This Week’s Awesome Tech Stories From Around the Web (Through February 20) – Singularity Hub

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

A New Artificial Intelligence Makes Mistakeson PurposeWill Knight | WiredIt took about50 years for computers to eviscerate humansin the venerable game of chess. A standard smartphone can now play the kind of moves that make a grandmasters head spin. But oneartificial intelligence program is taking a few steps backward, to appreciate how average humans playblunders and all.

Bitcoins Price Rises to $50,000 as Mainstream Institutions Hop OnTimothy B. Lee | Ars TechnicaBitcoins price is now far above the previous peak of $19,500 reached in December 2017. Bitcoins value has risen by almost 70 percent since the start of 2021. No single factor seems to be driving the cryptocurrencys rise. Instead, the price is rising as more and more mainstream organizations are deciding to treat it as an ordinary investment asset.

Million-Year-Old Mammoth Teeth Contain Oldest DNA Ever FoundJeanne Timmons | GizmodoAn international team of scientists has sequenced DNA from mammoth teeth that is at least a million years old, if not older. Thisresearch, published today in Nature, not only provides exciting new insight into mammoth evolutionary history, it reveals an entirely unknown lineage of ancient mammoth.

Scientists Accidentally Discover Strange Creatures Under a Half Mile of IceMatt Simon | WirediIts like, bloody hell! Smith says. Its just one big boulder in the middle of a relatively flat seafloor. Its not as if the seafloor is littered with these things. Just his luck to drill in the only wrong place. Wrong place for collecting seafloor muck, but the absolute right place for a one-in-a-million shot at finding life in an environment that scientists didnt reckon could support much of it.

Highest-Resolution Images of DNA Reveal Its Surprisingly JigglyGeorge Dvorsky | GizmodoScientists have captured the highest-resolution images ever taken of DNA, revealing previously unseen twisting and squirming behaviors. These hidden movements were revealed by computer simulations fed with the highest-resolution images ever taken of a single molecule of DNA. The new study is exposing previously unseen behaviors in the self-replicating molecule, and this research could eventually lead to the development of powerful new genetic therapies.

The First Battery-Powered Tanker Is Coming to TokyoMaria Gallucci | IEEE SpectrumThe Japanese tanker is Corvuss first fully-electric coastal freighter project; the company hopes the e5 will be the first of hundreds more just like it. We see it [as] a beachhead for the coastal shipping market globally, Puchalski said. There are many other coastal freighter types that are similar in size and energy demand. The number of battery-powered ships has ballooned from virtually zero a decade ago to hundreds worldwide.

Report: NASAs Only Realistic Path for Humans on Mars Is Nuclear PropulsionEric Berger | Ars TechnicaConducted at the request of NASA, a broad-based committee of experts assessed the viability of two means of propulsionnuclear thermal and nuclear electricfor a human mission launching to Mars in 2039. One of the primary takeaways of the report is that if we want to send humans to Mars, and we want to do so repeatedly and in a sustainable way, nuclear space propulsion is on the path, said [JPLs] Bobby Braun.

NASAs Perseverance Rover Successfully Lands on MarsJoey Roulette | The VergePerseverance hit Mars atmosphere on time at 3:48PM ET at speeds of about 12,100 miles per hour,diving toward the surface in an infamously challenging sequence engineers call the seven minutes of terror. With an 11-minute comms delay between Mars and Earth, the spacecraft had to carry out its seven-minute plunge at all by itself with a wickedly complex set of pre-programmed instructions.

A First-of-Its-Kind Geoengineering Experiment Is About to Take Its First StepJames Temple | MIT Technology ReviewWhen I visited Frank Keutsch in the fall of 2019, he walked me down to the lab, where the tube, wrapped in gray insulation, ran the length of a bench in the back corner. By filling it with the right combination of gases, at particular temperatures and pressures, Keutsch and his colleagues had simulated the conditions some 20 kilometers above Earths surface. In testing how various chemicals react in this rarefied air, the team hoped to conduct a crude test of a controversial scheme known as solar geoengineering.

Image Credit: Garcia / Unsplash

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This Week's Awesome Tech Stories From Around the Web (Through February 20) - Singularity Hub