Shipping is one of the hardest sectors to decarbonize. Here’s what needs to happen to bring it in line with climate targets.
Move follows local government’s decision to halt investments, leaving massive costs.
The Queensland project was set to produce 70,000 tonnes of green hydrogen per year by around 2028. (Image obtained by Nikkei)
An AI-powered robot that can prepare cups of coffee in a busy kitchen could usher in the next generation of intelligent machines, a study suggests.
The research, published in the journal Nature Machine Intelligence, was led by Ruaridh Mon-Williams, a Ph.D. student jointly at the University of Edinburgh, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Princeton University.
Using a combination of cutting-edge AI, sensitive sensors and fine-tuned motor skills, the robot can interact with its surroundings in more human-like ways than ever before, researchers say.
Just announced at [#GTC25](https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/gtc25?__eep__=6&__cft__[0]=AZXGE68SvdjQyRxtqhq57u6xDScMuziTjPrrOj7ic9_n1QMWssMuQdAZ4MLZmg3kpo3u92u-w_Z12HEaFeSJnvxJ_h_dNAloE8I86x4WxG8730kGwR10dtKo0yYVmS4GQdeMF0xu2E5mpp8VTUcHoNIO&__tn__=*NK-R): NVIDIA will be open-sourcing cuOpt, an AI-powered decision optimization engine.
[ https://nvda.ws/43REYuW](https://nvda.ws/43REYuW open-sourcing this powerful solver, developers can harness real-time optimization at an unprecedented scale for free.
The best-known AI applications are all about predictions — whether forecasting weather or generating the next word in a sentence. But prediction is only half the challenge. The real power comes from acting on information in real time.
That’s where cuOpt comes in.
CuOpt dynamically evaluates billions of variables — inventory levels, factory output, shipping delays, fuel costs, risk factors and regulations — and delivers the best move in near real time.
Unlike traditional optimization methods that navigate solution spaces sequentially or with limited parallelism, cuOpt taps into GPU acceleration to evaluate millions of possibilities simultaneously — finding optimal solutions exponentially faster for specific instances.
It doesn’t replace existing techniques — it enhances them. By working alongside traditional solvers, cuOpt rapidly identifies high-quality solutions, helping CPU-based models discard bad paths faster.
Researchers have unveiled the first real look at a mitochondrial protein strongly linked to Parkinson’s disease, revealing key details in how its malfunction might play a critical role in the disease’s progress.
Scientists have known for more than two decades that mutations in the gene for a protein called PTEN-induced putative kinase 1 (PINK1) can trigger early-onset Parkinson’s, but the mechanisms at play have remained a mystery.
A team of scientists from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research (WEHI) in Australia used advanced imaging technology to not only determine the structure of PINK1, but to show how the protein attaches to cellular power houses and how they are activated.
Have you ever heard of—or even seen—red lightning? These are not animated characters but real atmospheric phenomena known as electrical discharges that occur high above thunderstorms. Scientists refer to them as “red sprites,” named for their jellyfish-like appearance and vivid red flashes. Now, imagine witnessing these mesmerizing displays over the world’s highest mountain range—the Himalayas.
On the night of May 19, 2022, two Chinese astrophotographers, Angel An and Shuchang Dong, captured a spectacular display of over one hundred red sprites over the Himalayas. The observation site, located on the southern Tibetan Plateau near Pumoyongcuo Lake—one of the region’s three sacred lakes—revealed a breathtaking celestial event.
Among the phenomena captured were dancing sprites, rare secondary jets, and the first-ever recorded case in Asia of green airglow at the base of the nighttime ionosphere, dubbed “ghost sprites.” This extraordinary event attracted global attention and was widely covered by major media outlets.
When light interacts with metallic nanostructures, it instantaneously generates plasmonic hot carriers, which serve as key intermediates for converting optical energy into high-value energy sources such as electricity and chemical energy. Among these, hot holes play a crucial role in enhancing photoelectrochemical reactions. However, they thermally dissipate within picoseconds (trillionths of a second), making practical applications challenging.
Now, a Korean research team has successfully developed a method for sustaining hot holes longer and amplifying their flow, accelerating the commercialization of next-generation, high-efficiency, light-to-energy conversion technologies.
The research team, led by Distinguished Professor Jeong Young Park from the Department of Chemistry at KAIST, in collaboration with Professor Moonsang Lee from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Inha University, has successfully amplified the flow of hot holes and mapped local current distribution in real time, thereby elucidating the mechanism of photocurrent enhancement. The work is published in Science Advances.
Prototyping large structures with integrated electronics, like a chair that can monitor someone’s sitting posture, is typically a laborious and wasteful process.
One might need to fabricate multiple versions of the chair structure via 3D printing and laser cutting, generating a great deal of waste, before assembling the frame, grafting sensors and other fragile electronics onto it, and then wiring it up to create a working device.
If the prototype fails, the maker will likely have no choice but to discard it and go back to the drawing board.
What if everything we thought we knew about cancer was wrong?
For decades, scientists have debated what really causes cancer. Is it genetic mutations, as the Somatic Mutation Theory suggests? Is it a metabolic dysfunction, as the Metabolic Theory argues? Or is there a deeper, overlooked truth—one that could redefine cancer treatment as we know it?
In this episode, Dr. Ralph Moss and Ben Moss break down the battle between competing cancer theories, why conventional wisdom is being challenged, and what the latest research is uncovering about cancer stem cells, metabolism, and the Warburg Effect.
Are we on the verge of a breakthrough—or have we been on the wrong path all along?
Subscribe for more in-depth discussions on cancer research and integrative medicine.
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D-Wave Quantum Inc. announced a scientific advance confirming its annealing quantum computer outperformed a powerful classical supercomputer in simulating complex magnetic materials. This achievement is documented in a peer-reviewed paper titled “Beyond-Classical Computation in Quantum Simulation,” published in Science.
The research indicates that D-Wave’s quantum computer completed simulations that would take nearly a million years and exceed the world’s annual electricity consumption if attempted with classical technology. The D-Wave Advantage2 prototype was central to this success.
An international team collaborated to simulate quantum dynamics in programmable spin glasses using both D-Wave’s system and the Frontier supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, showcasing the quantum computer’s capability for swift and accurate simulation of various lattice structures and materials properties.