We’ve seen fictional weapons fire lasers at enemies, at the sky, at aliens, even! But laser weaponry is no longer just something you’d see in movies or television shows, it has become reliable weaponry that can be used even in the harshest of conditions. The Drive’s Tyler Rogoway writes how technological developments have helped the rise of laser weaponry. Check the full piece here.  

Image via The Drive 

The future of artificial intelligence is both amazing and scary. A new system can almost write and chat like humans do. The system, called GPT-3, was trained to analyze thousands of digital books, the entire Wikipedia, and 1 trillion words posted on the Internet for months in order for it to have a grasp of our natural language. When the GPT-3 was put to the test by 23-year-old programmer Mckay Wrigley, the results were astonishing: 

One of his experiments involved a pop psychologist, Scott Barry Kaufman. The system took in Kaufman’s name and a topic for discussion: creativity. Then, when asked “How do we become more creative?” GPT-3 responded instantly:

“I think creative expression is a natural byproduct of growing up in a diverse world. The more diverse the world is, the more you get exposed to different people, to different opportunities, to different places and to different challenges. And the more diverse that is, the more likely you’ll be to be able to put the dots together to form something new. And in many ways, I think if you want to be creative, you have to go for it. If you want to be a writer, you have to write, if you want to be a musician, you have to create music, if you want to be a comedian, you have to create comedy, and the more you create, the more likely it is that you’ll stumble onto some interesting stuff.”

Later, when Wrigley posted the paragraph on Twitter, somebody looped in the real Scott Barry Kaufman. He was stunned. “It definitely sounds like something I would say,” the real Kaufman tweeted, later adding, “Crazy accurate AI.”

Image via the Chicago Tribune

David's father is a fan of the movie The Terminator. He even has a poster up in his home office. But David isn't allowed to watch The Terminator, because it might scare him. In this webcomic story from Doogie Horner, David finally sees the movie.

But it doesn't end there. When parents pre-screen a movie, they try to determine whether it's appropriate for their particular children because it may contain disturbing violence or sexual scenes beyond their understanding. We also need to pay attention to the message a particular movie sends and how we ourselves react to it. That said, David's story is pretty heartwarming.  -via Metafilter

With this superconducting camera developed by scientists and engineers from the United States and Japan, scientists will now be able to directly image exoplanets and discs around bright stars. This superconducting camera is said to have a pixel count of 20,440, which makes it the world’s largest superconducting camera by that standard.

It is the first permanently deployed superconducting camera that operates in the optical and near-infrared spectrum, and it runs at a brisk 90 millikelvin – a touch over absolute zero.

Now part of the Subaru Telescope on Maunakea, Hawaii the MKID Exoplanet Camera is so named because it uses Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors, which help overcome problems of scattered light associated with even the best adaptive optics systems.

MKIDs also can determine the energy of each photon that hits the detector – allowing scientists to determine a planet’s brightness – and they are fast, reading out data thousands of times per second.

There’s still work to be done, notably on the software and algorithms, but the developers, led by the University of California Santa Barbara, are confident of a bright future. The full story to date is told in a paper to be published in Publications of the Astronomy Society of the Pacific.

Cool!

(Image Credit: UC Santa Barbara)

Phil Spencer took Playstation 5’s new DualSense controller out for a spin, and surprisingly, was impressed! Spencer was enthusiastic for the potential innovation the DualSense controller could bring to the video game industry. With the controller’s haptic feedback and adaptive triggers, Spencer called it as Sony’s own take on the Nintendo Wii controller embraces motion control for video games: 

"I applaud what they did with the controller, not actually for — well, I shouldn’t say not for the specifics of the controller, but more than just the specifics of the controller," Spencer said to The Verge. "I think for all of us in the industry, we should learn from each other and the innovation that we all push on, whether it’s distribution of business model like Game Pass, or controller tech, or the Wii back in the day, which clearly had an impact on us when we went off and did Kinect and Sony did the Move."

It will be interesting to see whether or not the DualSense's controller innovations will catch on with the industry as a whole, or if developers decide to forgo additions like haptic feedback and adaptive triggers. There are interesting things Sony can do with the technology, but it remains to be seen whether or not third party publishers will devote the time and resources to doing just that. In that regard, Spencer is curious to see if this becomes an industry standard.

"I think all of that innovation is something that we should all be looking at and learning and growing and saying, 'Okay, what’s really going to break out and become a common part of a platform that developers and players are going to look for?' Or, 'What is more vertical around a specific scenario on a specific piece of hardware?' We’re trying to be eyes open on that," Spencer said to The Verge. "For any technology, whether it’s a controller, or any VR, or anything else..."

Image via Playstation

Most folks (outside of Switzerland) say that Bern is the capital of Switzerland. But it's not, really, it's just the place where federal offices are, because they have to go somewhere. Switzerland actually has no capital city, and that's okay, as there's no global rule that nations must have one. This video is only five minutes long; the rest is an ad.  -via Laughing Squid

If you're considering to put up a solar panel for your home and think it might be a waste for those seasons where there's not much sunlight, here's a better alternative!

This invention, AuREUS, is made from crop waste that is upcycled and is used to absorb stray UV light from sunlight and the surroundings. Unlike solar panels, this system is effective even when not directly facing the sun because it can pick up UV scattering through clouds and by UV llight bouncing along walls, pavements and other buildings.

What more? Since it absorbs UV light that would otherwise be reflected by regular windows, it protects people both indoors and outdoors.

Here's a look at the blueprint:

Here's a comparison between AuREUS versus a typical solar farm:

Brilliant!

Image Credits: Carvey Ehren Maigue via The James Dyson Award

Something is rotten in Denmark. Earlier this month, a mutated strain of coronavirus was detected in the mink population, Danish authorities decided to cull the nation's 15 million farmed mink, to avoid the mutant strain becoming established in humans, which might make a vaccine less effective. So far, 10 million mink have been slaughtered, killed in a hurry and buried in shallow pits. But they aren't staying buried.

“As the bodies decay, gases can be formed,” Thomas Kristensen, a national police spokesman, told the state broadcaster DR. “This causes the whole thing to expand a little. In this way, in the worst cases, the mink get pushed out of the ground.”

The sight of mink bodies re-emerging from the ground created concern, especially in areas where the burials are close to water supplies.

“the year of the zombie mutant killer mink” yep that just about sums 2020 up 😬

— Alan Wylie (@wylie_alan) November 26, 2020

Somewhere, someone just got five in a row on their 2020 bingo card. Read more on the story at The Guardian. -via Boing Boing

(Image credit: Peter Trimming)

In the late 1700s, a lack of effective sewers and waste control collided with the rise of industrial factories and their resulting emissions to cause a pollution crisis. The air in cities looked disgusting and smelled awful. At the time, it was thought that "miasma" spread diseases, so if you cleaned up the smell, the risk of illness would abate. There were also great strides in science during this period, but chemistry appeared to outstrip biology at a critical point.   

The decisive turning point in Europe emerged from the chemical studies of Louis-Bernard Guyton de Morveau. When Dijon’s local authorities implored him in 1773 to disinfect one of the vaults in the city’s cathedrals, Guyton tested out hydrochloric acid vapors. He reused this method a few months later in a prison.

These experiments were regarded as major victories against the hazards of infection and had an immense impact. For Alain Corbin, this disinfection constituted a decisive step in the cultural transformation of olfactory smells: Up to this point, the battle against miasma and pestilence was fought with vinegar-based and other aromatic compositions used against putrefaction; or fire to cleanse.

By the following year, the physician Félix Vicq-d’Azyr prescribed these kinds of fumigations to treat epizootic diseases in the south of France, while Étienne Mignot de Montigny and Philibert Trudaine de Montigny — both members of the French Academy — recommended similar practices to arrest the spread of contagious livestock diseases. In his two “Dissertations” on the waters of the Seine (1775 and 1787), Antoine Parmentier, scientific counsel to the lieutenant-general of police for Paris, asserted that acid and alkaline vapors contributed to clean air by neutralizing the miasmas dispersed in the atmosphere.

The rush was on to flood industrial plants with hydrochloric acid, chlorine, and caustic soda. And then to the hinterlands, where these chemicals could make swamps and garbage dumps smell better. What could possibly go wrong? Read about the era of better living through chemistry at the MIT Press Reader.  -via Damn Interesting

(Image credit: D.O.Hill)

One of the main rules in naming a shop or a company is that the name should be easy to remember, and one way to do just that is by settling with puns. That is a tried-and-tested method. The result are shop names that would give you a chuckle.

Check out some of these punny shop names over at Bored Panda.

(Image Credit: Bored Panda)

Found in the village of Rushton in Northhamptonshire, England, is the Rushton Triangular Lodge. This building was constructed between 1593 and 1597, and was designed by Sir Thomas Tresham, as a way of expressing his faith.

The number three, symbolizing the Holy Trinity, is apparent everywhere, from the triangular shape to the use of the trefoil window designs, to the number of floors, the various dimensions and symbolic letters, dates, and numbers which are all multiples of three.

Thomas Tresham, grand prior of the order of St. John in England, was the eldest son of John Tresham of Rushton. The family owned large estates in Rushton and Lyveden which he inherited from his grandfather at the age of fifteen, establishing him as a member of the Catholic elite. He served as sheriff of Northamptonshire in 1573 and was knighted at the Queen's Royal Progress at Kenilworth in 1575. Tresham’s connection with Jesuits and his recusancy made [him] a threat to Protestants and he was frequently imprisoned and fined for his religious affiliation. It was during his prolonged captivity that Sir Thomas formulated the idea of making a covert declaration of his faith.

On his release in 1593, Tresham began designing the triangular lodge as something of a shrine dedicated to his long suffering. 

Learn more about the building over at Amusing Planet.

(Image Credit: Daderot/ Wikimedia Commons)

When you hear the word “science genius”, the first names that could come into your mind are the most popular names, like Newton, Galileo, Darwin, and Einstein. Buried beneath these popular science geniuses, however, are the names of other geniuses that have been forgotten by most of us. Tom Siegfried lists ten names of unsung geniuses over at Nautilus. Why don’t you check them out? For now, here’s Brahmagupta, one of the unsung geniuses on the list.

A prominent astronomer, Brahmagupta wrote an extensive treatise covering such topics as the motions of the planets, eclipses, and the phases of the moon. But his genius emerged most prominently in mathematics. He introduced the idea of zero as a number like any other and discussed how to calculate with it. He was also the first to explain negative numbers, a concept thought by the Greeks to be “absurd.” Brahmagupta pointed out that multiplying two negative numbers (he called them “debts”) produced a positive number (in his terminology, a “fortune”).

(Image Credit: geralt/ Pixabay)

Carla Rhodes knew something was up when she saw the patch of dust forming in her backyard. Curious to see what was going on, the wildlife photographer decided to set up a trail camera, and, lo and behold, her camera captured a wild female turkey which stopped by her backyard every afternoon to treat itself with a nice dust bath.

Soon after, Rhodes set up a camouflaged hunting blind in her driveway. Armed with her camera and hoping to snap a photograph of the wild turkey in action, Rhodes sat for hours in silence. “One day, I was in there for four hours, and I wouldn't leave because I would think, when I leave, she's going to show up,” says Rhodes.

“My husband would come outside while I was in the blind,” says Rhodes, “and I would call him from my cell phone and be like, “Get back inside—she might show up, you might scare her!”

Finally, the turkey arrived at the patch of dust, and began her ritual of wriggling and frantically flapping in the dirt, tossing clouds of dust into the air around her. Rhodes was thrilled—she’d finally captured the turkey dust bathing, but she moved too quickly and spooked the bird. The next time the turkey showed up, Rhodes was more cautious and snapped more shots.

For a few weeks, with an enthusiastic spirit, Rhodes observed and documented the female turkey.

Read about her experience, and see some of the photos she took, over at Smithsonian Magazine.

(Image Credit: Carla Rhodes/ Smithsonian Magazine)

If you ever want to go dinosaur hunting, the last place you would want to go to is Ireland. Due to its weird geology, the rock layers are only made up of material that dates either before or after dinosaurs existed. This means that finding dinosaur fossils or remains in this place is extremely rare. But it doesn’t mean that you can't find one.

Just recently, a research team led by Dr. Mike Simms have confirmed two bone fragments, which were discovered by a schoolteacher named Roger Byrne, to belong to two different dinosaurs. These are the only dinosaur remains to be found in Ireland.

… the two bone fragments were found to belong to two different individuals.

"This is a hugely significant discovery," says Simms. "The great rarity of such fossils here is because most of Ireland's rocks are the wrong age for dinosaurs, either too old or too young, making it nearly impossible to confirm dinosaurs existed on these shores. The two dinosaur fossils that Roger Byrne found were perhaps swept out to sea, alive or dead, sinking to the Jurassic seabed where they were buried and fossilized."

More details about this story over at New Atlas.

(Image Credit: University of Portsmouth/ New Atlas)

Made-for-TV Christmas movies have filled the schedule at the Hallmark Channel and Lifetime for a couple months now, but it's time for the premieres of the 2020 crop. Get ready for 82 new ways to wallow in Christmas and eat up the hours spent at home. Yes, they are formulaic, but 2020 is the year to indulge in safe guilty pleasures. 

You know that thing people say about Taco Bell? That the whole menu is just five ingredients (tortillas, cheese, meat, beans, sauce) remixed and rearranged in infinite combinations? Made-for-TV Christmas is the Taco Bell of entertainment genres. Take the same haggard tropes — the struggling inns, the small towns, the career women who must be cured of their unladylike ambitions by falling in love with boring men — and just switch the names and actors around, and it’s a tradition that works year after year.

The list of synopses (and trailers) at Vulture is divided into themes, since several movies share the same setup, plots, or attempts to stand out. There are three movies centered on blogging (as if that's interesting), nine with a land developer as the villain (because how else will you save the school/wilderness/historic landmark?), six with "scavenger hunt" as a plot device, and four (count 'em, FOUR) movies with LGBTQ themes. And a partridge in a pear tree somewhere, I'm sure. Happy wallowing!

(Image credit: zannaland)