Graphene may be among the most exciting scientific discoveries of the last century. While it is familiar to us – graphene is considered an allotrope of carbon, meaning that it is essentially the same substance as graphite but in a different atomic structure –graphene opened up a world of possibilities for designing and building new technologies, phys.org reports. The material is two-dimensional, meaning that each "sheet" of graphene is only one atom thick, but its bonds...
In a 6-3 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court narrowed the scope of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which is a 34-year-old law on computer hacking, CNET reports. At issue was the conviction – which the Supreme Court ruling overturned – of a former police officer who allegedly received payments in return for searching for a license plate in a police database. Under CFAA, it is illegal to "access a computer with authorization and to use such...
A study of two methods for reconstructing ancient temperatures has given climate researchers a better understanding of how cold it was in Antarctica during the last ice age around 20,000 years ago. For decades, the leading science suggested ice-age temperatures in Antarctica were on average about 9 degrees Celsius cooler than at present. An international team of scientists led by Oregon State University's Christo Buizert has determined that while parts of Antarctica were as cold as...
Quic, Google's planned replacement for Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), seems to finally be on its way. In fact, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) published Quic as a standard for the worldwide network earlier this week, Tech Xplore reports. This protocol might replace TCP, which has dominated Internet transmission since 1974. Online services and web browsers have been experimenting with this technology for years, but now that the IETF has officially released the standard, global users...
Larry Chen, the former school teacher from a Chinese village who became one of the world’s richest people, is closing in on losing his billionaire status as shares in his online-education business slump, Bloomberg reports. GSX Techedu Inc. shares have plunged 88% since late January, wiping almost $14 billion from Chen’s fortune and leaving him a net worth of about $1.8 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The Chinese firm has been buffeted...
Donald Trump's blog on his official website has been terminated, CNBC reported today. The blog, which launched in early May, was used to share statements after Trump was banned by social media sites including Facebook and Twitter. The blog "From the Desk of Donald J. Trump" was "just auxiliary" to the ex-president's communications efforts, senior aide Jason Miller said. In his posts, Trump adopted a tone similar to the one he used on his now-defunct Twitter account --...
Moderna is seeking full approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to administer its coronavirus vaccine in people 18 and older, CNET reports. The vaccine is being given to adults in the U.S. under an emergency use authorization, which was granted in December. Last week, the company said its vaccine is effective in 12- to 17-year-olds, and will seek approval to administer its vaccine to teenagers this month.
https://www.cnet.com/health/moderna-seeks-full-fda-approval-of-its-covid-19-vaccine/
A paper published in Applied Energy by researchers from the Smart Systems Group (SSG) at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland, has shown that tools from distributed artificial intelligence (specifically multi-agent systems) and co-operative game theory can be used in energy communities to increase use of renewables, protect the lifetime of expensive assets such as batteries, and to devise fair ways to divide joint gains. Their work develops algorithms for smart control of community energy assets to...
A new study by Jennifer Raynor, a natural resource economist at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, and her colleagues, suggests that wild wolves in Wisconsin are helping save human lives and billions of dollars in damages by reducing the number of collisions between cars and deer. More than one million car-deer collisions occur in the U.S. every year causing many injuries and deaths, and with an associated cost of about 10 billion U.S. dollars, according to the researchers....
As automobile manufacturers race to cash in on the soaring popularity of electric vehicles, concerns grow about the environmental and social impact of more intense mining operations. In a report in the journal Nature Reviews Materials, British earth scientist Richard Herrington points out that by the year 2035, there could be 245 million battery-powered electric vehicles on the road. In addition, there will be a huge demand for stationary batteries needed for energy storage to compensate for the less...
