AI-generated human faces from 2014:
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1406.2661.pdf
AI-generated human faces from 2019:
https://www.fastcompany.com/90406423/these-ai-generated-people-are-coming-to-kill-stock-photography
Google claims to have achieved “quantum supremacy” in a lab experiment…kind of.
https://www.wired.com/story/why-googles-quantum-computing-victory-is-a-huge-deal-and-a-letdown/
A Google neural network AI scored a 90% on a standardized test of reasoning ability given to eighth grade students in New York.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/04/technology/artificial-intelligence-aristo-passed-test.html
Electric cars have fewer parts than gas-powered cars, so they are simpler and faster to build, and break less often. This is bad news for people who work at car factories and mechanic shops.
https://apnews.com/c70d4274a69643bba37667585dbee7aa
Amazon has just announced a bulk buy of 100,000 electric delivery trucks, which will jump-start that whole vehicle sector. I’ve predicted before that, once a big company does a bulk buy of thousands of autonomous delivery trucks, the writing will be on the wall for human truck drivers.
https://qz.com/1712151/amazon-orders-100000-electric-delivery-trucks/
One guy has taken it upon himself to drive around his native Zimbabwe to fill in Google Street View imagery. I like his spirit, but it’s kind of pointless since all the blank spots in Street View will very rapidly fill in once autonomous cars become common. The cars will bristle with cameras pointed in every direction, and opting to sell the footage to Google will be a matter of clicking one button.
https://www.npr.org/2019/09/22/760572640/hes-trying-to-fill-in-the-gaps-on-google-street-view-starting-with-zimbabwe
Chinese police used flying drones to find a fugitive who had been at large for 17 years. He was living in a remote camp in the wilderness. Autonomous aircraft will be able to map parts of the planet inaccessible to cars, and hence will be integral to mapping and surveillance.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-49874969
A “vacuum airship” would be a dirigible filled with nothing instead of helium or hydrogen. The exterior air pressure would be so great that its skin would need to be built of super-strong, nano-engineered materials.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_airship
President Trump accidentally Tweeted a classified photo taken by one of America’s best spy satellites, giving insights into how high-res their cameras are. Contrary to urban myth, license plates and facial features can’t be resolved, but individual humans on the ground could be seen (and counted) as small blobs of color.
https://www.npr.org/2019/08/30/755994591/president-trump-tweets-sensitive-surveillance-image-of-iran
In theory, a planet with just 2% of the Earth’s mass could, if located slightly closer to a Sun like ours than the Earth is, have liquid water and hence organic life. (Note: The Moon is 1% Earth’s mass.)
https://phys.org/news/2019-09-redefines-limit-planet-size-habitability.html
The Kardashev Scale is widely misquoted and misunderstood:
1) According to Kardashev’s original science paper on the matter, humanity had ALREADY achieved “Type 1” status in 1964.
2) The paper only had three civilization classifications: Type 1 (most energy on the planet being consumed by the civilization), Type 2 (all of the star’s energy harnessed), and Type 3 (all of the galaxy’s energy harnessed). Nothing was said of “Type 0” or “Type 4” status.
https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2014/03/21/what-kardashev-really-said/
When we meet intelligent aliens, even if we can’t understand each others’ languages, we’ll be able to use math and chemistry to agree on what “right” and “left” mean.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_experiment
The U.S. Navy has confirmed that three UFO videos leaked to the public in late 2017 are real, and that they don’t know what the flying objects were.
https://www.theblackvault.com/documentarchive/u-s-navy-confirms-videos-depict-unidentified-aerial-phenomena-not-cleared-for-public-release/
The CIA was out of control in the 50s and 60s, and Fort Detrick, MD was its secret base for developing and testing mind-control drugs, poisons, and biological weapons.
https://politi.co/2I7zNfE
Doctors found a way to triple the time that human livers can be preserved outside a body for transplantation. It involves injecting the organs with preservative fluid and cooling them to below freezing. Don’t write off the possibility of whole-body human cryopresevation in the future.
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-49632609
Using donor eggs and IVF, a 74-year-old woman in India got pregnant and gave birth to twins, making her the oldest known mother. (While postmenopausal women’s ovaries don’t make eggs anymore, their uteri remain functional) The physical and mental strain of childbirth was so great that it caused her a stroke and gave her husband a heart attack, and both were sent to the ICU right afterward.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=12267791
The Sahara region oscillates between wet and dry epochs once every 20,000 years. Also, the current Sahara Desert wouldn’t be as large as it is if not for millennia of human-owned livestock overgrazing at its margins. We could “green” parts of it today, with existing technology and relatively little money.
https://phys.org/news/2019-01-sahara-swung-lush-conditions-years.html
Only one insect species is indigenous to Antarctica.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgica_antarctica
Facebook’s virtual reality group has made impressive progress making what they call “Codec Avatars.” A person wears a visor over his face, which has cameras that record the movements of his head, face muscles, eyes, and mouth, and then the footage is streamed to a second person also wearing a visor, who sees the disembodied image of the first person’s head floating in front of them. Various algorithms are used to correct for camera distortions and blank spots.
https://twitter.com/pacrimgirl/status/1176937590756270080
Scientists invented a device that can convert a flat plate’s excess heat into electricity to power an LED bulb. In the future, we’ll do a lot of wring energy out of waste heat.
https://www.cell.com/joule/abstract/S2542-4351(19)30412-X
Amazon pledged to get 100% of its energy from clean sources by 2030.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/19/jeff-bezos-speaks-about-amazon-sustainability-in-washington-dc.html
Here’s more evidence that body weight and obesity are partly genetic: Thin adults tend to have more mitochondria in their fat cells, and different mitochondrial DNA, than average-weight adults.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31374571
It’s actually not true that all siblings share 50% of their genes. Thanks to the random reassortment of genes that happens during meiosis (the biological process that makes sperm and eggs), it’s quite possible for two full siblings to share as little as 40% and as much as 60% of their DNA. 50% is merely the population-wide average (3.6% is the standard deviation).
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2011/02/why-siblings-differ-differently/#.XZJTyihKiUl
The facts that Earthly life forms have four DNA nucleotides and that a series of three nucleotides codes for each amino acid could mean that ‘a quantum-mechanical process is actually somehow at the root of molecular biology.’ By extension, it also means that the way we store genetic information and translate it into molecules is the most efficient way possible in an organic substrate.
https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2019/09/18/and-now-for-a-bit-of-quantum-mechanics
This is a good idea: Make a fighter version of the T-X trainer jet, and use it for patrolling U.S. airspace. This would be much cheaper than using F-15s and F-22s for that role. We could also sell the T-X to friendly Third World countries that didn’t have much money.
https://warontherocks.com/2019/02/blurring-the-lines-part-i-a-promising-new-trainer-aircraft-and-its-combat-variants
Eighteen drones and 7 cruise missiles were launched at Saudi Arabia during the recent attack that disabled much of the country’s oil industry. The wreckage shows the weapons were Iranian-made. Iran’s government denies involvement, and they do have a slender reed to lean on since it’s possible that anti-Saudi rebels launched the weapons from outside Iran.
https://apnews.com/9fb95c0d28c84fd0bf10817dea3ddaab
Iran’s air force still flies pre-1979 planes because no other country wants to sell them new ones and deal with the diplomatic backlash and sanctions from other countries.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/foreign-fighter-jets-iran-would-buy-if-it-was-allowed-79891
China just launched a fifth Type 055 destroyer. They’re practically rolling off an assembly line.
https://www.janes.com/article/91450/china-launches-fifth-type-055-destroyer-for-plan
China ALSO just launched a Type 075 helicopter carrier, after starting construction just five months ago.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/30011/china-just-launched-its-huge-and-incredibly-quickly-built-amphibious-assault-ship
‘There are some clear tactical benefits to [Egypt’s military HQ building] design. Spreading the MoD’s functionality across multiple interconnected facilities offers survivability from limited attacks. Giving each service two well-spaced octagons also offers some redundancy should one be struck, at least depending on the functions and systems each one holds. Like America’s Pentagon, having three distinct ‘nested’ structures within each octagon also provides resiliency if one part of the facility is attacked.’
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/29762/egypts-new-octagon-ministry-of-defense-complex-looks-like-an-alien-base-from-space
Russia’s “Ratnik” infantry equipment modernization program unsurprisingly failed in its promise to put every Russian soldier in cyborg power armor, but its more conservative elements–which involved copying elements from more advanced U.S. helmets, body gear, and other accessories–succeeded.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/major-armor-and-uniform-upgrade-russian-military-wanted-here-78496
Eighty years ago, the Nazis invaded Poland, sparking WWII. What is often forgotten is that the Soviets also invaded Poland from the east. Britain and France only declared war on Germany for this offense.
https://youtu.be/oFTtuHxxBLo
U.S. forces fought a brief war in Korea in 1871.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/1871-america-invaded-korea-heres-what-happened-24113
