Science & Technology News – Page 278

AI, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Science & Technology News

Advancing AI by teaching robots to learn

June 4, 2019

Robotics provides important opportunities for advancing artificial intelligence, because teaching machines to learn on their own in the physical world will help us develop more capable and flexible AI systems in other scenarios as well. Working with a variety of robots — including walking hexapods, articulated arms, and robotic hands fitted with tactile sensors — Facebook AI researchers are exploring new techniques to push the boundaries of what artificial intelligence can accomplish.

Doing this work means addressing the complexity inherent in using sophisticated physical mechanisms and conducting experiments in the real world, where the data is noisier, conditions are more variable and uncertain, and experiments have additional time constraints (because they cannot be accelerated when learning in a simulation). These are not simple issues to address, but they offer useful test cases for AI.

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Elon Musk, Internet, Science & Technology News, Space, SpaceX

Space X launches 60 satellites for Elon Musk’s Starlink Internet Constellation

June 4, 2019

The 60 satellites packed tightly into a fairing.

With one launch in the books and potentially dozens still to go, SpaceX has begun its build-out of the ambitious Starlink internet constellation—a series of interconnected satellites designed to deliver high-speed internet to paying customers around the globe.

The 60 Starlink satellites, each weighing 500 pounds (227 kg), were released to low Earth orbit (LEO) yesterday at around 11:32 pm ET, SpaceX confirmed in a series of tweets. Together, the tightly packed satellites weighed 13.6 metric tons, “making this launch the heaviest mission for SpaceX to date,” according to SpaceNews.

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brain hacking, Engineering, Health & Fitness, Inventions, Science & Technology News

Experimental brain-controlled hearing aid decodes, identifies who you want to hear

June 4, 2019

Engineers develop new AI technology that amplifies correct speaker from a group; breakthrough could lead to better hearing aids

Our brains have a remarkable knack for picking out individual voices in a noisy environment, like a crowded coffee shop or a busy city street. This is something that even the most advanced hearing aids struggle to do. But now engineers are announcing an experimental technology that mimics the brain’s natural aptitude for detecting and amplifying any one voice from many.

Powered by artificial intelligence, this brain-controlled hearing aid acts as an automatic filter, monitoring wearers’ brain waves and boosting the voice they want to focus on.

Continue reading… “Experimental brain-controlled hearing aid decodes, identifies who you want to hear”

Biotech, DNA, Genes, Science & Technology News

Scientists created bacteria with a synthetic genome. Is this artificial life?

June 4, 2019

A colored scanning electron micrograph of the bacteria E. coli. Scientists in Britain created bacteria with “recoded” DNA.

In a milestone for synthetic biology, colonies of E. coli thrive with DNA constructed from scratch by humans, not nature.

Scientists have created a living organism whose DNA is entirely human-made — perhaps a new form of life, experts said, and a milestone in the field of synthetic biology.

Researchers at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Britain reported on Wednesday that they had rewritten the DNA of the bacteria Escherichia coli, fashioning a synthetic genome four times larger and far more complex than any previously created.

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Food, government, Science & Technology News, Shopping

The FDA Tells the Food Industry to Change How It Uses ‘Expiration’ Dates

June 2, 2019

The Food and Drug Administration is going after food waste with a new effort to make sure we don’t throw out groceries until they’re absolutely inedible.

On Thursday, the agency issued a letter to the food industry at large, throwing its support behind a growing trend to almost universally adopt a “Best if Used By” date label on products. At the same time, it’s also reminding the public that most foods can still be perfectly safe to eat if they’re past the marked date, even if they’re not necessarily quite as tasty anymore. The moves are part of a larger effort by the FDA to drastically cut down on America’s food waste problem.

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Big Problems, Inventions, new technology, Science & Technology News, Solar Energy

This desalination device delivers cheap, clean water with just solar power

June 3, 2019

In a coastal city in Namibia, a small shipping container near the beach sits surrounded
by solar panels. Inside, new technology uses that solar power
to turn ocean water from the Atlantic into drinking water.

Namibia is in the middle of a prolonged drought. The president recently declared the second state of emergency in three years because the lack of rain is leading to severe food shortages. But if scaled up, this technology could help supply households and agriculture with fresh water. The basic tech that it uses for desalination, called reverse osmosis, isn’t new. But because the system can run on solar power, without the use of batteries, it avoids the large carbon footprint of a typical energy-hungry desalination plant. It’s also significantly cheaper over the lifetime of the system.

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2019 Predictions, Analysis, Future, Science & Technology News

Older, less white, less religious: What America will look like in 2040

June 3, 2019

Future foretold: A new America in 2040

Here is how fast America is changing: By the time today’s teenagers hit their 30s, there will be — for the first time ever — more minorities than whites, more old people than children, and more people practicing Islam than Judaism.

The big picture: The slow demographic shifts we’ve watched over decades will finally reach a tipping point in the 2040s. They’ll transform what America looks like, where we live and what we fear.

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communication, facebook, Internet, Science & Technology News

The Dark Forest Theory of the Internet

June 5, 2019

This is also what the internet is becoming: a dark forest

In his sci-fi trilogy The Three Body Problem, author Liu Cixin presents the dark forest theory of the universe.

When we look out into space, the theory goes, we’re struck by its silence. It seems like we’re the only ones here. After all, if other forms of life existed, wouldn’t they show themselves? Since they haven’t, we assume there’s no one else out there.

Liu invites us to think about this a different way.

Imagine a dark forest at night. It’s deathly quiet. Nothing moves. Nothing stirs. This could lead one to assume that the forest is devoid of life. But of course, it’s not. The dark forest is full of life. It’s quiet because night is when the predators come out. To survive, the animals stay silent.

Is our universe an empty forest or a dark one? If it’s a dark forest, then only Earth is foolish enough to ping the heavens and announce its presence. The rest of the universe already knows the real reason why the forest stays dark. It’s only a matter of time before the Earth learns as well.

This is also what the internet is becoming: a dark forest.

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Health & Fitness, NASA, Science & Technology News, Space Flight

Mars colonists ‘will become super-mutants with cancer-immune skin’ – but could die ‘if they mate with Earthlings’, scientist warns

June 3, 2019

One of the winning teams of a NASA competition to make a full-scale Mars habitat using
modeling software, Team SEArch+/Apis Cor, designed this Martian abode, which is built
from the upper part of a Hercules Single-Stage Reusable Vehicle.

The first humans on Mars will quickly become too fragile to have sex with.

That’s according to one scientist, who reckons colonists will warp into super-mutants who’ll keel over the moment they sleep with an Earthling.

NASA is keen to land humans on Mars in the 2030s with an eye on setting up a permanent Martian colony.

Continue reading… “Mars colonists ‘will become super-mutants with cancer-immune skin’ – but could die ‘if they mate with Earthlings’, scientist warns”

Credit, Finance, Money Talk, Science & Technology News

This map shows Americans’ average credit score in every state

June 3, 2019

An aerial view of the downtown Minneapolis skyline and Loring Park.

Minnesota residents can brag about more than their 10,000 lakes — they typically have the country’s best credit scores too. As in previous years, the midwestern state has America’s highest average credit score, according to Experian.

Those living in Minnesota have an average score of 713, which falls into the “good” range of scores between 670 to 739, according to Experian. The company’s annual State of Credit report and state ranking is based on Vantage Scores, which range from 300 to 850. South Dakota, Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts round out the top five states with the highest average credit scores for 2018.

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Automation, Driverless vehicles, Science & Technology News, Transportation

The USPS test out self-driving trucks for hauling mail

June 1, 2019

Self-driving truck developer TuSimple is running a two-week pilot project
with the US Postal Service, moving mail between Phoenix and Dallas.

THE UNITED STATES Postal Service has a lot of ways to move the 484.8 million pieces of mail it handles every day. In rural Alaska, postal workers run hovercraft, prop planes, and the occasional parachute. They pilot boats in the Louisiana bayou and snowmobiles in Colorado, Minnesota, Montana, Utah, and Wisconsin. To reach the Havasupai Indian Reservation town of Supai at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, they go by mule train. And now, to carry the mail from Phoenix to Dallas, they’re letting robots do the work.

Starting Tuesday, self-driving trucks built by startup TuSimple will haul trailers full of mail and packages all by themselves. Well, mostly by themselves: The 18-wheelers will have a certified driver and safety engineer aboard, who will handle the driving on surface streets and take control from the robot as needed. The pilot project will last two weeks and include five round trips between the cities’ distribution hubs.

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Analysis, Children, Latest Trend, Parenting, Science & Technology News

US births lowest in 3 decades despite improving economy

May 31, 2019

America’s baby bust isn’t over. The nation’s birth rates last year reached record lows for women in their teens and 20s, a government report shows, leading to the fewest babies in 32 years.

The provisional report, released Wednesday and based on more than 99% of U.S. birth records, found 3.788 million births last year. It was the fourth year the number of births has fallen, the lowest since 1986 and a surprise to some experts given the improving economy.

The fertility rate of 1.7 births per U.S. woman also fell 2%, meaning the current generation isn’t making enough babies to replace itself. The fertility rate is a hypothetical estimate based on lifetime projections of age-specific birth rates.

Continue reading… “US births lowest in 3 decades despite improving economy”