The amphibians, which live only 13 miles apart, look completely alike but are genetically diverse—a surprise to scientists.
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Elon Musk’s Starlink is keeping Ukrainians online when traditional Internet fails
Elon Musk sent Starlink satellite Internet service to Ukraine. It seems to be helping.
Tesla Clears a Big Obstacle for the Model 3 and Model Y
Tesla had a rough start to the week, but the company is finally getting some good news to end it.
Elon Musk Has New Estimate for When Humans Might First Step on Mars
Red Planet real estate is looking very unlikely to hit the market any time soon.
Why the $4.1 billion launch cost of NASA’s Moon rocket could destroy it
That’s over double the original expected launch cost.
NASA’s Space Launch System is supposed to ferry astronauts to the Moon, but at an estimated $4.1 billion per launch, it may be doomed before it ever gets off the ground.
Deciphering Undersegmented Ancient Scripts Using Phonetic Prior
Abstract. Most undeciphered lost languages exhibit two characteristics that pose significant decipherment challenges: the scripts are not fully segmented into words; the closest known language is not determined. We propose a decipherment model that handles both of these challenges by building on rich linguistic constraints reflecting consistent patterns in historical sound change. We capture the natural phonological geometry by learning character embeddings based on the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). The resulting generative framework jointly models word segmentation and cognate alignment, informed by phonological constraints. We evaluate the model on both deciphered languages (Gothic, Ugaritic) and an undeciphered one (Iberian). The experiments show that incorporating phonetic geometry leads to clear and consistent gains.
Autism model mice develop typical social and motor behaviors after drug treatment
The drug suppresses an overactive signaling pathway implicated in tuberous sclerosis complex.
Maine studio 30X40 Design Workshop builds own home office
Long Studio is a barn-style architects’ studio and home office in Maine, built by and for architecture office 30X40 Design Workshop.
The aluminium-clad studio is located on the grounds of studio founder Eric Reinholdt’s home on Mount Desert Island, off the coast of New England.
30X40 Design Workshop created the simple gabled structure as both a place to work and a practical demonstration of the office’s approach to architecture.
Record efficiency of 28.7% for perovskite-silicon tandem solar cell
Q Cells has set a new world-record tandem cell efficiency of 28.7% in collaboration with researchers at Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin using a Q.antum-based silicon bottom cell in combination with a perovskite-based top cell.
These Mind-Controlled Cat Ears Move With Your Mood
As any cat owner will tell you, a cat’s ears are great indicators of its state of mind: pointed forward if they want your attention, turned backwards if they’re angry, and folded down flat when they’re afraid. Humans sometimes don cat ear headbands as a fashion statement, but sitting motionless those ears are more likely to confuse a cat than to provide any meaningful communication.
[Jazz DiMauro] aims to fill that gap by designing a cat ear headband that actually responds to your emotions. It does so by continuously taking an EEG measurement and extracting the “attention” and “meditation” variables from it. Those values are then applied to a set of servos that allow two-axis motion on each 3D printed ear. The EEG readout device is an off-the-shelf MindWave headset, which outputs its sensor data through Bluetooth. An Arduino then reads out the data and drives the servos.
Turning all this into a usable wearable device was a project on its own: [Jazz] went through several iterations to find a suitable power source and wiring strategy until they settled on a pair of lithium-polymer batteries and a single flat cable. The end result looks comfortable enough to wear, and the ears’ motion looks smooth and natural. All that’s left is to test it with real cats, to find out if they can now finally understand their human’s emotions too.