176809543
submission
Baron_Yam writes:
No more burning fossil fuels, playing with fissile material, damming rivers, erecting wind mills, or making solar panels. All of our energy needs could potentially be supplied by the angular kinetic energy of the Earth — and because of the mass of the planet, doing so would slow its rotation down by a mere 7ms per century.
Normally this would be considered impossible as the Earth's large and uniform field does not induce a current in conductors, but researchers believe that a hollow cylinder of manganese, zinc and iron can alter the interaction with our planetary magnetic field and allow the extraction of energy from it. So far, the results are positive but still below the level where they cannot be explained by multiple possible causes of experimental error. Further research is required to confirm the effect.
176037183
submission
Baron_Yam writes:
It turns out that a series of damaging moves driving away users and harming the brand was, in fact, bad for Twitter's profitability.
175882469
submission
Baron_Yam writes:
Musk's X has suspended a Canadian account for posting an image countering the current political narrative that Canadians want their country to become an American state, on the pretext that it is hate speech.
175688239
submission
Baron_Yam writes:
On the assumption that aliens, like us, would have an ever-growing energy demand as they developed, and that fossil fuels and renewables wouldn't be sufficient to meet it, David C. Catling of the University of Washington has proposed looking for atmospheres that are deuterium-deficient. Lower than expected levels of deuterium would be an indicator of significant fusion power utilization.
175322739
submission
Baron_Yam writes:
Memristors are the long-sought 4th fundamental circuit element. They promise analog computing capability in hardware, the ability to hold state without power, and to work with less power. A small cluster of them can replace a transistor using less space. Working and long term storage can blend together and neural networks can be implemented in hardware — they are a game-changing innovation.
Now, researchers are getting closer to putting these into production as they can now produce graphine-based memristors at wafer-scale.
175133083
submission
Baron_Yam writes:
Conditions on early Mars were highly likely to have had CO2 carried down into the ground by water, where reactions with rock resulted in iron oxide (and Mars' rust-red surface) and released hydrogen, which in turn reacted with the water to form methane that was bound in smectite clays. It's all still there, just under the surface.
175003049
submission
Baron_Yam writes:
Canada is electing to use a domestic company to roll out a national satellite data service. (https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.telesat.com%2Fpress%2Fpress-releases%2Ftelesat-and-government-of-canada-agree-to-terms-on-c2-14-billion-loan-in-support-of-telesat-lightspeed%2F)
Musk claims he can do it for half the price tag. (https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fx.com%2Felonmusk%2Fstatus%2F1835045977008619564)... while complaining about Canada's laws that would cost him money for allowing the kind of hate speech X carries without penalty in the US. (https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.independent.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fworld%2Famericas%2Felon-musk-canada-online-harms-bill-b2541230.html)
It seems unlikely that Canada, with a history of protecting national communications against foreign influence, would hand over significant infrastructure to a foreign entity with a demonstrated history of censorship based on Musk's personal biases.
174768488
submission
Baron_Yam writes:
A team of AI researchers at Sakana AI, in Japan, working with colleagues from the University of Oxford and the University of British Columbia, has developed an AI system that can conduct scientific research autonomously, according to an article on TechXplore.com
By the description, this appears capable of meta-studies only as it lacks the ability to physically interact with the real world. The researchers claim the system is currently operating and producing publishable research papers.
174630826
submission
Baron_Yam writes:
The linked article is pretty much a press release, but it's still interesting to see the promise of exoskeletons starting to infiltrate the mass market — these rigs cost $5K, weigh only a few pounds, and go for multiple hours on a charge.
174583048
submission
Baron_Yam writes:
Despite its domestic space program faltering even before sanctions due to its invasion of Ukraine and at least one very public failure on a less ambitious project, Russia has announced it will begin construction of a Russian-only replacement for the ISS, and place it in a more difficult to access polar orbit.
Russia is motivated by military and political demands to achieve this, but whether it has the means or not seems uncertain at best.
174388963
submission
Baron_Yam writes:
It's not sequestration, but it is a closed carbon loop and can store energy from renewable sources to be released when they are not collecting energy.
173906501
submission
Baron_Yam writes:
A damning new report has shown that nearly all major car companies are actively sabotaging the world’s efforts to avoid catastrophic global warming. The lobbying strategies being used by the world’s largest automakers are putting global climate targets at risk and threatening the electric vehicle transition, according to the new report released by InfluenceMap.
Titled Automakers and Climate Policy Advocacy, the report provides analysis on the anti-EV lobbying activities of 15 of the world’s largest automakers in seven key regions around the world. The study uses industry-standard data from S&P Global Mobility on automakers’ forecast electric vehicle production.
In addition to scoring automakers on their climate policy sabotage, InfluenceMap also found the industry’s own EV production forecasts fail to meet the IEA’s (International Energy Agency) updated 1.5C scenario of 66% EV market share by 2030.
173719368
submission
Baron_Yam writes:
Players who made Steam purchases of Helldivers 2 are now, months after the fact, being told by Sony that their games will be useless unless linked to a PSN account.
173661774
submission
Baron_Yam writes:
NASA explains: "The abundance of methane and carbon dioxide, and shortage of ammonia, support the hypothesis that there may be a water ocean underneath a hydrogen-rich atmosphere in K2-18 b.
"These initial Webb observations also provided a possible detection of a molecule called dimethyl sulfide (DMS). On Earth, this is only produced by life. The bulk of the DMS in Earth’s atmosphere is emitted from phytoplankton in marine environments."
173395129
submission
Baron_Yam writes:
An international team of researchers from the University of Nottingham’s School of Chemistry, University of Birmingham, University of Queensland, and University of Ulm have designed a material, made up of copper anchored on nanocrystalline carbon nitride. The copper atoms are nested within the nanocrystalline structure, which allows electrons to move from carbon nitride to CO2, an essential step in the production of methanol from CO2 under the influence of solar irradiation. The research has been published in the Sustainable Energy & Fuels journal of the Royal Society of Chemistry.
