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Jul 31, 2017

A solar eclipse is coming to America. Here’s what you’ll see where you live

Posted by in category: space

On Monday August 21, a solar eclipse will cut across the entire United States. And wherever you are, you will be able to see it. Even though the “totality” — the area where the sun is completely blocked out by the moon — is only 70 miles wide, the whole country (even Alaska and Hawaii) will experience a partial eclipse.

This is what you’ll see, and the time you’ll see it, in your zip code.

We recommend punching in a few different ones to see how the eclipse experience will vary across the country. Salem, Oregon (97301), is going to see a total eclipse. Downtown Los Angeles (90012) will see 62 percent of the sun blocked at the peak. In Lake Charles, Louisiana (70601), it’ll be 71 percent.

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Jul 31, 2017

With the new truck, the garbage man won’t have to be constantly jumping in and out of the driver’s seat to empty trash bins

Posted by in category: transportation

Jul 31, 2017

How humans will stay competitive in the age of artificial intelligence

Posted by in categories: employment, robotics/AI

Artificial intelligence is conquering an increasing number of jobs. How can humans keep the edge as robots become smarter?

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Jul 31, 2017

Facebook AI Creates Its Own Language In Creepy Preview Of Our Potential Future

Posted by 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.

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Jul 31, 2017

Building Artificial Bile Ducts to Treat Childhood Liver Disease

Posted by 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.

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Jul 31, 2017

Facebook Shut Down An Artificial Intelligence Program That Developed Its Own Language

Posted by 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.

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Jul 31, 2017

How to pull water out of thin air, even in the driest parts of the globe

Posted by in category: sustainability

A new device that’s powered by sunlight could help solve water scarcity problems.

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Jul 31, 2017

A Real Life, All-Electric Flying Car Just Took Off

Posted by 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 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.

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Jul 31, 2017

This Paint Allows Walls to Convert Heat into Electricity

Posted by 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 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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