Researchers have developed a standalone device that converts sunlight, carbon dioxide, and water into a carbon-neutral fuel, without requiring any additional components or electricity.
The device, developed by a team from the University of Cambridge, is a significant step toward achieving artificial photosynthesis.
Photosynthesis is how plants and some microorganisms use sunlight to synthesize carbohydrates from carbon dioxide and water.
Summary: “Off-line” periods during AI training mitigated “catastrophic forgetting” in artificial neural networks, mimicking the learning benefits sleep provides in the human brain.
Source: UCSD
Depending on age, humans need 7 to 13 hours of sleep per 24 hours. During this time, a lot happens: Heart rate, breathing and metabolism ebb and flow; hormone levels adjust; the body relaxes. Not so much in the brain.
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When University of Cambridge astronomer Amy Bonsor and her colleagues studied the spectrum of light from white dwarfs — the burned-out remains of small stars — they noticed flecks of heavier elements on the stars’ surfaces where there should have been only a glowing expanse of helium and hydrogen. The astronomers realized the stars’ surfaces were littered with debris from asteroids and comets that had fallen into the stars, visible on the surface just briefly before sinking into the depths.
The chemical makeup of those planet crumbs — visible in their spectra, the specific wavelengths of light each chemical emits — suggests that the building blocks of planets are as ancient as a star system itself, rather than things that form later from the disk of material orbiting the star.
What’s New — It’s morbid but true: most stars eventually gobble up at least some of the planets and other chunks of space rock in their orbits. Solar systems can be dangerous places, especially in their early stages, with planets’ gravity bumping other planets — or smaller things, like asteroids and comets –—off their courses. Some of those objects get launched out of the solar system to start a new life as rogue planets, but others end up spiraling inward toward the immense gravity of the star at the heart of the system.
Theoretical physicist and author, Julian Barbour, talks to us about why time is an illusion and what this means for the quantum mechanics of the universe.
#time #quantum #physics #interview #iaitv.
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** Listen to our weekly podcast: https://soundcloud.com/instituteofart… Donate to the Institute of Art and Ideas: https://iai.tv/support-the-iai/donate Julian Barbour is a theoretical physicist working on on foundational issues in physics for nearly fifty years, specializing in the study of time and motion. He is emeritus visiting professor in physics at the University of Oxford. He is the author of Absolute or Relative Motion?, The End of Time, and The Janus Point. Barbour’s work on time has forcused on the illusion of time. He argues, time as such does not exist but only change. He has shown how, alongside the relativity of motion, the notion of time as change can be built into the foundations of dynamics and looked at the consequences of this implication for the quantum mechanics of the universe. For more from Julian Barbour watch: Does Infinity Exist? | Julian Barbour, Laura Mersini-Houghton, Peter Cameron https://iai.tv/video/the-infinite-puzzle Time, Space and Being | Julian Barbour, Huw Price, Michela Massimi https://iai.tv/video/time-space-and-b… The Elegant Universe | Julian Barbour, Nancy Cartwright, Steve Fuller https://iai.tv/video/the-elegant-univ… DELVE DEEPER For debates and talks: https://iai.tv For articles: https://iai.tv/articles For courses: https://iai.tv/iai-academy/courses.
** Donate to the Institute of Art and Ideas: https://iai.tv/support-the-iai/donate.
Julian Barbour is a theoretical physicist working on on foundational issues in physics for nearly fifty years, specializing in the study of time and motion. He is emeritus visiting professor in physics at the University of Oxford. He is the author of Absolute or Relative Motion?, The End of Time, and The Janus Point. Barbour’s work on time has forcused on the illusion of time. He argues, time as such does not exist but only change. He has shown how, alongside the relativity of motion, the notion of time as change can be built into the foundations of dynamics and looked at the consequences of this implication for the quantum mechanics of the universe.
Posted in futurism
Julian Barbour, visiting professor at the University of Oxford and the author of The End of Time, addresses the question, Does Time Exist? Barbour explores t…
It has been estimated that by 2030, even if all existing mines continue at their normal rate of production, there still will be barely enough metal to satisfy half of global demand.
These soft robots can do the butterfly stroke.
A team of scientists at North Carolina State University (NCSU) has developed two butterfly-shaped soft robots capable of swimming at 1.70 and 3.74 body lengths per second (BL/s). They are being referred to as the fastest swimming soft machines in the world because until now, soft robots were known to swim at a maximum speed of one body length per second.
Devrimb/iStock.
One of the authors and the associate professor at NCSU, Jie Yin told IE, “The connection has not been built until my kids went to the swimming school and learned the butterfly stroke. The butterfly stroke is a very fast swimming technique that requires an undulating body and also rotating and flapping arms.”
The California PUC granted Waymo a permit to operate 24 hours/day in San Francisco taking select members of the public for rides with no safety driver in the vehicle. Waymo says it will begin this shortly. This comes on the heels of them expanding such service in Phoenix, as reported in my article on how the death of self-driving cars has been greatly exaggerated earlier this week.
This service will be with “trusted testers” rather than members of the broad public that can ride in Chandler and Phoenix, Arizona.
Waymo gets a permit to take the public and will start running with trusted testers. They also start in LA and show off their new robotaxi. Cruise also ups its game. Zoox got into an accident but it was in manual. Aurora reminds us they do more than trucks.
The patients wake up from anaesthesia with the cancer treated.
There’s a new robotic technology that finds lung cancer early and also has the ability to treat it at the same time, according to a report by CBS Philadelphia.
The American Lung Association’s annual report revealed that lung cancer survival rates are on the rise thanks partially to this new technology. The five-year survival rate is now estimated at 25%.
One example of this success is Kathleen McGinn, who found her cancer early and treated it with the new robotic procedure. “I’m very optimistic for my future,” McGinn told CBS.
Posted in robotics/AI
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