Tag: science
Solar Orbiter probe makes its first Venus flyby
The ESA-NASA Solar Orbiter probe is quite busy on its way to the Sun. Space.com notes the spacecraft has completed its first flyby of Venus, collecting info about the hellish planet as it swung by around 7:39AM Eastern. There won’t be photos when tel… Source
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Elon Musk says SpaceX to double launch pad usage for Starship tests, Super Heavy flights coming in a ‘few months’
SpaceX is set to significantly ramp up its Starship development program in the new year, in more ways than one. SpaceX CEO and founder Elon Musk noted on Twitter on Thursday that the company will seek to make use of both of its two launch pads at its development facility…
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Google reportedly tightens grip on research into ‘sensitive topics’
Google is currently under fire for apparently pushing out a researcher whose work warned of bias in AI, and now a report from Reuters says others doing such work at the company have been asked to “strike a positive tone” and undergo additional reviews for research touching on “sensitive topics.”…
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No rules, no problem: DeepMind’s MuZero masters games while learning how to play them
DeepMind has made it a mission to show that not only can an AI truly become proficient at a game, it can do so without even being told the rules. Its newest AI agent, called MuZero, accomplishes this not just with visually simple games with complex strategies, like Go, Chess…
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Astroscale ships its space junk removal demonstration satellite for March 2021 mission
Japanese startup Astroscale has shipped its ELSA-d spacecraft to the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazahkstan, where it will be integrated with a Soyuz rocket for a launch scheduled for March of next year. This is a crucial mission for Astroscale, since it’ll be the first in-space demonstration of the company’s technology…
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Hitting the Books: How Bell Labs jump-started the multimedia art movement
The modern world would be a pale shade of itself if not for the myriad foundational technologies developed at the Bell Telephone Labs. Its engineers invented the transistor and photovoltaic cell, charge-coupled devices, frickin’ lasers — even Unix an… Source
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