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Dec 31, 2022

What AI-Generated Art Really Means for Human Creativity

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

Artificial intelligence can now make better art than most humans. Soon, these engines of wow will transform how we design just about everything.

Dec 31, 2022

New battery is cheaper than lithium-ion with four times the capacity

Posted by in category: futurism

A new type of room temperature sodium-sulfur (RT Na-S) battery could help solve the renewable energy storage problem.

Dec 31, 2022

Direct observations of a complex coronal web driving highly structured slow solar wind Astronomy

Posted by in categories: augmented reality, solar power, space

Thus, our SUVI observations captured direct imprints and dynamics of this S-web in the middle corona. For instance, consider the wind streams presented in Fig. 1. Those outflows emerge when a pair of middle-coronal structures approach each other. By comparing the timing of these outflows in Supplementary Video 5, we found that the middle-coronal structures interact at the cusp of the southwest pseudostreamer. Similarly, wind streams in Supplementary Figs. 1 3 emerge from the cusps of the HCS. Models suggest that streamer and pseudostreamer cusps are sites of persistent reconnection30,31. The observed interaction and continual rearrangement of the coronal web features at these cusps are consistent with persistent reconnection, as predicted by S-web models. Although reconnection at streamer cusps in the middle corona has been inferred in other observational studies32,33 and modelled in three dimensions30,31, the observations presented here represent imaging signatures of coronal web dynamics and their direct and persistent effects. Our observations suggest that the coronal web is a direct manifestation of the full breadth of S-web in the middle corona. The S-web reconnection dynamics modulate and drive the structure of slow solar wind through prevalent reconnection9,18.

A volume render of log Q highlights the boundaries of individual flux domains projected into the image plane, revealing the existence of substantial magnetic complexity within the CH–AR system (Fig. 3a and Supplementary Video 7). The ecliptic view of the 3D volume render of log Q with the CH–AR system at the west limb does closely reproduce elongated magnetic topological structures associated with the observed coronal web, confined to northern and southern bright (pseudo-)streamers (Fig. 3b and Supplementary Video 8). The synthetic EUV emission from the inner to middle corona and the white-light emission in the extended corona (Fig. 3c) are in general agreement with structures that we observed with the SUVI–LASCO combination (Fig. 1a). Moreover, radial velocity sliced at 3 R over the large-scale HCS crossing and the pseudostreamer arcs in the MHD model also quantitatively agree with the observed speeds of wind streams emerging from those topological features (Supplementary Figs. 4 and 6 and Supplementary Information). Thus, the observationally driven MHD model provides credence to our interpretation of the existence of the complex coronal web whose dynamics correlate to the release of wind streams.

The long lifetime of the system allowed us to probe the region from a different viewpoint using the Sun-orbiting STEREO-A, which was roughly in quadrature with respect to the Sun–Earth line during the SUVI campaign (Methods and Extended Data Fig. 6). By combining data from Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory-Ahead’s (STEREO-A) extreme ultraviolet imager (EUVI)34, outer visible-light coronagraph (COR-2) and the inner visible-light heliospheric imager (HI-1)35, we found imprints of the complex coronal web over the CH–AR system extending into the heliosphere. Figure 4a and the associated Supplementary Video 9 demonstrate the close resemblance between highly structured slow solar wind streams escaping into the heliosphere and the S-web-driven wind streams that we observed with the SUVI and LASCO combination. Due to the lack of an extended field of view, the EUVI did not directly image the coronal web that we observed with SUVI, demonstrating that the SUVI extended field-of-view observations provide a crucial missing link between middle-coronal S-web dynamics and the highly structured slow solar wind observations.

Dec 31, 2022

Surprising Findings — Ancient Disease Has the Potential To Regenerate a Vital Organ

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension

Leprosy is a chronic infectious disease caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium leprae. It affects the skin, nerves, and mucous membranes, and can lead to severe disfigurement and disability if left untreated.

Leprosy, a chronic infectious disease caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium leprae, is one of the oldest and most persistent diseases in the world. However, new surprising research suggests that the bacteria that cause leprosy may also have the ability to stimulate the growth and regeneration of the liver in adult animals without causing damage or scarring. Scientists have discovered that parasites associated with leprosy can reprogram cells to increase the size of the liver.

The findings suggest the potential to use this natural process to rejuvenate aging livers and extend the period of disease-free living in humans, known as healthspan. It may also be possible to use this process to regenerate damaged livers, potentially reducing the need for liver transplantation, which is currently the only effective treatment for individuals with severely scarred livers.

Dec 31, 2022

2022 Highlights in Science And Technology

Posted by in categories: quantum physics, robotics/AI, science

This year has seen remarkable developments in artificial intelligence, an inflection point for quantum computing, progress in aging research, a number of exciting discoveries in astronomy, a potentially revolutionary new material, and many more breakthroughs.

These were our top 20 most viewed blogs of 2022, in reverse order. See you in 2023!

Dec 31, 2022

Why The Creative Economy Shouldn’t Fear Generative A.I.

Posted by in categories: economics, existential risks, robotics/AI

Artificial intelligence is all over the news. When ChatGPT, OpenAI’s new chatbot, was released last month it seemed, finally, to match the hype that generative A.I. has been promising for years—an easy-to-use machine intelligence for the general public.

Wild predictions soon followed: The death of search engines, the end of homework, the hollowing-out of creative professions.


For the creative professions, the rise of generative A.I. feels like an existential threat. But a familiar technology, invented 184 years ago, can show us how to adapt and thrive in a new reality.

Continue reading “Why The Creative Economy Shouldn’t Fear Generative A.I.” »

Dec 31, 2022

2022: The Year Of AI Hopes And Horrors

Posted by in categories: innovation, robotics/AI

2022 has been an interesting year with incredible developments, both positive and negative in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Many international leaders have consistently expressed concerns on the hopes or horrors that AI can unleash if humans are not careful in applying ethical AI practices, and also fundamentally thinking harder about the use cases and the societal impacts that AI could have on human civilization.

According to a Gartner study, the revenue from AI in 2022 will reach $62 billion. This is an increase of roughly a 21.3% increase from 2021. Despite the dynamics of the market, AI is continuing to evolve, grow and many outstanding AI innovations are advancing the betterment of human kind — giving us much hope.

Dec 31, 2022

Google Graveyard: These Google Apps And Services Will Disappear In 2023

Posted by in category: futurism

Google will kill off products when they realize they will not have a dominant market position, even if the product has a healthy user base and is profitable, former company insiders have told me.

It doesn’t make sense for Google to invest in smaller projects that have exceeded their growth potential, especially if they are niche and losing money.

So many projects are killed by Google that an independent entity has created a website called Killed by Google.

Dec 31, 2022

There Would Be No Fireworks Without Rocks And Minerals

Posted by in category: particle physics

An aerial fireworks burst is produced by launching a fireworks shell high into the air, where an explosion occurs. This explosion propels brightly burning particles (known as “stars”) in many directions. Each streak of light in the firework is a burning “star” flying through the air.

Coal and saltpeter (potassium-nitrate) are used to create gunpowder, the fuel that allows the stars in the firework to burn. Nitratine, a highly reactive mineral, is the natural form of sodium-nitrate and serves as an oxidizer for fireworks, supporting the fuel’s combustion.

The vibrant colors in a firework don’t come directly from the burning fuel, but metallic minerals that are deliberately added in very small amounts to the mix. As the fuel burns, the metal atoms in the crystal structure absorb energy, emitting a specific wavelength of light that we perceive as a distinct color.

Dec 31, 2022

What Happens To 3D-Printed Materials When They Get Older?

Posted by in categories: 3D printing, chemistry, life extension

3D printers to create rapid on-demand objects have only been around for a short time. It’s a popular technique for making quick mock-ups or temporary solutions, but 3D-printing can also be used for more long-term applications. For example, some museums used it to create tactile models for interactive displays or even to create structural parts to support restoration projects. Either way, these are not temporary whimsical creations, but structures that they would likely still want to be in perfect shape several years down the line.

There are also other reasons to want to preserve 3D-printed materials for more than just a few years, but we haven’t had the technology for long enough to really know what will happen to these objects over time.

To find out, art conservation researchers at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid in Spain subjected two types of 3D printing materials to an artificial accelerated aging process. When plastics age, any damage such as loss of color or chemical changes in the materials are often caused either by UV radiation from exposure to light or by extreme temperature fluctuations. To simulate these extreme environments in a much faster scale than natural aging, the researchers put the 3D printed samples and the original filaments in two different chambers: One exposing the samples to UV light and the other subjecting them to a range of high temperatures.