Science, Spoken

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This Robot Hand Taught Itself How to Grab Stuff Like a Human Jul 31, 2018

Show notes

Elon Musk is kinda worried about AI. (“AI is a fundamental existential risk for human civilization and I don’t think people fully appreciate that,” as he put it in 2017.) So he helped found a research nonprofit, OpenAI, to help cut a path to “safe” artificial general intelligence, as opposed to machines that pop our civilization like a pimple. Yes, Musk’s very public fears may distract from other more real problems in AI.

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Sorry, Nerds: Terraforming Might Not Work on Mars Jul 31, 2018

Show notes

Listen, I get it. You want to go to Mars. I want to go to Mars. (Sort of.) And the plan—it’s good. A rocket with people. A base on the moon. Then more rockets and more people. Start making fuel on the surface, maybe depot it along the way. An outpost becomes a base becomes a domed city. And then: terraforming.

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If Germany Can't Quit Coal, Can Anyone Else? Jul 30, 2018

Show notes

Sometime next month, underground miners will dig Germany’s last ton of black coal, load it onto a conveyor belt, and whisk it a mile to the surface of the Ibbenbüren mining facility. From there, the high-energy anthracite will be tossed into a high-combustion chamber in an adjacent power plant, where it will be converted into electricity to light up this northwest corner of Germany’s North Rhine-Westphalia state. It’s been a good run at the Ibbenbüren mine.

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Congress Has a $65 Million Proposal to Study Tech’s Effect on Kids Jul 30, 2018

Show notes

Like a lot of people, you probably spend a fair bit of time worrying about how much time you spend on your phone. Who doesn't these days? But what really concerns you is the youth. What is all that swiping and snapping and gramming doing to their still-developing brains? Surely somebody's studied this—the effect of all this screen time. So what have they found? Well, to be honest: nothing conclusive. At least not yet.

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That Purple Kush You're Toking Might Be a Genetic Imposter Jul 27, 2018

Show notes

Cannabis strain names can get a bit … quirky (Lamb’s Bread, anyone?). But without them, patients that rely on marijuana to treat ailments like pain would be lost. If you want to treat seizures, you might want ACDC—a strain that expresses almost zero THC and very high CBD, a non-psychoactive cannabinoid—and stay away from the potentially panic-inducing Ghost OG, which verges on 25 percent THC.

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Next-Gen Nuclear Is Coming—If Society Wants It Jul 27, 2018

Show notes

This story originally appeared on Grist and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Back in 2009, Simon Irish, an investment manager in New York, found the kind of opportunity that he thought could transform the world while — in the process — transforming dollars into riches.

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How Plastic Straws Slip Through the Cracks of Waste Management Jul 26, 2018

Show notes

Earlier this year, a three-year-old video of researchers extracting a long, twisted tube from a reptile’s bleeding nostril went viral. To date, it has accumulated more than 30 million views and set off a moral panic. The straw that broke the turtle’s beak also did a number on the camel’s back. Companies like Starbucks, Ikea, and Hilton hotels have announced policies reducing or eliminating single-use slurping devices.

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Scientists Discover the First Large Body of Liquid Water on Mars Jul 26, 2018

Show notes

For decades Mars has teased scientists with whispers of water's presence. Valleys and basins and rivers long dry point to the planet's hydrous past. The accumulation of condensation on surface landers and the detection of vast subterranean ice deposits suggest the stuff still lingers in gaseous and solid states. But liquid water has proved more elusive. Evidence to date suggests it flows seasonally, descending steep slopes in transient trickles every Martian summer.

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This Bomb-Simulating US Supercomputer Broke a World Record Jul 25, 2018

Show notes

Brad Settlemyer had a supercomputing solution in search of a problem. Los Alamos National Lab, where Settlemyer works as a research scientist, hosts the Trinity supercomputer—a machine that regularly makes the internet’s (ever-evolving) Top 10 Fastest lists. As large as a Midwestern McMansion, Trinity’s main job is to ensure that the cache of US nuclear weapons works when it’s supposed to, and doesn’t when it’s not.

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SpaceX Preps for Three Block 5 Launches in Just Two Weeks Jul 25, 2018

Show notes

This weekend, SpaceX began what is slated to be its busiest week ever by successfully launching its largest payload to date: a communications satellite dubbed TelStar 19V. Perched atop the company’s Cape Canaveral launch pad, a shiny new Falcon 9 rocket roared to life at 1:50 am Eastern on Sunday morning, lighting up the predawn sky. It was the 13th launch so far this year for SpaceX—and, notably, the first of three Falcon 9 Block 5 booster launches scheduled for the next 12 days.

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