2019 – Page 70 – Impact Lab

AI, Artificial Intelligence, Healthcare, Science & Technology News

AI can predict when someone will die with unsettling accuracy

April 3, 2019

Do AI systems have a role to play in healthcare?Yuichiro Chino / Getty Images

This isn’t the first time experts have harnessed AI’s predictive power for healthcare.

Medical researchers have unlocked an unsettling ability in artificial intelligence (AI): predicting a person’s early death.

Scientists recently trained an AI system to evaluate a decade of general health data submitted by more than half a million people in the United Kingdom. Then, they tasked the AI with predicting if individuals were at risk of dying prematurely — in other words, sooner than the average life expectancy — from chronic disease, they reported in a new study.

The predictions of early death that were made by AI algorithms were “significantly more accurate” than predictions delivered by a model that did not use machine learning, lead study author Dr. Stephen Weng, an assistant professor of epidemiology and data science at the University of Nottingham (UN) in the U.K., said in a statement. [Can Machines Be Creative? Meet 9 AI ‘Artists’]

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Employment, NASA, Science & Technology News, Space Flight

NASA will pay you $19,000 to stay in bed — and be spun in a centrifuge

April 5, 2019

Some study participants will be spun in a short-arm human centrifuge that generates artificial gravity.

Like to lounge in bed? We might have your dream job.

NASA wants Earth-bound volunteers to test how artificial gravity might help keep astronauts healthy in space.

NASA and the European Space Agency will pay you $19,000 to lie in bed for two months. Two months! That’s a lot of Netflix.

The prolonged bed rest is part of a study that launched this week into the effects of weightlessness on the human body. Phase 2 will be conducted by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) from September through December in Cologne, Germany.

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Aviation, cutting edge, Drone, drones, Science & Technology News

ADIFO: The hyper-agile, omnidirectional, supersonic flying saucer

April 3, 2019

ADIFO could resurrect the idea of flying saucers, promising extreme speed, efficiency and aerial agility

At low speed, it operates like a quadcopter, at high speed, it’s a jet-propelled, highly efficient supersonic aircraft whose entire body acts as a low-drag wing. Those are the claims of the Romanian creators of this flying saucer that’s designed to offer unprecedented aerial agility across a broad range of speeds.

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Farming, Farms, Internet of Things, Latest Trend, Science & Technology News

How IoT is being used for Australian agriculture in 2019

April 3, 2019

CSIRO’s Vertebrate Pest Detect-and-Deter (VPDaD) device

The development of IoT for agriculture is still in its early stages, but it looks promising as more farmers are putting these technologies to work.

Australian agriculture has historically been defined by long droughts and irregular rainfall. For farmers, these harsh conditions leave small margins for error, meaning that gruelling work on the paddock does not necessarily translate to healthy stock or strong crop harvests.

One way that farmers have adapted to these conditions is the use of Internet of Things (IoT) devices and sensors. But in comparison to other sectors, farmers have been slow to adopt these technologies due to concerns surrounding the cost of implementation and ongoing service—particularly when there is no immediate value received for certain IoT technologies, which can sometimes take several years of accumulating data before it shows its value.

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drones, Military, military drones, Science & Technology News

Disposable delivery drones pass test with US Marines

April 3, 2019

The one-time use drones can carry more than 1,000 pounds of supplies.

The US military is testing delivery drones that can transport supplies over long distances and be thrown away after each use. Made of cheap plywood, the bigger version of the two gliders being tested can carry over 700 kilograms, or roughly 1800 pounds. As reported in IEE Spectrum, the scientists at Logistic Gliders, Inc. revealed that their gliders just successfully completed a series of tests with US Marines. If cleared for mass production, the LG-1K and its bigger counterpart, the LG-2K, could cost as little as a few hundred dollars each.

Using unmanned aircraft for delivery is an idea both the military and private sector have explored for years. Traditional aircraft guzzle fuel, cost money to purchase and maintain and require a human pilot. An unmanned aerial device doesn’t require any of these things. Companies like Amazon flirted with the idea of using drones to speed up package delivery, but couldn’t overcome logistical hurdles. While far away from being suitable for civilian use, these latest delivery gliders may be a step in the right direction.

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Energy, Green Friendly, Science & Technology News, Solar Power

‘Coal is on the way out’: study finds fossil fuel now pricier than solar or wind

April 2, 2019

Around 75% of coal production is more expensive than renewables, with industry out-competed on cost by 2025

‘We’ve seen we are at the ‘coal crossover’ point in many parts of the country.’

Around three-quarters of US coal production is now more expensive than solar and wind energy in providing electricity to American households, according to a new study.

“Even without major policy shift we will continue to see coal retire pretty rapidly,” said Mike O’Boyle, the co-author of the report for Energy Innovation, a renewables analysis firm. “Our analysis shows that we can move a lot faster to replace coal with wind and solar. The fact that so much coal could be retired right now shows we are off the pace.”

The study’s authors used public financial filings and data from the Energy Information Agency (EIA) to work out the cost of energy from coal plants compared with wind and solar options within a 35-mile radius. They found that 211 gigawatts of current US coal capacity, 74% of the coal fleet, is providing electricity that’s more expensive than wind or solar.

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Automation, China, Coworking, Robotics, Science & Technology News

How China’s ‘Cobot’ revolution could transform automation

April 3, 2019

The cooperative robot model that China is expanding could hold vital lessons for other developing economies that also rely heavily on small businesses.

There’s a “factory of the future” being built in Shanghai, with $150 million in investment from Swiss-Swedish automation giant ABB. Slated for completion in 2020, the factory is a place where “robots will make robots,” according to ABB. But the cutting-edge robotics technology the facility hopes to showcase won’t cater only to heavy industrial needs. It will also largely feature “collaborative automation solutions” — known as cobots — that work with humans instead of replacing them. The facility is evidence of an emerging Chinese automation strategy that’s beginning to reshape the world’s approach to robotics.

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Big Problems, Green Friendly, Latest Trend, Science & Technology News

Becoming stardust : The future cemetery

April 2, 2019

Imagine strolling through a cemetery at night, the wooded path softly illuminated by a canopy of glowing pods filled with human remains suspended overhead and transforming decomposition into electricity until the body is finally gone. The cycle of life complete, the light then dims to dark, the pod taken down and replaced by a bright new body shining down upon the path from its star-like grave.

While this may sound like the stuff of science fiction, in reality it’s a reimagined cemetery of the future called the Sylvan Constellation, a system where microbial fuel cells facilitate the body’s decomposition and transform it into light. More than a ghostly fantasy, this project from DeathLAB — a Columbia University–based interdisciplinary research and design initiative rethinking how we live with death in the metropolis — is a potential solution to one of the biggest problems cities are facing: We’re running out of space to store the dead, and the way we do it now is environmentally disastrous.

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Analysis, Economy, Environment, Latest Trend, Science & Technology News

Looking to the future, public sees an America in decline on many fronts

April 1, 2019

Majorities predict a weaker economy, a growing income divide, a degraded environment and a broken political system

Public is broadly pessimistic about the future of AmericaWhen Americans peer 30 years into the future, they see a country in decline economically, politically and on the world stage. While a narrow majority of the public (56%) say they are at least somewhat optimistic about America’s future, hope gives way to doubt when the focus turns to specific issues.

A new Pew Research Center survey focused on what Americans think the United States will be like in 2050 finds that majorities of Americans foresee a country with a burgeoning national debt, a wider gap between the rich and the poor and a workforce threatened by automation.

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Analysis, Big Problems, Crime, Human Behavior, Science & Technology News

Around the world, more say immigrants are a strength than a burden

April 1, 2019

Immigrants take the Canadian oath of citizenship during a ceremony in Toronto.

Publics divided on immigrants’ willingness to adopt host country’s customs.

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government, Military, Robots, Science & Technology News

Russia is planning a “ground force” of armed military robots

April 1, 2019

WAR MACHINE

BattleBots

The Russian military’s research division is working to develop ground-based, combat-ready robots to assist its infantry.

The heavily-armed robots, first displayed in a state-produced video last month, resemble miniature tanks that can be deployed alongside infantry or swarms of quadrotor drones — either of which, according to C4ISRNET, can send targeting information back to the killer robot.

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Military, Science & Technology News, Video Games, Virtual Reality, Weapons

The U.S. Army is using virtual reality combat to train soldiers

March 29, 2019

War Games

The virtual battlefield can simulate millions of “intelligent entities.”

The U.S. military has constructed a massive virtual reality platform to help train infantry soldiers in realistic battlefields filled with millions of artificial intelligence agents.

Futurism first reported on the Synthetic Training Environment (STE) back in April, when the U.S. Army published a whitepaper describing its ability to simulate real cities in the U.S. and North Korea.

Now software developers who contributed to the VR platform opened up about their work in an interview with Digital Trends, describing how virtual reality can help the U.S. train a more combat-ready and versatile military.

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