Number 266
How Long Do EV Batteries Last? Longer Than You Might Think, Research Suggests
An independent analysis of 15,000 EV batteries finds that most don’t need to be replaced until they’re well over a decade old.
Breakthrough Kidney Stone Procedure Makes It Possible For Astronauts To Travel To Mars
UW Medicine is working on a groundbreaking procedure to get rid of painful kidney stones while you’re awake, no anesthesia needed.
Hurricane Otis turned into a monster overnight. Forecasters don’t know why.
Went from tropical storm to a Category 5 hurricane in just 24 hours
Around 20 Minutes of Exercise a Day May Balance Out the Harms of Sitting, Study Finds
The new research appears to upend previous findings that suggested it was difficult to zero out the deleterious effects associated with extended sedentary periods.
Pigeons Problem-Solve Similarly To Artificial Intelligence, Research Shows
The intelligent birds, thought to be a nuisance by some, learn from consequences and can recognize resemblance between objects.
== a bunch of doom and gloom
AI risk must be treated as seriously as climate crisis, says Google DeepMind chief
Demis Hassabis calls for greater regulation to quell existential fears over tech with above-human levels of intelligence.
Humanity At Risk From AI ‘Race To the Bottom,’ Says MIT Tech Expert
MIT professor behind influential letter says unchecked development is allowing a few AI firms to jeopardise society’s future.
OpenAI Forms Team To Study ‘Catastrophic’ AI Risks, Including Nuclear Threats
The team, called Preparedness, will be led by Aleksander Madry, the director of MIT’s Center for Deployable Machine Learning.
== yjc, lengthy
Déjà vu
Have you been here before? The eerie sensation is the shadow of your mind searching inward for clues to its own survival
Biophysicists Uncover Powerful Symmetries in Living Tissue
After identifying interlocking symmetries in mammalian cells, scientists can describe some tissues as liquid crystals — an observation that lays the groundwork for a fluid-dynamic theory of how tissues move.
Free AI courses, mostly about using LLMs
These 13 free AI courses, from OpenAI and DeepLearning, range from beginner to intermediate, and did we mention they’re free?
Humanity is moving “perilously close to the brink” of multiple environmental tipping points that could be disastrous to both people and the environment
With El Niño expected to stretch into the winter, all eyes are on 2024
If typical climate patterns hold, the soaring temperatures we had in 2023 could get even hotter next year.
Ukrainian Hackers and Intel Officers Partner Up In Apparent Hack of a Top Russian Bank
Two Ukrainian hacktivist groups are claiming to have broken into Russia’s largest private bank, Alfa-Bank.
NASA’s First Two-Way End-to-End Laser Communications System
NASA is demonstrating laser communications on multiple missions – showcasing the benefits infrared light can have for science and exploration missions transmitting terabytes of important data.
Sergey Brin’s Airship Gets FAA Clearance
Lighter Than Air (LTA) Research is a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company founded by Sergey Brin to explore the future of airships for disaster relief and cargo.
Mars’ core looks bigger than it is because it’s wrapped in radioactive magma
Using data from the InSight lander, two studies found that the red planet’s core is smaller and denser than previously thought.
Google’s new image verification tool combs metadata to find context and sniff out AI fakes
You’ll get a picture’s history and how it’s been used across the internet.
Amazon Now Lets Advertisers Use Generative AI To Pretty Up Their Product Shots
For advertisers without a graphic design or creative team, this is a quick solution to spruce up images that would otherwise be a bore
== yjc, some good ones
Mangrove Photography Awards
Soham Bhattacharyya has been named overall winner of this year’s Mangrove Photography Awards, for his image of an endangered tigress in the Sundarbans Biosphere Reserve, India.
== ?$
This mathematician is making sense of nature’s complexity
Hungarian scholar Gábor Domokos aims to understand the physical world by describing its forms in the simplest possible geometry.
== yjc, lengthy
Scientist, After Decades of Study, Concludes: We Don’t Have Free Will
“The world is really screwed up and made much, much more unfair by the fact that we reward people and punish people for things they have no control over,”
ICE Uses Tool To Find ‘Derogatory’ Speech Online
Thumbs up, or thumbs down: that’s the option presented to analysts when the tool Giant Oak Search Technology surfaces content from social media and other sources for ICE to scrutinize.
Tai chi may slow Parkinson’s symptoms for years, study finds
Tai chi may help slow down the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease for several years, a Chinese study suggests.
Alberta paleontologists studying rare horse and camel fossils
Fossils from 1.5-4.5 million years ago “exceedingly rare” in Alberta, paleontologist says.
== yjc, I love tyring new recipes, this was a recent discovery; though haven’t yet tried making it
The incomparable Bombay sandwich
Mumbai locals queue up for their unique local treat: a crisp, buttery grilled vegetable-packed sandwich that’s slathered with a piquant, fresh green chutney.
== ?$
The Invisible Force Keeping Carbon in the Ground
In climate-addled places, mats of mycelium may make all the difference for the trees they live alongside. Their partnership, “it’s the purest free market–unconstrained by morality–and it’s completely ruthless.”
PetroChina Completes First International Crude Oil Trade In Digital Yuan
PetroChina bought 1 million barrels of crude oil settled in e-CNY at the Shanghai Petroleum and Natural Gas Exchange.
Scientists Create World’s Most Water-Resistant Surface
Finnish researchers make ’liquid-like’ outer layer from silicon that could revolutionise household tasks.
New tool lets artists fight AI image bots by hiding corrupt data in plain sight
The tool, called Nightshade, messes up training data in ways that could cause serious damage to image-generating AI models.
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission collected more Bennu asteroid samples than first thought
NASA scientists have yet to open the mission’s primary sample container, so there’s more to come.
== yjc
Brazil drought reveals ancient rock carvings of human faces
A drop in water levels of the Amazon has revealed rock carvings which had been mostly submerged since they were carved more than a thousand years ago.
== yjc
Skeletons discovered in rare 5,000-year-old tomb in Orkney
Archaeologists say they have uncovered the ruins of an “incredibly rare” 5,000-year-old tomb in Orkney.
The heart is functioning on its own and shows no signs of rejection
Sea-level rise: West Antarctic ice shelf melt ‘unavoidable’
Increased melting of West Antarctica’s ice shelves is “unavoidable” in the coming decades, a new study has warned.
== yjc
See gorgeous ancient Egyptian ‘mummy portraits’ from nearly 2 millennia ago
These ancient portraits provide a window into ancient Egyptian life and culture.
NASA Transmits Patches to the Two Voyager Probes Launched in 1977
The efforts should help extend the lifetimes of the agency’s interstellar explorers.
North Atlantic right whale population has steadied, scientists say
‘The slowing down of the decline is sort of the first good news that we’ve had in a long time.’
Yes, the moon is indeed 40 million years older than we once thought
Scientists analyzed crystal in a moon rock collected during 1972 Apollo 17 mission.
Newspapers Want Payment for Articles Used to Power ChatGPT
But as the quest to develop cutting-edge AI models has grown increasingly frenzied, newspaper publishers and other data owners are demanding a share of the potentially massive market for generative AI…
Could a Mud Lake on Mars Be Hiding Signs of Ancient Life?
On a drying Red Planet, water could have come bubbling up from below.
As drought dries up B.C. rivers, conservationists turn to beavers for help
Shallower, warmer waters will harm fish, people dependent on rivers for livelihood: water stewardship society.
== yjc
Eastern Ontario farmer discovers new variety of truffle
Lucille Groulx uncovered the unique fungus on her Wendover, Ont., farm.
Why Indonesia can’t stop crocodile attacks
When Sariah went to fetch water in a pit near her home in Bangka Island, Indonesia, last September, she was unaware that a 3m-long saltwater crocodile had been resting in the crater, watching as she filled one of her buckets
Unless Open Source Evolves, HashiCorp CEO Predicts OSS-Free Silicon Valley
Says Linux Foundation’s OpenTofu adoption “tragic”
California Supervolcano: Caltech’s ‘Chilling’ Discovery In Long Valley Caldera
Caltech researchers used advanced imaging techniques to investigate increased seismic activity in California’s Long Valley Caldera, a dormant supervolcano.
What Happens When Major Online Platforms Lower Traffic to News Sites?
Over the past three years, the percentage of traffic to news websites driven by social media has dropped as Facebook and Twitter deemphasized news links.
== we have had at least one article on this puzzle before
JWST’s Disconnect With Cosmology Models Linked to ‘Bursty Star Formations’
Intense flashes of light, not mass, resolve the puzzle of impossible brightness.
21 Species Moved From ‘Endangered’ to ‘Extinct’ in America
Action signals a ‘wake-up call on the importance of conserving imperiled species before it’s too late’
Now I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord