Researchers genetically modify piglets to be resistant to an incurable disease plaguing hog farms, Porcine Reproductive Respiratory Syndrome (PRSS). The researchers cut out a specific gene to cure the pigs.
Category: sustainability – Page 687
Elon Musk Hints That Tesla Updates Will Soon Lead To Level 4 Autonomy
Elon Musk, Tesla Motors CEO, is alluding to a big announcement about level 4 autonomy later this year. For now though, the technology is still in need of software improvements.
Tesla Motors has been starring in headlines recently, thanks to crashes attributed to the autopilot system, the announcement of the ambitious Master Plan, and the company’s acquisition of SolarCity. Now, Elon Musk, the company’s CEO, is attracting even more media attention.
When asked about Tesla’s progress toward Level 4 fully autonomous driving on a conference call, Musk teased, “what we’ve got will blow people’s minds, it blows my mind …it’ll come sooner than people think.”
Tesla’s Model S Now Drives Like A Ferrari, Thanks To Bigger Battery
Tesla took Ludicrous Mode to new heights today. Some subtle wiring changes and a major battery upgrade improved mileage and gave the Model S enough oomph to go from 0 to 60 mph in 2.5 seconds—within fractions of seconds of Ferrari and Porsche models.
The extra performance is largely attributed to a larger battery. Its 100kWh is a 10 percent increase from the previous largest option, and increases total distance for some models by up to seven percent.
Of course it comes at a price. The Model S now costs as much as $134,000—and as always you need to be able to charge it.
Cheap and Useful 3D Printed Electronics
Nice.
Shopping trends change from time to time while consumers continue to search for more affordable products with better functionality and specs. Researchers and developers around the world continue to improve company products while lessening the cost of producing these materials.
Gadgets like smartphones, LED lights, tablets and solar cells are already part of the mainstream, and it is not going to change anytime soon. Companies that are involved in this industry must always keep a competitive edge against other manufacturers.
Robots Inherit the Farm
In the US during the early 2000s there was an old political term for low skilled jobs, politicians called these jobs “the jobs that no one in America wanted.” Well, we now can start seeing the slogan by politicians as “the jobs that Robots can do for free.”
The focus of automation in farming has shifted from assisting humans to replacing them.
The average age of Japanese farmers is 67. Across all developed countries, the average age of growers is 60. Robotics and automation technologies are just now reaching the stage where agricultural robots can replace human farmers for many or most crop growing tasks.
Scientists solve puzzle of converting gaseous carbon dioxide to fuel
Every year, humans advance climate change and global warming — and quite likely our own eventual extinction — by injecting about 30 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
A team of scientists from the University of Toronto (U of T) believes they’ve found a way to convert all these emissions into energy-rich fuel in a carbon-neutral cycle that uses a very abundant natural resource: silicon. Silicon, readily available in sand, is the seventh most-abundant element in the universe and the second most-abundant element in the earth’s crust.
The idea of converting carbon dioxide emissions to energy isn’t new: there’s been a global race to discover a material that can efficiently convert sunlight, carbon dioxide and water or hydrogen to fuel for decades. However, the chemical stability of carbon dioxide has made it difficult to find a practical solution.
HKUST Develops Tiny Lasers that Opens New Era for Light-based Computing
Congrats Hong Kong Univ.
Researchers at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) have fabricated microscopically-small lasers directly on silicon, enabling the future-generation microprocessors to run faster and less power-hungry – a significant step towards light-based computing.
The innovation, made by Prof Kei-may Lau, Fang Professor of Engineering and Chair Professor of the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering, in collaboration with the University of California, Santa Barbara; Sandia National Laboratories and Harvard University, marks a major breakthrough for the semiconductor industry and well beyond.
Silicon forms the basis of everything from solar cells to the integrated circuits at the heart of our modern electronic gadgets. However, the crystal lattice of silicon and of typical laser materials could not match up, making it impossible to integrate the two materials until now, when Prof Lau’s group managed to integrate subwavelength cavities — the essential building blocks of their tiny lasers — onto silicon, allowing them to create and demonstrate high-density on-chip light-emitting elements. The finding was recently published as the cover story on Applied Physics Letters.
Artificial Intelligence could help eradicate global poverty
Another spin on AI in how it eradicates poverty; hmmm.
Eradicating extreme poverty, measured as people living on less than $1.25 US a day, by 2030 is among the sustainable development goals adopted by United Nations member states last year.
A team of computer scientists and satellite experts created a self-updating world map to locate poverty, said Marshall Burke, assistant professor in Stanford’s Department of Earth System Science.
It uses a computer algorithm that recognizes signs of poverty through a process called machine learning, a type of artificial intelligence, he said. Results of the two-year research effort have been published in the journal Science.