The Obtain: introducing the Hidden Worlds challenge

That is as we speak’s version of The Obtain, our weekday publication that gives a every day dose of what’s occurring on the planet of know-how.

Introducing: the Hidden Worlds challenge 

A hidden world is basically totally different from the undiscovered. We all know the hidden world is there. We simply can’t see it or attain it. 

Hidden worlds exist within the nice depths of the ocean and excessive above us within the planets of the evening sky. However they’re additionally throughout us within the type of waves and matter and microbes. 

Know-how has lengthy performed the spoiler to those worlds in hiding. We’ve got used ships, airplanes, and rockets to shrink distances. Telescopes, cameras, satellites, drones, and radar assist us peer into and map the locations we can’t go ourselves. AI more and more performs a task, too. 

If this all fascinates you as a lot as us, you’ll love the newest challenge of MIT Know-how Overview. It’s all about utilizing know-how to discover and expose these hidden worlds, whether or not they’re within the ocean depths, within the far reaches of our galaxy, or swirling throughout us, unseen. 

Try these tales from the journal:

+ Why Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa, is being investigated as a possible host for all times. 

+ Meet the intrepid divers experimenting with respiration hydrogen as a part of an effort to achieve depths no diver has ever been earlier than. 

+ Contained in the hunt for brand new physics on the Giant Hadron Collider, which hasn’t seen any new particles for the reason that discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012.

+ As AI develops at breakneck velocity, this comedian explains what we will all be taught from the Luddites. 

+ Right here’s a job title you maybe haven’t heard earlier than, however will hear extra in future: local weather fairness specialist. 

That is only a small collection of what’s on supply. I urge you to dive in and luxuriate in the entire thing, while you discover the time. Get pleasure from!

The primary-ever mission to drag a lifeless rocket out of house has simply begun

Greater than 9,000 metric tons of human-made steel and equipment are orbiting Earth, together with satellites, shrapnel, and the Worldwide Area Station. However a major bulk of that mass comes from one supply: the practically a thousand lifeless rockets which have been discarded in house for the reason that house age started.

Now, for the primary time, a mission has begun to take away a kind of lifeless rockets. Funded by the Japanese house company JAXA, it was launched on Sunday, February 18, and is at present on its approach to rendezvous with such a rocket within the coming weeks.

It’ll examine it after which work out how a follow-up mission may be capable to pull the lifeless rocket again into the ambiance. If it succeeds, it might reveal how we might take away giant, harmful, and uncontrolled items of house junk from orbit—objects that would trigger a monumental catastrophe in the event that they collided with satellites or spacecraft. Learn the complete story. 

—Jonathan O’Callaghan

Why hydrogen is shedding the race to energy cleaner vehicles

Think about a automotive that doesn’t emit any planet-warming gases—or any air pollution in any respect, for that matter. Not like the EVs on the roads as we speak, it doesn’t take an hour or extra to cost—simply gas up and go.

It sounds too good to be true, nevertheless it’s the fact of automobiles powered by hydrogen gas cells. And virtually no one needs one. 

Don’t get me flawed: hydrogen automobiles are offered around the globe. However they look like lurching towards one thing of a lifeless finish, with gas costs going up, automobile gross sales stagnating, and fueling stations shutting down. Learn our story to search out out why that’s, and what we’d have to get these vehicles on the street.

—Casey Crownhart

The story above is for subscribers-only. However subscriptions begin from simply $eight a month to get entry to all of MIT Know-how Overview’s award-winning journalismwhy not strive it out

Why Chinese language apps selected to movie super-short cleaning soap operas in Southeast Asia

A handful of Chinese language firms are betting that brief movies can disrupt the film and TV business. These “cleaning soap operas for the TikTok age” have discovered an enormous viewers in China, making a market value $5 billion. Now, they’re betting that these exhibits, as soon as tailored, can enchantment to an American viewers. 

However reasonably than simply leaping straight into the US, many of those companies are utilizing Southeast Asia as each a testing floor, and a manufacturing hub. And so they’re treading a well-worn path for utilizing that area as the primary frontier for growth outdoors China. Learn the complete story. 

—Zeyi Yang

This story is from China Report, our weekly publication about China’s tech scene and the way it interacts with the world. Join to obtain it in your inbox each Tuesday.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the web to search out you as we speak’s most enjoyable/vital/scary/fascinating tales about know-how.

1 Apple is killing its electrical automotive undertaking
Execs say they’ll get the two,000-odd staff engaged on it to give attention to generative AI as an alternative. (Bloomberg $)
+ This is the reason they axed it. (Wired $)
Regardless of by no means promoting a single automobile, Apple nonetheless managed to exert an affect on the automotive business. (The Atlantic $)

2 Google’s large AI push is coming again to chunk it
The issues with generative AI hold being laid naked for all to see, in actual time. (WSJ $)
+ Apple’s shareholders try to pressure it to be extra clear in regards to the dangers related to AI. (FT $)

three How the Pentagon makes use of focused adverts to search out its targets
Together with Vladimir Putin. No, actually. (Wired $)
Nowhere on-line is secure from adverts nowadays. (The Atlantic $)

four AI is coming for the porn business 
However porn firms imagine some individuals can pay a premium to work together with an actual human being. (WP $)

5 An out-of-control hearth is forcing mass evacuations in Texas 
It’s greater than doubled in dimension since igniting on Monday afternoon. (CNN)
The hunt to construct wildfire-resistant houses. (MIT Know-how Overview)

6 A pharma firm posted optimistic outcomes for an additional weight reduction drug 
Viking Therapeutics, a smaller participant from San Diego, has joined the goldrush. (Quartz $)
These medicine are wildly common and efficient. However their long-term well being impacts are nonetheless unknown. (MIT Know-how Overview)

7 Supply drivers must deal with off-the-charts air air pollution 
It’s such an enormous downside in South Asia that a few of them are pressured to take sick days because of this. (Remainder of World)

eight Crypto miners blocked authorized efforts to disclose how a lot power they use
A federal decide granted a short lived restraining order which can stop the Division of Power from accumulating the information. (The Verge)
Bitcoin’s worth hit a two-year excessive. (Quartz)

9 Some recommendation: don’t use ChatGPT on your taxes
Or, frankly, something vital. (CNET)

10 Wish to really feel unhappy? Ask TikTok how outdated you look 
I’ve… zero temptation to do that. (NYT $)

Quote of the day

“I really feel so powerless on this state.”

—Lochrane Chase, a 36-year-old lifelong resident of Birmingham, Alabama, tells Wired how she’s having to place her plans to pursue IVF on maintain because of the Alabama Supreme Courtroom’s February 16 ruling, which said that embryos are “unborn kids.”

The large story

This artist is dominating AI-generated artwork. And he’s not completely satisfied about it.

snaky dragon comes up behind a wizard with a malformed face. A glowing dragon-shaped fireball is in background, and something that looks like a cross between a sword and a pterodactyl is in the foreground.

MS TECH VIA STABLE DIFFUSION

September 2022

Greg Rutkowski is a Polish digital artist who makes use of classical portray types to create dreamy fantasy landscapes. His distinctive illustration type has been utilized in a few of the world’s hottest fantasy video games, together with Dungeons and Dragons and Magic: The Gathering. 

Now he’s turn into successful within the new world of text-to-image AI technology, changing into one of the crucial generally used prompts within the open-source AI artwork generator Steady Diffusion.

However this and different open-source applications are constructed by scraping pictures from the web, usually with out permission and correct attribution to artists. Consequently, they’re elevating tough questions on ethics and copyright. And artists like Rutkowski have had sufficient. Learn the complete story.

—Melissa Heikkilä

We will nonetheless have good issues

A spot for consolation, enjoyable and distraction to brighten up your day. (Bought any concepts? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+  There are such a lot of methods to say “drunk” in English. Drunkonyms, if you’ll. 
+ Some wonderful close-up pictures on show right here.
+ Take care of your joints, they usually’ll take care of you. 
+ A philanthropist has donated $1 billion to make sure college students on the Albert Einstein School of Drugs within the Bronx will get free tuition “in perpetuity.”

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