Telescope #110

Weekly horizon scan…

We are the first generation to feel the impact of climate change and the last generation that can do something about it.— Barack Obama

SUSTAINABILITY

• After over a year of record-high global sea temperatures, the Atlantic is cooling off more quickly than ever recorded, which could impact weather around the world. But, nobody knows why. DETAIL

• An analysis of daily carbon dioxide emissions since 1970 has revealed increasingly large spikes that appear to be caused by growing energy use during extreme weather events. In other words, our efforts to cope with extreme temperatures are making them worse. DETAIL

• More than half of people on Earth — approximately 4 billion— lack access to safe drinking water, which is double the number estimated in 2020, a new study by REACH global research program has found. DETAIL

• As reported by Grist, the Biden administration announced in closed-door meetings this week that it supported global efforts to limit plastic pollution via the United Nations’ plastic treaty. Previously, the U.S. had held the stance of allowing individual UN member states to make their own decisions on plastic production, Plastic Pollution Coalition reported. DETAIL

• Japan made a significant stride in energy transition on Wednesday by signing 70 memorandums of understanding (MOUs) with various partners. These agreements were secured during the Asia Zero Emission Community (AZEC) ministerial meeting in Jakarta, underscoring Japan’s leadership in decarbonizing Asia. DETAIL

• The 2024 sustainability landscape has ushered in a significant era of ESG capacity building, with companies making strides in embedding sustainability into their core operations. According to Deloitte’s 2024 Sustainability Action Report, 98% of executives have reported progress toward their sustainability goals over the past year. DETAIL

• Australia’s Senate has passed the Treasury Laws Amendment (Financial Market Infrastructure and Other Measures) Bill 2024, setting the stage for a new era of mandatory climate risk disclosures. Starting in 2025, large Australian companies—both listed and unlisted—will be required to provide standardized climate information, a move welcomed by the investor community as a significant step toward transparency and accountability. DETAIL

HEALTH

• A study recently published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society examined applying a mimic of the TGF-β1 peptide with a circular structure to induce cartilage repair. Researchers found that a version of the TGF-β1 peptide mimic that was designed to have freer movement led to the best results. DETAIL

• Stanford scientists have discovered that there are two specific age ranges at which your body starts to feel like it's breaking down faster than ever before — and at which you start looking way older, too. The researchers found that molecular and microbial fluctuations in our mid-40s and early 60s could be responsible for the rapid aging leaps we tend to experience during those years. DETAIL

• Like a computer system with built-in redundancies, a study has revealed that brains use three different sets of neurons to store a single memory. The finding could one day help soften painful memories in people who've suffered trauma. DETAIL

• A new analysis of 12 million families found that smoking even one or two cigarettes a day during pregnancy can cause serious health problems in babies.  Experts reported that the likelihood of complications in babies whose mothers smoked before pregnancy increased by 27%, and if smoking during pregnancy, this probability was 31% higher. DETAIL

• Researchers have found that a shocking amount of microplastics are ending up in our brains. As detailed in a yet-to-be-peer-reviewed paper, scientists found that all 91 brain samples they examined, taken from autopsied bodies earlier this year, contained microplastics. DETAIL

DIGITAL / TECHNOLOGY / SCIENCE / ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

• Three amateur astronomers examined images from NASA's "WISE" telescope and detected a celestial object traveling at a very high speed in space.  It was stated that the object, which can travel at a speed of approximately 1.6 million kilometers per hour, can travel the entire Solar System in less than 4 days. DETAIL

• AFAD Earthquake and Risk Reduction General Manager Orhan Tatar explained that Istanbul's earthquake risk was analyzed with artificial intelligence.  Tatar said, "The reports produced tell you the estimated number of casualties and whether the structures will survive." DETAIL

• Microsoft announced the launch of 3 new models within the scope of the Phi artificial intelligence series.  The three new Phi 3.5 models include the 3.82 billion-parameter Phi-3.5-mini-instruct, the 41.9 billion-parameter Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct, and the 4.15 billion-parameter Phi-3.5-vision-instruct.  Phi-3.5-mini-instruct offers fast reasoning, while Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct has stronger reasoning.  Phi-3.5-vision-instruction was designed for image and video analysis tasks. DETAIL

• Our collection of antimatter has just got heavier, because researchers have logged the heaviest antimatter version of an atomic nucleus yet, called antihyperhydrogen-4. “We didn’t think that it was 100 per cent certain we would find it, we just knew we had a chance,” says Hao Qiu at the Institute of Modern Physics in China. He and his colleagues, an international team called the STAR Collaboration, briefly formed the new type of antimatter in an experiment at Brookhaven National Laboratory’s Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider in New York. DETAIL

• An inanimate glob of ion-laced jelly can play the computer game Pong and even improve over time. In an experiment, the researchers used a standard computer to run a game of Pong and passed current into different points on the hydrogel with a three-by-three grid of electrodes to represent the ball moving. A second grid of electrodes measured the concentration of ions in the hydrogel, which was interpreted by the computer as instructions on where to move the paddle to. “Instead of it just knowing what’s immediately happened, it has a memory of the ball’s motion over the entirety of the game,” says Vincent Strong at the University of Reading, UK. DETAIL

• A group of Chinese scientists want to build a magnetic launch system that spins up and then hammer throws cargo from the Moon's surface, shooting it towards Earth. DETAIL

ENERGY / TRANSPORTATION

• Karsan Autonomous e-ATAK, the world's first Level-4 driverless vehicle on a planned route, developed in cooperation with ADASTEC, will serve in Arbon, Switzerland. DETAIL

• BP and NASA have unveiled a new partnership aimed at advancing energy production and space exploration. DETAIL

• The robotaxi company Waymo of Google parent company Alphabet is presenting the 6th generation of its Waymo Driver technology for autonomous driving. The technology is already integrated into electric cars from Zeekr. DETAIL

• The Canadian company Unither Bioelectronics (UB) and the Californian helicopter manufacturer Robinson Helicopter Company are cooperating to drive forward the development of hydrogen-powered helicopters from UB based on Robinson's R44 and R66 models. DETAIL

CYBERSECURITY

• Google is accused of collecting users' data without their consent through Chrome.  Google, on the other hand, argues that users save their data through Chrome's synchronization feature and that this feature enables data sharing between devices. DETAIL

• Anthropic has been sued by three authors for misusing their books and hundreds of thousands of others to train its AI-powered chatbot Claude. DETAIL

• YouTube has introduced a new AI assistant feature designed to help compromised users recover their accounts and enhance their protection against future attacks. This development was announced on Google's YouTube support page. DETAIL

CURIOSITY

• A deadly infection responsible for wiping out a commercial variety of bananas back in the 1950s and 1960s has once again reared its ugly head in recent years, threatening to make extinct the entire supply of the world's most popular fruit. DETAIL

• Streaming services had a banner month in July, capturing 41.4% of all TV viewing, according to a new Nielsen report. DETAIL