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Nov 17, 2020

CubeSats: Tiny Platforms for Orbiting Optics

Posted by in categories: cybercrime/malcode, satellites

Small, boxy satellites are ridesharing their way into outer space—and may lead to important advances in laser communications and cybersecurity.

Nov 17, 2020

NVIDIA’s latest Ampere 80GB graphics processing unit boasts 2TB memory bandwidth

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

NVIDA has surpassed the 2 terabyte-per-second memory bandwidth mark with its new GPU, the Santa Clara graphics giant announced Monday.

The top-of-the-line A100 80GB GPU is expected to be integrated in multiple GPU configurations in systems during the first half of 2021.

Earlier this year, NVIDIA unveiled the A100 featuring Ampere architecture, asserting that the GPU provided “the largest leap in performance” ever in its lineup of graphics hardware. It said AI training on the GPU could see performance boosts of 20 times the speed of its earlier generation units.

Nov 17, 2020

World’s first cultured chicken restaurant is launched

Posted by in category: food

The world’s first restaurant experience that provides clientele the opportunity to eat meat grown directly from chicken cells has been opened in the Israeli town of Ness Ziona.

Nov 17, 2020

Army-funded algorithm decodes brain signals responsible for behaviors

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, cyborgs, information science, neuroscience

Like walking and breathing and could one day allow people to control prosthetics simply by thinking…


The US Army is funding a project that could lead to brain-machine interfaces. It includes an algorithm capable of isolating brain signals and linking them to specific behaviors such as walking and breathing.

Continue reading “Army-funded algorithm decodes brain signals responsible for behaviors” »

Nov 17, 2020

Scientists find more bright blasts of energy coming from space

Posted by in categories: energy, space

Scientists have detected two bright radio bursts from a magnetar in our galaxy, as they get closer to discovering the source of the blasts.

Earlier this month, scientists discovered that fast radio bursts were coming from the object, in a major breakthrough in the search for the source of those mysterious blasts of energy. It was the first time an FRB had been detected coming from inside our Milky Way, and also the first time such a blast had been traced back to a particular source.

Now scientists say they have found new bursts coming from that same magnetar. That should help further indicate whether it is really a source of FRBs – and whether the same process could be powering those bursts we have discovered coming from elsewhere in the universe.

Nov 17, 2020

An origami-inspired robotic fingertip with shape-morphing capabilities

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

To perform tasks that involve moving or handling objects, robots should swiftly adapt their grasp and manipulation strategies based on the properties of these objects and the environment surrounding them. Most robotic hands developed so far, however, have a fixed and limiting structure; thus, they can perform a limited number of movements and can only grasp specific types of objects.

Researchers at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology have recently developed a robotic that can change its shape and switch across three different configurations, which could allow it to grasp a broader variety of objects. This fingertip’s unique design, outlined in a paper presented at this year’s IEEE International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (CASE), is inspired by origami, the renowned Japanese art of paper folding.

Continue reading “An origami-inspired robotic fingertip with shape-morphing capabilities” »

Nov 17, 2020

The link between CAPTCHAs and artificial general intelligence

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

This article is part of our reviews of AI research papers, a series of posts that explore the latest findings in artificial intelligence.

Creating machines that have the general problem–solving capabilities of human brains has been the holy grain of artificial intelligence scientists for decades. And despite tremendous advances in various fields of computer science, artificial general intelligence still eludes researchers.

Our current AI methods either require a huge amount of data, or a very large number of hand-coded rules, and they’re only suitable for very narrow domains. AGI, on the other hand, should be able to perform multiple tasks with little data and specific instructions.

Nov 17, 2020

Tiny version of USS Voyager sheds light on physics of microswimmers

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

😳


Work could lead to tiny swimming robots for autonomous drug delivery in human body.

Nov 17, 2020

Blind man sets record climbing 450ft cliff above sheer drop into sea

Posted by in category: futurism

Circa 2019


‘I did it. I led all 6 pitches placing my own gear, feeling my way up… It was truly epic’

Nov 17, 2020

Ancient zircon minerals from Mars reveal the elusive internal structure of the red planet

Posted by in category: space

Analysis of an ancient meteorite from Mars suggests that the mineral zircon may be abundant on the surface of the red planet.

By determining the age and hafnium isotope composition of zircon, researchers from the University of Copenhagen have shown that a population of these crystals were sourced from the deep interior of Mars. If the researchers are correct, it means that the young zircons contain information about the deep, inaccessible interior of Mars, providing insights into the internal structure of the planet.

The uranium-bearing is an abundant constituent of Earth’s , providing information about the age and origin of the continents and large geological features such as mountain chains and giant volcanoes. But unlike Earth, Mars’s crust is not evolved and is compositionally similar to the crust found under the Earth’s oceans, where is rare. Therefore, zircon is not expected to be a common mineral on Mars.