<![CDATA[Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum - Gadgets & Technology]]> https://www.scivillage.com/ Tue, 07 Jul 2026 19:08:14 +0000 MyBB <![CDATA[It’s disturbingly easy to trick AI into seeing aliens]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20806.html Mon, 06 Jul 2026 23:58:53 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20806.html https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1135009

EXCERPT: So Adami and Gupta did an experiment where they created artificial forms of life using a computer program called Avida, and then trained an AI to detect them.

In the Avida universe, digital organisms written in computer code — essentially strings of commands — copy themselves over and over again in a virtual Petri dish inside the computer. Each time they replicate, the copying process is imperfect and their computer code changes, just like the genetic code of real organisms mutates when they reproduce.

Such forms of “digital life” have been used for several decades to study evolution, Adami explained. For the study, the researchers used Avida to generate tens of thousands of digital organisms, some of which contained the instructions needed to copy themselves and others not. They then used them to train a neural network to distinguish between the two with 99.97% accuracy.

However, when the researchers put the neural network to the test on examples it had never seen before, the results looked far less impressive.

In their experiments, the researchers started by presenting the neural network with a digital organism that the AI correctly deemed incapable of copying itself. Then by gradually swapping out one operation for another in the organism’s computer code, the researchers were able to trick the AI into misclassifying the organism as self-replicating, in as few as 150 tries.

In other words, with just a few tweaks, the team showed that it was possible to convince the AI that it was seeing signs of life where they didn’t exist.

"No matter what sequence of commands we started with, we were able to fool the AI 100% of the time," said Gupta, a PhD student in computer science and engineering at MSU. The number of sequences that could potentially trip up the network is vast. “So the likelihood of encountering such a sequence is substantial,” Adami added.

This risk of false positives raises the likelihood that space missions could be fooled into thinking they’d made a discovery by the data they gather, only to be proven wrong later.

Having trained an AI on computer-generated data, next the researchers plan to re-train the model with real-world data and see how easy it is to deceive, Gupta said. The findings underscore a known weakness in many contemporary AI models.

“AI has an Achilles heel,” said Adami, professor in MSU’s departments of microbiology and molecular genetics, and physics and astronomy. “It can see a pattern and completely misclassify it.”

Beyond the search for alien life, this weakness could also be problematic as AI continues to move into medical scanners, security cameras, self-driving cars and other devices in everyday use here on Earth... (MORE - no ads)]]> https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1135009

EXCERPT: So Adami and Gupta did an experiment where they created artificial forms of life using a computer program called Avida, and then trained an AI to detect them.

In the Avida universe, digital organisms written in computer code — essentially strings of commands — copy themselves over and over again in a virtual Petri dish inside the computer. Each time they replicate, the copying process is imperfect and their computer code changes, just like the genetic code of real organisms mutates when they reproduce.

Such forms of “digital life” have been used for several decades to study evolution, Adami explained. For the study, the researchers used Avida to generate tens of thousands of digital organisms, some of which contained the instructions needed to copy themselves and others not. They then used them to train a neural network to distinguish between the two with 99.97% accuracy.

However, when the researchers put the neural network to the test on examples it had never seen before, the results looked far less impressive.

In their experiments, the researchers started by presenting the neural network with a digital organism that the AI correctly deemed incapable of copying itself. Then by gradually swapping out one operation for another in the organism’s computer code, the researchers were able to trick the AI into misclassifying the organism as self-replicating, in as few as 150 tries.

In other words, with just a few tweaks, the team showed that it was possible to convince the AI that it was seeing signs of life where they didn’t exist.

"No matter what sequence of commands we started with, we were able to fool the AI 100% of the time," said Gupta, a PhD student in computer science and engineering at MSU. The number of sequences that could potentially trip up the network is vast. “So the likelihood of encountering such a sequence is substantial,” Adami added.

This risk of false positives raises the likelihood that space missions could be fooled into thinking they’d made a discovery by the data they gather, only to be proven wrong later.

Having trained an AI on computer-generated data, next the researchers plan to re-train the model with real-world data and see how easy it is to deceive, Gupta said. The findings underscore a known weakness in many contemporary AI models.

“AI has an Achilles heel,” said Adami, professor in MSU’s departments of microbiology and molecular genetics, and physics and astronomy. “It can see a pattern and completely misclassify it.”

Beyond the search for alien life, this weakness could also be problematic as AI continues to move into medical scanners, security cameras, self-driving cars and other devices in everyday use here on Earth... (MORE - no ads)]]> <![CDATA[NASA’s X-59 “frankenjet” tests supersonic flight without the sonic boom]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20760.html Tue, 30 Jun 2026 16:49:03 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20760.html https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/06/...onic-boom/

INTRO: More than two decades since the Concorde supersonic airliner last took to the skies, NASA has been flying an experimental aircraft designed to replace loud sonic booms with a quieter thump equivalent to a car door slamming shut 20 feet away. A successful NASA flight test program could influence the design of future supersonic airliners capable of flying overland routes without rattling buildings—and people’s nerves.

The Lockheed Martin X-59 Quesst—an acronym for Quiet SuperSonic Technology—first took flight late last year and recently began supersonic test flights. But unlike with many experimental “X-plane” aircraft that may never leave restricted airspace near Edwards Air Force Base in California, NASA plans to eventually take the X-59 on a tour around the United States so residents of various cities and towns can provide feedback on the quieter sonic “thumps” it produces.

“Usually an X plane is kind of bare-bones—‘cobble it together from a bunch of parts from other airplanes and just demonstrate one thing,’” said Jim “Clue” Less, a NASA test pilot and aerospace engineer, in an interview with Ars. “We need to demonstrate that one thing, but then we need a plane that’s robust enough that we can fly it all over the place and gather that data.”

The move comes at a time when the US Congress has been advancing legislation that could legalize overland supersonic travel. That would reverse a 1973 ban implemented by the US Federal Aviation Administration, which was informed by the public backlash and noise complaints following US military tests of supersonic flights over Oklahoma City, Chicago, and St. Louis in the 1960s.

But even if the X-59 program shows that quieter supersonic travel is possible, any potential revival of commercial supersonic flights would still have to prove financially viable despite challenges such as massive fuel consumption costs... (MORE - details)

https://youtu.be/lmwKBaVFNps

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/lmwKBaVFNps]]> https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/06/...onic-boom/

INTRO: More than two decades since the Concorde supersonic airliner last took to the skies, NASA has been flying an experimental aircraft designed to replace loud sonic booms with a quieter thump equivalent to a car door slamming shut 20 feet away. A successful NASA flight test program could influence the design of future supersonic airliners capable of flying overland routes without rattling buildings—and people’s nerves.

The Lockheed Martin X-59 Quesst—an acronym for Quiet SuperSonic Technology—first took flight late last year and recently began supersonic test flights. But unlike with many experimental “X-plane” aircraft that may never leave restricted airspace near Edwards Air Force Base in California, NASA plans to eventually take the X-59 on a tour around the United States so residents of various cities and towns can provide feedback on the quieter sonic “thumps” it produces.

“Usually an X plane is kind of bare-bones—‘cobble it together from a bunch of parts from other airplanes and just demonstrate one thing,’” said Jim “Clue” Less, a NASA test pilot and aerospace engineer, in an interview with Ars. “We need to demonstrate that one thing, but then we need a plane that’s robust enough that we can fly it all over the place and gather that data.”

The move comes at a time when the US Congress has been advancing legislation that could legalize overland supersonic travel. That would reverse a 1973 ban implemented by the US Federal Aviation Administration, which was informed by the public backlash and noise complaints following US military tests of supersonic flights over Oklahoma City, Chicago, and St. Louis in the 1960s.

But even if the X-59 program shows that quieter supersonic travel is possible, any potential revival of commercial supersonic flights would still have to prove financially viable despite challenges such as massive fuel consumption costs... (MORE - details)

https://youtu.be/lmwKBaVFNps

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/lmwKBaVFNps]]> <![CDATA[Electric car batteries last much longer than researchers and people thought. Why?]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20707.html Wed, 24 Jun 2026 15:25:53 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20707.html https://www.sciencenorway.no/battery-car...hy/2675418

EXCERPT: Until recently, it was widely believed that the batteries would limit the lifespan of an electric car. Many people expected that replacing the large main battery would be extremely expensive if an electric car were to last as long as a fossil-fuel car. After all, smartphone batteries wear out relatively quickly.

So why were both consumers and researchers so mistaken? A widely discussed 2024 study by a group of researchers at Stanford University provides a clue. It showed that batteries in real-world electric cars can last up to 40 per cent longer than researchers had previously concluded from lab testing of similar batteries.

What on earth is the explanation for this? The researchers found that several factors are at play. Drivers constantly accelerate and brake. They take both short trips and long journeys. Most importantly, real-world electric cars spend a great deal of time parked, allowing their batteries long periods of rest.

All of this places less strain on electric car batteries than the steady, continuous operation researchers subjected them to in lab tests. The fact that frequent acceleration and braking could be beneficial for the battery was the exact opposite of what researchers had expected.

“We’ve not been testing EV batteries the right way,” researcher Simona Onori told Stanford Report... (MORE - details)]]> https://www.sciencenorway.no/battery-car...hy/2675418

EXCERPT: Until recently, it was widely believed that the batteries would limit the lifespan of an electric car. Many people expected that replacing the large main battery would be extremely expensive if an electric car were to last as long as a fossil-fuel car. After all, smartphone batteries wear out relatively quickly.

So why were both consumers and researchers so mistaken? A widely discussed 2024 study by a group of researchers at Stanford University provides a clue. It showed that batteries in real-world electric cars can last up to 40 per cent longer than researchers had previously concluded from lab testing of similar batteries.

What on earth is the explanation for this? The researchers found that several factors are at play. Drivers constantly accelerate and brake. They take both short trips and long journeys. Most importantly, real-world electric cars spend a great deal of time parked, allowing their batteries long periods of rest.

All of this places less strain on electric car batteries than the steady, continuous operation researchers subjected them to in lab tests. The fact that frequent acceleration and braking could be beneficial for the battery was the exact opposite of what researchers had expected.

“We’ve not been testing EV batteries the right way,” researcher Simona Onori told Stanford Report... (MORE - details)]]> <![CDATA[Scientists made a car paint so black it looks like a hole in reality]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20670.html Fri, 19 Jun 2026 15:52:27 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20670.html https://gizmodo.com/scientists-made-a-ca...2000773588

INTRO: Vantablack inspires awe and disquiet. When BMW used this “blackest black” paint on one of its 2019 concept cars, the BMW X6, the German automaker noted that any surface coated in this carbon nanotube-based emulsion “loses its defining features to the human eye, with objects appearing two-dimensional.” The result, BMW added, “can be interpreted by the brain as staring into a hole or even a void.”

Vantablack never made it onto a commercial BMW vehicle, becoming instead a glare-reduction coating proposed for satellites and spookier applications, like stealth submarines. But that hasn’t deterred Singapore-based coatings developer Nipsea Group, whose R&D wing has now announced a more resilient blacker-than-black paint that it hopes will meet China’s burgeoning demand for deep-black luxury vehicles. Nipsea’s Vantablack-inspired composite, the researchers said, has proven capable of absorbing an average of 99.9% of all visible light wavelengths.

This new “ultra-black coating,” as the team wrote in its new paper for the journal Matter & Light, also remained “notably stable” even after humidity and water resistance tests—qualifying it for “application as ultra-black automotive coating.”

“In China, car color has become a key selling point,” Nipsea research chemist Zhiwei Liu said in a statement. “Deep black finishes have long been the premium choice and signature color for luxury cars due to their elegant appearance, powerful visual impact, and luxurious undertone.” (MORE - details)

https://youtu.be/akv3ip3kLng

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/akv3ip3kLng]]> https://gizmodo.com/scientists-made-a-ca...2000773588

INTRO: Vantablack inspires awe and disquiet. When BMW used this “blackest black” paint on one of its 2019 concept cars, the BMW X6, the German automaker noted that any surface coated in this carbon nanotube-based emulsion “loses its defining features to the human eye, with objects appearing two-dimensional.” The result, BMW added, “can be interpreted by the brain as staring into a hole or even a void.”

Vantablack never made it onto a commercial BMW vehicle, becoming instead a glare-reduction coating proposed for satellites and spookier applications, like stealth submarines. But that hasn’t deterred Singapore-based coatings developer Nipsea Group, whose R&D wing has now announced a more resilient blacker-than-black paint that it hopes will meet China’s burgeoning demand for deep-black luxury vehicles. Nipsea’s Vantablack-inspired composite, the researchers said, has proven capable of absorbing an average of 99.9% of all visible light wavelengths.

This new “ultra-black coating,” as the team wrote in its new paper for the journal Matter & Light, also remained “notably stable” even after humidity and water resistance tests—qualifying it for “application as ultra-black automotive coating.”

“In China, car color has become a key selling point,” Nipsea research chemist Zhiwei Liu said in a statement. “Deep black finishes have long been the premium choice and signature color for luxury cars due to their elegant appearance, powerful visual impact, and luxurious undertone.” (MORE - details)

https://youtu.be/akv3ip3kLng

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/akv3ip3kLng]]> <![CDATA[This jacket pulls drinking water from thin air]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20632.html Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:49:21 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20632.html https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1131994

INTRO: Engineers at The University of Texas at Austin have developed a jacket that harvests drinking water directly from the air. The technology could benefit anyone who spends much time in areas without easy access to drinking water, from hobbyist hikers, campers and runners to agricultural workers, emergency responders and soldiers.

“Water harvesting from air is usually imagined as a stationary device such as a box, a panel or a large sorbent bed,” said Guihua Yu, chair professor of the Cockrell School of Engineering’s Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering and Texas Materials Institute and one of the leaders of the new research in Science Advances. “Here, we wanted to rethink the form of the technology. If the fabric itself can collect water from air, it opens a new direction for personal and portable water access.”

The textile incorporated into the jacket collects moisture and funnels it to detachable harvesting units. Those units are placed in a foldable collector piece and heated to produce the water.

The jacket produced between 400 and 900 milliliters of drinkable water per day, about 14 to 30 ounces, depending on humidity levels.

Compared with conventional water-harvesting materials, the textile showed a three- to 10-fold improvement at scale. By focusing on the fibers rather than building another bulky device, the researchers overcame a common problem in the field... (MORE - no ads)]]> https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1131994

INTRO: Engineers at The University of Texas at Austin have developed a jacket that harvests drinking water directly from the air. The technology could benefit anyone who spends much time in areas without easy access to drinking water, from hobbyist hikers, campers and runners to agricultural workers, emergency responders and soldiers.

“Water harvesting from air is usually imagined as a stationary device such as a box, a panel or a large sorbent bed,” said Guihua Yu, chair professor of the Cockrell School of Engineering’s Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering and Texas Materials Institute and one of the leaders of the new research in Science Advances. “Here, we wanted to rethink the form of the technology. If the fabric itself can collect water from air, it opens a new direction for personal and portable water access.”

The textile incorporated into the jacket collects moisture and funnels it to detachable harvesting units. Those units are placed in a foldable collector piece and heated to produce the water.

The jacket produced between 400 and 900 milliliters of drinkable water per day, about 14 to 30 ounces, depending on humidity levels.

Compared with conventional water-harvesting materials, the textile showed a three- to 10-fold improvement at scale. By focusing on the fibers rather than building another bulky device, the researchers overcame a common problem in the field... (MORE - no ads)]]> <![CDATA[Artificial eyes could bring human-like sight to self-driving cars, robots]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20611.html Tue, 09 Jun 2026 20:19:20 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20611.html https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1130994

INTRO: Although self-driving cars and sophisticated robots use advanced cameras, computer algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI) to picture their surroundings, these artificial eyes struggle to remain reliable in mixed lighting conditions. A team of researchers, co-led by an engineer from Penn State, has proposed a solution that mimics the mechanics of the human eye to adapt from bright to dark light in seconds.

They did this by adjusting how one of the main electrical components used in these optical systems are built, employing a new design that swells or desorbs with water depending on the light levels present. The approach, detailed in a paper published in Nature Communications, illuminates a road to building systems that could potentially process light data faster and more adaptively than humans.

The improved components are known as memory resistors, or “memristors” — tiny electrical devices that can store information or data in a system, even if the original power source fueling the application is removed. These devices mimic the complex way neurons process and store data in the brain. Photomemristors are a type of memristor capable of sensing and collecting light information then translating it into an electrical current, a process that could more effectively power advanced cameras and optical systems.

According to Larry Cheng, James L. Henderson Jr. Memorial Associate Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics at Penn State and co-corresponding author on the paper, traditional photomemristors are calibrated and optimized for consistent lighting conditions. Although this allows the systems to work well in both bright and dark environments, maintaining recognition accuracy in changing or mixed lighting can be challenging.

“Self-driving cars are exposed to a mixture of light levels in use — imagine the contrast of the dark sky with the bright headlights of other cars when driving at night,” Cheng explained. “It can be difficult for an artificial optical system to distinguish details, like the glow of a red light, in these mixed lightning conditions.”

Inside the human eye, a series of rod and cone cells helps adjust vision to different lighting conditions. Specific pigments in the rod cells allow the eye to distinguish details, even in the dark. In bright light, though, these pigments in the rod cells “bleach” before slowly regenerating, while the cone cells remain to allow the eye to discern contrasting details. The team theorized that this process, mimicked in a photomemristor, could offer monitoring more adaptive and accurate than traditional designs.

To achieve this, the team mainly built their photomemristors out of two different materials... (MORE - no ads)]]> https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1130994

INTRO: Although self-driving cars and sophisticated robots use advanced cameras, computer algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI) to picture their surroundings, these artificial eyes struggle to remain reliable in mixed lighting conditions. A team of researchers, co-led by an engineer from Penn State, has proposed a solution that mimics the mechanics of the human eye to adapt from bright to dark light in seconds.

They did this by adjusting how one of the main electrical components used in these optical systems are built, employing a new design that swells or desorbs with water depending on the light levels present. The approach, detailed in a paper published in Nature Communications, illuminates a road to building systems that could potentially process light data faster and more adaptively than humans.

The improved components are known as memory resistors, or “memristors” — tiny electrical devices that can store information or data in a system, even if the original power source fueling the application is removed. These devices mimic the complex way neurons process and store data in the brain. Photomemristors are a type of memristor capable of sensing and collecting light information then translating it into an electrical current, a process that could more effectively power advanced cameras and optical systems.

According to Larry Cheng, James L. Henderson Jr. Memorial Associate Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics at Penn State and co-corresponding author on the paper, traditional photomemristors are calibrated and optimized for consistent lighting conditions. Although this allows the systems to work well in both bright and dark environments, maintaining recognition accuracy in changing or mixed lighting can be challenging.

“Self-driving cars are exposed to a mixture of light levels in use — imagine the contrast of the dark sky with the bright headlights of other cars when driving at night,” Cheng explained. “It can be difficult for an artificial optical system to distinguish details, like the glow of a red light, in these mixed lightning conditions.”

Inside the human eye, a series of rod and cone cells helps adjust vision to different lighting conditions. Specific pigments in the rod cells allow the eye to distinguish details, even in the dark. In bright light, though, these pigments in the rod cells “bleach” before slowly regenerating, while the cone cells remain to allow the eye to discern contrasting details. The team theorized that this process, mimicked in a photomemristor, could offer monitoring more adaptive and accurate than traditional designs.

To achieve this, the team mainly built their photomemristors out of two different materials... (MORE - no ads)]]> <![CDATA[How the antihumanism movement is being outpaced by tech companies]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20581.html Thu, 04 Jun 2026 22:32:59 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20581.html https://hedgehogreview.com/issues/humani...ts-authors

EXCERPTS: This area of scholarship is new enough that it doesn’t have a name yet, but I will call it Queer Chemical Studies (QCS). QCS begins by noting a phenomenon widely decried by environmental activists and studied by biologists, ecologists, and medical researchers: the impact of plastics, pesticides, and other synthetic materials in the environment on reproduction, human and animal...

[...] QCS scholars instead invite us ... to view “the queering of the body” brought about by environmental toxins “as opening on to new, and ecological, possibilities rather than reasserting a threatened heteronormative configuration.” The remarkable implication of this is that pervasive pollution can be recast as a vector of queer liberation. ... The QCS discovery that queer liberation is being realized by the petrochemical industry may seem like a niche matter, but it is emblematic of a broader impasse faced by the academic humanities.

For the past half century, humanists have deconstructed, subverted, problematized, and queered every normativity and supremacy they could find. The ultimate target of this systematic critical project was, paradoxically, the value that originally founded and gave shape to their disciplines: humanism.

The dismantling of “Man” [antihumanism] was the impetus for some of the founding polemical statements of what came to be called “theory.” In recent decades, this project was reinvigorated in the form of “posthumanism” and the “posthumanities,” which launched an attack on the most centric of all centrisms: anthropocentrism. In line with this project, QCS discards any idea of a fixed, natural human essence to which synthetic substances pose a threat.

The early parts of the story of how the humanities turned against “the human” are well told in two intellectual histories...

[...] But what if academic antihumanists turn out to be dispensable to the realization of antihumanist goals? That is the unsettling conclusion QCS points us to, without acknowledging it. ... I am referring to the creation of generative artificial intelligence and the pursuit of artificial general intelligence (AGI) and artificial superintelligence (ASI) by a number of the world’s most highly valued companies.

Like so many humanities scholars before them, the entrepreneurs and engineers pursuing AGI openly seek to “decenter the human” and explore the possibilities of nonhuman agency. But their plan for doing so has far vaster resources behind it than all academic humanities departments combined...

[...] In other words, the humanities have spent half a century decentering the human but now face steep competition in that effort from tech companies with more than trillion-dollar valuations... (MORE - details)]]> https://hedgehogreview.com/issues/humani...ts-authors

EXCERPTS: This area of scholarship is new enough that it doesn’t have a name yet, but I will call it Queer Chemical Studies (QCS). QCS begins by noting a phenomenon widely decried by environmental activists and studied by biologists, ecologists, and medical researchers: the impact of plastics, pesticides, and other synthetic materials in the environment on reproduction, human and animal...

[...] QCS scholars instead invite us ... to view “the queering of the body” brought about by environmental toxins “as opening on to new, and ecological, possibilities rather than reasserting a threatened heteronormative configuration.” The remarkable implication of this is that pervasive pollution can be recast as a vector of queer liberation. ... The QCS discovery that queer liberation is being realized by the petrochemical industry may seem like a niche matter, but it is emblematic of a broader impasse faced by the academic humanities.

For the past half century, humanists have deconstructed, subverted, problematized, and queered every normativity and supremacy they could find. The ultimate target of this systematic critical project was, paradoxically, the value that originally founded and gave shape to their disciplines: humanism.

The dismantling of “Man” [antihumanism] was the impetus for some of the founding polemical statements of what came to be called “theory.” In recent decades, this project was reinvigorated in the form of “posthumanism” and the “posthumanities,” which launched an attack on the most centric of all centrisms: anthropocentrism. In line with this project, QCS discards any idea of a fixed, natural human essence to which synthetic substances pose a threat.

The early parts of the story of how the humanities turned against “the human” are well told in two intellectual histories...

[...] But what if academic antihumanists turn out to be dispensable to the realization of antihumanist goals? That is the unsettling conclusion QCS points us to, without acknowledging it. ... I am referring to the creation of generative artificial intelligence and the pursuit of artificial general intelligence (AGI) and artificial superintelligence (ASI) by a number of the world’s most highly valued companies.

Like so many humanities scholars before them, the entrepreneurs and engineers pursuing AGI openly seek to “decenter the human” and explore the possibilities of nonhuman agency. But their plan for doing so has far vaster resources behind it than all academic humanities departments combined...

[...] In other words, the humanities have spent half a century decentering the human but now face steep competition in that effort from tech companies with more than trillion-dollar valuations... (MORE - details)]]> <![CDATA[Energy-efficient desalination system produces fresh water without chemical additives]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20529.html Thu, 28 May 2026 15:08:03 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20529.html Energy-efficient desalination system produces fresh water without chemical additives and transforms leftover salts into useful materials
https://www.rochester.edu/newscenter/wha...er-704732/

KEY POINTS: A new desalination method produces drinking water from seawater without chemical additives. The solar-powered system uses specially engineered black metal to absorb sunlight. Its self-cleaning surface separates and collects salts, instead of dumping them as harmful brine waste. From the salts, the system can extract lithium, a key material for rechargeable batteries. The approach could help address global water shortages and growing mineral demand... (MORE - details)]]> Energy-efficient desalination system produces fresh water without chemical additives and transforms leftover salts into useful materials
https://www.rochester.edu/newscenter/wha...er-704732/

KEY POINTS: A new desalination method produces drinking water from seawater without chemical additives. The solar-powered system uses specially engineered black metal to absorb sunlight. Its self-cleaning surface separates and collects salts, instead of dumping them as harmful brine waste. From the salts, the system can extract lithium, a key material for rechargeable batteries. The approach could help address global water shortages and growing mineral demand... (MORE - details)]]> <![CDATA[Why some of Ukraine's drones do strike European allies (war-tech competition)]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20514.html Mon, 25 May 2026 19:15:35 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20514.html https://youtu.be/3IVtLIeZwkc

VIDEO EXCERPTS: The Ukrainians started doing more and more drone attacks. In response the Russians [hijacked and] started to twist their instructions, and some of these drones were bent back into the Baltic states. At least on two occasions they were actually able to successfully target Latvian energy infrastructure, specifically fuel tanks. So there was a spat among the coalition partners in the Latvian government.

[...] it shows the ongoing evolution of drones. Because if the Russians can somewhat reliably undermine this class of [signal-dependent] drones, then the Ukrainians have no choice but to stop using them. Now, I would argue that Ukrainians are well on their way to that point. Remember I mentioned that one of the subsets of these drones are ones that when they reach their final target coordinates, they can look around and make a decision. That is already a significant step up from what the Russians can do.

If you just up the amount of memory you have in the drone, that's capable of doing that just a little bit, then all of a sudden it doesn't need that external signal. It can follow geographic landmarks like mountains or buildings or roads and then it doesn't have to have a signal. So there's nothing to jam and we've already seen the Ukrainians start to introduce drones like that, just not across the board. So as with everything with the Ukraine war there is an ongoing tug of war between attack and defense...

Latvia's political flux caused by drones ... https://youtu.be/3IVtLIeZwkc

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/3IVtLIeZwkc]]> https://youtu.be/3IVtLIeZwkc

VIDEO EXCERPTS: The Ukrainians started doing more and more drone attacks. In response the Russians [hijacked and] started to twist their instructions, and some of these drones were bent back into the Baltic states. At least on two occasions they were actually able to successfully target Latvian energy infrastructure, specifically fuel tanks. So there was a spat among the coalition partners in the Latvian government.

[...] it shows the ongoing evolution of drones. Because if the Russians can somewhat reliably undermine this class of [signal-dependent] drones, then the Ukrainians have no choice but to stop using them. Now, I would argue that Ukrainians are well on their way to that point. Remember I mentioned that one of the subsets of these drones are ones that when they reach their final target coordinates, they can look around and make a decision. That is already a significant step up from what the Russians can do.

If you just up the amount of memory you have in the drone, that's capable of doing that just a little bit, then all of a sudden it doesn't need that external signal. It can follow geographic landmarks like mountains or buildings or roads and then it doesn't have to have a signal. So there's nothing to jam and we've already seen the Ukrainians start to introduce drones like that, just not across the board. So as with everything with the Ukraine war there is an ongoing tug of war between attack and defense...

Latvia's political flux caused by drones ... https://youtu.be/3IVtLIeZwkc

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/3IVtLIeZwkc]]> <![CDATA[Company to resurrect extinct birds using artificial eggs]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20476.html Wed, 20 May 2026 22:06:14 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20476.html https://www.npr.org/2026/05/19/nx-s1-580...s-dodo-moa

EXCERPTS: Trevor Snyder pulls open an incubator and gently lifts out a device that looks like a high-tech coffee pod. It's black, with a honeycomb bottom. A clear flat top reveals what's inside. "This is a chicken embryo," says Snyder, a bioengineer at Colossal Biosciences in Dallas...

[...] Snyder and his colleagues developed this 3D-printed plastic egg to advance one of Colossal's big goals: resurrecting the dodo and another extinct flightless bird called the giant moa, which looked like a giant ostrich when it roamed New Zealand hundreds of years ago.

[...] The moa's eggs were about the size of a football, which is far larger than the eggs of the moa's closest living relatives, such as the emu.

"There's no bird on Earth today that could grow a moa embryo inside of one of their eggs," Snyder tells NPR during a recent tour of the company's lab. "So we have to come up with artificial eggs to be able to support those embryos. But to understand all the things that the egg needs to do, we're starting with chicken eggs."

On Tuesday, Colossal announced that it had hatched healthy chicken chicks that were incubated in the company's artificial eggs, providing a proof of concept that they work.

[...] The company's plan is to try to recreate dodos and moas from embryos made from gene-edited cells from the Nicobar pigeon for the dodo and possibly the emu for the moa. [...] Some other scientists are thrilled because the artificial eggs could also help save birds and reptiles on the brink of extinction.

[...] "We're undoing the sins of the past," says Ben Lamm, Colossal's co-founder and CEO. "There's nothing more ethical than what we're doing." (MORE - missing details)]]> https://www.npr.org/2026/05/19/nx-s1-580...s-dodo-moa

EXCERPTS: Trevor Snyder pulls open an incubator and gently lifts out a device that looks like a high-tech coffee pod. It's black, with a honeycomb bottom. A clear flat top reveals what's inside. "This is a chicken embryo," says Snyder, a bioengineer at Colossal Biosciences in Dallas...

[...] Snyder and his colleagues developed this 3D-printed plastic egg to advance one of Colossal's big goals: resurrecting the dodo and another extinct flightless bird called the giant moa, which looked like a giant ostrich when it roamed New Zealand hundreds of years ago.

[...] The moa's eggs were about the size of a football, which is far larger than the eggs of the moa's closest living relatives, such as the emu.

"There's no bird on Earth today that could grow a moa embryo inside of one of their eggs," Snyder tells NPR during a recent tour of the company's lab. "So we have to come up with artificial eggs to be able to support those embryos. But to understand all the things that the egg needs to do, we're starting with chicken eggs."

On Tuesday, Colossal announced that it had hatched healthy chicken chicks that were incubated in the company's artificial eggs, providing a proof of concept that they work.

[...] The company's plan is to try to recreate dodos and moas from embryos made from gene-edited cells from the Nicobar pigeon for the dodo and possibly the emu for the moa. [...] Some other scientists are thrilled because the artificial eggs could also help save birds and reptiles on the brink of extinction.

[...] "We're undoing the sins of the past," says Ben Lamm, Colossal's co-founder and CEO. "There's nothing more ethical than what we're doing." (MORE - missing details)]]> <![CDATA[Brain-controlled hearing system proves itself in first human studies]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20410.html Mon, 11 May 2026 17:03:06 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20410.html https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1127026

INTRO: Scientists at Columbia University’s Zuckerman Institute have the first direct evidence from human studies that brain-controlled hearing technology can help people single out a voice in a crowd. These early findings suggest that researchers may one day develop a hearing augmentation device that can, among other feats, overcome the problems that conventional hearing aids have with noisy surroundings.

Their research was published online today in Nature Neuroscience.

“We have developed a system that acts as a neural extension of the user, leveraging the brain’s natural ability to filter through all the sounds in a complex environment to dynamically isolate the specific conversation they wish to hear,” said senior author Nima Mesgarani, PhD, a principal investigator at Columbia’s Zuckerman Institute and an associate professor of electrical engineering at Columbia’s Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science.

“This science empowers us to think beyond traditional hearing aids, which simply amplify sound, toward a future where technology can restore the sophisticated, selective hearing of the human brain," Dr. Mesgarani added... (MORE - no ads)]]> https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1127026

INTRO: Scientists at Columbia University’s Zuckerman Institute have the first direct evidence from human studies that brain-controlled hearing technology can help people single out a voice in a crowd. These early findings suggest that researchers may one day develop a hearing augmentation device that can, among other feats, overcome the problems that conventional hearing aids have with noisy surroundings.

Their research was published online today in Nature Neuroscience.

“We have developed a system that acts as a neural extension of the user, leveraging the brain’s natural ability to filter through all the sounds in a complex environment to dynamically isolate the specific conversation they wish to hear,” said senior author Nima Mesgarani, PhD, a principal investigator at Columbia’s Zuckerman Institute and an associate professor of electrical engineering at Columbia’s Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science.

“This science empowers us to think beyond traditional hearing aids, which simply amplify sound, toward a future where technology can restore the sophisticated, selective hearing of the human brain," Dr. Mesgarani added... (MORE - no ads)]]> <![CDATA[Invisible solar panels a gamechanger]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20357.html Mon, 04 May 2026 00:12:25 +0000 Magical Realist]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20357.html
[Image: BQKS1Ul.jpg]
[Image: BQKS1Ul.jpg]

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[Image: BQKS1Ul.jpg]
[Image: BQKS1Ul.jpg]

]]> <![CDATA[This ‘living plastic’ activates and self-destructs on command]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20340.html Fri, 01 May 2026 16:41:10 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20340.html https://www.acs.org/pressroom/presspacs/...mmand.html

EXCERPTS: Zhuojun Dai, a corresponding author on the paper, explains that “the realization that traditional plastics persist for centuries, while many applications, like packaging, are short-lived, led us to ask: Could we build degradation directly into the material’s life cycle?”

Many microbes can break long polymeric chains into smaller pieces using enzymes. Because plastics are polymers, these enzymes or the microbes that make them could be incorporated into living plastics.

“By embedding these microbes, plastics could effectively ‘come alive’ and self-destruct on command, turning durability from a problem into a programmable feature,” explains Dai.

While previous attempts relied primarily on a single enzyme, Dai, Jin Geng, Dianpeng Qi and colleagues wanted to improve the destruction efficiency. So, they engineered Bacillus subtilis to produce two cooperative, polymer-degrading enzymes. One enzyme acts as a random chopper, snipping the long polymer chains into smaller pieces, while the other slowly chews these pieces into their monomer building units from each end.

[...] The cooperation between the enzymes was so efficient, it even prevented microplastic particles from being created during the degradation process. As a proof-of-concept, the researchers created a wearable plastic electrode out of their living plastic and found it performed as expected, degrading completely within two weeks... (MORE - missing details)]]> https://www.acs.org/pressroom/presspacs/...mmand.html

EXCERPTS: Zhuojun Dai, a corresponding author on the paper, explains that “the realization that traditional plastics persist for centuries, while many applications, like packaging, are short-lived, led us to ask: Could we build degradation directly into the material’s life cycle?”

Many microbes can break long polymeric chains into smaller pieces using enzymes. Because plastics are polymers, these enzymes or the microbes that make them could be incorporated into living plastics.

“By embedding these microbes, plastics could effectively ‘come alive’ and self-destruct on command, turning durability from a problem into a programmable feature,” explains Dai.

While previous attempts relied primarily on a single enzyme, Dai, Jin Geng, Dianpeng Qi and colleagues wanted to improve the destruction efficiency. So, they engineered Bacillus subtilis to produce two cooperative, polymer-degrading enzymes. One enzyme acts as a random chopper, snipping the long polymer chains into smaller pieces, while the other slowly chews these pieces into their monomer building units from each end.

[...] The cooperation between the enzymes was so efficient, it even prevented microplastic particles from being created during the degradation process. As a proof-of-concept, the researchers created a wearable plastic electrode out of their living plastic and found it performed as expected, degrading completely within two weeks... (MORE - missing details)]]> <![CDATA[Instant toddler nirvana!]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20295.html Sun, 26 Apr 2026 20:56:09 +0000 Magical Realist]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20295.html https://www.facebook.com/reel/1493305332...ingle_unit]]> https://www.facebook.com/reel/1493305332...ingle_unit]]> <![CDATA[Electrical nail clippers]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20292.html Sun, 26 Apr 2026 14:53:16 +0000 Magical Realist]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20292.html
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/XbdV6_26E4M]]>
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/XbdV6_26E4M]]>