the digest (Page 161)

Latest in the digest

A new study found that fish would flock to dead coral reefs if researchers blasted the sounds of a healthy reef from nearby underwater speakers.

Science & Energy

Fish Rave: Loudspeakers Draw Wildlife to Dead Reefs

By Kristin Houser

NASA is about to test a prototype cosmic radiation-blocking vest by strapping it to a dummy and sending ti around the Moon.

Science & Energy

NASA Is Sending Dummies Around the Moon to Test Cosmic Radiation

By Dan Robitzski

Australia's New South Wales is rolling out a system of AI cameras designed to catch drivers using their mobile phones illegally.

Artificial Intelligence

On Your Phone While Driving? These AI Cameras Will Snitch on You.

By Kristin Houser

Free dating apps and services owned by Match Group, which include Tinder, PlentyofFish, and OkCupid, don't screen users against the sex offenders registry.

Tinder and OkCupid Don’t Screen For Sex Offenders

By Dan Robitzski

In an attempt to prevent bullying and discrimination, TikTok reportedly limits the reach of users with disabilities with discriminatory practices.

TikTok Secretly Hid Videos by Fat, LGBTQ, Mentally Disabled Users

By Dan Robitzski

The companies vying to be the first to launch a space hotel find themselves facing major regulatory and financial hurdles.

The Race is Heating Up to Open the First Space Hotel

By Dan Robitzski

A new law in China will make it illegal to create or share deepfakes without properly disclosing that they're not real videos.

Artificial Intelligence

China Makes Deepfakes Illegal

By Dan Robitzski

The ESA officially has budget approval for Hera, a mission to test our ability to prevent killer asteroids from slamming into the Earth.

Europe’s Space Agency Joins Mission to Deflect Killer Asteroids

By Kristin Houser

Roscosmos announced plans to build an observatory on its planned Moon base so that it can better spot potentially dangerous asteroids approaching Earth.

Science & Energy

Russia Wants to Build an Observatory on the Moon

By Dan Robitzski

Researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences have spotted a gigantic black hole 70 times the mass of the Sun in our galaxy — way bigger than expected.

Science & Energy

Scientists: Ominous Black Hole Is Way Too Big to Exist

By Victor Tangermann

U.S. states are left to piece together safety regulations for self-driving car companies, and often they're not very strong.

Self-Driving Vehicles

Senator: Humans Could Be “Test Dummies” For Self-Driving Cars

By Dan Robitzski

After a TikTok video criticizing China's systematic anti-Muslim discrimination went viral, its creator found herself locked out of her account.

TikTok Bans 17-Year-Old for Criticizing China

By Dan Robitzski

The astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) may be far from home, but that doesn't mean they'll miss out on Thanksgiving dinner.

Here’s What’s on the Space Station’s Thanksgiving Menu

By Kristin Houser

To the surprsie of nobody, the Dubai Police department is officially planning on adding Tesla Cybertrucks to its fleet.

Artificial Intelligence

Dubai is Adding Tesla Cybertrucks to its Police Car Fleet

By Victor Tangermann

The Defense Department released a new report detailing its goals and plans for creating cyborg soldiers by the year 2050.

US Military Warns of “Augmented Human Beings”

By Dan Robitzski

The best way to help robots learn to deal with new challenges might be to let them explore the world like children do: in supervised day care centers

Artificial Intelligence

This Psychologist Wants to Create Day Care Centers for Robots

By Kristin Houser

Tesla has secured 250,000 Cybertruck pre-orders in the week since the vehicle's debut, according to tweets by CEO Elon Musk.

Elon Musk: 250K People Have Pre-Ordered Cybertrucks

By Kristin Houser

During the segment Grimes, who studied neuroscience before pursuing her music career, opined that humanity is at the "end of art, human art."

Artificial Intelligence

Grimes: Humanity Is At The “End of Art, Human Art”

By Tag Hartman-Simkins

Twitter is set to begin doing some spring cleaning and delete accounts that are inactive for longer than six months. That includes accounts of dead people.

Twitter Plans to Delete Dead People’s Accounts, Prompting Outrage

By Victor Tangermann

Just in time for the holiday season, AI researcher Janelle Shane taught an AI around 2,000 existing names of pies and some juicy Harry Potter fan fiction.

Artificial Intelligence

This AI Came Up With Hilarious Pie Names Based on Harry Potter

By Victor Tangermann

Lee Se-dol, the Go champion who lost to DeepMind's AI Go player, announced that he's quitting professional Go because the algorithms are too good.

Artificial Intelligence

Human Go Champion Who Lost to AI Says Machines Cannot Be Defeated

By Dan Robitzski

Japanese researchers have unveiled a quadruped robot that uses a combination of sensors and AI to climb straight up a ladder.

Watch a Dog-Like Robot Climb Straight up a Ladder

By Kristin Houser

Russian farmers strapped VR headsets onto their cows to see if pleasant virtual worlds would improve their milk. So far, all they know is the cows liked it.

Science & Energy

Russian Farmers Are Strapping VR Headsets to Dairy Cows

By Dan Robitzski

The Indian government released a short report detailing its Moon lander Vikram's demise in early September — the first time it admitted its lander crashed.

India Finally Admits Its Moon Lander Crashed

By Victor Tangermann

Signs that Jupiter's Great Red Spot is on its deathbed actually represent normal activity for the storm, scientists now say.

Science & Energy

Scientists: Jupiter’s Great Red Spot Isn’t Dying After All

By Kristin Houser

A new U.N. climate report details how many countries have totally failed to curb their greenhouse gas emissions and argues that dire action is needed.

New UN Climate Report Calls the Future “Bleak”

By Dan Robitzski

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has told FedEx to get its delivery bots off his city's streets or NYC will "send them packing" itself.

Robots and Machines

NYC Threatens to Seize Any FedEx Delivery Bots on City Streets

By Kristin Houser

Strategic design consultancy Manyone proposes building an elevated train called the AeroSlider as a way to cut the emissions caused by air travel.

Advanced Transport

This Rail Gun-Style Elevated Train Goes 500 MPH

By Kristin Houser

A study suggests that there could be thousands of giant exoplanets and planets that form around and orbit a supermassive black hole.

Science & Energy

New Calculations: Black Holes Could Have Thousands of Planets

By Dan Robitzski

Google fired four employees who were helping lead the workforce's push to organize and form a union, prompting accusations of deliberate union-busting.

Google Just Fired Four Union Organizers

By Dan Robitzski

Tesla patented a system that would replace good old fashioned windshield wipers with actual laser beams that zap away debris.

Tesla Wants to Replace Windshield Wipers With Lasers

By Dan Robitzski

A new investigation reveals just how dangerous Amazon warehouses are for workers. Injuries are dangerously high, and people's jobs are always on the line.

Report: Amazon Warehouses Are “Permanently Maiming” Workers

By Dan Robitzski

Scientists believe they've spotted the turbulence allowing black holes to transfer heat to the gas at the core of their galaxy clusters.

Astronomers Catch Three Black Holes “Cooking” Their Galaxies

By Kristin Houser

The inventor of the World Wide Web has unveiled the Contract for the Web, a global plan of action designed to stop internet misuse.

Web Inventor Unveils Plan to Save the Web

By Kristin Houser

Sunny Madra, VP of Ford X, challenged Elon Musk to conduct a real "apples to apples" test between the Cybertruck and the Ford F-150.

Ford VP Calls Out Tesla for Unfair Cybertruck vs. F-150 Battle

By Victor Tangermann

Porn stars and sex workers are having troubling stopping Instagram from deleting their accounts — even when their posts don't violate the site's rules.

Porn Stars: Instagram Keeps Deleting Our Accounts for No Reason

By Kristin Houser

New deepfake-creating AI can make someone look and sound like Joe Rogan. While it's not perfect, it paints a troubling picture of the future.

Artificial Intelligence

Amazing AI Makes You Look and Sound Exactly Like Joe Rogan

By Dan Robitzski

For the first time, astronomers have detected three supermassive black holes at the core of a galaxy — and the discovery could solve a universal mystery.

Science & Energy

Astronomers Spot First Galaxy With Three Supermassive Black Holes

By Kristin Houser

A startup is developing a system that could allow spacecraft and satellites to launch after being dropped from a massive hot-air balloon at 60,000 feet.

This Startup Wants to Launch Satellites from Balloons

By Victor Tangermann

Scientists discovered fossils left behind in an ancient meteorite that reveal how ice was distributed throughout the early, still-forming solar system.

Science & Energy

Scientists Find “Ice Fossils” in Ancient Meteorite

By Dan Robitzski

The booster from a Chinese rocket landed on populated settlement on Saturday — and China could have prevented the whole situation from unfolding.

Chinese Rocket Launch Covers Village in Toxic Debris. Again.

By Kristin Houser

Once again, London is trying to get rid of Uber over passenger safety concerns. And once again, Uber is confident that it's not going anywhere,

Uber Just Got Kicked Out of London

By Dan Robitzski

During the latest episode of animated series "Rick and Morty," the titular characters meet Elon Tusk, an alternate reality version of Elon Musk.

Elon Musk Just Made a Cameo on “Rick and Morty”

By Kristin Houser

While the idea of building a space colony or terraforming a new planet for humanity to colonize sounds intriguing, it's not a sustainable goal.

Professor: Terraforming a New Home Planet Would Be Dangerous

By Dan Robitzski

In a video uploaded to Twitter on Sunday by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, a Cybertruck effortlessly pulls a Ford F-150 pickup going the other way — and uphill.

Advanced Transport

Watch a Cybertruck Pull a Helpless Ford F-150 Up a Hill

By Victor Tangermann

Here’s Elon Musk’s Excuse For Smashing Cybertruck Window

Here’s Elon Musk’s Excuse For Smashing Cybertruck Window

By Victor Tangermann

CEO Elon Musk has confirmed that Tesla will offer the Cyberquad — an electric all-terrain vehicle — as an add-on option to Cybertruck buyers.

Elon Musk: Yes, You Will Be Able to Buy Tesla’s Cyberquad ATV

By Kristin Houser

A new report found that whales are incredibly adept at absorbing carbon dioxide, meaning their preservation should be a top climate priority.

Report: Whales Are “Nature’s Solution to Climate Change”

By Kristin Houser

Google is reportedly ending its controversial program where it scanned homeless people's faces and turned them into AI training data.

Google Decides to Stop Training AI on Homeless People’s Faces

By Dan Robitzski

When a robot talked trash against its opponents, it hurt their feelings and they performed worse at a game researchers use to study human rationality.

Artificial Intelligence

Study: Trash-Talking Robots Can Hurt Your Delicate Feelings

By Kristin Houser

Musk's mind is already racing far ahead, imagining a bright, renewable energy-fuelled future featuring a cybertruck cladded in solar panels.

Elon Musk Wants to Add “Fold Out Solar Wings” to Cybertruck

By Victor Tangermann

A new deepfake shows what it would have looked like if the Apollo 11 mission failed and then-president Nixon had to deliver the backup speech he had ready.

Science & Energy

MIT Deepfake Shows Nixon Sadly Saying the Moon Astronauts Died

By Dan Robitzski

The Moon is covered in lunar swirls — magnetic anomalies that could act as natural shields from dangerous cosmic radiation.

Science & Energy

Spiral Formations on the Moon Appear to Deflect Cosmic Rays

By Dan Robitzski

The Boeing Starliner spacecraft has left its hangar and is now attached to the Atlas V rocket that will launch it into space for the first time.

Boeing Unveils Spacecraft Built to Carry Astronauts to ISS

By Kristin Houser

A new AI system called SchNOrb can probe the quantum mechanics of compounds to help scientists design new molecules from scratch.

Artificial Intelligence

AI Is Learning Quantum Mechanics to Design New Molecules

By Dan Robitzski

The reactions are coming in for Tesla's cybertruck. Mostly in the form of ridicule on Twitter.

Advanced Transport

“A DeLorean Mated With a Pontiac”: Internet Reacts to Cybertruck

By Victor Tangermann

A demonstration of Tesla's new Cybertruck on stage seemingly backfired after the company's head of design smashed a window with a metal ball.

Watch Tesla Accidentally Smash Cybertruck’s “Bulletproof” Window

By Victor Tangermann

Tesla’s “Blade Runner” Cybertruck Is an Absolute Monstrosity

Tesla’s “Blade Runner” Cybertruck Is an Absolute Monstrosity

By Victor Tangermann

The staff at a French hospital refused to meet the ransom demand of hackers, instead responding to a cyberattack by handwriting all documents.

Cyberattack Forces Hospital to Revert to Handwriting Everything

By Kristin Houser

NATO has added space as its fifth operational military domain, meaning the organization will now protect member nations' off-world interests.

NATO Boss: Space Is Now a Military “Operational Domain”

By Kristin Houser

A team of researchers from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory designed a drone (SQUID) that can be shot high up into the sky using a special cannon.

Watch NASA’s Truck-Mounted Cannon Shoot Drones Into the Sky

By Victor Tangermann

The reports, obtained from police Nevada, describe an environment in which workers have repeatedly left meth, cocaine and heroin out in the open.

Police Reports: Meth, Heroin, Cocaine Found at Tesla Factory

By Jon Christian

NASA is sending a rover to Antarctica to train for missions during which it'll hunt for alien life in the icy oceans of far-off moons

NASA Is Testing an Alien-Hunting Submarine in Antarctica

By Kristin Houser

A doctoral candidate has a unique idea for how to colonize Mars: send bacteria to digest the soil and churn out useable raw materials for future settlers.

Unusual PhD Thesis: Let’s Use Bacteria to Colonize Mars

By Dan Robitzski