The dramatic shift to online learning as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic risks widening educational inequalities.
Category: education – Page 128
Two years after Bezos said he would create a network of preschools, the first of those schools, called Bezos Academy, will open south of Seattle in October.
Physicist Jim Al-Khalili routinely deals with the strangest subject in all of science — quantum physics, the astonishing and perplexing theory of sub-atomic particles. But now he’s turning his attention to the world of nature. Can quantum mechanics explain the greatest mysteries in biology?
His first encounter is with the robin. This familiar little bird turns out to navigate using one of the most bizarre effects in physics — quantum entanglement, a process which seems to defy common sense. Even Albert Einstein himself could not believe it.
Jim finds that even the most personal of human experiences — our sense of smell — is touched by ethereal quantum vibrations. According to the latest experiments, it seems that our quantum noses are listening to smells. Jim then discovers that the most famous law of quantum physics — the uncertainty principle — is obeyed by plants and trees as they capture sunlight during the vital process of photosynthesis.
Finally, Jim asks if quantum physics might play a role in evolution. Could the strange laws of the sub-atomic world, which allow objects to tunnel through impassable barriers in defiance of common sense, effect the mechanism by which living species evolve?
Akon has released detailed plans of Akon City, his $6 billion futuristic cryptocurrency city, which he calls a “real-life Wakanda,” referring to the hit movie Black Panther. There will be seven major districts, and the city will be run on the akoin cryptocurrency.
Senegalese-American star and philanthropist Akon, whose full name is Aliaune Damala Badara Akon Thiam, unveiled Monday some major details of his planned Akon City. The $6 billion futuristic city in Senegal, Africa, will be run on the akoin cryptocurrency.
The city will be divided into seven major districts: the African culture village district, the offices and residential district, the entertainment district, the health and safety district, the education district, the technology district, and the Senewood district.
Millions of students are learning through Zoom this fall. So why does it still feel like a corporate meeting app that has been MacGyvered into an education platform?
[Photos: Ridofranz/iStock, syntika/iStock].
A pioneer in Emotion AI, Rana el Kaliouby, Ph.D., is on a mission to humanize technology before it dehumanizes us.
At LiveWorx 2020, Rana joined us to share insights from years of research and collaboration with MIT’s Advanced Vehicle Technology group.
Part demo and part presentation, Rana breaks down the facial patterns that cameras can pick up from a tired or rested driver, and observations from the first ever large-scale study looking at driver behavior over time.
Learn how these inferences can be used to change the driving experience ➡️ https://archive.liveworx.com/sessions/artificial-emotional-i…it-matters
With moral purity inserted as a component to the internal processes for all academic publications, it will henceforth become impossible to pursue the vital schema of conjecture and refutation.
Shocked that one of their own could express a heterodox opinion on the value of de rigueur equity, diversity and inclusion policies, chemistry professors around the world immediately demanded the paper be retracted. Mob justice was swift. In an open letter to “our community” days after publication, the publisher of Angewandte Chemie announced it had suspended the two senior editors who handled the article, and permanently removed from its list of experts the two peer reviewers involved. The article was also expunged from its website. The publisher then pledged to assemble a “diverse group of external advisers” to thoroughly root out “the potential for discrimination and foster diversity at all levels” of the journal.
Not to be outdone, Brock’s provost also disowned Hudlicky in a press statement, calling his views “utterly at odds with the values” of the university; the school then drew attention to its own efforts to purge unconscious bias from its ranks and to further the goals of “accessibility, reconciliation and decolonization.” (None of which have anything to do with synthetic organic chemistry, by the way.) Brock’s knee-jerk criticism of Hudlicky is now also under review, following a formal complaint by another professor that the provost’s statement violates the school’s commitment to freedom of expression.
Hudlicky — who told Retraction Watch “the witch hunt is on” — clearly had the misfortune to make a few cranky comments at a time when putting heads on pikes is all the rage. But what of the implications his situation entails for the entirety of the peer-review process? Given the scorched earth treatment handed out to the editors and peer reviewers involved at Angewandte Chemie, the new marching orders for academic journals seem perfectly clear — peer reviewers are now expected to vet articles not just for coherence and relevance to the scientific field in question, but also for alignment with whatever political views may currently hold sway with the community-at-large. If a publication-worthy paper comes across your desk that questions or undermines orthodox public opinion in any way — even in a footnote — and you approve it, your job may be forfeit. Conform or disappear.
ABC (Australia) — Search for Second Earth 2018.
A documentary showcasing interstellar travel to visit an Earth-like planet, a bonified Earth 2.0 to see if there is life on it. Follow this amazing adventure in state of the art CGI and with the world’s leading scientists.
Clarke urges other companies to also get ready now by investing in developing a quantum-ready workforce. “Quantum computing requires a specialized workforce, expertise that is pretty rare today,” he says. Clarke also advises companies to work with government agencies that are sponsoring quantum computing experiments and to fund quantum research in universities. He also supports nation-wide initiatives to spread the word all the way down the education system, even to high-school students, “so people aren’t scared or intimidated by the word quantum.”
Intel aims to achieve quantum practicality—commercially-viable quantum computing—by the end of this decade.
Benjamin Franklin FRS FRSA FRSE (January 17, 1706 [O.S. January 6, 1706] – April 17, 1790) was an American polymath and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Franklin was a leading writer, printer, political philosopher, politician, Freemason, postmaster, scientist, inventor, humorist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat. As a scientist, he was a major figure in the American Enlightenment and the history of physics for his discoveries and theories regarding electricity. As an inventor, he is known for the lightning rod, bifocals, and the Franklin stove, among other inventions.[1] He founded many civic organizations, including the Library Company, Philadelphia’s first fire department,[2] and the University of Pennsylvania.[3]
Franklin earned the title of “The First American” for his early and indefatigable campaigning for colonial unity, initially as an author and spokesman in London for several colonies. As the first United States ambassador to France, he exemplified the emerging American nation.[4] Franklin was foundational in defining the American ethos as a marriage of the practical values of thrift, hard work, education, community spirit, self-governing institutions, and opposition to authoritarianism both political and religious, with the scientific and tolerant values of the Enlightenment. In the words of historian Henry Steele Commager, “In a Franklin could be merged the virtues of Puritanism without its defects, the illumination of the Enlightenment without its heat.”[5] To Walter Isaacson, this makes Franklin “the most accomplished American of his age and the most influential in inventing the type of society America would become.