New DOE-Developed Catalyst is Game Changer in Hydrogen Extraction

Parker Davis February 15, 2022

The Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory has developed a new type of nitrogen-based catalyst that greatly improves our ability to extract hydrogen in storage.

Department of Energy’s “Fairly Simple” Breakthrough Makes Accessing Stored Hydrogen More Efficient

From scitechdaily.com
2022-02-14 20:40:40
Ames Laboratory
Excerpt:

A nitrogen assembly catalyzes the cleavage of carbon-hydrogen (C‒H) bonds in LOHCs and facilitates the desorption of hydrogen molecules. Credit: U.S. Department of Energy, Ames Laboratory

A new catalyst from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory and collaborators extracts hydrogen from hydrogen storage materials easily and efficiently. The process occurs at mild temperatures and under normal atmospheric conditions, without using metals or additives. The breakthrough offers a promising new solution that addresses a long-standing challenge to adopting hydrogen fuel for transportation and other applications.

Hydrogen fuel is one potential solution in the nationwide effort to decrease reliance on fossil fuels. According to the DOE, improving hydrogen storage is key to advancing hydrogen fuel cell technologies. At Ames Laboratory, scientists Long Qi and Wenyu Huang research the extraction of hydrogen from a class of materials called liquid organic hydrogen carriers, or…

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3D Printing is Changing Precision Potential of Tiny Metal Part Manufacturing

Parker Davis February 15, 2022

3D Printing Tiny Metal Parts

From hackaday.com
2022-02-14 19:30:00
Al Williams
Excerpt:

It may sound like a pop band, but μ-WAAM is actually a 3D printing technique for making small metal parts from the NOVA University Lisbon. Of course, WAAM stands for wire arc additive manufacturing, a well-known technique for 3D printing in metal. The difference? The new technique uses 250 μm wire stock instead of the 1mm or thicker wires used in conventional WAAM.

The thinner feed wire allows μ-WAAM to create fine details like thin walls that would be difficult to replicate with traditional methods. Typically, for fine structures, printers use fused metal powder. This is good for fine details, but typically slower and has higher waste than wire-based systems.

What we found most interesting is that the printer looks more or less like a conventional 3D printer with a special extruder that handles the fine metal filament. Of course, instead of heat, a 12V 100 aH battery provides an arc. Oh, there’s also an argon shield gas system to keep everything working well and…

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Inventor Claims to Have Created Self-Defining, Purposing AI

Parker Davis February 9, 2022

An inventor named Trevor E Chandler has claimed to have create an artificial intelligence that is capable of determining its own purpose, so to speak. The AI gets an initial code which, emergently, it ultimately overcomes, creating its own code to define its purpose, and thus action. This seems perfectly safe. I wonder if we can combine this AI with nanotechnology and just, you know, see what happens. Let’s create a nanotech ai that can replicate itself and develop its own purpose. That should be fun.

As usual, the claims might not meet the much more prosaic reality an inventor is hyping. We won’t be anytime soon seeing nanobots go up our noses and turn us into Biden voters, or, worse, Dallas Cowboys fans, but it does mean developing more autonomously developing tech that can positively enhance our ability to process and refine the world around us.

New Type of Artificial Intelligence can Self-Create and Self-Improve its Source Code

From www.einnews.com
2022-02-09 13:00:00

Excerpt:

A new type of artificial intelligence has been created with the capability to advance its own source code, persist, and use its learning across use cases, and through code generation and modification, advance its action set and objectives beyond their starting state without the need for human intervention.

Trevor E. Chandler, the inventor states, “All existing artificial intelligence is limited by human bias. We either tell the AI what actions it can perform or give it data that represents actions it can use. This stunts the potential of our systems, preventing them from achieving emergence. My new approach has overcome this, and other serious issues with machine learning today, resulting in a machine learning system generating emergent actions beyond its initial actions list or data and emergent objectives beyond its initial objectives.”.

This new type of machine learning automatically searches for, finds, and uses code from other artificially Intelligent components as its starting state, continually writing code into itself from preexisting systems, then modifying its own source code as it advances its action set beyond its starting state through use of a built-in code generating and evaluation artificial intelligence. This allows useful information from preexisting machine learning systems to be utilized, not wasted, but only as a starting point…..

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Insect Robots Might One Day Rescue You or Arrest You

Parker Davis February 9, 2022

A horde of flying insect robots might one day rescue you when you get lost in the forest, or track you down when you’re invading a police state. Either way, scientists are making these things. To be exact, researchers from Bristol’s Faculty of Engineering are building these things, and their findings are ‘promising.’

Scientists develop tiny flying ‘insect robots’ that could help save people – and the planet

From www.bristolpost.co.uk
2022-02-09 12:46:38

Excerpt:

Scientists have developed tiny flying insect robots that could be made in their billions and help save people – and the planet.

The pioneering bug-sized machines have an artificial muscle system that creates wing motion using no rotating parts or gears.

They could help in search and rescue operations, after terrorist attacks.- or maybe act as pollinators.

Typical micro flying robots have used motors, gears and other complex transmission systems to achieve the up-and-down flapping motion.

This new advance could pave the way for smaller, lighter and more effective micro flying robots.

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Print Your Beer at Home as You Need It

Ivo Fysic February 7, 2022

Imagine if you had all the key ingredients to create almost any combination of potential beverages your heart would desire. Imagine pressing a few buttons and creating, from the same machine (just add water), a whole range of beverages. That reality could be coming to a home near you thanks to a company called Cana that claims to be developing the technology that could do just that.

Introducing Cana: A molecular beverage printer in every home helps us take a giant step towards decentralized manufacturing

From Medium.com

Excerpt:

We know we can print an infinite number of beverages from a few core flavor compounds. We know we can do this across many existing beverage categories — juice, soda, hard seltzer, cocktails, wine, tea, coffee, and beer. Consumer taste testing panels score our printed beverages at the same or better taste levels as commercially available alternatives. Our hardware designs will print beverages quickly and accurately. Our pricing and the footprint of our hardware can yield significant savings and advantages for most households.

We’ve also realized that we can reimagine the beverage industry from the ground up. Our focus is not about mimicking existing beverages, but rewriting and inventing entirely new beverage categories, delivering radically different brands, and enabling creators to develop their own beverage brands digitally.

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Meta’s American Servers Could Sink Facebook in Europe

Parker Davis February 7, 2022

Facebook’s Meta is using servers located in America to do most of its data transfer around the world, and that might bring about the end of Facebook and Instagram in Europe due to a European regulation that does not allow European data to be taken and transfered to foreign countries.

Meta threatens a shutdown of Facebook and Instagram in Europe

From mashable.com
2022-02-06 19:13:17

Excerpt:

….Buried in Meta’s dense annual report for the Securities and Exchange Commission, filed Thursday, is a surprisingly stark sentence laying out a scenario in which The Company Formerly Known as Facebook might have to entirely stop operating Instagram and Facebook in Europe. Yep, no Instagram, no Facebook, for all Europeans.

To which we as Americans can only say: Luckyyyyyyyyyy!!!!

At issue are European data regulations that prevent Meta from ingesting Europeans’ data on American servers. Basically, Meta says the ability to process user data in between countries is crucial for its business both operationally and for ad targeting. European laws meant to protect user privacy by keeping users’ data within the EU’s jurisdiction have invalidated previous systems. So, because Meta has been unable to reach new data sharing agreements, it’s threatening to walk away from the continent with Facebook and Instagram.

“If we are unable to transfer data between and among countries and regions in which we operate, or if we are restricted from sharing data among our products and services, it could affect our ability to provide our services, the manner in which we provide our services or our ability to target ads,” the statement reads. Then, Meta clarifies that it thinks it will be able to reach new agreements in 2022, but if it does not, “we will likely be unable to offer a number of our most significant products and services, including Facebook and Instagram, in Europe.”

The London financial newspaper CityAM reached out to Meta to see if they were, uh, reading that right. Meta responded with a statement from the company’s illustrious VP of Global Affairs, Nick Clegg, who attempted to connect the plight of a billion-dollar international conglomerate Meta with struggles small businesses could face.

“We urge regulators to adopt a proportionate and pragmatic approach to minimise disruption to the many thousands of businesses who, like Facebook, have been…

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Robot Surgeon Makes Solo Debut

Parker Davis February 7, 2022

A robot has successfully completed surgery all by itself, with no human assistants. The lucky patient was not a human, however, it was a pig. The robot and the pig survived.

Robot performs first laparoscopic surgery without human help

From sciencedaily.com

Excerpt:

A robot has performed laparoscopic surgery on the soft tissue of a pig without the guiding hand of a human — a significant step in robotics toward fully automated surgery on humans. Designed by a team of Johns Hopkins University researchers, the Smart Tissue Autonomous Robot (STAR) is described today in Science Robotics.

“Our findings show that we can automate one of the most intricate and delicate tasks in surgery: the reconnection of two ends of an intestine. The STAR performed the procedure in four animals and it produced significantly better results than humans performing the same procedure,” said senior author Axel Krieger, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Johns Hopkins’ Whiting School of Engineering.

The robot excelled at intestinal anastomosis, a procedure that requires a high level of repetitive motion and precision. Connecting two ends of an intestine is arguably the most challenging step in gastrointestinal surgery, requiring a surgeon to suture with high accuracy and consistency. Even the slightest hand tremor or misplaced stitch can result in a leak that could have catastrophic complications for the patient.

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Could Quantum Batteries Be Possible Now?

Freedomist Curator February 7, 2022

Proof of concept verifies physics that could enable quantum batteries

From Newsatlas.com

Quantum batteries could one day revolutionize energy storage through what seems like a paradox – the bigger the battery, the faster it charges. For the first time, a team of scientists has now demonstrated the quantum mechanical principle of superabsorption that underpins quantum batteries in a proof-of-concept device…..

Superabsorption had yet to be demonstrated on a scale large enough to build quantum batteries, but the new study has now managed just that. To build their test device, the researchers placed an active layer of light-absorbing molecules – a dye known as Lumogen-F Orange – in a microcavity between two mirrors…..

The team then used ultrafast transient-absorption spectroscopy to measure how the dye molecules were storing the energy and how fast the whole device was charging. And sure enough, as the size of the microcavity and the number of molecules increased, the charging time decreased, demonstrating superabsorption at work.

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Brain Chips to Cure Neural Disorders

Freedomist Editor January 27, 2022

Elon Musk’s Neuralink plans to implant chips in human brains to treat neural disorders

From usatoday.com

Excerpt:

Elon Musk’s Neuralink has begun recruiting for a clinical trial director, bringing it one step closer to developing technology that could connect the human mind directly to devices.

Neuralink’s goal is to build something called a “brain computer interface” that allows people to transmit and receive information between their brain and a computer wirelessly, according to Neuralink’s website.

For instance, a paralyzed person with a Neurlink chip implanted in their brain could control a mouse and keyboard without moving their limbs. Information could also be transmitted the other way and allow the person’s brain to simulate the sense of touch.

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Meta Creating Multi-Tasking AI

Parker Davis January 26, 2022

Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta is looking to expand their AI powers by creating AI capable of multi-tasking.

Meta’s new learning algorithm can teach AI to multi-task

From technologyreview.com

Excerpt:

A team at Meta AI (previously Facebook AI Research) wants to change that. The researchers have developed a single algorithm that can be used to train a neural network to recognize images, text, or speech. The algorithm, called Data2vec, not only unifies the learning process but performs at least as well as existing techniques in all three skills. “We hope it will change the way people think about doing this type of work,” says Michael Auli, a researcher at Meta AI.

The research builds on an approach known as self-supervised learning, in which neural networks learn to spot patterns in data sets by themselves, without being guided by labeled examples. This is how large language models like GPT-3 learn from vast bodies of unlabeled text scraped from the internet, and it has driven many of the recent advances in deep learning.

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