One of Google’s AIs can now generate songs, complete with human vocals. It doesn’t sound bad.
https://openai.com/blog/jukebox/
In another blow to globalism, Argentina signals it might drop out of MERCOSUR.
https://en.mercopress.com/2020/04/29/uruguay-and-argentina-presidents-discuss-the-future-of-mercosur
Kim Jong-un’s absence from public view has some speculating that he is gravely ill or even dead.
https://apnews.com/92808af0efae97b32464bb2e2e9fcab5
Ethiopia’s construction of a major dam on the Nile River is making downstream Sudan and Egypt nervous about their future water supplies. The region is already water-scarce and rapidly growing in population.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/apr/23/itll-cause-a-water-war-divisions-run-deep-as-filling-of-nile-dam-nears
The Hubble Telescope is 30 and still working!
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-52106420
Interesting facts about the Space Shuttle:
-It was originally supposed to be a fully reusable, two-stage craft. That design would have been more expensive but probably better.
-The notion that the Shuttle would be a cheaper way to launch cargo into orbit that traditional rockets was never supported by data. Politicians just made it up to sell the idea to the public.
-The Soviet “Buran” craft was more advanced than the U.S. Shuttle, and fixed some of the latter’s known flaws.
https://gizmodo.com/the-space-shuttle-was-a-beautiful-but-terrible-idea-1842732042
The U.S. Navy has officially released copies of the famous UFO videos that were leaked to the public in December 2017. The Navy also said it didn’t know what the UFOs were.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/33179/navy-officially-releases-infamous-ufo-videos
Interesting details about the V-22:
-“Many of the challenges in developing and operating the V-22 are the result of designing a fairly large platform to operate within the confines of US Marine Corps amphibious ships. This caused several compromises, such as a smaller proprotor diameter, which increases the download and reduces the hover efficiency, and a shorter wing, which reduces the amount of lift and range.”
-“These engineering lessons and the lack of shipboard size constraints enabled Bell to reduce the downwash from the rotors, design the rotors to tilt from horizontal to vertical without rotating the engines, and improve the reliability and availability of components. The V-22’s downwash, or high velocity air from the two tilting proprotors producing 22,680 kg of thrust to keep the aircraft aloft, can damage objects or injure people below. It also means the Osprey must burn more fuel to hover.”
-“In addition, the V-22 required a rear-ramp exit to avoid hot-engine exhaust blasting onto ship decks and grassy landing zones. As the V-280’s engines do not rotate, this solves the hot engine exhaust issue, which can start brush fires, and means troops can ingress and egress via side doors.”
https://www.janes.com/article/95609/forty-years-on-from-the-v-22-s-conception-bell-applies-engineering-lessons-learned-to-the-v-280
The U.S. Air Force is going to 3D scan a B-1 bomber to make a highly detailed computer simulation of it to identify faults and components that are wearing out. Today, it’s only cost-effective to do this for large aircraft, but in the future, we’ll have computer simulations for every type of manufactured object and will use them to optimize designs.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/33151/air-force-sends-full-b-1b-airframe-from-boneyard-to-kansas-to-create-its-digital-twin
Russia has cancelled the construction of several advanced warships due to lack of money.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/russian-navy-just-cancelled-its-biggest-warships-146776
The realities of submarine combat and of how torpedoes work are totally different from what you see in movies. Interestingly, many torpedoes stay connected to the subs that fired them by way of long wires that rapidly unspool as the torpedoes move forward.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/33018/modern-submarine-torpedo-attacks-are-nothing-like-what-you-see-in-the-movies
An interesting video about the downsides of upgrading tanks. Adding weight in the form of applique armor or a bigger gun can push the tank’s engine and suspension past their design limits, increasing the odds of a breakdown. Drilling holes through tank armor to run new wires to create mounting points for gadgets can also make the armor much weaker.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvSpMtulunU
Sodium- and mercury-based streetlights are going extinct, meaning someday, kids will watch old movies and wonder why things looked yellow-tinted at night.
https://nofilmschool.com/2014/02/why-hollywood-will-never-look-the-same-again-on-film-leds-in-la-ny
An incredible-looking machine has been built in Japan to study antimatter.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-52297058
Could we insure against species going permanently extinct by collecting sperm and egg samples from endangered species and freezing them for future use? The samples could stay good for hundreds of years.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/22/a-tiny-scientific-marvel-olaf-the-ivf-toad-brings-hope-to-at-risk-species-aoe
If more farmers adopted today’s high-yield agriculture methods, we could grow the same amount of food with half the amount of cropland.
https://reason.com/2020/04/17/its-possible-to-cut-cropland-use-in-half-and-produce-the-same-amount-of-food-says-new-study/
Cut off from most international trade and able to use artificially cheap domestic labor, the Soviets developed advanced ways of growing citrus trees in cold climates. One method involved planting the trees in deep trenches.
https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2020/04/fruit-trenches-cultivating-subtropical-plants-in-freezing-temperatures.html
The University of Washington’s disease model has been very accurate predicting the course of the COVID-19 epidemic in the U.S. A snapshot from March 30 predicted that U.S. deaths would peak on April 15 at 2,271. It did peak on that day, but at 2,693. The model shows that the virus’ first wave will be almost done by June 1, and will claim 72,400 lives.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8168661/Data-predicts-2-271-Americans-die-coronavirus-April-15.html
https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america
Almost half of the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle’s crew got infected with COVID-19. The ship’s crowded conditions proved ideal for disease transmission.
https://apnews.com/fd1996b64f4cc3aeaa92b352bb7f5cce
In mid-March, Elon Musk predicted that the coronavirus pandemic would end soon, and that the U.S. would have “close to zero” new cases of the disease by the end of April. The CDC counted 26,512 new cases on April 29 alone.
https://www.npr.org/2020/04/29/848093173/teslas-elon-musk-rants-again-calls-lockdowns-forcible-imprisonment-and-fascist
For the first time on record, and probably for the first time since the era of Mao’s Mickey Mouse Economics, the Chinese economy shrank. The pandemic was the obvious cause.
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-52319936