Menu

Blog

Page 1811

Aug 10, 2023

Saturn-sized exoplanet discovered with TESS

Posted by in category: satellites

Using NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), an international team of astronomers has discovered a new giant exoplanet transiting a nearby M-dwarf star. The newfound alien world, designated TOI-4860 b, is comparable in size and mass to Saturn. The finding is reported in a paper published August 2 on the pre-print server arXiv.

TESS is conducting a survey of about 200,000 of the brightest stars near the sun with the aim of searching for transiting exoplanets. So far, it has identified over 6,700 candidate exoplanets (TESS Objects of Interest, or TOI), of which 373 have been confirmed so far.

Now, a group of astronomers led by Jose Manuel Almenara of the Grenoble Alpes University in France, reports the confirmation of another TOI monitored by TESS. They identified a transit signal in the light curve of an M-dwarf star known as TOI-4860. The planetary nature of this signal was confirmed by ground-based follow-up photometric observations.

Aug 10, 2023

Iron And Rust Could Be The Secret To Storing Clean Power For Days

Posted by in categories: energy, finance

Form Energy, led by a former Tesla executive and backed by Bill Gates’s Breakthrough Energy Ventures, sees the cheap metal as a solution to banking surplus green power.

Aug 10, 2023

Elon Musk’s Tesla Is Making a Big Move With Pepsi

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, sustainability, transportation

Tesla’s iconic electric vehicles are taking on a slightly different shape.

Aug 10, 2023

“Quantum Superchemistry” Breakthrough: A Pioneering Discovery by University of Chicago Scientists

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, business, chemistry, engineering, law, policy, quantum physics

A team from the University of Chicago.

Founded in 1,890, the University of Chicago (UChicago, U of C, or Chicago) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Located on a 217-acre campus in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood, near Lake Michigan, the school holds top-ten positions in various national and international rankings. UChicago is also well known for its professional schools: Pritzker School of Medicine, Booth School of Business, Law School, School of Social Service Administration, Harris School of Public Policy Studies, Divinity School and the Graham School of Continuing Liberal and Professional Studies, and Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering.

Aug 10, 2023

Scientists develop AI system to alert us of next pandemic

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, health, robotics/AI

Using machine learning, the system could warn us about the emergence of dangerous virus variants in the future and allow us to prepare in advance.

We all know how devastating the COVID-19 pandemic has been – and it could have been even worse if not for the efforts of scientists and health workers around the world. But what if we could get a heads-up on the next most dangerous variants of a virus before they become a global threat?

Well, a new AI system can just do that. It can warn us about the emergence of dangerous virus variants in future pandemics, according to a study by scientists from Scripps Research and Northwestern University in the US.

Aug 10, 2023

AI.com flips from ChatGPT to Elon Musk’s X.ai

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, robotics/AI

There was a bit of a hubbub in February as it emerged that OpenAI had seemingly purchased AI.com in order to redirect it to the ChatGPT web interface. But now erstwhile backer, Twitter haver and X lover Elon Musk appears to have taken the valuable domain off their hands, or else someone has done it for him: AI.com now redirects to X.ai, the billionaire’s embryonic machine learning research outfit.

Of course domains are bought and sold every day. But two-letter.com domains are rare and highly expensive, especially those that form words or familiar abbreviations. When AI.com started redirecting to OpenAI’s site, Mashable pointed out that the domain could hardly have sold for less than IT.com’s $3.8 million the previous year, and likely attained a far higher price given the hype around artificial intelligence in general.

No doubt OpenAI hoped that the purchase of AI.com would turn confused URL bar typers into lifetime users. Or perhaps it intended to eventually move its consumer-facing operations (like ChatGPT’s web client) over to the shorter domain. It seems we’ll never know, because now the domain goes to X.ai.

Aug 10, 2023

What Does It Mean to Be Generous?

Posted by in category: futurism

Deborah Small, Adrian C. Israel Professor of Marketing, explores how we make choices that affect our own and others’ welfare and what leaders need to understand about behavioral marketing to expand social impact.

Aug 10, 2023

A 46,000-year-old worm found in Siberian permafrost was brought back to life, and started having babies

Posted by in category: futurism

Scientists on Thursday published a paper identifying and naming the worm, which they said belonged to a previously-unidentified species.

Aug 10, 2023

This Sea Slug Can Chop Off Its Head and Grow an Entire New Body—Twice

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, robotics/AI

Year 2021 This bit of dna could be synthesized to essentially regrow humans if they had critical injury much like wolverine from the marvel movies.


Two species of sea slugs can pop off their heads and regrow their entire bodies from the noggin down, scientists in Japan recently discovered. This incredible feat of regeneration can be achieved in just a couple of weeks and is absolutely mind-blowing.

Most cases of animal regeneration — replacing damaged or lost body parts with an identical replacement — occur when arms, legs or tails are lost to predators and must be regrown. But these sea slugs, which belong to a group called sacoglossans, can take it to the next level by regrowing an entirely new body from just their heads, which they seem to be able to detach from their original bodies on purpose.

Continue reading “This Sea Slug Can Chop Off Its Head and Grow an Entire New Body—Twice” »

Aug 10, 2023

Big Tech Agrees to AI Pledges With White House. There’s a Big Omission

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

The Biden administration said Friday it struck a deal with some of the biggest U.S. technology companies to manage risks posed by artificial intelligence. However, the agreement didn’t directly address how AI systems are trained, a crucial issue as AI companies face lawsuits over alleged copyright violations.