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Category: habitats – Page 34
As rising oceans threaten NYC, study documents another risk: The city is sinking
If rising oceans aren’t worry enough, add this to the risks New York City faces: The metropolis is slowly sinking under the weight of its skyscrapers, homes, asphalt and humanity itself.
New research estimates the city’s landmass is sinking at an average rate of 1 to 2 millimeters per year, something referred to as “subsidence.”
That natural process happens everywhere as ground is compressed, but the study published this month in the journal Earth’s Future sought to estimate how the massive weight of the city itself is hurrying things along.
This house was built partly from recycled diapers
Meet the house that diapers built.
Researchers have designed and erected a house that has shredded, disposable diapers mixed into its concrete and mortar. A single-story home of about 36 square meters can pack nearly 2 cubic meters of used diapers into its floors, columns and walls, the team reports May 18 in Scientific Reports.
Using recycled diapers as composite building materials would not only shrink landfill waste but also could make such homes more affordable, the team says, a particular need in developing countries like Indonesia where the demand for low-cost housing far outstrips the supply.
Here’s an idea for Twitter, Elon: Copycat your way to a $630 billion empire just as Mark Zuckerberg did
The Meta chief has drawn up plans for Instagram to introduce a Twitter competitor that would allow users to share text, per reports last week. Zuckerberg is reportedly already going out of his way to get high-profile influencers onboard.
This is not the first time Zuckerberg has taken a leaf out of his rivals’ books. In the span of almost two decades, he has been able to create – and keep intact – his $630 billion social-media empire by copying ideas from plucky upstarts building competing social networks.
Musk’s new Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino seems ready for the challenge from Zuckerberg, but if she and Musk are really serious about turning Twitter into a money-making machine, they may need to do some brazen copycatting of their own.
Is There a Planet Out There Even Better than Earth?
Is there a planet out there even better than Earth, a superhabitable world? Or is there no place like Home? Posted on Big Think, direct link at https://www.searchforlifeintheuniverse.com/post/is-there-a-p…than-earth
Unique ‘aerial-aquatic hybrid drone’ could aid in search-and-rescue operations one day
The new amphibious drone has a light design and weighs just 1.63 kilograms.
China’s researchers have unveiled the creation of a one-of-a-kind “aerial-aquatic hybrid drone” capable of performing a wide range of tasks. Named TJ-FlyingFish, it is a hybrid drone that can both fly and dive underwater.
This remarkable drone has the potential to be a game-changing tool in various sectors of life. As per the developers, it could include assisting with offshore construction, monitoring marine habitat, conducting aerial and aquatic surveys, remote sensing, and search-and-rescue operations, among other things.
Startup Vast plans first commercial space station for launch in 2025
Space startup Vast has announced that it intends to launch what it calls the world’s first commercial space station, Haven-1, sometime after August 2025 atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket as the first element of a 100-m (330 ft) rotating station.
With its increasing emphasis on lunar and deep-space missions, NASA has decided to leave low-Earth orbit to private companies when it comes to human spaceflight. The idea is that when the International Space Station (ISS) is retired in 2030, the space agency will buy time on some of the commercial stations currently on the drawing board.
A new contender in this is Vast, which says it is developing a self-contained habitat module with a large viewing port that can fit in the payload section of a Falcon 9. It’s capable of docking with a SpaceX Dragon and can accommodate up to four people aboard for up to 30 days. Also planned is a much larger module that can fit inside a SpaceX Starship.
Elon Musk Claims Google Co-Founder Is Building a “Digital God”
In a bombastic interview with none other than Tucker freakin’ Carlson, Elon Musk made a bold claim about Google co-founder Larry Page that, we have to admit, isn’t entirely implausible.
During the newly-released Fox News interview, Musk alleged that back when he and the Google co-founder and CEO “used to be close friends” and he’d stay at the techster’s Palo Alto house, they’d get into lengthy discussions about “AI safety” — and that what Page told him led to his own cofounding of OpenAI.
In characteristic confused-puppy fashion, Carlson asked Musk what Page had said about AI.