Telescope #97

To leave the world better than you found it, sometimes, you have to pick up other people’s trash. — Bill Nye

SUSTAINABILITY

• These bricks are made from wasted clothing creating a building product solution for 92 million tonnes of textile waste being discarded every year. DETAIL
• Hundreds of protesters in Peru's capital marched on Friday to demand the scrapping of a new law that describes transgender people, among others, as having a mental illness so they can access health benefits. Around 500 demonstrators peacefully walked the streets of downtown Lima, hoisting banners with slogans that read "No more stigmas" and "My identity is not a disease." DETAIL
• The seemingly “never-ending” rain last autumn and winter in the UK and Ireland was made 10 times more likely and 20% wetter by human-caused global heating, a study has found. More than a dozen storms battered the region in quick succession between October and March, which was the second-wettest such period in nearly two centuries of records. The downpour led to severe floods, at least 20 deaths, severe damage to homes and infrastructure, power blackouts, travel cancellations, and heavy losses of crops and livestock. DETAIL

• With the impact of global warming, torrential rains have become more frequent in Japan in recent years. The rainy season is approaching, and it is crucial to use weather information effectively to prevent disasters. DETAIL
• The El Ni?o climate pattern in the Pacific Ocean is coming to an end after boosting record temperatures and extreme weather across the planet over the past year, but it is uncertain how soon a transition to a cooler La Ni?a will bring respite from the heat. El Ni?o conditions are characterised by above-average sea surface temperatures in parts of the tropical Pacific. These waters usually oscillate between a warm El Ni?o temperature pattern, neutral conditions and a cool La Ni?a every two to seven years, a cycle that is one of the strongest factors influencing the global climate. El Ni?o is associated with hotter average temperatures and a distinctive pattern of weather conditions in much of the world. DETAIL

• The potential for creating value is the top reason corporations pursue sustainability, according to “Sustainable Signals: Understanding Corporates’ Sustainability Priorities and Challenges,” a new Morgan Stanley Institute for Sustainable Investing report. Regulatory compliance and a company’s moral responsibilities round out the top three motivations for adopting a sustainability strategy. DETAIL

• New initiative by Capgemini and Schneider Electric targets energy optimization for companies. Innovative tool provides real-time data and insights for better energy management. Enhanced efficiency and sustainability are core benefits for participating firms. DETAIL
• 61% of attorneys surveyed believe the SEC’s new climate disclosure rule will face significant changes or be invalidated. Legal challenges and industry pushback are the primary concerns driving skepticism. DETAIL

HEALTH

• A virus that infects black-eyed pea plants has shown "widespread effectiveness" in helping thwart an array of metastatic cancers in mice, researchers report in a new study, offering hope the virus might hold similar potential for humans. DETAIL

• Male mice injected with a molecule that affects sperm movement were temporarily unable to impregnate a female, showing promise for a new type of birth control drug for people. DETAIL
• A major shift is underway in the United States where, for the first time in a national, decades-long survey, using cannabis regularly has become more common than drinking alcohol often. DETAIL

DIGITAL / TECHNOLOGY / SCIENCE / AI

• Some 55 light-years away — which is relatively close by in space terms — scientists have discovered a rocky, Earth-sized world orbiting extremely close to its star (a single orbit, or "year," lasts just 17 hours). The exoplanet, which receives much more solar radiation than Earth and is unlikely to harbor liquid water, orbits the most long-lived type of star, called an "ultra-cool red dwarf." Red dwarf stars are the most common in the universe, and the coolest types of red dwarfs, which are also the dimmest and coolest of stars, are suspected to burn for over 100 billion years. DETAIL

• Before Build 2024, Microsoft unleashed a new set of Surface devices — Surface Laptop 7 and Surface Pro 11 — with new capabilities from Copilot, an AI chatbot. As a cherry on top, the Redmond-based tech giant announced that GPT-4o is poised to underpin Copilot. DETAIL
• Another amazing image has been released by Hubble Space Telescope that shows the triple-star system HP Tau, HP Tau G2, and HP Tau G3. The stars in this wonderful system are young, HP Tau for example is so young that it hasn't started to fuse hydrogen yet and is only 10 million years old! DETAIL

• Microsoft Corp. and G42 on Wednesday announced a comprehensive package of digital investments in Kenya, as part of an initiative with the Republic of Kenya’s Ministry of Information, Communications and the Digital Economy. In collaboration with Microsoft and other stakeholders, G42 will lead the arrangement of an initial investment of $1 billion for the various components outlined in the comprehensive package. One of the Kenyan investment priorities is a state-of-the-art green data center that will be built by G42 and its partners to run Microsoft Azure in a new East Africa Cloud Region. DETAIL
• AI has become a major tool in gaming, but human creativity remains crucial to developing games, the CEO of Tomb Raider franchise owner Embracer told Reuters on Thursday. DETAIL
• OpenAI's credibility — and the credibility of its CEO, Sam Altman — is crumbling. Last week, amid a surprise string of high-profile executive and safety team departures, Vox revealed that the ChatGPT creator had pressured employees into signing draconian non-disclosure and non-disparagement agreements by threatening to claw back exiting OpenAI employees' vested equity in the multibillion-dollar AI company. DETAIL
• Partnering with Microsoft's Azure AI Speech, Truecaller will allow users to create an AI version of their voice to answer calls. DETAIL
• Ants that drink a caffeinated solution can locate sweet rewards faster than un-caffeinated ants, suggesting the drug boosts learning. To see how Argentine ants (Linepithema humile) respond to caffeine, researchers created an ant-sized arena on a sheet of printer paper in the lab. They then placed a drop of sugary solution on the paper for an ant to find. Some solutions had no caffeine, while others had low, moderate or high amounts, but all were placed in the same location. Watch the video...
• Just how much AI has revolutionized our world is demonstrated by the scale of media coverage about the technology. Readers can’t get enough of AI with a new story published by the world’s media every 24 seconds, according to a new analysis. DETAIL

ENERGY / TRANSPORTATION

• Industrial processes like smelting metals or manufacturing cement can be carbon-intensive, as they typically rely on fossil fuels to generate enough energy to produce high temperatures. But researchers have found a way to use solar thermal trapping, rather than fossil fuels, to reduce the emissions of some industrial processes. DETAIL

• Researchers at the Technical University of Braunschweig and INTIS GmbH have developed a stationary inductive charging system for electric vehicles with a charging capacity of 22 kW. They have now presented their initial results. DETAIL
• Origin Energy Ltd. will delay the closure of Australia’s largest coal-fired power station amid concerns renewable energy isn’t being added fast enough to keep pace with plans to quit fossil fuels. DETAIL

CYBERSECURITY

• Microsoft is introducing a new type of search tool that won’t let you have any secrets as it captures everything you do on your computer. What Recall does is take images of an active computer screen every few seconds and stores the information. DETAIL

HUMAN, CURIOSITY

• Deloitte predicts that women’s elite sports will generate global revenues of US$1.28 billion in 2024 (￡1.02 billion). This is the first time that annual global revenues for women’s sport will have surpassed US$1 billion. This total is at least 300 per cent higher than Deloitte’s previous valuation three years ago. The two most valuable women’s sports are projected to be football (US$555 million, 43 per cent) and basketball (US$354 million, 28 per cent), while the largest geographical markets in 2024 are forecast to be North America (US$670 million, 52 per cent) and Europe (US$181 million, 14 per cent). DETAIL

• The FCC has proposed a $6 million fine for the scammer who used voice-cloning tech to impersonate President Biden in a series of illegal robocalls during a New Hampshire primary election. It’s more about robocalls than AI, but the agency is clearly positioning this as a warning to other would-be high-tech scammers. DETAIL