Saturday - May 6 2023, 23:15 UTC - 1 year ago

NASA has selected 16 proposals from 12 U.S. companies under the 2022 Announcement of Collaboration Opportunity (ACO) to advance capabilities and technologies related to NASA’s Moon to Mars Objectives. The companies will utilize NASA’s facilities and expertise without financial exchange to advance these technologies. Since the inaugural ACO in 2015, STMD has supported more than 75 ACO projects, with the total estimated value of agency resources to support the agreements being approximately $14.5 million.

Saturday - May 6 2023, 21:49 UTC - 1 year ago

Computer scientists who helped build the foundations of today's artificial intelligence technology are warning of its dangers, with AI pioneers Geoffrey Hinton and Yoshua Bengio disagreeing on both the potential risks and solutions. With little regulation in place, some are concerned that the talk of potential future dangers is distracting from the current issues caused by largely unregulated tech products.

Saturday - May 6 2023, 20:31 UTC - 1 year ago

Space architects Neil Leach and Madhu Thangavelu join Neil Leach and Madhu Thangavelu to discuss the current state of space exploration. Through the use of technology such as the SpaceX Starship, radiation problema can be handled and long distance trips with humans are not so far off. While interstellar travel will require further economy power to make meaningful, the solar system is yet to be explored and colonized.

Saturday - May 6 2023, 19:10 UTC - 1 year ago

The National Science Foundation's Very Large Array (VLA) and the COSMIC receiver are ushering in a new era of alien search mission. VLA uses 27 antennas to cover 80% of the sky, while COSMIC is developed by SETI aiming to find narrow pulses, indicators of an advanced civilization. COSMIC will also verify signals from the Voyager 1 as well as upcoming radio telescope arrays.

Saturday - May 6 2023, 17:14 UTC - 1 year ago

A study by University of Chicago scientists has found an interesting connection between atomic level behavior during photosynthesis and a quantum phenomenon called Bose-Einstein Condensate. This surprise finding could hold the key to understanding photosynthesis, and also provide insights for future electronic designs.

Saturday - May 6 2023, 15:48 UTC - 1 year ago

Microsoft unveiled AI-powered versions of its Bing search engine and Edge internet browser Thursday, despite the warnings of potential dangerous of the technology. According to Microsoft executive Yusuf Mehdi, the company is expanding the features of these services to work with images and video, and is introducing an AI-chatbot that it able to generate visual and written content. AI experts called for a pause in development due to the potential risks of fraud, but prominent computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton insists that in spite of the potential risks, competition between countries and companies means development is likely to continue.

Saturday - May 6 2023, 13:55 UTC - 1 year ago

Goatguy, a commentator from Nextbigfuture, did and interplanetary travel calculation exploring the possibility of mass production of SpaceX Starships. The Starship would be surrounded by 5 meters of water to protect the astronauts from interplanetary space radiation. The average cruise ship has a gross tonnage of 120,000 GT and one ton of water provides 1/10th of the radiation protection needed. SpaceX Starships could be produced in mass numbers creating a stream of 42 Mars cyclers orbiting between Earth and Mars and beyond.

Saturday - May 6 2023, 11:55 UTC - 1 year ago

A team of researchers from the University of Aberdeen have created a new algorithm that could revolutionize planetary studies. This new technology enables scientists to detect planetary craters and accurately map their surfaces using different data types. The technique could reduce the need to manually identify craters, transforming the field of planetary science. The technology could also help identify potential landing sites, as well as help find resources like water ice, important for future human missions.

Saturday - May 6 2023, 10:06 UTC - 1 year ago

A team of researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Geneva University Hospitals (HUG), and the National University of Singapore (NUS) has developed a new approach to assess the interpretability of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, allowing users to understand what influences the results produced by AI and whether the results can be trusted. The researchers have formulated a mathematical approach, incorporating tools from statistics, machine learning and control theory, to construct a unified framework for the evaluation and comparison of AI interpretability techniques, paving the way for increased transparency and credibility in AI-powered diagnostic and forecasting tools.

Saturday - May 6 2023, 08:17 UTC - 1 year ago

Casetext recently deployed GPT-4, a new Large Language Model, to pass the Uniform Bar Exam. GPT-4’s success was made possible by the exponential advances in neural networks, loosely based on neurons, that can interpret text and become more powerful the more data it is fed. This research is indicative of the possibility for AI to assist the legal profession in the future.

Saturday - May 6 2023, 06:34 UTC - 1 year ago

The United States Navy has officially announced that the venerable USS Nimitz, an aircraft carrier with a half century-long legacy, will be scrapped. With the process of dismantling and disposal of the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier expected to cost the Navy up to a billion dollars, the USS Nimitz will be the last of its kind to be decommissioned and ultimately, scrapped.

Saturday - May 6 2023, 05:12 UTC - 1 year ago

Two Russian Roscosmos cosmonauts completed a 7-hour spacewalk to relocate an experiment airlock from the Rassvet module to the Nauka science module with assistance from European robotic arm operator cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev. They will be conducting another spacewalk on May 12 to deploy a radiator and connect mechanical, electrical and hydraulic lines.

Saturday - May 6 2023, 03:31 UTC - 1 year ago

Researchers at Stanford University have developed a new low-energy computing scheme called LightHash, which is the first photonic blockchain designed. It improves the energy consumption of cryptocurrency and blockchain applications by up to ten-fold while maintaining the same level of security. Applications include data transfer, smart contracts, and voting.

Saturday - May 6 2023, 02:19 UTC - 1 year ago

Major organisations in the space and telecommunications sector have come together to build the Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity, and Security by Satellite (IRIS2) project, in a bid to counter Elon Musk's Starlink venture. It's estimated to cost $6 billion USD, and will aim to provide internet connectivity to citizens throughout Europe. Europe is hoping to have IRIS2 globally covered by 2027 but with the consortium size and the delay of the Ariane 6 launch vehicle, it remains to be seen whether this timeline can be achieved.

Saturday - May 6 2023, 00:21 UTC - 1 year ago

A recent study has uncovered unprecedented variability in the human digestive system and provided new insights into the links between anatomy and health. For example, researchers discovered that women tend to have longer small intestines than men, and that no two people have exactly the same gut anatomy. The research sheds light on potential opportunities in medical diagnoses and reinforces the importance of teaching anatomical variation to medical students.

Friday - May 5 2023, 23:05 UTC - 1 year ago

A new study published Friday in the medical journal JAMA Internal Medicine found that ChatGPT, a world-upending artificial intelligence chatbot, was able to hold its own when its responses were judged by a panel of experts against those made by flesh-and-blood physicians. Researchers found that evaluators "preferred the chatbot responses to the physician responses," in 78 percent of evaluations made and that chatbot responses were found to be of a "significantly higher quality" than those from humans as well as rate more empathetic.

Friday - May 5 2023, 21:46 UTC - 1 year ago

The 3D printing of fish fillets, created from a mix of fish and plant cells, is a potential solution to the resources and emissions associated with factory farming of fish and the environmental damage caused by overfishing. While the idea of a clean, efficient process of food production has promise, Umami's Mihir Pershad's statement that consumers will opt for the 3D-printed fish fillet based solely on its environmental impact is unrealistic.

Friday - May 5 2023, 20:02 UTC - 1 year ago

Microsoft is introducing a version of ChatGPT hosted on its Azure cloud computing servers specifically for customers concerned about data leaks and regulatory compliance. This service will cost extra but alleviates the customer's worries when using OpenAI's services. OpenAI and Microsoft are now competing for the same customers, with other offers such as Alibaba's bilingual AI model and Bloomberg's own cloud computing infrastructure-based AI models.

Friday - May 5 2023, 18:07 UTC - 1 year ago

The eta Aquariid meteor shower is active throughout April and May, peaking in the pre-dawn hours of May 5. This year could be particularly impressive as an outburst year with 120-160 meteors per hour expected. Despite the full moon washing out the faint meteors, this meteor shower 2017 is not one to miss due to the intensity of fireballs it produces. Viewers should find an area well away from outskirts of the city for best visibility. The next major meteor showers will be the Perseids in August, and the Orionids in October.