Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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Data centers ‘straining water resources’ as AI swells
Credit: CC0 Public Domain For the past 19 years, Felix Adebayo has called Balarabe Musa Crescent in Victoria Island, an affluent area within Nigeria’s bustling Lagos city, his home. When he secured a gatekeeper position at a company in the neighborhood in 2004, it came with the added bonus of free accommodation. However, with this…
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Lava and Ash Eruption Towers Over Sicily
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 November 13 by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission, has been processed using…
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The Leonid meteor shower peaks this weekend. Here’s how to see it
Probably the most famous of the annual meteor showers will soon be reaching its maximum: The Leonids. These ultrafast meteors are due to reach their peak on Saturday morning (Nov. 18). The Leonid meteor shower is known for producing some of the most amazing meteor displays in the annals of astronomy. Most notable are meteor…
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AI enables rapid and reliable solar cell production in Australia
A team of Australian researchers has used artificial intelligence (AI) to create solar cells from a mineral called perovskite in a matter of weeks, saving years of human effort and trial and error. The study’s lead author, Dr Nastaran Meftahi from RMIT University’s School of Science, said perovskite cells were cheaper and more efficient than…
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Does Turkey Make You Sleepy? What Really Makes You Tired
It happens year after year: You push back from the table, wipe the last few crumbs of pumpkin pie off your face, let out a sigh of contentment, and then you feel it: The sense of grogginess is taking over. As you try to stifle a yawn, one of your all-knowing relatives will chime in.…
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Deep Mind’s Student of Games AI system can beat humans at a variety of games
SoG training process. Actors collect data via sound self-play and trainers run separately over a distributed network. (A) Each search produces a number of CVPN queries with input β. (B) Queries are added to a query buffer and subsequently solved by a solver that studies the situation more closely via another invocation of GT-CFR. During…
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Circadian rest-activity patterns may signal frailty risk in older adults
Brigham researchers found an association between alterations in circadian rest-activity rhythms and risk of frailty incidence in older adults. Wearable devices can be used to measure a variety of signs and signals related to our health. A new study by researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare…
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What impact will the Biden administration’s executive order have on AI development?
The best way to think of the Biden administration’s wide-ranging executive order on artificial intelligence is as a trial balloon to gauge what works, says Robert Brunner, the associate dean for innovation and chief disruption officer at the Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Credit: Fred Zwicky Robert Brunner is the…
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Insects are spreading a devastating plant disease in Italy—Britain must keep it out, say researchers
Since 2013, over 20 million olive trees in Italy have succumbed to a devastating plant disease. The same disease now threatens many more plant species, across several countries, with the same fate. Our recent research shows that the insect responsible for inadvertently transmitting the bacteria that cause this disease can feed on a vast number…
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Hubble Telescope investigates nearby exoplanet, finds it’s Earth-size
The Hubble Space Telescope has measured the diameter of the nearest transiting exoplanet to us, discovering that it is a rocky planet very similar in size to Earth. Unfortunately, however, the world’s surface is far too hot to support liquid water or life as we know it. The planet, known as LTT 1445Ac, was first…
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