Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog – Page 11

In a bold move towards a sustainable future, Helsinki, Finland’s capital, has installed the world’s largest heat pump, a groundbreaking piece of technology that has the capacity to power 30,000 homes. This ambitious project is a significant step in the fight against climate change, utilizing renewable energy sources to provide a reliable and efficient heating system even in the coldest of winters. In this article, we’ll explore how this technological marvel works, its environmental impact, and the potential it has to change energy production on a global scale.

Helsinki’s heat pump represents a major breakthrough in energy technology. The system works by transferring heat from a colder environment to a warmer one, ensuring maximum energy efficiency. One of the most impressive features of this heat pump is its use of carbon dioxide as a refrigerant, which allows the pump to generate heat at temperatures of up to 90°C.

A standout innovation is the oil-free compressor, a key component that ensures the system operates efficiently while minimizing its environmental footprint. This marks the first time such a system has been implemented on this scale, reinforcing Finland’s commitment to adopting sustainable solutions for energy production. By using renewable energy sources like wind and solar power, this heat pump reduces the need for fossil fuels and helps Finland move towards a more sustainable energy future.

Read more | >

Among the roughly 10 billion white dwarf stars in the Milky Way galaxy, a greater number than previously expected could provide a stellar environment hospitable to life-supporting exoplanets, according to astronomers at the University of California, Irvine.

In a paper published recently in The Astrophysical Journal, a research team led by Aomawa Shields, UC Irvine associate professor of physics and astronomy, share the results of a study comparing the climates of exoplanets at two different stars.

One is a hypothetical white dwarf that’s passed through much of its life cycle and is on a slow path to stellar death. The other subject is Kepler-62, a “main sequence” star at a similar phase in its evolution as our sun.

Read more | >

Softbank Group chief executive officer Masayoshi Son plans to borrow $16 billion to invest in artificial intelligence (AI), the company’s executives told banks last week, The Information tech news Web site reported on Saturday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The Japanese technology investor might borrow another $8 billion early next year, the report added. It was reported in January that Softbank is in talks to invest up to $25 billion in ChatGPT owner OpenAI, as the Japanese conglomerate continues to expand into the sector.

Softbank’s investment would be on top of the $15 billion it has already committed to Stargate, a private sector investment of up to $500 billion for AI infrastructure — funded by Softbank, OpenAI and Oracle Corp — to help the US stay ahead of China and other rivals in the global AI race.

The Information — a tech industry-focused publication headquartered in San Francisco — previously reported that Softbank was planning to invest a total of $40 billion into Stargate and OpenAI, and had begun talks to borrow up to $18.5 billion in financing, backed by its publicly-listed assets.

Separately, Arm Holdings PLC is set to sign a pact next week to establish a base in Malaysia, the Malaysian news agency Bernama reported on Friday, citing Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim. Anwar had a discussion with Arm chief executive officer Rene Haas on Friday, he told reporters in Putrajaya, Malaysia. Son also took part in the meeting, he said.

(https://open.substack.com/pub/remunerationlabs/p/softbank-gr…Share=true)

This would be on top of the $15 billion SoftBank has already committed to Stargate.

Read more | >

Brain creates summaries while reading.

Unlike artificial language models, which process long texts as a whole, the human brain creates a “summary” while reading, helping it understand what comes next.

In recent years, (LLMs) like ChatGPT and Bard have revolutionized AI-driven text processing, enabling machines to generate text, translate languages, and analyze sentiment. These models are inspired by the human brain, but key differences remain.

A new Technion-Israel Institute of Technology study, published in Nature Communications, explores these differences by examining how the spoken texts. The research, led by Prof. Roi Reichart and Dr. Refael Tikochinski from the Faculty of Data and Decision Sciences. It was conducted as part of Dr. Tikochinski’s Ph.D., co-supervised by Prof. Reichart at Technion and Prof. Uri Hasson at Princeton University.

Continue reading “Brain creates ‘summaries’ while reading, unlike AI models that process full texts” | >

Reasoning about the physical world enables people to successfully interact with and manipulate their environment. In this Review, Hartshorne and Jing bridge findings from education, developmental psychology and cognitive science and discuss how best to reconcile these approaches going forward.

Read more | >

A newly identified part of a brain circuit mixes sensory information, memories, and emotions to tell whether things are familiar or new, and important or just “background noise.”

Led by researchers from NYU Langone Health, the work found that a circuit known to carry messages from a brain region that processes sensory information, the entorhinal cortex (EC), to the memory processing center in the hippocampus (HC) has a previously unrecognized pathway that carries messages directly back to the EC.

Publishing online Feb. 18 in Nature Neuroscience, the study results show that this direct feedback loop sends signals fast enough to instantly tag sights and sounds linked to certain objects and places as more important by considering them in the context of memories and emotions.

Read more | >

This quantum light manipulation breakthrough paves the way for unprecedented technologies.

Scientists from the University of Basel and the University of Sydney successfully manipulated and identified interacting packets of light energy, or photons, with unprecedented precision.

This breakthrough, published in Nature Physics, marks the first-ever observation of stimulated light emission at the single-photon level—a phenomenon first predicted by Albert Einstein in 1916.

By measuring the time delay between photon interactions, researchers demonstrated how photons could become entangled in a “two-photon bound state,” opening up new possibilities for quantum computing and enhanced measurement techniques.

This discovery has profound implications for photonic quantum computing and metrology, particularly in fields like biological microscopy, where high-intensity light can damage delicate samples. Dr. Sahand Mahmoodian, a leading researcher on the project, emphasized that harnessing quantum light could lead to more precise measurements with fewer photons. Meanwhile, tech companies like PsiQuantum and Xanadu are already exploring how this research could contribute to fault-tolerant quantum computing. As scientists refine their ability to manipulate quantum light, the door opens to a future of more powerful computing, ultra-sensitive sensors, and revolutionary advancements in technology.

Continue reading “Scientists open door to manipulating ‘quantum light’” | >