05 Sci-Tech

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Excerpt from www.iflscience.com

Graphene is a very weird material. It’s a single layer of carbon atoms organized in a honeycomb lattice. It has incredible strength and can conduct heat and electricity in a record-breaking way. The conductivity is based on the fact that electrons in the material behave like a viscous liquid. And like in any liquid, vortices can form.

However, believing that something should happen and seeing it is a whole different thing. Researchers had to use a high-resolution magnetic field sensor. This device allowed them to track the behavior of electrons. The vortices are usually best seen at extremely low temperatures but the device was good enough to spot them even at normal room temperature. Researchers had never seen these electron vortices in graphene before.

Observing the vortices meant observing the movement of the electrons in a detailed way. They tracked the tiny magnetic fields that the electrons flowing in graphene produce.

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Excerpt from www.sciencedaily.com

Research at Uppsala University and Karolinska Institutet could pave the way for a prosthetic hand and robot to be able to feel touch like a human hand. Their study has been published in the journal Science. The technology could also be used to help restore lost functionality to patients after a stroke.

“Our system can determine what type of object it encounters as fast as a blindfolded person, just by feeling it and deciding whether it is a tennis ball or an apple, for example,” says Zhibin Zhang, docent at the Department of Electrical Engineering at Uppsala University.

He and his colleague Libo Chen performed the study in close cooperation with researchers from the Signals and Systems Division at Uppsala University, who provided data processing and machine learning expertise, and a group of researchers from the Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society, Division of Neurogeriatrics at Karolinska Institutet.

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Excerpt from beincrypto.com

Oklahoma Governor J. Kevin Stitt signed into law HB3594, which allows for the self-custody of Bitcoin by its citizens, fostering an inclusive financial environment. 

HB3594 was signed into law by the governor on 13 May, putting Oklahoma at the forefront of the US effort to regulate the cryptocurrency industry.

The new law stipulates that Oklahoma will not ban crypto payments or create industry taxes or fees. However, it will authorize certain digital asset mining and mining-related businesses.

HB3594 will offer crypto users benefits like self-custody via a wallet and purchasing goods or services. Cryptocurrencies will also function as payment methods. Meanwhile, crypto mining will only be allowed if it complies with local requirements.

“It shall be legal in the State of Oklahoma to operate a node for the purpose of connecting to a blockchain protocol or a protocol built on top of a blockchain protocol and transferring digital assets on a blockchain protocol or to participate in staking on a blockchain protocol”, the document notes.

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Excerpt from www.scientificamerican.com

A Cubic Millimeter of a Human Brain Has Been Mapped in Spectacular Detail

Google scientists have modeled all 150 million connections of a fragment of the human brain at nanoscale resolution

By Carissa Wong & Nature magazine

Researchers have mapped a tiny piece of the human brain in astonishing detail. The resulting cell atlas, which was described today in Science¹ and is available online, reveals new patterns of connections between brain cells called neurons, as well as cells that wrap around themselves to form knots, and pairs of neurons that are almost mirror images of each other.

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Excerpt from www.securities.io

A lot is going on in the world of quantum computing. Chip giant Nvidia has launched an open-source CUDA-Q platform to accelerate quantum computing efforts, while China has created its largest quantum computing chip. Then there are scientists at The University of Manchester who have developed ultra-pure silicon that paves the way for next-generation computers.

All this excitement and development around quantum computers makes sense, given that the technology holds immense potential across various fields, including cryptography, drug discovery, solving complex optimization problems, enhancing machine learning algorithms, and much more.

Quantum computers can achieve all this by taking advantage of quantum theory, which is the behavior and nature of matter and energy on atomic and even smaller subatomic levels. Quantum computing utilizes subatomic particles such as photons and electronics. Qubits (quantum bits) then allow those particles to exist in multiple states simultaneously and are manipulated by control devices.

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Excerpt from www.businessinsider.com

The US has been outclassed by its rivals, such as Russia, in its capacity to remotely take out enemy weapons using jamming technology, according to former US military officials.

Mike Nagata, a retired US Army lieutenant general who led special operations in the Middle East, said that the US is “still falling behind” in its electronic warfare capabilities, reported Defense One.

Electronic warfare units, which use electronic signals to remotely scramble the GPS coordinates used to guide weapons, have played a key role in Russia’s war in Ukraine.

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Excerpt from phys.org

A team of researchers at the Universities of Tübingen and Göttingen has found that certain minerals with characteristic shapes could indicate the activity of bacteria in hydrothermal vents—or black smokers—in the deep ocean several billion years ago.

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Excerpt from www.axios.com

AI answer war heats up as OpenAI, Google, Microsoft ready new AI-powered search tools  Axios

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Excerpt from japannews.yomiuri.co.jp

Japan will participate in a U.S. project to build a large electron-ion collider (EIC), a particle accelerator capable of observing the world at the level of one trillionth of a millimeter, it has been learned.

The EIC is expected to shed new light on the physical laws governing the subatomic world and contribute to the practical application of advanced technologies such as quantum computers.

The Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry plans to announce soon its intention to participate in the plan, with the goal of starting operations in 2032.

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Excerpt from www.businessinsider.com

It seems like Jeff Bezos is concerned about Amazon lagging behind rivals in the AI race.

The founder and former CEO has been emailing Amazon executives asking why more AI firms aren’t using its cloud services, according to an unnamed source who spoke to CNBC.

The person reportedly said Amazon is considered the “most vulnerable” Big Tech company in the AI arena. Aware of that perception, Bezos is “very involved” in its AI efforts and has been mapping out the competitive playing field, according to CNBC.

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Excerpt from www.technologyreview.com

Until recently, access to the bulk of an organizations’ supply chain data has been limited to specialists, distributed across myriad data systems. Constrained by traditional data warehouse limitations, maintaining the data requires considerable engineering effort; heavy oversight, and substantial financial commitment. Today, a huge amount of data—generated by an increasingly digital supply chain—languishes in data lakes without ever being made available to the business.

A 2023 Boston Consulting Group survey notes that 56% of managers say although investment in modernizing data architectures continues, managing data operating costs remains a major pain point. The consultancy also expects data deluge issues are likely to worsen as the volume of data generated grows at a rate of 21% from 2021 to 2024, to 149 zettabytes globally.

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Excerpt from www.realclearscience.com

It is well-known that orangutans are incredibly intelligent. Now scientists are beginning to unlock the mysteries of these remarkable great apes’ communication.

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Excerpt from

Deltek Study Reveals AI, Machine Learning as Top Tech Investment Areas in GovCon Market; Kevin Plexico Quoted  ExecutiveBiz

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Excerpt from www.axios.com

Army gets four drone zappers in rush to defend troops  Axios

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Excerpt from www.beaumontenterprise.com

Record-breaking X8.7 solar flare observed, strongest of solar cycle 25  Beaumont Enterprise

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Excerpt from www.news18.com

Meta-owned platforms like Instagram and Facebook faced a big outage of more than an hour on Wednesday. The downtime of the popular social media apps was confirmed by Downtector where many people complained about their inability to use the apps on their phones for a few hours.

Most of the reports on the website have come late on Tuesday evening in countries like the US while some people in India also observed that the apps were not working on early Wednesday.

The reports of outages were recorded around 7 am on Wednesday in India, while the impact was greater in the US where thousands were facing issues accessing these apps. Most of the complaints were about problems with their app while some of them were unable to open Facebook on the web as well.

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Excerpt from www.universetoday.com

Mention the Milky Way and most people will visualise a great big spiral galaxy billions of years old. It’s thought to be a galaxy that took shape billions of years after the Big Bang. Studies by astronomers have revealed that there are the echo’s of an earlier time around us. A team of astronomers from MIT have found three ancient stars orbiting the Milky Way’s halo. The team think these stars formed when the Universe was around a billion years old and that they were once part of a smaller galaxy that was consumed by the Milky Way.

The Milky Way is our home galaxy within which our entire Solar System and an estimated 400 billion other stars. It measures 100,000 light years from sided to side and is home to almost everything else we can see in the sky with our naked eyes. On a clear dark night we can see the combined light from all the stars in the galaxy forming a wonderful band of hazy light arching across the sky from horizon to horizon. If you could view the Galaxy from the outside its broad shape would resemble two fried eggs stuck back to back.

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Excerpt from scitechdaily.com

 

Bee and butterfly populations are declining in North America due to environmental changes, with significant research gaps hindering conservation efforts.

Bee and butterfly populations are declining in North America due to environmental changes. A study highlights regional trends and calls for improved monitoring and conservation efforts to address research gaps and protect pollinators.

In major regions of North America, bee and butterfly populations are in decline due to ongoing environmental change. Our ability to protect these species is limited by significant gaps in pollinator research. This is according to a study published today (May 15, 2024) in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Sara Souther of Northern Arizona University, US, and colleagues.

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Excerpt from www.businessinsider.com

Google introduced a collection of AI updates and new releases at its I/O event Tuesday, including Project Astra, an AI agent that can understand and recall objects in the real world through your phone camera.

At one point in the demo, the user puts on some prototype smart glasses and continues the conversation with the AI agent — which immediately caused some to speculate that Google Glass could make a return.

Google cofounder Sergey Brin didn’t discourage the idea when he was interviewed by reporters following the event.

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Excerpt from arstechnica.com

On a fall evening in 2022, scientists at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory were busy with the final stages of a planetary defense mission. As Andy Rivkin, one of the team leaders, was getting ready to appear in NASA’s live broadcast of the experiment, a colleague posted a photo of a pair of asteroids: the half-mile-wide Didymos and, orbiting around it, a smaller one called Dimorphos, taken about 7 million miles from Earth.

“We were able to see Didymos and this little dot in the right spot where we expected Dimorphos to be,” Rivkin recalled.

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Excerpt from www.futurity.org

Leptospirosis is a dangerous infection that can lead to kidney failure and even death in dogs. An expert has tips for keeping your four-legged friends safe and healthy.

“It’s heartbreaking when we see these cases,” says Emmanuelle Butty, assistant clinical professor at Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Texas A&M University, because an efficient vaccine for leptospirosis has been available for the past 20 years.

Leptospirosis is an illness caused by a bacteria called leptospira that can be present in soil and stagnant water. Rodents and other wildlife carry the bacteria and spread it through their urine.

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Excerpt from www.orfonline.org

China’s dominance over low-carbon energy technology value chains is unambiguous. China holds at least 60 percent of the world’s manufacturing capacity for most mass-manufactured low-carbon technologies such as solar PVs, wind systems, and batteries and 40 percent of electrolyser manufacturing (hydrogen production). China leads the world in renewable energy (RE) consumption and in solar and wind power generation with 30-35 percent share of the global total in each. Rather than recognising China’s contribution to the growth of RE’s global share, vital for addressing climate change, China’s investments and capacities in the low-carbon energy sector in general and the electric vehicle (EV) sector, in particular, are being portrayed as a security threat mostly by the United States (US) and its Western allies but also by some developing countries. This position is driven more by the threat to legacy automobile industries and domestic jobs and less by national security concerns.

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Excerpt from www.timesofisrael.com

WATCH: IDF releases footage of fighter jets downing drones heading toward Israel overnight  The Times of Israel

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Excerpt from www.computerworld.com

 

Meta has been quiet on Workplace for a while, said Beth Schultz, vice president of research and principal analyst at Metrigy. “So from that respect, the writing was on the wall, so to speak, especially considering the full-out effort the company is making on AI and metaverse initiatives,” she said.

Meta provided the following timeline for migration away from Workplace, according to a post on the Workplace admin site:

• Until Aug. 31, 2025, users will be able to continue using Workplace as usual.
• Sept. 1, 2025 to May 31, 2026: Workplace will only be accessible to read and download existing data.
• June 1, 2026: User access will be terminated and a user’s Workplace will be deleted.