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Nov 26, 2020

Trillion-transistor chip breaks speed record

Posted by in categories: physics, robotics/AI, supercomputing

The biggest computer chip in the world is so fast and powerful it can predict future actions “faster than the laws of physics produce the same result.”

That’s according to a post by Cerebras Systems, a that made the claim at the online SC20 supercomputing conference this week.

Working with the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory, Cerebras designed what it calls “the world’s most powerful AI compute system.” It created a massive chip 8.5 inch-square chip, the Cerebras CS-1, housed in a refrigerator-sized computer in an effort to improve on deep-learning training models.

Nov 26, 2020

Redefining fintech: China’s fintech industry in wake of Ant Group IPO suspension

Posted by in category: finance

A five-part series on China’s ongoing debate about how technology ought to fit alongside financial services in fintech, and how regulators can ringfence systemic risks around the growth industry in the event of disruptions or defaults.

Nov 26, 2020

Physicists Pin Down the Nuclear Reaction Just After the Big Bang

Posted by in categories: cosmology, physics

The newly measured rate of a key nuclear fusion process that forged the first atomic nuclei matches the picture of the universe 380,000 years later.

Nov 26, 2020

Glow-in-the-dark wombats take scientists by surprise in accidental discovery

Posted by in category: futurism

Glow in the dark wombats.

Scientists find out wombats also glow or have biofluorescence (when under UV light). Not long ago they found out that the platypus also glow.


Australian scientists are surprised to learn that many animals glow under UV light, though more research is required to discover why.

Continue reading “Glow-in-the-dark wombats take scientists by surprise in accidental discovery” »

Nov 26, 2020

These 7 countries and companies are going to Mars in the 2020s

Posted by in categories: robotics/AI, space travel

Here’s what the world’s space agencies hope to learn about the Red planet.

Nov 26, 2020

AI trained on the bible spits out bleak religious prophecies

Posted by in categories: existential risks, information science, robotics/AI

Code Unto Caesar

Durendal’s algorithm wrote scripture about three topics: “the plague,” “Caesar,” and “the end of days.” So it’s not surprising that things took a grim turn. The full text is full of glitches characteristic of AI-written texts, like excerpts where over half of the nouns are “Lord.” But some passages are more coherent and read like bizarre doomsday prophecies.

For example, from the plague section: “O LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; When they saw the angel of the Lord above all the brethren which were in the wilderness, and the soldiers of the prophets shall be ashamed of men.”

Nov 26, 2020

Telesat to Merge With Loral Space to Form Public Company

Posted by in categories: finance, space

Telesat Canada is combining with major shareholder Loral Space & Communications to form one public company to finance its Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) constellation.

Telesat Canada and its co-owners Loral Space and Canada’s Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP Investments) revealed Tuesday that Telesat Canada and Loral will become subsidiaries of Telesat Corporation, a new publicly traded Canadian incorporated and controlled company. The company will be headquartered in Ottawa and led by Telesat CEO Dan Goldberg.

“Following the closing of the transaction, Telesat will have access to the public equity markets, providing increased flexibility and optionality to support our promising investment opportunities, including Telesat LEO, which will bridge the digital divide both at home in Canada and around the world, and give our customers the competitive advantage they need to be successful,” Goldberg commented in the news release.

Nov 26, 2020

PlanetSolar completes first solar-powered boat trip around the globe

Posted by in category: sustainability

Circa 2012

Nov 26, 2020

The last covid-free places on earth have something in common: Travel shutdowns

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, health

Now those islands are some of the only remaining corners of the globe where the coronavirus doesn’t exist, thanks to their total suspension of inbound tourism and other nonessential travel.

These 8 countries are accepting American travelers for remote-work trips

The islands of Samoa, which include the U.S. territory of American Samoa, closed to nonessential travel in March and have not recorded any confirmed coronavirus cases. To enter, U.S. citizens must hold permanent residency and request permission from the Samoan Health Ministry to travel on a commercial flight to Samoa through Auckland, New Zealand, before quarantining for 14 days.

Nov 26, 2020

X-Ray Scans of Ancient Egyptian Mummy Reveal a Surprising Discovery

Posted by in category: futurism

An Egyptian mummy that was decorated with a woman’s portrait contained a surprise – the body of a child who was only 5 years old when she died.

Now, scientists have learned more about the mysterious girl and her burial, thanks to high-resolution scans and X-ray “microbeams” that targeted very small regions in the intact artifact.

Computed X-ray tomography (CT) scans of the mummy’s teeth and femur confirmed the girl’s age, though they showed no signs of trauma in her bones that could suggest the cause of her death.