Lifeboat Foundation

Tracking methane in the air is hard because it rises and spreads from the source. Measurements taken on the ground and from planes vary all over the place.

Hamburg says the satellite, called MethaneSAT, is the best thing yet for quantifying and tracking the gas: “It will be able to see where it’s happening [and] how much, across the globe — not just the big sources, but all the sources collectively, and understand the scale of the problem. That’s the kind of data we don’t have anywhere in the world.”

The satellite will be about the size of a beer keg and is due for launch in three years. It’s funded with money raised from wealthy philanthropists.

Continue reading “Environmental Group Plans Methane-Tracking Satellite” »

US regulators Wednesday approved the first device that uses artificial intelligence to detect eye damage from diabetes, allowing regular doctors to diagnose the condition without interpreting any data or images.

The device, called IDx-DR, can diagnose a condition called diabetic retinopathy, the most common cause of vision loss among the more than 30 million Americans living with diabetes.

Its software uses an artificial intelligence algorithm to analyze images of the eye, taken with a retinal camera called the Topcon NW400, the FDA said.

Continue reading “US approves artificial-intelligence device for diabetic eye problems” »

We talk to Mark O’Connell about transhumanism, the evolution of the human species and his Wellcome Book Prize-shortlisted book To Be A Machine.

Jump to media player The connection will have speeds of between 10 and 100 times faster than 4G.

ESA’s Mars Express orbiter is getting a major software upgrade that will extend its service life for years to come. On Sunday, the space agency uploaded the update into the veteran deep space probe’s computers where it will remain stored in memory until a scheduled restart on April 16. If successful, it will take some of the burden off the aging gyroscopes used to keep the unmanned spacecraft’s vital high-gain radio antenna pointed at Earth.

As anyone who regularly uses digital devices can tell you, software updates are a way of life. It turns out that Mars orbiting spacecraft are no exception, with aging electronics that need new instructions to deal with worn out components after years of heavy use.

Continue reading “Mars Express spacecraft gets in-orbit upgrade” »

Marking a new era of “diagnosis by software,” the US Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday gave permission to a company called IDx to market an AI-powered diagnostic device for ophthalmology.

What it does: The software is designed to detect greater than a mild level of diabetic retinopathy, which causes vision loss and affects 30 million people in the US. It occurs when high blood sugar damages blood vessels in the retina.

How it works: The program uses an AI algorithm to analyze images of the adult eye taken with a special retinal camera. A doctor uploads the images to a cloud server, and the software then delivers a positive or negative result.

Continue reading “FDA approves AI-powered diagnostic that doesn’t need a doctor’s help” »

New observations could help us understand discrepancies in measurements of the expansion of the Universe.

SpaceX president and COO Gwynne Shotwell says the company will put humans on Mars within a decade because we need a backup planet.

I bet you didn’t realize blockchain could do all of this.