Networks of pipes and heat exchangers can transfer excess heat from buildings into nearby bodies of water — but as the world warms, the cooling potential of some water courses is now diminishing, Wired reports. Paris’s district cooling network, which pipes Seine river water to cool 800 buildings including the Read more…
A first-of-its-kind global research expedition has extracted freshwater samples from beneath the Atlantic Ocean floor off Cape Cod, documenting a massive aquifer stretching from New Jersey to Maine. The three-month Expedition 501, funded at $25 million by the National Science Foundation and European Consortium for Ocean Research Drilling, drilled up Read more…
In a landmark collaboration across 22 labs, neuroscientists have created the first brain-wide map of decision-making in mice, tracking over 620,000 neurons across nearly 280 brain regions. They found that decision-making is distributed much more broadly than previously thought, involving not just “cognitive” centers but also regions linked to movement. Read more…
Fine-particulate air pollution can drive devastating forms of dementia by triggering the formation of toxic clumps of protein that destroy nerve cells as they spread through the brain, research suggests. Exposure to the airborne particles causes proteins in the brain to misfold into the clumps, which are hallmarks of Lewy Read more…
Nobel laureate Geoffrey Hinton has warned that AI will concentrate wealth among a small elite while impoverishing most workers. The computer scientist, who pioneered neural network research in the 1980s, told Financial Times that rich people will use AI to replace workers, creating massive unemployment and profit increases. Hinton, who Read more…
According to a new medical survey, scrolling on your smartphone while using the toilet may dramatically increase your risk of hemorrhoids. The evidence is laid out in a study published on September 3 in the journal PLOS One. […] Over the past 20 years, one single device has unequivocally lengthened Read more…