Archive for the ‘futurism’ category: Page 996
Apr 20, 2018
The Yellowstone supervolcano is a disaster waiting to happen
Posted by Genevieve Klien in category: futurism
Scientists have new insight into the restless magma chambers underlying Yellowstone National Park.
Apr 20, 2018
University of Central Florida planetary scientist highlights CubeSat progress
Posted by Genevieve Klien in category: futurism
ORLANDO, Fla.—Adrienne Dove, a University of Central Florida (UCF) planetary scientist, physicist, and associate professor, capped off the university’s 2018 Distinguished Speaker series with a talk about CubeSats and UCF’s involvement with CubeSat-based science missions.
Highlights of a growing program
Dove began her talk detailing some of the key activities of the university’s Physics Department.
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Apr 20, 2018
Drought returns to huge swaths of US, fueling fears of a thirsty future
Posted by Bill Kemp in categories: climatology, futurism
Less than eight months after Hurricane Harvey pelted the Texas Gulf Coast with torrential rainfall, drought has returned to Texas and other parts of the West, Southwest and Southeast, rekindling old worries for residents who dealt with earlier waves of dry spells and once again forcing state governments to reckon with how to keep the water flowing.
Nearly a third of the continental United States was in drought as of April 10, more than three times the coverage of a year ago. And the specter of a drought-ridden summer has focused renewed urgency on state and local conservation efforts, some of which would fundamentally alter Americans’ behavior in how they use water.
In California, for example, officials are considering rules to permanently ban water-wasting actions such as hosing off sidewalks and driveways, washing a vehicle with a hose that doesn’t have a shut-off valve, and irrigating ornamental turf on public street medians. The regulations, awaiting a final decision by the California State Water Resources Control Board, were in force as temporary emergency measures during part of a devastating five-year drought but were lifted in 2017 after the drought subsided.
Apr 19, 2018
Flexible Ultrasound Patch Could Make it Easier to Inspect Damage in Odd-Shaped Structures
Posted by Yugal Agrawal in category: futurism
Flexible devices are definitely coming of age.
Flexible devices are coming of age and this flexible ultrasound patch could just prove to be extremely useful for damage inspection at odd places.
Apr 18, 2018
15 Albert Einstein quotes that reveal the mind of a true genius
Posted by Michael Lance in category: futurism
Albert Einstein died exactly 63 years ago today.
Albert Einstein wasn’t just a brilliant physicist — he was also a master at explaining the human condition.
Apr 18, 2018
Jordan Peele, BuzzFeed Create Fake News Video To Warn Of ‘Dangerous Time’
Posted by Sean Cusack in category: futurism
We all knew this was going to happen eventually. But this is a seriously dangerous time for this kind of technology to come out, given the state of the country’…s complete lack of ability to apparently discern truth from blatant self-serving lies. I wonder how many of these it would take to start a war, how many of these it would take to start a revolution.
Barack Obama appears to say, “Stay woke, bitches.”
Apr 18, 2018
Shared Autonomy via Deep Reinforcement Learning
Posted by Genevieve Klien in category: futurism
Apr 17, 2018
: New Kilauea lava vent could form ‘at any time,’ scientists say
Posted by Genevieve Klien in category: futurism
KILAUEA VOLCANO, BIG ISLAND (HawaiiNewsNow) — Scientists with the U.S.G.S. issued a Volcano Activity Notice on Tuesday, warning that the magma system beneath Kilauea’s East Rift Zone had become increasingly pressurized and that a new vent could form ‘at any time’ if conditions persist.
Based on data observed over the past month, the new vent could form on either the existing Pu’u O’o cone or on an adjacent area along the East Rift Zone, scientists say.
Magma is currently accumulating ‘at shallow depths’ beneath the existing Pu’u O’o eruption. The last time a major vent opened in the area was June 27, 2014 – the appropriately-named June 27th Flow sent lava flowing more than 12 miles into the town of Pahoa, causing minor damage to roads and structures.
Continue reading “: New Kilauea lava vent could form ‘at any time,’ scientists say” »
Apr 17, 2018
Artificial intelligence is writing fairy tales now, and humanity is doomed
Posted by Genevieve Klien in categories: futurism, robotics/AI
If it’s started to feel like all summer blockbuster movies are being written by robots [INSERT FORMER PRO WRESTLER, INSERT GIANT CGI ANIMAL], you’ll be disquieted to learn that that future may not be too far off.
The meditation app Calm teamed up with the tech team at Botnik to write a new Brothers Grimm-style fairy tale entirely through artificial intelligence. By inputting the data from existing Brothers Grimm stories and using predictive text technology (and with a few human writers stitching things together), the group at Botnik crafted “The Princess and the Fox,” a story about “a talking fox [who] helps the lowly miller’s son to rescue the beautiful princess from the fate of having to marry a dreadful prince who she does not love.”
“We’re doing for the Brothers Grimm what Jurassic Park did for dinosaurs,” says Michael Acton Smith, co-founder of Calm, in a press press release. “We’re bringing them back from the dead, with modern science.” (It perhaps bears remembering here that Jurassic Park famously did not end well.)
Continue reading “Artificial intelligence is writing fairy tales now, and humanity is doomed” »