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Jun 1, 2021

A Self-Driving Truck Got a Shipment Cross-Country 10 Hours Faster Than a Human Driver

Posted by in categories: robotics/AI, transportation

Self-driving cars are taking longer to come to market than many expected. In fact, it’s looking like they may be outpaced by pilotless planes and driverless trucks. A truck isn’t much different than a car, but self-driving technology is already coming in handy on long-haul trucking routes, as a recent cross-country trip showed.

Last month TuSimple, a transportation company focused on self-driving technology for heavy-duty trucks, shipped a truckload of watermelons from Arizona to Oklahoma using the truck’s autonomous system for over 80 percent of the journey. The starting point was Nogales, at Arizon’s southern end right on the border with Mexico. A human driver took the wheel for the first 60 miles or so, from Nogales to Tucson—but from there the truck went on auto-pilot, and not just for a little while. It drove itself all the way to Dallas, 950 miles to the east (there was a human safety driver on board the whole time, but not controlling the truck).

If you look at the most direct route, it’s pretty straightforward: there’s one fork where I-10 splits off and merges with I-20, but other than that, it’s straight on through ‘til morning. Literally, in this case; the truck drove the route in 14 hours and 6 minutes, as compared to the given estimate of the average time it takes a human to drive the same route—24 hours and 6 minutes.

Jun 1, 2021

BYD Wins Major Order For 79 Electric Buses In Sweden

Posted by in category: sustainability

BYD has received this month a new, major order for a total of 79 electric buses from Bergkvarabuss in Sweden.

Jun 1, 2021

Audi shows us its concept for luxurious charging lounges of the future

Posted by in category: futurism

Audi has eyes on new concepts for charging station ideas, and it wants to imbue the usual Audi luxury experience into them.

Jun 1, 2021

Instacart Bets on Robots to Shrink Ranks of 500,000 Gig Shoppers

Posted by in categories: robotics/AI, sustainability

Instacart wants to replace army of gig shoppers with robots.


(Bloomberg) — Instacart Inc. has an audacious plan to replace its army of gig shoppers with robots—part of a long-term strategy to cut costs and put its relationship with supermarket chains on a sustainable footing.

Jun 1, 2021

Europe picks EuroQCI satellite quantum communications consortium

Posted by in categories: quantum physics, space

TAMPA, Fla. — Europe has tasked an Airbus-led group to devise its own quantum communications network as startup Arqit raises $400 million for a space-based system.

Airbus said May 31 the European Commission awarded the group a contract to study a quantum technology-powered network, called EuroQCI, to secure critical infrastructure across Europe.

The 15-month agreement is worth several millions of euros, Airbus Defence and Space spokesperson Bruno Daffix told SpaceNews.

Jun 1, 2021

‘Gene therapy is a game changer for our son’

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

A five-month-old becomes the first person in England to get a drug with a list price of £1.79m.

Jun 1, 2021

Register for free to the 2021 Space Renaissance Congress!

Posted by in categories: government, space

https://2021.spacerenaissance.space/index.php/registration/

Jun 1, 2021

Google helps map one cubic millimeter of human brain tissue

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

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This sample tissue was anonymously donated from patients that have undergone surgery to treat epilepsy at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston (MGH). It was then given to researchers at Harvard’s Lichtman laboratory.

The Harvard researchers cut the tissue into ~5300 individual 30 nanometer sections using an automated tape collecting ultra-microtome, mounted those sections onto silicon wafers, and then imaged the brain tissue at 4 nm resolution in a customized 61-beam parallelized scanning electron microscope for rapid image acquisition.

Continue reading “Google helps map one cubic millimeter of human brain tissue” »

Jun 1, 2021

New universal law of human mobility

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, mapping, mobile phones

Mapping how humans move will help in future pandemics.


How people move around cities follows a predictable and universal pattern, scientist say, which will be crucial not only for urban planning but also controlling pandemics.

By analysing mobile-phone tracking data from across four continents, the team confirmed that people visit places more often when they don’t have to travel far to get there.

Continue reading “New universal law of human mobility” »

Jun 1, 2021

25 Years of Quantum Error Correction

Posted by in category: quantum physics

The first quantum error-correcting code was devised by Peter Shor 25 years ago. Ever since there have been numerous advances on both the theoretical and experimental fronts, and quantum error correction turned out to have unexpected applications.