[Popular STEM] Curating the Internet: STEM digest for February 20, 2021
IEEE Spectrum's weekly selection of awesome robot videos; Researchers argue that a global shift in population distribution will arise from the COVID-19 pandemic; Due to GPU shortage, nvidia throttles hash rate in its newest gaming GPU card; New malware discovered that hasn't done anything bad (yet); and Researchers report new method for manufacturing transparent wood
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- Video Friday: Perseverance Lands on Mars - IEEE Spectrum's weekly selection of awesome robot videos includes the following links, and more:
- Videos (1, 2) from NASA's Mars2020 Mission. As you may have seen, NASA's Perseverance landed on Mars this week.
- A Valentines Day video with a robotic candy dispenser from PLEN.
- Dancing quadrupeds from Unitree dressed up and joined in China's 2021 Spring Gala.
- Spy In the Wild gets up close and personal with a troop of wild Iguanas. (side note: My family has been watching Broadchurch on Netflix, so I quickly recognized the narrator's voice as David Tennant. If you're looking for something to Binge Watch, Broadchurch is recommended.)
Here is one of Harvard's blue bots, swimming with some biological fish:
An earlier post about the bluebot swarmming robots is here: Meet Blueswarm, a Smart School of Robotic Fish - IEEE Spectrum.
- COVID-19 and the Ongoing Global Workplace Revolution - In this article, Joel Kotkin and Hügo Krüger argue that three factors are driving a reversal in longstanding historical residential trends. In the forty years since 1975, global population has showed an increasingly urban-centric bias, with the number of people living in cities increasing from 1 1/2 billion to 3 1/2 billion. Now, however, that trend is slowing and maybe even reversing. The authors claim three factors behind this shift: (i) The pandemic has made urban life seem less appealing and more dangerous; (ii) An increase in urban crime; and (iii) a move towards decentralized and online work providers. The pair argue that "entrenched urbanistas" will resist this trend by imposing limits on mobility and impeding access to affordable energy. Building on this narrative, the authors compare modern society against historical "peasant uprisings" in Europe, Asia, and early America. The urbanistas, it seems, were dominant until the pandemic, but now that the pandemic has created disorder in the cities and provided work platforms away from cities, the urbanistas may be losing grip on their "urban supremacy" stranglehold. Here is a paragraph from the article that makes a compelling case for the ongoing shift:
This move online is driving a shift to the urban periphery and beyond. A recent report from Upwork finds that between 14 and 23 million Americans are seeking to move to a less expensive and less crowded place. Perhaps more revealing: three-quarters of venture capitalists and tech firm founders, notes one recent survey, expect their ventures to be totally or mostly operating online. According to a study by Big Technology, the largest gains in tech workers since the pandemic are Madison, WI, Cleveland, and the suburbs around New Haven, while New York City, San Francisco, Boston, and Chicago have taken the biggest hits.
Similar trends are reported around the world, including places like France, the United Kingdom, South Africa, China, and India. In closing the authors argue that these trends will lead to changing politics and opportunities to rebuild the middle class, through things like home ownership and reversal of demographic declines that include drops in marriages and aging populations. Finally, here is the authors' optimistic closing paragraph:Once thought as marginal and hopelessly antiquated, a revived countryside can not only bring areas back to life that have been losing out for generations. It also offers the world a vital assist in creating a healthier, more humane, and socially sustainable future.
- GeForce Is Made for Gaming, CMP Is Made to Mine - In the RTX 3060 GPU, nvidia is looking for cryptocurrency hashing transactions and throttling the hash speed in half so that the cards will be less popular for people who are mining cryptocurrency. At the same time, they're launching the CMP GPU card for professional grade mining. In contrast to the RTX 3060 cards, the CMP cards "don't do graphics". This move is in response to an ongoing shortage of GPU cards that has been triggered by fast-rising cryptocurrency prices. The RTX 3060 launches on February 25. nvidia summarizes the move like this:
Creating tailored products for customers with specific needs delivers the best value for customers. With CMP, we can help miners build the most efficient data centers while preserving GeForce RTX GPUs for gamers.
-h/t os news - New malware found on 30,000 Macs has security pros stumped - A recently discovered piece of malware has about 30,000 mac devices phoning home to a central server about once an hour to check for code that they can execute. To date, however, the devices have not been directed to execute any commands. Additionally, the malware comes with a mechanism to remove itself completely from the host device. This capability is normally reserved for "high stealth operations". The combination of these facts has many computer security experts curious. It suggests that the devices will spring into action when some unknown future condition is met, but no one is sure what will trigger it, or when. Another noteworthy factor is that the malware has been discovered in 153 countries, concentrated most heavily in "the US, UK, Canada, France, and Germany". Finally, the malware is capable of infecting Apple's M1 chip, which was just released in November of 2020. It is just the second piece of malware known to infect these devices. Red Canary researchers have named the malware, Silver Sparrow.
- Solar-assisted fabrication of large-scale, patternable transparent wood - Transparent wood is an attractive material for construction purposes because it combines the structural properties of wood with new capabilities for light management and energy-efficient uses. Traditional methods for creating it, however, make use of high amounts of chemicals and energy. The method reported here produces wood with lower need for chemicals and energy consumption and a reduced production time. Summarizing the accomplishment, the authors say:
Combining its efficient, patternable, and scalable production, this transparent wood is a promising candidate for applications in energy-efficient buildings.
-h/t Daniel Lemire
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The advancement of technology is going by leaps and bounds ... this robot is capable of transmitting the sounds of the environment on the planet Mars to the earth.
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