Lifeboat Foundation

Following the success of the inaugural competition in 2021, Amazon is officially launching the Alexa Prize TaskBot Challenge 2. Starting today, university teams across the globe can apply to compete in developing multimodal conversational agents that assist customers in completing tasks requiring multiple steps and decisions. The first-place team will take home a prize of $500,000.

The TaskBot Challenge 2, which will begin in January 2023, addresses one of the hardest problems in conversational AI — to create next-generation conversational AI experiences that delight customers by addressing their changing needs as they complete complex tasks. It builds upon the Alexa Prize’s foundation of providing universities a unique opportunity to test cutting edge machine learning models with actual customers at scale.

The same AI engine that made computers even better at games like chess and Go could also boost new drug discoveries.

A new type of superconducting qubit could solve a “crowding” problem that hinders the development of superconducting quantum computers with large numbers of qubits.

A proof-of-concept study published in the journal Scientific Reports outlines a water-activated disposable paper battery. According to the scientists, it could be used to power a broad variety of low-power, single-use disposable electronics, such as smart labels for tracking items, environmental sensors, and medical diagnostic devices, thereby minimizing their environmental impact.

The battery was developed by Gustav Nyström and colleagues, and it consists of at least one cell that is one centimeter squared and is made up of three inks that have been printed on a rectangular piece of paper. The paper strip is covered with sodium chloride salt, and one of its shorter ends has been dipped in wax.

One of the flat sides of the paper is printed with ink containing graphite flakes, which serves as the positive end of the battery (cathode). The other side is printed with ink containing zinc powder, which serves as the negative end of the battery (anode).

New light has been shed on the formation of increasingly precious rare earth elements (REEs) by researchers from Trinity College Dublin. They accomplished this by creating synthetic rocks and testing their responses to varying environmental conditions. REEs are used in many electronic devices and green energy technologies, including everything from smartphones to electric vehicles.

The findings, just published on September 19 in the journal Global Challenges, have implications for recycling REEs from electronic waste, designing materials with advanced functional properties, and even for finding new REE deposits hidden around the globe.

Dr. Juan Diego Rodriguez-Blanco, Associate Professor in Nanomineralogy at Trinity and an iCRAG (SFI Research Centre in Applied Geosciences) Funded Investigator, was the principal investigator of the work. He said:

Most of us consider nightmares pretty harmless, but apparently, they can be a bad sign. According to research at the University of Birmingham, people who experience frequent bad dreams in middle age are more likely to be diagnosed with dementia later in life.

New research suggests nightmares may become common several years or even decades before the characteristic memory and thinking problems of dementia set in. The study will be published today (September 21, 2022) in The Lancet.

Founded in 1,823 by Thomas Wakley, The Lancet is a weekly peer-reviewed general medical journal. It is one of the world’s oldest, most prestigious, and best known general medical journals. The journal publishes original research articles, review articles (“seminars” and “reviews”), editorials, book reviews, correspondence, as well as news features and case reports. The Lancet has editorial offices in London, New York, and Beijing.

It may be possible to develop superconductors that operate at room temperature with further knowledge of the relationship between spin liquids and superconductivity, which would transform our daily lives.

Superconductors offer enormous technical and economic promise for applications such as high-speed hovertrains, MRI machines, efficient power lines, quantum computing.

Performing computation using quantum-mechanical phenomena such as superposition and entanglement.

An international study team has found that a mysterious microscopic creature assumed to be the ancestor of humans actually belongs to a different family tree.

The Saccorhytus is a spikey, wrinkly sack with a huge mouth surrounded by spines and holes that were interpreted as pores for gills – a primitive feature of the deuterostome group, from which our own deep ancestors emerged.

But a thorough examination of fossils from China that date back 500 million years has shown that the holes surrounding the mouth are actually the bases of spines that split during the process of fossil preservation, finally revealing the evolutionary affinity of the microfossil Saccorhytus.

Scientists have discovered a mineral stronger than a diamond called lonsdaleite. The mineral, which has been theorized about for years, was recently found in Africa after meteorites landed in the region. It’s also believed to exist on Earth in some form, though scientists are unsure how much is available on our planet.