Category: Syndication

The asteroid that killed dinosaurs hit at worst possible angle, study finds


Around 66 million years ago, an asteroid larger than Mt. Everest ripped through the atmosphere of Earth, striking our planet at the Yucatán Peninsula, on the southeastern coast of Mexico. This event set off fires around the globe, and the dust kicked into the air blocked out the Sun over large portions of the world. Soon, the era of dinosaurs, which lasted 175 million years, was snuffed out. Simulations show the impactor struck Earth at an angle around 60 degrees to the surface of Earth. Striking at this angle, the asteroid kicked up the greatest possible amount of dust, maximizing…

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The key differences in how COVID-19 is impacting EU and US mobility tech


These are certainly interesting times we live in. While the world is in the process of being completely transformed (in some ways for the better) due to the COVID-19 crisis, there has been an unequal response seen in the mobility ecosystem. In many ways the crisis has laid to bare the ongoing trends that have been brewing for some time. Trends between Europe and the United States These trends are related to the complete disruption that has occurred in the mobility sector over the past few years, such as 1.) disinvestment in public transport, 2.) over-reliance on VC funding for…

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The rocket science behind the SpaceX astronaut launch


Two NASA astronauts, Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley, have finally made history by travelling to the International Space Station in a privately funded spacecraft, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon capsule. The launch was initially due to take place on May 27 but had to be be postponed due to bad weather. It launched at 3.22pm EST on May 30. The astronauts took off lying on their backs in the seats, and facing in the direction of travel to reduce the stress of high acceleration on their bodies. Launching from Kennedy Space Centre, the spacecraft travelled out over the…

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All you need to know about symbolic artificial intelligence


Today, artificial intelligence is mostly about artificial neural networks and deep learning. But this is not how it always was. In fact, for most of its six-decade history, the field was dominated by symbolic artificial intelligence, also known as “classical AI,” “rule-based AI,” and “good old-fashioned AI.” Symbolic AI involves the explicit embedding of human knowledge and behavior rules into computer programs. The practice showed a lot of promise in the early decades of AI research. But in recent years, as neural networks, also known as connectionist AI, gained traction, symbolic AI has fallen by the wayside. The role of symbols in artificial…

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Here’s how carbon emissions would drop if all UK cars suddenly became electric


The COVID-19 lockdown has led to reduced pollution and emissions in the UK and around the world, providing a clear indication of how cars affect air quality and carbon emissions. But such a change is only temporary – millions of petrol cars are waiting for restrictions to ease. Then, higher levels of emissions will resume. But what if they didn’t? What if all cars switched to electric overnight? We recently published a peer-reviewed conference paper looking at the emissions impact for such a switch in Scotland alone, and have now extended our analysis to the whole of the UK for…

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How unemployment systems are failing workers around the US


As the COVID-19 crisis shuts down businesses across the country, total unemployment claims have now passed 30 million. And with unemployment benefits agencies buckling under the strain of new applicants, even that figure is likely a severe undercount. A report from the Economic Policy Institute published last month found that for every 10 people trying to apply for unemployment, three to four couldn’t get through the system to make a claim, and another two out of 10 said the process was too complicated to try. Taken together, the study suggests, millions of unemployed people have been effectively locked out of…

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Machine learning: What’s the difference between supervised and unsupervised?


Machine learning, the subset of artificial intelligence that teaches computers to perform tasks through examples and experience, is a hot area of research and development. Many of the applications we use daily use machine learning algorithms, including AI assistants, web search and machine translation. Your social media news feed is powered by a machine learning algorithm. The recommended videos you see on YouTube and Netflix are the result of a machine learning model. And Spotify’s Discover Weekly draws on the power of machine learning algorithms to create a list of songs that conform to your preferences. But machine learning comes…

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Study: Volcanoes on Mars were to blame for massive mud flows, not lava


Mud volcanoes on Mars could be the cause of distinctive features that most researchers had thought were left over from ancient lava flows. Tens of thousands of channels spread out over the Martian surface. Hundreds of kilometers long, and tens of miles wide, these ribbon canyons reach far across the ruddy landscape of Mars. Planetary science suggests these features were carved out as massive floods, comparable in size to the largest ever seen on Earth, tore across the surface of Mars long ago. As the water settled into the Martian crust, it (naturally) formed mud. Rapid freezing could have led…

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This German town replicated itself in VR to keep its tourism alive


This article was originally published by Sarah Wray on Cities Today, the leading news platform on urban mobility and innovation, reaching an international audience of city leaders. For the latest updates follow Cities Today on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube, or sign up for Cities Today News. Tourists may soon be able to explore the picturesque cross-timbered houses and historic churches of Herrenberg via virtual reality (VR), thanks to a digital twin developed with the High-Performance Computing Center Stuttgart (HLRS). Nicolai Reith, Head of the Control and Communication department and advisor to the Mayor of Herrenberg, told Cities Today: “You don’t…

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7 strategies to design landing pages that convert in 2020


Did you know we have an online conference about product design coming up? SPRINT will cover how designers and product owners can stay ahead of the curve in these unprecedented times. “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.” While getting people to visit a website is important, what businesses actually want is a conversion. In other words, grab fickle visitors who may be interested enough in the company’s unique value proposition to sign up, subscribe, stay updated, share with friends, and become loyal customers. That being the case, a landing page designer’s primary goal is to create…

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