Google Maps has boosted its Immersive View feature with a new element that lets you explore a planned route in a whole new way.
Announced on Wednesday at its annual I/O event that also introduced a bunch of cool new devices, Immersive View for routes lets you see every segment of your trip before you set off, whether you’re driving, walking, or cycling.
Posted in climatology
Comparing individual cells across corn, sorghum and millet reveals evolutionary differences among these important cereal crops, according to a new study led by New York University researchers.
The findings, published in Nature, bring researchers closer to pinpointing which genes control important agricultural traits such as drought tolerance, which will help scientists faced with a changing climate adapt crops to drier environments.
Corn, sorghum, and millet provide food for humans and animals around the world. Corn and sorghum are ancient relatives that evolved into two different species roughly 12 million years ago, and millet is a more distant relative.
Scientists have uncovered the inner workings of one of the most important and intricate “nanobots” operating within our cells by using cutting-edge microscopy for visualizing molecules almost at an atomic level.
Their new study published in Nature has unveiled the critical step that switches on the spliceosome —a piece of cellular machinery that enables cells to build complex proteins.
By uncovering in detail how the spliceosome is activated, scientists believe the discovery could pave the way to more effective designs for cancer drugs that target it.
A SpaceX rocket carrying more than four dozen Starlink satellites launched early Wednesday afternoon from the California coast.
The Falcon 9 rocket lifted off just after 1 p.m. California time from Vandenberg Space Force Base northwest of Santa Barbara. The rocket carried 51 Starlink internet satellites into low-Earth orbit.
You can watch the launch here.
An aqueous lithium-ion battery would be safer than the ones being used in EVs today. So why aren’t car companies switching to it?
In the meantime, aqueous Li-ion technology is finding niche uses where limited resilience and longevity are less of an issue such as for the military.
Aqueous Li-ion Recyclability
If the fire and explosion issues aren’t enough to give battery developers reasons to look at other improvements, recyclability to reduce pollution should be high on the list. An aqueous Li-ion battery eliminates the use of toxic materials that require invasive and destructive methods to mine and transform for manufacturing. The processes are currently so complex and expensive that recycling Li-ion batteries is largely not done by companies that use them in EVs and other devices. Only recently have specialized Li-ion recyclers emerged like Li-Cycle, a Canadian-based company that announced the building of a new European recycling hub a few days ago. Changing the technology to aqueous Li-ion would make the job of recycling companies and the reuse of the recovered materials far more attractive.
Alix Burnard, 29, said she was so sick that she couldn’t leave the house without a cup to catch her phlegm and eventually couldn’t climb stairs.
Companies including Apple and Google are embracing the new technology for recording audio versions of books: “It’s a wow moment.”
Investors have cheered news outs of Alphabet’s I/O conference, with the stock posting a two-day gain of 9% during Wednesday and Thursday’s sessions.
Posted in robotics/AI
Advancements in generative art have many human artists on edge. But should they be worried?
A leaked memo from a Google employee makes a bold claim that’s taking hold in Silicon Valley and beyond: Big Tech’s advantage in artificial intelligence is shrinking quickly.
The memo, published Thursday on the website for the tech research firm SemiAnalysis, soon became a top story on AI forums, including the popular HackerNews message board and Reddit’s /r/MachineLearning community, which has more than 2.6 million members, and sparked commentary from some of the biggest names in AI.
A Google spokesperson confirmed the memo was authentic but said it was the opinion of one senior employee, not necessarily the company as a whole.
