Lifeboat Foundation

There are over 30,000 weather stations in the world, measuring temperature, precipitation and other indicators often on a daily basis. That’s a massive amount of data for climate researchers to compile and analyze to produce the monthly and annual global and regional temperatures (especially) that make the news.

Now researchers have unleashed artificial intelligence (AI) on these datasets to analyze temperature extremes in Europe, finding excellent agreement compared to existing results that used traditional methods, and as well have uncovered climate extremes not previously known. Their work has been published in Nature Communications.

With the world’s climate changing rapidly, it is important to know how temperature and precipitation extremes are changing, so planners can adapt to the extremes here now and to what’s coming.

Whether it’s our phones, cars, televisions, medical devices or even washing machines, we now have computers everywhere.

Using bigger computers, we solve bigger problems like managing the operation of a power grid, designing an aircraft, predicting the weather or providing different types of artificial intelligence (AI).

But all these machines work by manipulating data in the form of ones and zeros (bits) using classical techniques that have not changed since the abacus was invented in antiquity.

A new composite material developed by KIMS researchers absorbs over 99% of electromagnetic waves from different frequencies, improving the performance of devices like smartphones and wearables.

A team of scientists from the Korea Institute of Materials Science (KIMS) has developed the world’s first ultra-thin film composite material capable of absorbing over 99% of electromagnetic waves from various frequency bands, including 5G/6G, WiFi, and autonomous driving radar, using a single material.

This novel electromagnetic wave absorption and shielding material is less than 0.5mm thick and is characterized by its low reflectance of less than 1% and high absorbance of over 99% across three different frequency bands.

Summary: A new AI algorithm inspired by the genome’s ability to compress vast information offers insights into brain function and potential tech applications. Researchers found that this algorithm performs tasks like image recognition and video games almost as effectively as fully trained AI networks.

By mimicking how genomes encode complex behaviors with limited data, the model highlights the evolutionary advantage of efficient information compression. The findings suggest new pathways for developing advanced, lightweight AI systems capable of running on smaller devices like smartphones.

Elon Musk says that Starlink’s new system enables internet connectivity for your mobile phone with ‘no extra equipment or special app’ required.

Designed to one day search for evidence of life in the briny ocean beneath the icy shell of Jupiter’s moon Europa, these robots could play a key role in detecting chemical and temperature signals that might indicate alien life, according to scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), who designed and tested the robots.

“People might ask, why is NASA developing an underwater robot for space exploration?” said Ethan Schaler, the project’s principal investigator at JPL. “It’s because there are places we want to go in the solar system to look for life, and we think life needs water.”

Generative AI could saddle the planet with heaps more hazardous waste.

By Saima S. Iqbal

Every time generative artificial intelligence drafts an e-mail or conjures up an image, the planet pays for it. Making two images can consume as much energy as charging a smartphone; a single exchange with ChatGPT can heat up a server so much that it requires a bottle’s worth of water to cool. At scale, these costs soar. By 2027, the global AI sector could annually consume as much electricity as the Netherlands, according to one recent estimate. And a new study in Nature Computational Science identifies another concern: AI’s outsize contribution to the world’s mounting heap of electronic waste. The study found that generative AI applications alone could add 1.2 million to five million metric tons of this hazardous trash to the planet by 2030, depending on how quickly the industry grows.

Money from the CHIPS and Science Act is officially coming to Upstate New York.

GlobalFoundries’ $1.5 billion agreement with the Commerce Department to support expansion plans in Saratoga County and modernization efforts in Vermont has been finalized. The award comes after a Preliminary Memorandum of Terms announced in February.

The award will mainly be used to expand their Malta, New York fab site, adding technology the company already uses in other countries like Germany and Singapore. This will allow them to increase the supply of domestically made computer chips, which are essential in electronic devices from smartphones to aerospace and defense technology.

Scientists have developed a method to improve the stability and efficiency of organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), a technology used in smartphones, TVs, and other electronic displays.

This advancement utilizes a unique type of molecule that has the potential to extend the lifespan of OLED devices significantly.

The researchers present a novel way to design organic molecules that can maintain their stability and efficiency over time, even in high-stress conditions. The research is published in the journal Nature Communications.