WHY DO ALL THE PLANETS ORBIT IN THE SAME PLANE?
Our Solar System is an orderly place, with the four inner planets, the asteroid belt, and the gas giant worlds all orbiting in the same plane around the Sun. Even as you go farther out, the Kuiper belt objects appear to line up with that same exact plane. Given that the Sun is spherical and that there are stars appearing with planets orbiting in every direction imaginable, it seems too much of a coincidence to be random chance that all these worlds line up.
Read moreAN INSIDE LOOK AT HOW SWEDEN IS BUILDING THE WORLD’S SECOND-LONGEST TUNNEL
The solution settled upon involves taking nothing less than 18km (11 miles-plus) of the bypass underground, with twin tunnels running three lanes abreast in each direction. Comprised of three tunnel sections in total, the winning design means that the E4 bypass avoids six nature reserves or places of cultural significance, including grounds of Drottningholm Palace—a UNESCO world heritage site on the island of Lovö—and the need for bridges over the crystal waters of the Mälaren strait. Not for nothing either, E4 will be one of the largest underground highways in the world, with its longest tunnel section spanning 16km (nearly 10 miles) from the bypass’ southernmost point.
Read moreTECHNOLOGY IS TRANSFORMING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PEOPLE AND THE OCEANS
Sonar research has been mostly military ever since, as have various other forms of high-tech ocean sensing. But the new sensorium allowed an exploration of the ocean’s depths that became crucial to science and commerce. Sea-floor surveys undertaken in the 1950s and 1960s discovered a chain of underwater mountains snaking through the oceans like the seam on a baseball. This discovery helped transform the controversial notion of continental drift into the far more powerful and explanatory theory of plate tectonics. Modern industrial fishing and offshore oil and gas benefited in similar ways: seeing the seas and their contents mattered.
Read moreAI HAS A HALLUCINATION PROBLEM THAT’S PROVING TOUGH TO FIX
Tech companies are rushing to infuse everything with artificial intelligence, driven by big leaps in the power of machine learning software. But the deep-neural-network software fueling the excitement has a troubling weakness: Making subtle changes to images, text, or audio can fool these systems into perceiving things that aren’t there. Source: wired.com
MIT EMBARKS ON AMBITIOUS PLAN TO BUILD NUCLEAR FUSION PLANT BY 2033
MIT announced yesterday that it and Commonwealth Fusion Systems — an MIT spinoff — are working on a project that aims to make harvesting energy from nuclear fusion a reality within the next 15 years. The ultimate goal is to develop a 200-megawatt power plant. MIT also announced that Italian energy firm ENI has invested $50 million towards the project, $30 million of which will be applied to research and development at MIT over the next three years.
Read moreCONTACT LENSES THAT DELIVER DRUGS DIRECTLY TO THE EYE WIN HEALTH CARE PRIZE
Eight teams pitched novel health care inventions at the annual MIT Sloan Healthcare Innovations Prize competition, held as part of the 16th annual MIT Sloan Healthcare and BioInnovations Conference. The team, Theraoptix, took home the $25,000 grand prize, sponsored by health services firm Optum, for contact lenses that deliver medications directly to the eye over days or weeks.
Read moreDRONE CRASHES IN ARIZONA NATIONAL FOREST, STARTS A WILDFIRE
Drone use and wilderness areas have been in conflict in recent years. Drones have grounded fire-fighting planes and helicopters, which usually fly low to the forest. Having a drone come in contact with propellers could endanger a firefighter’s life. Lawmakers have pushed to criminalize flying drones in wildfire areas because grounded aircraft can cost cash-strapped fire-fighting departments thousands of dollars as fires burn out of control. At the same time, law enforcement has happily embraced drones for a variety of purposes.
Read moreTHERE IS LIQUID WATER OVER 400 MILES BELOW EARTH’S SURFACE
A new report published today in Science suggests that pockets of liquid water may exist up to 500 miles beneath Earth’s surface—far deeper that previous estimates. This conclusion was reached after scientists discovered a rare form of crystalized water known as ice VII in diamond samples recovered in Africa and China. These ice VII samples are the first time this form of crystalized water has been seen in nature and led the International Mineralogical Association to declare ice VII as a new type of mineral.
Read moreWAYMO SELF-DRIVING TRUCKS ARE HAULING GEAR FOR GOOGLE DATA CENTERS
Waymo, Google’s self-driving car company, is moving beyond driverless taxis. The company announced on Friday that its self-driving trucks have begun hauling real cargo in the Atlanta area. A safety driver in the truck will take over if anything goes wrong. Source: arstechnica.com
FOUND TRAPPED IN A DIAMOND: A TYPE OF ICE NOT KNOWN ON EARTH
Trapped in the rigid structure of diamonds formed deep in the Earth’s crust, scientists have discovered a form of water ice that was not previously known to occur naturally on our planet. Source: latimes.com