactured from donated human poop, the agency announced (opens in new tab) Wednesday (April 26). It's the second human poop-derived treatment ever approved; the first was an enema-based treatment (opens in new tab) cleared for use in December 2022.

Previously, such "fecal microbiota transplants" were considered investigational treatments and were therefore harder for patients to access and often not covered by insurance.

 

[kor]

A panel of licensed healthcare professionals preferred ChatGPT’s responses 79% of the time and rated ChatGPT’s responses as higher quality and more empathetic.

This result is biased because they took the data they compared from reddit.com/r/AskDocs

 

[Cal2]

Study Finds ChatGPT Outperforms Physicians in High-Quality, Empathetic Answers to Patient Questions​

A new study published in JAMA Internal Medicine led by John W. Ayers, Ph.D., from the Qualcomm Institute at University of California San Diego provides an early glimpse into the role that AI assistants could play in medicine. The study compared written responses from physicians and those from ChatGPT to real-world health questions. A panel of licensed healthcare professionals preferred ChatGPT’s responses 79% of the time and rated ChatGPT’s responses as higher quality and more empathetic.

“The opportunities for improving healthcare with AI are massive,” said Ayers, who is also vice chief of innovation in the UC San Diego School of Medicine Division of Infectious Disease and Global Public Health. “AI-augmented care is the future of medicine.”

Quiz: Can You Tell the Difference Between ChatGPT and a Doctor?​

A new study found the AI answers online medical questions better and more empathetically than real doctors. Test the results for yourself.​

Dr. Robot will see you now. A study published in JAMA Internal Medicine Friday suggests that ChatGPT will do a better job at answering emails than your human doctor. The study pulled questions from Reddit’s r/AskDocs and compared real doctors’ answers to responses from the AI. When a panel of medical experts reviewed the results, ChatGPT won in a landslide.

The panel preferred ChatGPT’s answers a whopping 79% of the time. They weren’t just higher quality; the AI was almost ten times more likely to be rated as empathetic.

https://gizmodo.com/chatgpt-ai-doctor-quiz-difference-reddit-study-1850386370

 

[koolishman]

NASA Power Hack Extends 45-Year Voyager 2 Mission Even Longer​

At 12 billion miles (20 billion kilometers) from Earth, Voyager 2 is so far that it takes more than 22 hours for NASA’s signals to reach the probe. With its power gradually diminishing, mission planners thought they might have to shut down one of its five scientific instruments next year, but a newly implemented plan has resulted in a welcomed delay.

A recent adjustment, in which the probe redirects a tiny amount of power meant for an onboard safety system, means all five scientific instruments aboard Voyager 2 can stay active until 2026, according to a NASA Jet Propulsion Lab press release. There’s a modicum of risk involved, as the affected system protects Voyager 2 from voltage irregularities, but NASA says the probe can now keep its science instruments turned on for a while longer.

 

[koolishman]

The first babies conceived with a sperm-injecting robot have been born​

Last spring, engineers in Barcelona packed up the sperm-injecting robot they’d designed and sent it by DHL to New York City. They followed it to a clinic there, called New Hope Fertility Center, where they put the instrument back together, assembling a microscope, a mechanized needle, a tiny petri dish, and a laptop.

Then one of the engineers, with no real experience in fertility medicine, used a Sony PlayStation 5 controller to position a robotic needle. Eyeing a human egg through a camera, it then moved forward on its own, penetrating the egg and dropping off a single sperm cell. Altogether, the robot was used to fertilize more than a dozen eggs.

The result of the procedures, say the researchers, were healthy embryos—and now two baby girls, who they claim are the first people born after fertilization by a “robot.”

 

[koolishman]

The World Wide Web turns 30

1989 was a year of revolutions. While in Germany the wall was coming down, another history-making development was taking place inside the mind of a man called Tim Berners-Lee.


The British physicist at the renowned CERN research institute in Geneva, Switzerland, was bothered by the infamous communications chaos between various institutes and projects at CERN.


The 34-year-old wrote out a summary of his idea for a solution. "Vague, but exciting," was the response of his boss at the time.

Too vague, apparently — and so at first, nothing happened. But Berners-Lee kept working on his idea. And slowly, the individual components of what would become the World Wide Web took shape: URLs for web addresses had to be created, HTML to describe the pages as well as the first web browser.


The result was revealed to the global public exactly 30 years ago: On April 30, 1993, the researchers at CERN launched the World Wide Web and it was the beginning of the stellar rise of the internet.

 

[Cannuck]

China's 'near space' program​

The spy balloon incident from January brought significant attention to China's airship program, revealing how useful airships can be to its spying activities. According to a 2018 report by the Rand Corporation on the country's modern warfare strategy, these types of airships are attractive to the Chinese because they're "less expensive ... and provide more-precise intelligence" than satellites, in addition to being "less susceptible to destruction" than planes.

Although China is not alone in utilizing airships -- the US military has used aerostats - this discovery now confirms the PLA program uses all three types of airships: blimps, aerostats and free-floating balloons.

Image of Chinese military blimp base

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/05/01/chinese-military-blimp-satellite-secret-desert-base

 

[Cal2]

Building in Germany Largest 3D Printed Building in Europe​

The largest 3D printed building in Europe is currently being built in Heidelberg, Germany, using a special 3D concrete printing material from Heidelberg Materials. The building will house a data center and is expected to be completed by the end of July 2023.
Heidelberg Materials supplies around 450 tonnes of i.tech 3D, a 100% recyclable material that contains a binder with a carbon footprint around 55% lower than that of classic Portland cement. .....

The company aims to offer circular alternatives for half of its concrete products worldwide by 2030, and 3D printed products are an integral part of its portfolio. .....

Once completed, the iconic commercial building by real estate company KRAUSGRUPPE will measure around 54 meters long, 11 meters wide and 9 meters high.

https://3dprinting.com/materials/building-in-germany-largest-3d-printed-building-in-europe/

 

[NameInbox]

China completes world's first interventional BCI experiment on non-human primates​

World's first interventional brain-computer interface (BCI) experiment on non-human primates was successfully completed on Thursday, by a research team led by scientists with Nankai University.

Through building a BCI to the monkey's brain, scientists successfully identified and collected electroencephalography signals which achieved control over a mechanical arm.

This experiment is significant for advancing research in the field of brain science, and marks China's BCI technology ranking among the world's top level, said Duan Feng, the team leader and a professor at Nankai University.

Compared to traditional invasive and non-invasive BCI, interventional BCI has balanced the stability of recognition and safety, Duan told Xinhua.
https://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202305/06/WS6455aaaaa310b6054fad160c.html

 

[Cal2]

Could regular internet use lower risk of dementia? New study suggests yes.​

Regular use of the internet could lower dementia risk in older adults, a new study suggests.

Among 18,000 older adults studied, those who regularly used the internet had about half the risk of developing dementia compared with those who didn’t regularly use it, the analysis released Wednesday in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society found.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...internet-use-lower-risk-dementia/70178417007/

 

[koolishman]

The Startling Intelligence of the Common Chicken​

Chickens are smart, and they understand their world, which raises troubling questions about how they are treated on factory farms

Few people think about the chicken as intelligent, however. In recent years, though, scientists have learned that this bird can be deceptive and cunning, that it possesses communication skills on par with those of some primates and that it uses sophisticated signals to convey its intentions. When making decisions, the chicken takes into account its own prior experience and knowledge surrounding the situation. It can solve complex problems and empathizes with individuals that are in danger.

 

[koolishman]

Tick tock – the liver controls the circadian clock​

Liver cells influence the body’s internal circadian clock, which was previously believed to be solely controlled by the brain, IMB-led research has revealed.

Associate Professor Frédéric Gachon from IMB’s Centre for Cell Biology of Chronic Disease and Dr Serge Luquet from Université Paris Cité/CNRS in France and their collaborators have demonstrated that mice with transplanted human liver cells had modified circadian rhythms.

Dr Gachon said the circadian internal body clock controls most biological functions including sleep, hormone secretion, body temperature and metabolism.https//doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adf2982

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adf2982​

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