Science and Technology

Sunday, 02 July 2023 04:16

Mathematicians discovered something mind-blowing about the number 15

The simple number solves a notoriously complicated problem. A duo of mathematicians just solved a 15-year-old problem. They found an answer to how many numbers you need to fill an infinite grid under specific conditions. The answer: a simple 15. 15: That’s the answer to an incredibly complicated math problem recently solved by a two-person team at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). Usually, big, complicated math problems that are hard to solve have big, complicated answers that are almost equally hard for the layperson to understand. But not this one. This one is just … 15. The question, originally posed in…

Saturday, 01 July 2023 03:10

Controversial 'vaginal seeding' shows promise in small trial, but questions remain

"Vaginal seeding," a controversial practice of exposing babies born by cesarean section to their parent's vaginal fluids after birth, may benefit newborns' gut microbiomes, a new study suggests. Babies born by C-section don't have the same gut microbes as those born vaginally, potentially because they're not exposed to their parent's vaginal microbiome during birth. Studies have shown that the gut microbiomes of cesarean-born newborns more closely resemble the communities of microbes that typically inhabit the skin, rather than the gut. This has raised questions about how birth methods affect babies' development, given evidence that the community of microbes in the…

Thursday, 29 June 2023 04:31

Scientists develop mega-thin solar cells that could be shockingly easy to produce: ‘As rapid as printing a newspaper’

Scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed paper-thin solar cells that can be attached to any kind of surface to convert it into a power source. Thinner than human hair, these cells could be laminated onto various kinds of surfaces, such as the sails of a boat to provide power while at sea, onto tents and tarps that are deployed in disaster recovery operations, or onto the wings of drones to extend their flying range. The findings were first published in the journal Small Methods in a paper co-authored by Vladimir Bulović, a professor of electrical engineering…

Wednesday, 28 June 2023 04:51

25-year search for the source of consciousness ends – and neuroscience lost this one

It's 2023. By now, we should all be wearing jet packs, living on the Moon, and having deep conversations with our dogs through pet translation devices. Oh, and we should know how consciousness works. We don't, of course. But a recent event coinciding with the annual meeting of the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness (ASSC) in New York serves as an example of how far we've come in efforts to model the basic mechanisms of human thinking. Judges in an adversarial meeting of the minds determined that a series of experiments based on Integrated Information Theory models of…

Sunday, 25 June 2023 03:46

Researchers discover trees have a ‘heartbeat’, it's just so slow we've never noticed before

Trees hold a special place in our hearts, as they possess a longevity that surpasses most other creatures. These remarkable organisms can live for thousands upon thousands of years.1 In fact, the oldest recorded tree boasted an incredible age of over five thousand years! Its roots reached back to a time when Rome stood at the peak of its glory-an inspiring testament to the longevity of trees, making them some of the oldest living beings on our planet. We acknowledge that trees are alive, for they harness energy to sustain their existence. Though they lack the organs found in mammals,…

Wednesday, 21 June 2023 04:43

Game-changing invention converts both CO2 and plastic waste into renewable energy

A team of researchers at the University of Cambridge have made a significant breakthrough in renewable energy and sustainable fuel production. It could ultimately eliminate the need for fossil fuels. They have shown how carbon dioxide, whether captured from industrial exhaust or even directly from the air, can be turned into clean, renewable fuels harnessing only solar energy. How does it work? This innovative approach revolves around a solar-powered reactor. It was created by the researchers themselves. The reactor transforms not only captured CO2 but also plastic waste into sustainable fuels and other valuable chemicals. Through this method, the researchers…

Wednesday, 14 June 2023 03:53

iOS 17's coolest new feature is horrible news for Android users

At the end of 2022, Google implored Apple to “get the message” and end the green-versus-blue bubble controversy by adopting RCS messaging. Apple’s response eventually came at WWDC 2023, where it introduced a new iOS 17feature called Contact Posters, which instead of bringing everyone together, only furthers the us-versus-them split between Android and iOS. If you thought the green/blue iMessage arguments could get fiery, there’s a lot more to come. Blue good, green bad Before we get into Contact Posters, it’s best to look at the green and blue message controversy. Apple’s iMessage messages appear in a blue bubble when…

Tuesday, 13 June 2023 04:08

These are the jobs most likely to be eliminated by Generative AI

The fear-mongering around Generative AI and ChatGPT taking jobs from hard-working, knowledge-economy humans has reached a fever pitch. Without naming names and linking links (I'd rather keep you here, more on that later), a simple web search returns hundreds of articles, listicles and correlation thought pieces, all written to harvest the click of the average bread-winner by instilling a panic image of the machines rising up and doing for free what you get paid for. I've been working with Natural Language Generation (NLG) and the roots of Generative AI since 2010, which, on the technology timeline, is the Mesozoic Era.…

Friday, 09 June 2023 03:59

WhatsApp launches Channels feature for broadcast messages

Meta is rolling out a broadcast-based messaging feature, called Channels, on WhatsApp, similar to a recent update it sent out to Instagram, as the social juggernaut experiments with giving more conversational avenues to its 2 billion users. The company is also aiming to earn money from this feature down the road. On WhatsApp, Channels messages will show up in a new tab called Updates. It’s a departure from Meta’s approach on Instagram, where channel announcements are communicated via direct messages. On WhatsApp, Meta is focusing on facilitating channels for use by entities such as NGOs, medical research institutions and fact-checking…

Tuesday, 30 May 2023 03:31

Scientists just discovered an ‘astonishing’ way to create energy out of thin air

It’s a magical time for clean energy production. Methods like wind and solar power are leading the way, but they may soon have competition because — similar to a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat — scientists in Australia have found a way to pull electricity out of thin air. The magicians in this story are Rhys Grinter, Ph.D. student Ashleigh Kropp, and Chris Greening from the Monash University Biomedicine Discovery Institute in Melbourne, Australia. The scientific journal, Nature, published their findings. But this is no children’s magic trick. These scientists produced and analyzed a hydrogen-consuming enzyme from…

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Monday, 29 May 2023 04:13

How to edit WhatsApp messages after sending (and why it isn't working)

WhatsApp has released a new feature that allows users to edit messages after sending them. In recent years, several messaging apps have introduced features enabling users to unsend or edit messages with typos, grammatical errors, or wrong information. Most recently, Apple released the edit message feature for iMessage with a 15-minute time cap, and WhatsApp is following suit. Editing a message on WhatsApp is very easy. All users need to do is press and hold a message, then select the 'Edit' button from the pop-up menu. They can then change the message in the text field and resend it. The…

Thursday, 25 May 2023 04:11

A paralyzed man can walk again using a groundbreaking mind-reading brain implant

12 years ago, Gert-Jan Oksam was in a biking accident. He emerged alive, but unable to use his legs due to a spinal cord injury. Today he can walk about 100 meters — or just over 300 feet— all on his own. Essentially, he's taught his spinal cord to work again thanks to some small implants in his back and brain, which have rehabilitated the connection between his legs and his mind. "I'm not walking to the grocery market yet, but I can for sure stand way better now," the 40 year old patient said during a press conference on…

Wednesday, 24 May 2023 03:34

ChatGPT's makers say AI could surpass humanity within the next 10 years

The creators of ChatGPT say AI could surpass humanity in most domains within the next 10 years as "superintelligence" becomes more powerful than any technology the world has seen. Cofounders of ChatGPT developer OpenAI, including CEO Sam Altman, said in a blogpost on Monday that it was conceivable AI could exceed the "expert skill level" of humans in most areas, and "carry out as much productive activity as one of today's largest corporations." "Superintelligence will be more powerful than other technologies humanity has had to contend with in the past," the OpenAI executives said. "We can have a dramatically more…

Thursday, 18 May 2023 04:07

Apple enables iPhone to mimic user's voice in just 15 minutes of training

If you have an iPhone or iPad, you'll soon be able to hear it speak in your own voice, Apple announced Tuesday. The upcoming feature,"Personal Voice," will give users randomized text prompts to generate 15 minutes of audio. There'll be another new tool called "Live Speech" which lets users type in a phrase, and save commonly-used ones, for the device to speak during phone and FaceTime calls or in-person conversations. Apple says it'll use machine learning, a type of AI, to create the voice on the device itself rather than externally so the data can be more secure and private.…

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