The BBC speaks to residents and travellers in some of the top-ranked countries on the 2024 Global Innovation Index to find out how cutting-edge technology benefits day-to-day life.
With the rise of AI, self-driving cars and wi-fi connected appliances, it can feel like innovation is everywhere these days. But certain countries are known for developing cutting-edge technologies that benefit residents and visitors alike.
To dive into those countries making the most impact in these areas, the World Intellectual Property Organisation recently released its 2024 Global Innovation Index, ranking 130 economies based on measures like their education system, technology infrastructure and knowledge creation (like patents filed or mobile apps created).
There’s a common popular science demonstration involving “soap boats,” in which liquid soap poured onto the surface of water creates a propulsive flow driven by gradients in surface tension. But it doesn’t last very long since the soapy surfactants rapidly saturate the water surface, eliminating that surface tension. Using ethanol to create similar “cocktail boats” can significantly extend the effect because the alcohol evaporates rather than saturating the water.
That simple classroom demonstration could also be used to propel tiny robotic devices across liquid surfaces to carry out various environmental or industrial tasks, according to a preprint posted to the physics arXiv. The authors also exploited the so-called “Cheerios effect” as a means of self-assembly to create clusters of tiny ethanol-powered robots.
As previously reported, those who love their Cheerios for breakfast are well acquainted with how those last few tasty little “O” s tend to clump together in the bowl: either drifting to the center or to the outer edges. The “Cheerios effect is found throughout nature, such as in grains of pollen (or, alternatively, mosquito eggs or beetles) floating on top of a pond; small coins floating in a bowl of water; or fire ants clumping together to form life-saving rafts during floods. A 2005 paper in the American Journal of Physics outlined the underlying physics, identifying the culprit as a combination of buoyancy, surface tension, and the so-called ” meniscus effect.”
On September 12 2024, Sam Altman, Chief Executive Officer of OpenAI, participated in a fireside chat for University of Michigans students, faculty and staff. The ChatGPT developer head spoke about the future of AI and its implications for education, as well as the challenges and opportunities presented by rapid technological advancements. Altman also shared insights into OpenAI’s new reasoning model, Strawberry, a model he describes as capable of complex reasoning and problem-solving.
“You all are going to create things that astonish us. The story of human history is that we build better tools, and then people do even more amazing stuff with them, and they themselves, you know, add their layer of scaffolding. And we’re on this steadily increasing curve of possibility.”
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The University of Michigan College of Engineering is one of the world’s top engineering schools. Michigan Engineering is home to 13 highly-ranked departments, and its research budget is among the largest of any public university. http://engin.umich.edu.
Cure-Focused Diabetes Research — Michael Burton & Prof. Matthias von Herrath — Diabetes Research Institute Foundation.
Michael J. Burton is the CEO of the Diabetes Research Institute Foundation (https://diabetesresearch.org/), a philanthropic organization which funds the Diabetes Research Institute, one of the largest and most comprehensive research centers dedicated to curing diabetes.
A passionate nonprofit executive, Michael has more than 30 years of experience in leading high-impact philanthropic programs and cultivating strategic relationships to secure transformative funding. Prior to assuming the role of CEO at DRIF, Michael advanced the missions of some of the nation’s most dynamic and trusted institutions including Princeton University, The Pew Charitable Trusts and the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR).
Michael’s accomplished nonprofit career includes significant contributions in the advancement of cancer research and care, most recently as President and CEO of Gateway for Cancer Research, a Chicago-based nonprofit engaged in funding early phase clinical research, where he began his tenure as Chief Development Officer. Prior to that, Michael served as Chief Development Officer and Executive Director of the Foundation at the AACR, the nation’s oldest and largest organization dedicated to the prevention and cure of all cancers. Michael’s 15 years of experience in the oncology sector also includes leading the development program at Fox Chase Cancer Center as Senior Vice President and Chief Development Officer.
Before working in the field of oncology, Michael had a distinguished career in higher education, most notably at the University of Pennsylvania, where he served as Special Assistant to the President during the tenure of Judith Rodin, the first female president of an Ivy League institution; and at Temple University, where he held the title of Assistant Dean and lead the development program at the Fox School of Business. Before entering higher education, Michael served as Legislative and Press Assistant to the late Congressman Tom Lantos, the only survivor of the Holocaust ever elected to Congress.
DEADLINE APPROACHING! The NEH program is accepting applications through Dec. 11, 2024. For more information, visit.
For organizations in areas affected by Hurricane Helene in FL, GA, SC, NC, VA and TN, optional prospectuses will be accepted until Oct 16th. The prospectus must use the Prospectus Template.
The Humanities Research Centers on Artificial Intelligence program aims to support a more holistic understanding of artificial intelligence (AI) in the modern world through the creation of new humanities research centers on artificial intelligence at eligible institutions. Centers must focus their scholarly activities on exploring the ethical, legal, or societal implications of AI.
A Center supports collaboration among scholars to explore a specific topic through research, as well as spreading knowledge about that research through educational or outreach activities. Centers may include scholars from diverse disciplines, but must be focused on asking humanities questions and should be led by humanists. Scholars may come from one or more institutions. NEH welcomes international collaboration, but scholars at U.S. institutions must contribute significantly to the project. This program is for establishing new Centers; existing Centers and Institutes are not eligible in this competition. Only one application per institution is permitted in this competition. For the purposes of this limitation, branch campuses are considered separately and each may submit one application.
A team of physics educators from Italy, Hungary, Slovenia and Germany is focusing on a new approach to teaching quantum physics in schools. Traditional classroom teaching has tended to focus on presenting the history of the origins of quantum physics, which often poses problems for learners.
Using the quantum measurement process as an example, the researchers have now published their first empirical findings on learning quantum physics —based on two-state systems—in Physical Review Physics Education Research.
The researchers, including physics education specialist Professor Philipp Bitzenbauer from Leipzig University, concentrate on what are known as qubits. These are two-state systems, the simplest and at the same time most important quantum systems that can be used to describe many situations. Controlling and manipulating these qubits plays a central role in modern quantum technologies.
MIT has been developing a small fusion reactor prototype, three of which could power the City of Boston if they were fully built. Though the project lost federal funding for its current fusion device, the school plans to press ahead on building a new, more advanced prototype.
