Probably the most masterful and mysterious act of chemical computation is when a single cell uses its DNA to divide, multiply, and specialize to produce a fully developed organism. In research reported this week in Nature, computer scientists took a small but important step toward harnessing the potential of chemical computation by constructing the first broadly programmable DNA […]
An installation of three energy storage systems by Wärtsilä onboard an offshore construction vessel features a first with an energy and load sharing capability. The system combines a diesel-electric configuration with batteries, and is designed to deliver fuel savings for the ship of as much as 50%, given optimal operating conditions. The installation was carried […]
SpaceX has promised to redesign its upcoming megaconstellation of Internet satellites so that they cannot hurt anyone on Earth. In a meeting with the FCC last week, SpaceX said that the vast majority of its Starlink satellites will no longer contain dense metallic components that could survive reentry and endanger people on the ground. “No components of…the satellite […]
figcaption.BoldCaptionStyle { margin: 10px 0 0 10px; font-weight: bold; } Photo: The Voorhes You’ve fallen ill, but neither you nor your doctor know which treatment will work. Which would you rather do—try five different drugs, one at a time, until you find one that treats your illness without serious side effects, or take one drug that’s […]
Lumotive, a startup in Bellevue, Wash., says it has a compact, long-range lidar sensor that is at least as capable as the best machines from its rivals but smaller, cheaper to make, and more robust. This announcement, the company’s first, comes after two years of work, seeded by money from Bill Gates and from Intellectual Ventures, a firm founded by Gates’s […]
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Stanford University launched its Institute for Human-Centered AI on Monday. Known as Stanford HAI, the institute’s charter is to develop new technologies while guiding AI’s impact on the world, wrestle with ethical questions, and come up with helpful public policies. The Institute intends to raise US $1 billion to put toward this effort. The university kicked off Stanford […]
Encryption sounds beautifully simple at its core: Encoded messages can’t be read unless you’re authorized with a key to decode them. But through a sneaky attack called side-channel sniffing, unauthorized bad actors can figure out the key by measuring the encryption engine’s power consumption or electromagnetic outputs and having a computer do a bit of […]
Photo: Anindito Mukherjee/Bloomberg/Getty Images Businesses such as barbershops are not part of India’s ambitious electrification plan. Indian prime minister Narendra Modi is crisscrossing his country, declaring that his government has eliminated the nation’s persistent electrification gap. Modi hopes this potent political message will help propel his party to another victory in India’s April and May […]
March 20, 2019 WASHINGTON — A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine recommends steps U.S. communities can take to better measure their progress in building resilience to disasters, including measuring resilience around multiple dimensions of a community, and incentivizing the measurement of resilience. The report also recommends that the National […]