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Oct 16, 2021

Tesla shareholders vote overwhelmingly to retain Kimbal Musk, James Murdoch on Board

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, governance, sustainability, transportation

Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) shareholders voted overwhelmingly to retain Kimbal Musk, brother of CEO Elon Musk, and James Murdoch on Tesla’s Board of Directors, according to an 8-K filing with the SEC that revealed the number of votes to re-elect the two to the company’s Board for three more years.

On October 13th, Tesla filed an 8-K form with the SEC that revealed the number of votes that supported or were against the re-election of both Kimbal Musk and James Murdoch to the Tesla Board. The number of votes for other proposals was also revealed. However, prior to the company’s 2021 Shareholder Meeting on October 7th, proxy advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services, or ISS, urged Tesla investors to oust both Musk and Murdoch from the Board. Their reasoning was based on the belief that the two non-executive board members did not present any advantages to the automaker’s governance.

“Votes AGAINST directors James Murdoch and Kimbal Musk are warranted due to concerns regarding excessive compensation to named executive officers and to non-executive directors,” ISS wrote in a note to investors. The firm was adamant that Kimbal’s payout package was not necessarily logical for the company as he did not serve on any board committees. Additionally, ISS felt that Murdoch’s presence on the Tesla Board of Directors also was not justified due to his service on Audit and Governance Committees. The Audit Committee pledged a large sum of company stock to directors, which raised questions regarding its risk oversight. The Governance Committee failed to react appropriately to last year’s Shareholder proposal, which was supported by the majority of voters.

Oct 16, 2021

Lucy begins 12-year mission to Trojan asteroids

Posted by in category: space

NASA has launched the first ever spacecraft to visit Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids.

The Lucy mission successfully blasted off at 5:34 a.m. EDT (9:34 a.m. UCT) this morning on a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral, Florida. An hour later, it returned its first signal to Earth, sent from its own antenna to NASA’s Deep Space Network. Lucy is now travelling at 108,000 kph (67,000 mph) on a trajectory that will orbit the Sun and bring it back toward Earth in October 2022 for a gravity assist.

Over the next 12 years, it will fly past a total of seven different asteroids – a main belt asteroid, along with six Jupiter Trojans. The latter type are asteroids that share Jupiter’s orbit around the Sun, orbiting either ahead of or behind the gas giant.

Oct 16, 2021

How to Talk to a Science Denier — with Lee McIntyre

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, climatology, education, ethics, finance, policy, science, sustainability

Many people reject scientific expertise and prefer ideology to facts. Lee McIntyre argues that anyone can and should fight back against science deniers.
Watch the Q&A: https://youtu.be/2jTiXCLzMv4
Lee’s book “How to Talk to a Science Denier” is out now: https://geni.us/leemcintyre.

“Climate change is a hoax—and so is coronavirus.” “Vaccines are bad for you.” Many people may believe such statements, but how can scientists and informed citizens convince these ‘science deniers’ that their beliefs are mistaken?

Continue reading “How to Talk to a Science Denier — with Lee McIntyre” »

Oct 16, 2021

AI Weekly: AI model training costs on the rise, highlighting need for new solutions

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

This week, Microsoft and Nvidia announced that they trained what they claim is one of the largest and most capable AI language models to date: Megatron-Turing Natural Language Generation (MT-NLP). MT-NLP contains 530 billion parameters — the parts of the model learned from historical data — and achieves leading accuracy in a broad set of tasks, including reading comprehension and natural language inferences…

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Oct 16, 2021

The data economy: How AI helps us understand and utilize our data

Posted by in categories: economics, robotics/AI

Similar to the relationship between an engine and oil, data and artificial intelligence (AI) are symbiotic. Data fuels AI, and AI helps us to understand the data available to us. Data and AI are two of the biggest topics in technology in recent years, as both work together to shape our lives on a daily basis…

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Oct 16, 2021

This Robot Walks, Flies, Skateboards, Slacklines

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

This is a #robot that walks, flies, #skateboards, #slacklines, and might do much more one day. A portion of this video was sponsored by Bluehost. Start building a website with Bluehost today. Use my link to receive more than 65% off: https://bluehost.com/track/veritasium #Bluehost #BHcreator.

Thanks to Prof. Soon-Jo Chung and everyone at the Aerospace Robotics and Control Lab at Caltech for the tour!
https://aerospacerobotics.caltech.edu/

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Oct 16, 2021

AI Can Detect Signals for Mental Health Assessment

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, health, neuroscience, robotics/AI

AI can detect signals that are informative about mental health from questionnaires and brain scans.

A study published today by an interdisciplinary collaboration, directed by Denis Engemann from Inria, demonstrates that machine learning from large population cohorts can yield “proxy measures” for brain-related health issues without the need for a specialist’s assessment. The researchers took advantage of the UK Biobank, one of the world’s largest and most comprehensive biomedical databases, that contains detailed and secure health-related data on the UK population. This work is published in the open access journal GigaScience.

Mental health issues have been increasing worldwide, with the WHO determining that there has been a 13% increase in mental health conditions and substance abuse disorders between 2007 and 2017. The burden these diseases place on society is extensive, negatively impacting nearly every area of life: school, work, family, friends, and community engagement. Among the many issues impeding the ability of society to address these disorders is that diagnoses of such health issues requires specialists; the availability of which ranges drastically across the globe. The development of machine learning methodology for the purposes of facilitating mental-health assessments could provide a much needed additional means to help detect, prevent and treat such health issues.

Oct 16, 2021

Genetics and Skeletal Biology Debunks Popular Theory of Native American Origins

Posted by in categories: biological, genetics

Latest scientific findings suggest the ancestral Native American population does not originate in Japan, as believed by many archaeologists.

A widely accepted theory of Native American origins coming from Japan has been attacked in a new scientific study, which shows that the genetics and skeletal biology “simply does not match-up.”

The findings, published on October 12 2021, in the peer-reviewed journal PaleoAmerica, are likely to have a major impact on how we understand Indigenous Americans’ arrival to the Western Hemisphere.

Oct 16, 2021

Large fleet of Chinese fishing vessels encroaches on South American waters at Galapagos Islands

Posted by in category: futurism

Last year Chinese fishing vessels sailed to the edge of the Galapagos Islands’ territorial waters. This summer, the Associated Press and Spanish language broadcaster Univision documented the scale of Chinese fishing off the coast of South America.

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Oct 16, 2021

Solar panels on half the world’s roofs could meet its entire electricity demand — new research

Posted by in categories: business, government, solar power, sustainability

I think we should approach from two angles: 1. encourage and fund through government to have everyone who can to put solar on their home/building/whatever. 2. Also have the massive sites dedicated to solar and wind harvesting. Seems we could be totally solar by mid 2030s.


Rooftop solar panels are up to 79% cheaper than they were in 2010. These plummeting costs have made rooftop solar photovoltaics even more attractive to households and businesses who want to reduce their reliance on electricity grids while reducing their carbon footprints.

But are there enough rooftop surfaces for this technology to generate affordable, low-carbon energy for everyone who needs it? After all, it’s not just people who own their own houses and want to cut their bills who are in need of solutions like this. Around 800 million people globally go without proper access to electricity.

Continue reading “Solar panels on half the world’s roofs could meet its entire electricity demand — new research” »