Menu

Blog

Page 7829

Jan 23, 2020

U.S. Agency for International Development

Posted by in category: sustainability

In September 2015, as the Millennium Development Goals expired and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (link is external) was being adopted, USAID put forward an ambitious Vision for Ending Extreme Poverty.

Jan 23, 2020

Spot the Robot Dog Trots Into the Big, Bad World

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

Boston Dynamics’ creation is starting to sniff out its role in the workforce: as a helpful canine that still sometimes needs you to hold its paw.

Jan 23, 2020

Switzerland’s drone delivery program to resume after crashes

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, drones

Swiss Post and Matternet will once again resume using drones to deliver lab samples between hospital facilities and labs after being suspending in August 2019 after two crashes. Flights will resume on January 27th.

Jan 23, 2020

Artificial intelligence reveals how light flows around nanoparticles

Posted by in categories: nanotechnology, robotics/AI

New technique could be used to design a wide range of optical devices.

Jan 23, 2020

There is no dark matter. Instead, information has mass, physicist says

Posted by in category: cosmology

Is information the fifth form of matter?

Jan 23, 2020

Largest Brain Wiring Diagram to Date Is Published

Posted by in category: neuroscience

The partial fruit fly “connectome” contains approximately 25,000 neurons and 20 million synapses.

Jan 23, 2020

Trinitite: Trinitite

Posted by in categories: materials, military

, also known as atomsite or Alamogordo glass,[2] is the glassy residue left on the desert floor after the plutonium-based Trinity nuclear bomb test on July 16, 1945, near Alamogordo, New Mexico. The glass is primarily composed of arkosic sand composed of quartz grains and feldspar (both microcline and smaller amount of plagioclase with small amount of calcite, hornblende and augite in a matrix of sandy clay)[3] that was melted by the atomic blast. It is usually a light green, although color can vary. It is mildly radioactive but safe to handle.[4][5][6]

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, samples were gathered and sold to mineral collectors as a novelty. Traces of the material may still be found at the Trinity Site as of 2019, although most of it was bulldozed and buried by the United States Atomic Energy Commission in 1953.[7] It is now illegal to take the remaining material from the site; however, material that was taken prior to this prohibition is still in the hands of collectors.

Jan 23, 2020

Gravitational wave echoes may confirm Stephen Hawking’s hypothesis of quantum black holes

Posted by in categories: cosmology, quantum physics

Echoes in gravitational wave signals suggest that the event horizon of a black hole may be more complicated than scientists currently think.

Research from the University of Waterloo reports the first tentative detection of these echoes, caused by a microscopic quantum “fuzz” that surrounds newly formed .

Gravitational waves are ripples in the fabric of space-time, caused by the collision of massive, compact objects in space, such as black holes or .

Jan 23, 2020

Bill Gates: We can end poverty by 2030

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

On Wednesday, he published an essay on the worldwide effort to end poverty by 2030, and he says that he’s very much a believer that it can be done.

“There is good reason for optimism about progress on reducing inequity,” he writes. He published the essay from Davos, Switzerland, where the World Economic Forum is taking place this week.

Gates points out that since the turn of the century, “Maternal deaths have almost halved; child mortality and malaria deaths have halved; extreme poverty has more than halved.” Plus, thanks to the Global Fund, a project supported by the Gates Foundation, 17 million lives have been saved from malaria, AIDS, and tuberculosis.

Jan 23, 2020

Robot maker Boston Dynamics replaces CEO to prepare for “new stage of growth”

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

The founder of robot maker Boston Dynamics, Marc Raibert, is moving from CEO to chairman as the company prepares for a “new stage of growth.” The firm, well-known for its robotic creations, has been researching and developing its technology for decades, and it started leasing its first commercial robot, Spot, in 2019.