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In the U.S. alone, CO2 emissions from cremations surpassed 360,000 metric tonnes in 2020.

A French woman has started a strange but environmentally friendly funeral service dubbed ‘Corbicyclette,’ which is French for a bicycle hearse.

An unusual “cargo bike” could shake up the funeral industry in France, Euronews reported on Wednesday.

The fundamental laws of friction remain a mystery to this day.

Researchers at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering have discovered a fundamental friction law that is leading to the design of two-dimensional materials capable of minimizing energy loss, according to a press release from the institution published on Thursday.

Friction lies behind the invention and development of many of today’s most advanced technologies, however, its fundamental laws remain obscure to this day despite many developments in the field.


NYU Tandon School of Engineering professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Elisa Riedo and postdoctoral researcher Martin Rejhon have found evidence of a new law of friction.

Nobody has known what exists in this region of space known as the “Zone of Avoidance.” Now astronomers edge one step closer.

Astronomers have found a giant “extragalactic structure” concealed behind the Milky Way, according to a new study published in Arxiv.

The study explained that the zone of avoidance (ZOA) does not allow clear optical observations of extragalactic sources behind the Milky Way.


Genty/Pixabay.

The discovery of the structure, which appears to be a colossal galaxy cluster, contributes to filling in this mysterious region of our cosmic map, known as the “zone of avoidance.” Nobody has known what exists in this region which obscures 10 to 20 percent of the sky-until now.

The investment giant was inspired by Tesla’s Optimus to conduct the report.

A new Goldman Sachs report is revealing that humanoid robots could be a $154 billion-a-year business within the next 15 years, according to a report.

This is as much as the EV market, an impressive achievement to reach in so little time if you consider how long robots have been around. In the past, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said that the robot industry may eventually be worth more than Tesla’s automobile income.

The investment giant was also inspired by Tesla’s new unveiling of its own robot to conduct the report.


The report, inspired by Tesla’s introduction of its Optimus robot, reveals a bright future for robotics. The machines could be used to replace humans in monotonous or hazardous tasks.

Beyond passenger cars and pickups: 5 questions answered about electrifying trucks.

As part of its effort to reduce air pollution and cut greenhouse gas emissions contributing to climate change, California is pursuing aggressive policies to promote clean trucks. The state already requires that by 2035, all new cars and other light-duty vehicles sold in the state must be zero emission. Its powerful Air Resources Board has adopted rules requiring that most trucks be zero emission by 2035 and is now proposing that all trucks sold by 2040 must be zero emission. The Conversation asked a panel of transportation experts from the University of California, Davis, what’s involved in such a rapid transition.


XH4D/iStock.

Pollutants in diesel exhaust include nitrogen oxides, fine particulates, and numerous cancer-causing compounds. Since many disadvantaged communities are located near highways and industrial centers, their residents are especially affected by diesel truck pollution. Two regions in California – the Central Valley and Los Angeles-Long Beach – have some of the dirtiest air in the U.S., so the state has placed particular emphasis on cutting diesel use.

What is driving the mulitverse theory? Are the multiverse stories only a sticky-plaster solution to the Big Bang theory problem? Leading thinkers Sabine Hossenfelder, Roger Penrose and Michio Kaku debate.

00:00 Introduction.
02:22 Michio Kaku | Multiverse theory has now dominating cosmology; it is unavoidable.
06:03 Sabine Hossenfelder | Believing in the multiverse is the logical equivalent to believing in God.
07:57 Roger Penrose | Universes are sequential and so are not independent worlds.
16:36 Theme 1 | Do scientifc theories need to be testable?
28:45 Theme 2 | Are tales of the multiverse solutions to the Big Bang theory in trouble?
42:49 Theme 3 | Will theories of the universe always be bound by untestable elements?

Multiverses are everywhere. Or at least the theory is. Everyone from physicists Stephen Hawking and Brian Greene to Marvel superheroes have shown their support for the idea. But critics argue that not only is the multiverse improbable, it is also fantasy and fundamentally unscientific as the theory can never be tested — a requirement that has defined science from its outset.

Should we reject the grand claims and leave multiverse theories to the pages of comic books? Are tales of the multiverse really sticking-plaster solutions for Big Bang theory in trouble? Or should we take multiverse theory as seriously as its proponents, and accept that modern science has moved beyond the bounds of experiment and into that of imagination?

#TheMultiverseFantasy #BigBangTheoryProblem #SpaceTimeContinuum.

Michio Kaku is the co-founder of string field theory and the author of several books including several New York Times best sellers such as ‘The God Equation: The Quest for a Theory of Everything became.’ He is also professor of theoretical physics in the City College of New York and CUNY Graduate Center.

After six decades of examining signals from space, why have we yet to discover evidence of extra-terrestrial life?
Keith’s book “The Contact Paradox: Challenging our Assumptions in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence” is available now — https://geni.us/JFpy.

For the past six decades a small cadre of researchers have been on a quest, as part of SETI, to search for extraterrestrial intelligence. So far, SETI has found no evidence of extraterrestrial life, but with more than a hundred billion stars in our Galaxy alone to search, the odds of quick success are stacked against us.

Keith Cooper explores how far SETI has come since its modest beginnings, where it’s going and the assumptions that we make in our search for extraterrestrial life.

Watch the Q&A: https://youtu.be/_qEjTXrQ7vs.

Keith Cooper is a freelance science journalist and editor. Since 2006 Keith has been the Editor of Astronomy Now, and he is also the Editor of Astrobiology Magazine. In addition he has written on numerous space-and physics-related topics, from exploding stars to quantum computers, for Centauri Dreams, New Scientist, Physics World, physicsworld.com and Sky and Telescope. He holds a BSc in Physics with Astrophysics from the University of Manchester.

This talk was filmed in the Ri on 22 November 2019.

I live in Manitoba, a province of Canada where all but a tiny fraction of electricity is generated from the potential energy of water. Unlike in British Columbia and Quebec, where generation relies on huge dams, our dams on the Nelson River are low, with hydraulic heads of no more than 30 meters, which creates only small reservoirs. Of course, the potential is the product of mass, the gravitational constant, and height, but the dams’ modest height is readily compensated for by a large mass, as the mighty river flowing out of Lake Winnipeg continues its course to Hudson Bay.

You would think this is about as “green” as it can get, but in 2022 that would be a mistake. There is no end of gushing about China’s cheap solar panels—but when was the last time you saw a paean to hydroelectricity?

Construction of large dams began before World War II. The United States got the Grand Coulee on the Columbia River, the Hoover Dam on the Colorado, and the dams of the Tennessee Valley Authority. After the war, construction of large dams moved to the Soviet Union, Africa, South America (Brazil’s Itaipu, at its completion in 1984 the world’s largest dam, with 14 gigawatts capacity), and Asia, where it culminated in China’s unprecedented effort. China now has three of the world’s six largest hydroelectric stations: Three Gorges, 22.5 GW (the largest in the world); Xiluodu, 13.86 GW; and Wudongde, 10.2 GW. Baihetan on the Jinsha River should soon begin full-scale operation and become the world’s second-largest station (16 GW).