Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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How an assistive-feeding robot went from picking up fruit salads to whole meals
A team led by researchers at the University of Washington created a set of 11 actions a robotic arm can make to pick up nearly any food attainable by fork. This allows the system to learn to pick up new foods during one meal. Here, the robot picks up fruit. Credit: University of Washington According…
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New shipping report highlights benefits of reducing underwater radiated noise
Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain A new report by the University of Southampton has been launched to assess the relationship between measures aimed at enhancing ship energy efficiency and underwater radiated noise emissions. The report was commissioned by the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) to highlight the synergy between the two as ships move through the……
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NOAA unveils new tool for exploring coral reef data
Through the socioeconomic dashboard, users can explore residents’ perceptions and awareness of coral reef health and ways people use the resource. Credit: NOAA NOAA’s National Coral Reef Monitoring Program (NCRMP) launched a new data visualization tool today, which will provide free and easy-to-access information on the status of U.S. coral reefs. It is the first…
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Italy’s Mount Etna spews lava
Credit: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2023), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO One of the world’s most active volcanoes, Mount Etna, erupted on Sunday—spewing lava and clouds of ash high over the Mediterranean island of Sicily. This image, captured on 13 November by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission, has been processed using the mission’s…
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Three-pronged approach discerns qualities of quantum spin liquids
An illustration of the lattice examined by Phil Anderson in the early ’70s. Shown as green ellipses, pairs of quantum particles fluctuated among multiple combinations to produce a spin liquid state. Credit: Allen Scheie/Los Alamos National Laboratory, U.S. Dept. of Energy In 1973, physicist Phil Anderson hypothesized that the quantum spin liquid, or QSL, state…
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‘AI virtual patients’ diagnostic application breaks spatial and geographical barriers for medical training
Two separate screen captures of conversation between medical student and Chatbot Bennie, illustrating the student-chatbot interaction (Right) and chatbot’s response to synonym (Left). Credit: Heliyon (2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e09751 With the rapid development and extensive applications of generative artificial intelligence (AI) technology across various sectors, Dr. Michael Co Tiong-hong from the LKS Faculty of Medicine, the…
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The planet just had its warmest October on record
A map of the world plotted with some of the most significant climate events that occurred during October 2023. Credit: NOAA/NCEI The planet added another record-breaking month to 2023, with October ranking as the warmest October in the 174-year global climate record. Last month was also 2023’s fifth month in a row of record-warm global…
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Chemical Reaction That Started Life On Earth Recreated In Lab
Quoc Phuong Tran, a Ph.D. Candidate in Prebiotic Chemistry at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, is actively engaged in unraveling this mystery by recreating the complex chain of reactions required for the formation of RNA in the primordial environment, which essentially led to life of Earth. One avenue of exploration involves…
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Researchers develop device that can switch between photodetector and neuromorphic vision sensor
a) Stepwise procedure for the fabrication of the GaN/Ga2O3/GaN TB heterostructure array device. b) Schematic diagram of the experimental set-up for the CVD synthesis of Ga2O3 TB NWs. Credit: Advanced Materials (2023). DOI: 10.1002/adma.202308090 Photodetectors and neuromorphic vision sensors are two typical optoelectronic devices that play important roles in sensing and processing optical information. Photodetectors…
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Enabling climate change adaptation in coastal systems
Geographic distribution and spatial scale. (a) Geographic distribution by ecoregion of studies reported in coastal adaptation research includes 614 publications and 826 case studies (each article can include one to several case studies at different locations). Thirty-six publications were excluded from the map, as they investigated studies on global (11), continental (12), or imprecise (13)…
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