A multi-institutional team of climatologists, meteorologists and Earth scientists has found evidence that dropping diamond dust from an airplane into the atmosphere could cool the planet. In their study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, the group used 3D climate models to compare aerosols that might be used to cool the planet.
Jeramy Windle
In the context of sensory modalities, eyes work like tiny antennae, picking up light, electromagnetic waves traveling at blistering speeds. When humans look at the world, their eyes catch these waves and convert them into signals the brain reads as colors, shapes, and movement. It’s a seamless process, that allows people to see details clearly even when there’s a lot happening around them.
The goal of UBTech is to reduce human labor to only 10% by deploying humanoid robots, with human workers focusing on higher-level tasks such as collaboration and tool management.
UBTech aims for humanoid robots — like Walker S1 — to handle 20% of factory work, reducing human roles to 10%.
Although UBTech is leaving 10% of work for humans in management, other AI tech is being specifically developed for that niche: OpenAI’s new framework, Swarm, allows AI agents to collaborate and independently execute complex tasks, potentially boosting business efficiency.
Artificial intelligence agents are everywhere, quietly reshaping industries and automating tasks we didn’t think possible a few years ago. Unlike basic automation, these AI agents can handle complex jobs, think independently and learn from their environment. The result? Healthcare, finance and logistics businesses are seeing rapid gains in efficiency — and, in some cases, doing away with manual work altogether.
What are AI agents exactly? They’re software programs that carry out specific tasks without constant supervision. Whether handling customer requests, diagnosing medical conditions or predicting market trends, AI agents are versatile workhorses. Instead of waiting for humans to input every command, these agents operate autonomously, reacting to real-time data and adjusting their actions accordingly.
Continue reading “AI Explained: AI Agents Are Quietly Taking Over Everyday Tasks” »
A team of Chinese researchers, led by Wang Chao from Shanghai University, has demonstrated that D-Wave’s quantum annealing computers can crack encryption methods that safeguard sensitive global data.
This breakthrough, published in the Chinese Journal of Computers, emphasizes that quantum machines are closer than expected to threatening widely used cryptographic systems, including RSA and Advanced Encryption Standard (AES).
The research team’s experiments focused on leveraging D-Wave’s quantum technology to solve cryptographic problems. In their paper, titled “Quantum Annealing Public Key Cryptographic Attack Algorithm Based on D-Wave Advantage,” the researchers explained how quantum annealing could transform cryptographic attacks into combinatorial optimization problems, making them more manageable for quantum systems.
How do we assess quantum advantage when exact classical solutions are not available?
A quantum advantage is a demonstration of a solution for a problem for which a quantum computer can provide a demonstrable improvement over any classical method and classical resources in terms of accuracy, runtime…
Today, algorithms designed to solve this problem mostly rely on what we call variational methods, which are algorithms guaranteed to output an energy for a target system which cannot be lower than the exact solution — or the deepest valley — up to statistical uncertainties. An ideal quality metric for the ground state problem would not only allow the user to benchmark different methods against the same problem, but also different target problems when tackled by the same method.
Continue reading “Assessing quantum advantage for ground state problems” »
Electromagnetic radiation of extremely high energies is produced not only in the jets launched from active nuclei of distant galaxies, but also in jet-launching objects lying within the Milky Way, called microquasars. This latest finding by scientists from the international High-Altitude Water Cherenkov Gamma-Ray Observatory (HAWC) radically changes the previous understanding of the mechanisms responsible for the formation of ultra-high-energy cosmic radiation and in practice marks a revolution in its further study.
Since the discovery of cosmic radiation by Victor Hess in 1912, astronomers have believed that the celestial bodies responsible in our galaxy for the acceleration of these particles up to the highest energies are the remains of gigantic supernova explosions, called supernova remnants.
However, a different picture comes from the latest data from the HAWC observatory: The sources of radiation of extremely high energies turn out to be microquasars. Astrophysicists from the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IFJ PAN) in Cracow played a key role in the discovery.
A powerful geomagnetic storm caused a spectacular display of light that was visible unusually far from Earth’s poles.
As solar cycle 25 reaches its peak, solar activity has increased significantly. This surge in activity was evident in October 2024 when a remarkable display of the aurora borealis, also known as the northern lights, extended to observers on the ground beyond the Arctic Circle to midlatitude regions.
Capturing the aurora from space and ground.
In the future, there could be a spacecraft capable of maneuvering with unprecedented speed and agility, without the constraints of limited fuel.
The U.S. Space Force has provided funding of $35 million to create a new spacecraft that can “maneuver without regret.”
Continue reading “US Space Force backs nuclear microreactor-powered rocket breakthrough” »
