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Jul 31, 2017
Facebook AI Creates Its Own Language In Creepy Preview Of Our Potential Future
Posted by Sean Brazell in categories: robotics/AI, singularity
In a glimpse at what the beginning of the technological singularity might look like, researchers at Facebook shut down an artificial intelligence platform after the bots went off script and developed a unique language that humans could not understand.
Jul 31, 2017
Building Artificial Bile Ducts to Treat Childhood Liver Disease
Posted by Steve Hill in categories: biotech/medical, food
Researchers in Cambridge have created a new approach for creating and transplanting artificial bile ducts with the aim of treating liver disease in children and reducing the need for transplants.
The research, published in the journal Nature Medicine, shows how the researchers grew 3D cell structures and transplanted them into mice[1]. These structures then developed into functional bile ducts.
The bile ducts are long, tubular structures that carry bile secreted by the liver which is critical for helping us to digest our food. When these ducts do not function properly, such as in childhood diseases like biliary atresia, it can lead to a damaging buildup of bile in the liver.
Jul 31, 2017
Facebook Shut Down An Artificial Intelligence Program That Developed Its Own Language
Posted by Shailesh Prasad in category: robotics/AI
Facebook might have accidentally gotten a little closer to answering Phillip K. Dick’s 1968 question of whether androids dream of electric sheep. The social media giant just shut down an artificial intelligence program after it developed its own language and researchers were left trying to figure out what two AIs were talking about. The AIs had found a way to negotiate with one another, but the way they debated used English words reduced to a more logical structure that made more sense to the computers than to their human observers. What at first looked like an unintelligible failure to teach the AIs to talk instead was revealed as a result of the computers’ reward systems prizing efficiency over poetry.
Jul 31, 2017
How to pull water out of thin air, even in the driest parts of the globe
Posted by Shailesh Prasad in category: sustainability
Jul 31, 2017
A Real Life, All-Electric Flying Car Just Took Off
Posted by Shailesh Prasad in categories: drones, energy
https://youtube.com/watch?v=ohig71bwRUE
Your flying car might finally be on the way as the all-electric, two-seater Lilium Jet took its first test flight this week. Lilium Aviation’s prototype consumes around 90 percent less energy than drone-style aircraft and could be the transportation mode of the future.
If you’ve been begging the universe for a flying car for your entire life, you may soon be able to stop asking (sort of). This week, Germany-based company Lilium Aviation took its new all-electric, two-seater vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) prototype for its first test flight. The jet was piloted remotely during the tests, but its creators say the vehicle’s first manned flight will happen soon.
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Jul 31, 2017
Scientists Have an Experiment to See If the Human Mind Is Bound to the Physical World
Posted by Shailesh Prasad in categories: computing, neuroscience, quantum physics
Theoretical physicist Lucien Hardy is pushing wants to push the boundaries of quantum physics by performing a Bell test using humans as links. This could potentially shed light on the existence of human consciousness and just what it is made of.
Perhaps one of the most intriguing and interesting phenomena in quantum physics is what Einstein referred to as a “spooky action at a distance” — also known as quantum entanglement. This quantum effect is behind what makes quantum computers work, as quantum bits (qubits) generally rely on entanglement to process data and information. It’s also the working theory behind the possibility of quantum teleportation.
Jul 31, 2017
This Paint Allows Walls to Convert Heat into Electricity
Posted by Shailesh Prasad in categories: solar power, sustainability, transportation
Paint these days is becoming much more than it used to be. Already researchers have developed photovoltaic paint, which can be used to make “paint-on solar cells” that capture the sun’s energy and turn it into electricity. Now in a new study, researchers have created thermoelectric paint, which captures the waste heat from hot painted surfaces and converts it into electrical energy.
“I expect that the thermoelectric painting technique can be applied to waste heat recovery from large-scale heat source surfaces, such as buildings, cars, and ship vessels,” Jae Sung Son, a coauthor of the study and researcher at the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), told Phys.org.
“For example, the temperature of a building’s roof and walls increases to more than 50 °C in the summer,” he said. “If we apply thermoelectric paint on the walls, we can convert huge amounts of waste heat into electrical energy.”
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