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Category: sustainability – Page 2

NASA Sets Coverage for Northrop Grumman CRS-23, SpaceX Falcon 9 Launch

NASA, Northrop Grumman, and SpaceX are targeting no earlier than 6:11 p.m. EDT, Sunday, Sept. 14, for the next launch to deliver science investigations, supplies, and equipment to the International Space Station. The mission is known as NASA’s Northrop Grumman Commercial Resupply Services 23, or Northrop Grumman CRS-23.

Watch the agency’s launch and arrival coverage on NASA+, Amazon Prime, and more. Learn how to watch NASA content through a variety of platforms, including social media.

Filled with more than 11,000 pounds of supplies, the Northrop Grumman Cygnus XL spacecraft, carried on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, will launch from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. This mission will be the first flight of the Cygnus XL, the larger, more cargo-capable version of the company’s solar-powered spacecraft.

Elon Musk Pushes Tesla Forward

Questions to inspire discussion.

📷 Q: What camera technology does the Optimus bot use? A: Optimus uses car cameras with macro modes for reading small text, supplied by Simco (a Samsung division), featuring a miniaturized camera assembly with internal movement mechanisms.

Tesla AI and Chip Development.

🧠 Q: How does Tesla’s AI5 chip compare to competitors? A: The AI5 chip is potentially the best inference chip for models under 250 billion parameters, offering the lowest cost, best performance per watt, and is milliseconds faster than competitors.

💻 Q: What advantages does Tesla have in chip development? A: Tesla controls the chip design, silicon talent, and has vertical integration, giving them a significant edge over competitors in AI chip development.

Tesla Product and Business Updates.

Continue reading “Elon Musk Pushes Tesla Forward” | >

Can Microsoft’s analog optical computer be the answer to more energy-efficient AI and optimization tasks?

The constant scaling of AI applications and other digital technologies across industries is beginning to tax the energy grid due to its intensive energy consumption. Digital computing’s energy and latency demands will likely continue to rise, challenging their sustainability.

Unsurprisingly, the reliance on these technologies in our modern world has researchers scrambling to produce more energy-efficient ways to move forward—and Microsoft might be ahead of the game. Microsoft’s researchers, along with a team from Cambridge University, have developed a new analog optical computer (AOC) that has the potential to give AI, as well as combinatorial optimization, a much needed boost in efficiency.

The AOC prototype is described in a recent study by the group that was published in Nature. The group combined analog electronics and microLED arrays, spatial light modulators, and photodetector arrays to accelerate both AI inference and combinatorial optimization on a single platform.

Plasma propulsion system could help remove space debris without contact

Space has a trash problem, with defunct satellites, rockets, and smaller broken bits orbiting Earth at high speeds. The amount of space junk is only increasing, raising the risk of collision with active satellites and spacecraft, according to Kazunori Takahashi, associate professor in the Graduate School of Engineering at Tohoku University in Japan. Takahashi may have a solution, though.

“Owing to their uncontrolled motion and velocity exceeding that of bullets, orbiting around Earth pose a serious threat by significant increase in the potential risk of collisions with satellites that support sustainable human activity in space,” Takahashi said.

“Most current space debris removal methods are direct-contact approaches and carry the risk of becoming entangled in the uncontrolled motion of debris. More recent work has focused on using a to decelerate the debris, forcing it out of orbit.”

Light-based chip can boost power efficiency of AI tasks up to 100-fold

A team at the University of Florida has developed a new kind of computer chip that uses light with electricity to perform one of the most power-intensive parts of artificial intelligence—image recognition and similar pattern-finding tasks. Using light dramatically cuts the power needed to perform these tasks, with efficiency 10 or even 100 times that of current chips performing the same calculations. Using this approach could help rein in the enormous demand for electricity that is straining power grids while enabling higher performance AI models and systems.

Artificial intelligence (AI) systems are increasingly central to technology, powering everything from facial recognition to language translation. But as AI models grow more complex, they consume vast amounts of electricity—posing challenges for and sustainability. A new chip developed by researchers at the University of Florida could help address this issue by using light, rather than just electricity, to perform one of AI’s most power-hungry tasks.

The research is reported in Advanced Photonics.

Tesla Just Hit Its POINT OF NO RETURN

Questions to inspire discussion.

📈 Q: What is the potential annual production capacity for Cybercabs at full speed? A: At full speed with multiple production lines, Tesla’s Cybercab production could reach 2 million vehicles per year.

Tesla’s FSD and Autonomous Driving.

🧠 Q: When is FSD14 expected to be released? A: FSD14 is anticipated to be released in September 2025.

🚗 Q: What capability will FSD14 enable for Tesla vehicles? A: FSD14 will enable unsupervised robo taxi operation for Tesla vehicles.

💼 Q: How might Tesla’s FSD subscription model change? A: Tesla’s FSD subscription could become mandatory for new vehicle purchases.

Continue reading “Tesla Just Hit Its POINT OF NO RETURN” | >

Gold-enhanced TiO₂ catalyst enables efficient and selective flow synthesis of propane from methane

Methane (CH₄), the colorless and odorless gas that makes up most natural gas on Earth, has so far been converted into useful fuels and chemicals via energy-intensive processes that need to be carried out at high temperatures. Some energy researchers, however, have been exploring the possibility of transforming this gas into useful hydrocarbons and chemicals via photocatalysis.

Photocatalysis is a process through which the energy contained in light, typically solar energy, activates a material known as a “catalyst,” driving desired chemical reactions. Converting CH₄ into specific fuels or chemicals via photocatalysis instead of conventional methods that rely on the burning of fossil fuels could be highly advantageous, as it could contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

Researchers at Hebei University and other institutes in China recently introduced a new photocatalysis-driven approach to convert CH₄ into propane (C₃H₈), a hydrocarbon that is easier to use in real-world settings, as it becomes liquid at specific pressures, which facilitates its storage and transport.

Floquet effects unlock graphene’s potential for future electronics

Graphene is an extraordinary material—a sheet of interlocking carbon atoms just one atom thick that is stable and extremely conductive. This makes it useful in a range of areas, such as flexible electronic displays, highly precise sensors, powerful batteries, and efficient solar cells.

A new study—led by researchers from the University of Göttingen, working together with colleagues from Braunschweig and Bremen in Germany, and Fribourg in Switzerland—now takes graphene’s potential to a whole new level. The team has directly observed “Floquet effects” in graphene for the first time.

This resolves a long-standing debate: Floquet engineering—a method in which the properties of a material are very precisely altered using pulses of light—also works in metallic and semi-metallic quantum materials such as graphene. The study is published in Nature Physics.

Researchers discover massive geo-hydrogen source to the west of the Mussau Trench

Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the solar system. As a source of clean energy, hydrogen is well-suited for sustainable development, and Earth is a natural hydrogen factory. However, most hydrogen vents reported to date are small, and the geological processes responsible for hydrogen formation—as well as the quantities that can be preserved in geological settings—remain unclear.

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