[Popular STEM] Curating the Internet: STEM digest for November 28, 2020

A Steem article reports that the recent news-making finding of phosphorous in the atmosphere around Venus arose from a calculation errror; Another Steem author tells us about an orbiting probe that India will launch to Venus in the year 2024; IEEE Spectrum's weekly selection of awesome robot videos; An argument that good scientists tend to have disagreeable personality types; Whole Foods has a new plant-based milk that's designed with help from an AI system; Autonomous and environmentally friendly vehicles start delivering medicine in London; and A breakthrough solves a "Crown Jewel" problem in cryptogrpahy

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First posted on the Steem blockchain: SteemIt.

1. Steem @jorgebgt:This is science, it is being corrected ... (EN - CAST) Así es la ciencia, se va corrigiendo… - A recent finding generated a lot of buzz when scientists found Phosphorous in the atmosphere around Venus. It was believed that this could signal the presence of living organisms on the planet. Later, however, it was argued that the phosphorous could have been from volcanic activity and might not signal life at all. Now, the finding itself has been called into question and is believed to be a result of a miscalculation. (10% of the liquid rewards from this post will go to @jorgebgt.)


2. Steem @sarahjay1:India will launch an orbiting probe to Venus in 2024 - India has announced a December 2024 launch date for the Shukrayaan-1 orbiter which will complete a mission to Venus for the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). This is a continuation of a space program which has included past missions by the Chandrayan-1 Moon mission in 2008, the Mangalyan Mars mission in 2013, and the Chandrayan-2 Moon mission in 2019. This Shukrayan-1 mission to Venus was announced in 2017 and the orbiter will study the planet for a period of four years. If the 2024 launch date is missed, the reserve launch date for the 2 ¹/₂ ton craft is in mid-2026. (10% of the liquid rewards from this post will go to @sarahjay1.)


3. Video Friday: These Giant Robots Are Made of Air, Fabric - This week's Weekly selection of awesome robot videos from IEEE Spectrum includes:
   • Two videos of Giant robots such as an 8 meter inflatable snail and a six meter "Triffid" that resembles an enchanted plant. (1, 2)
   • An amphibious robot from ANYbotics called ANYmal.
   • A video of a mobile telepresence robot from Softbank.
   • A Quadruped from Tencent Robotics that can climb ramps or stairs and can also choose a path across a discontinuous surface.
   • and more...
   
   
   

   Here is a robotic maintenance vehicle from Pioneer Industrial Systems:

   
   

   Click through to see more and read the descriptions.
   

4. The disagreeable scientist conjecture - Daniel Lemire argues that although scientific communications may seem to embrace free exchange of ideas, that's only true within a range of topics that are controlled by an informal hierarchical structure of gatekeepers. In particular, Lemire argues that it is difficult to get traction when expressing the claims that a particular field is stagnating or that a particular model is not working. As a result, he suggests two conjectures: (i) that the scientists who make the most contributions to knowledge are the ones who are willing to challenge the prevailing dogma; and (ii) that cultures with stronger support for freedom of speech also make more contributions to science.


5. A Bezos-backed plant-based milk made with AI, cabbage, and pineapple is now available at Whole Foods — see how it's made - Whole Foods recently began selling a plant-based milk from NotCo and already reports that it is selling out in some stores. NotCo describes itself as a food technology company and it is already known for other plant-based product lines including: "NotIceCream, NotBurger, and NotMayo". According to CEO, Matias Muchnick, the combination of pineapple and cabbage in their ingredients gives NotMilk its milk-like taste, chicory and coconut help with the texture, and peas add protein. The product comes in two varieties, NotMilk Whole and NotMilk 2% reduced fat. The company has received $85 million in funding from Bezos Expeditions and L Catterton. Instead of the traditional nut, oat, or soy based milk, NotMilk's ingredients were picked with help from its Giuseppe artificial intelligence program. This program also helped with creation of the firm's other product lines. Overall, the article says the company's goal is to "'disrupt' three sections: eggs, dairy, and meat


6. Autonomous Green Robot Cars to Deliver Medicine Around London - In London, the Academy of Robotics has begun trials of KAR-GO, a driverless technology that claims to remove 90% of the cost from the last mile of deliveries. The vehicle has been underdevelopment for four years and is currently open to an investment round. With a 3 hour charging time, it has the capacity to carry up to 48 packages at speeds up to 60 mph, and it uses artificial intelligence to find the fastest route and to sort its packages. Trials are taking place in Hounslow, London, and as a safety measure the vehicles will have humans riding and ready to take over in case of trouble. -h/t Communications of the ACM


7. Computer Scientists Achieve ‘Crown Jewel’ of Cryptography - Long thought to be unachievable, indistinguishability obfuscation (iO) describes the ability to cryptographically hide the inner workings of a computer program. In a theoretical sense, it has been shown that so-called "black box iO" is impossible, but this only applies to specially crafted problems. Researchers have continued looking for the capability for use in practical situations. In August, a paper was posted by Aayush Jain, Huija Lin, and Amit Sahai that claims to have found a way to accomplish it. This capability could enable all sorts of useful applications, such as delegating a financial task to someone without worrying that they could use it in nefarious ways. In fact, "computer scientists have shown that you can use iO as the basis for almost every cryptographic protocol you could imagine (except for black box obfuscation)". Cornell's Rafael Pass goes so far as to describe iO as, "the crown jewel" of cryptography techniques. -h/t Bruce Schneier, who adds:

   But — and this is a big one — this result is not even remotely close to being practical. We’re talking multiple days to perform pretty simple calculations, using massively large blocks of computer code. And this is likely to remain true for a very long time. Unless researchers increase performance by many orders of magnitude, nothing in the real world will make use of this work anytime soon.




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