At first glance, the Earth’s orbit and oceans could not be more different. The former is located on the uppermost layers of the planet’s atmosphere and beyond, while the latter surrounds all the landmasses around the globe.But there is a glaring similarity between the two: Both are vast areas with no owner, making responsible and sustainable use of them incredibly challenging.Imogen Napper, a marine scientist at the University of Plymouth in England, says the high seas and the Earth’s orbi ...read more
Researchers have long used birdsong as a prime example when studying the complexities of speech. But a new study based on orangutans attempts to change that and shed some light on how humans acquired the ability to make more than one vocal sound at a time.The researchers spent a massive amount of time observing and recording the great apes in the wild – some 3,800 hours in Borneo and Sumatra within range of the animals. What they found connects present-day beatboxing sounds to early human lang ...read more
Back in October 2021, developers on the GitHub software development platform were given access to an exotic AI tool called Copilot. Created in association with OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, Copilot uses the same generative AI technology to produce computer code on request, rather than text. And it is pretty good at it. Github reckons that Copilot successfully autocompletes coding suggestions about 50 percent of the time, which should significantly increase the productivity of the millions ...read more
Despite the seemingly-infinite vastness of the cosmos, Earth is the only place known to harbor life. As such, humans have long wondered whether our world is the only place where life has emerged — a process known as abiogenesis. A new study may offer some tantalizing clues. Planetary scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany showed that the metallicity of stars, or how much metal a star contains, is an important factor in our ongoing search for complex life ...read more
After choking New York City and other major metropolises on the U.S. East Coast a few weeks ago, wildfire smoke from Canadian wildfires is now blanketing the Midwest — and streaming all the way across the Atlantic to Europe. I got a first-hand look at the smoke while flying in and out of Chicago yesterday (June 27), where some of the worst air pollution levels among major world cities were recorded. (As was the case for Minneapolis and Detroit too.) Here’s a photo I took of the pall just aft ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine
