News

Europe Takes First Steps in Electrifying World’s Shipping Fleets

Norway is already a global leader in the adoption of electric vehicles, spurred in large measure by the hydropower that provides 98 percent of the country’ electricity. So moving into the forefront of tackling a major global environmental challenge — decarbonizing the world’s shipping fleet — was a natural step for the country. Other nations — including Finland, the Netherlands, China, Denmark, and Sweden — also are beginning to launch electric ships.

Treadmills Were Meant to Be Atonement Machines

If you are one of the 51.8 million people in the U.S. who use a treadmill for exercise, you know there’s much pain for your muscle-and-fitness gain. On your next 30-minute jog, as you count down the final seconds, ponder whether the hard work made you a better person. Consider whether the workout would feel different if you had powered something, even a fan to cool yourself off.

What makes a translation great?

To the outside world, literary translators are famously invisible. Being a tight-knit community of solitary home workers, though, we talk a lot amongst ourselves. Recently, one big thing we’ve been talking about is reviews of our work.

New Software System Snags TSB’s Online and Mobile Banking Customers

Impress the Algorithm. Get $250,000

Carroll, 35, isn’t quite an outsider. She has three degrees from Stanford and a career that includes stints at Amazon.com Inc. and two unicorn-tier startups. She joined Social Capital’s Palo Alto office in 2015, and last year she began building an automated system that would allow the fund to invest in startups that its partners had never met.

The economics of artificial intelligence

When looking at artificial intelligence from the perspective of economics, we ask the same, single question that we ask with any technology: What does it reduce the cost of? Economists are good at taking the fun and wizardry out of technology and leaving us with this dry but illuminating question. The answer reveals why AI is so important relative to many other exciting technologies.

A lightning strike shut off a woman’s brain implant

DBS devices, such as the woman’s, are increasingly used to help treat neurological conditionslikeParkinson’s, tremors, muscle spasms, epilepsy, and obsessive compulsive disorders. The devices work by placing electrodes in specific areas of the brain to deliver electrical impulses that are thought to help regulate aberrant electrical signals there—although it’s still unclear how exactly this works. The devices’ electrical impulses are generated by a pacemaker-like pulse generator implanted in the chest or torso, connected by wiring and powered by a battery.

Troubled Times for Alternatives to Einstein’s Theory of Gravity

Zumalacárregui, a theoretical physicist at the Berkeley Center for Cosmological Physics, had been studying how the discovery of a neutron-star collision would affect so-called “alternative” theories of gravity. These theories attempt to overcome what many researchers consider to be two enormous problems with our understanding of the universe. Observations going back decades have shown that the universe appears to be filled with unseen particles — dark matter — as well as an anti-gravitational force called dark energy.

Debtors in China Shamed on Highway Billboard Featuring Their Faces and Names

Things I’ve learned using serverless

After the tour-de-force of Serverlessconf in October, I decided my entire company would be going serverless. I spent the first couple of months beating my head against the wall trying to migrate a Python Flask app to Lambda—these efforts helped me find a better way.