Month: May 2022
Sell extra carbon permit in EU
The European Union’s emissions-trading system (ets) is the closest thing the world has to a carbon benchmark. Though it is no longer the world’s biggest carbon-trading market. As carbon markets spread around the world what happens in Europe sends a powerful signal about whether or not decarbonisation can be achieved through decentralised markets rather than
Xi Jinping Changing China Economy
After nearly two months the lockdown of Shanghai is easing, but China is far from being covid-free, with fresh outbreaks in Beijing and Tianjin. More than 200m people have been living under restrictions and the economy is reeling. Retail sales in April were 11% lower than a year earlier and purchases of kfc, cars and
Robotic Queen Portrait
A portrait of the Queen painted by a humanoid robot artist has been unveiled ahead of the Platinum Jubilee. Algorithm Queen was layered and scaled to produce the final multi-dimensional portrait of the monarch. Algorithm Queen, was painted by Ai-Da Robot, an artificial intelligence robot. It has cameras in its eyes and draws on computer
Soaring fertiliser prices
Soaring prices are causing farmers to adjust their planting strategies. They’re also driving interest in alternatives to conventional fertilisers. Fertiliser overuse is an enormous problem. It’s been estimated that globally, crops use only 35% of the nitrogen and 56% of the phosphorus applied to them; the remainder settles in the environment. Around the world, prices
Facebook privacy update
Millions of users of Meta products, including Facebook and Instagram, are to receive notifications of the firm’s updated privacy policies. The company has previously been criticised by regulators and campaigners over its use of customers’ data. A new setting will give people more control over who can see their posts by default. And existing controls
Raised Minimum Wage in Russia
e Central Bank of Russia cut key interest rates on Thursday as officials push to soften the blow of Western sanctions and surging inflation hammering the country’s economy, a day after President Vladimir Putin vowed double-digit increases to pensions and the minimum wage and denied the problems were linked with Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. The
Brain Plumbing
brain has a plumbing system of its own to flush out the junk, cerebrospinal fluid the liquid which suspends the brain and acts as a cushion between it and the skull was actively washing through the organ by hitchhiking on the pulsing of arteries and veins that happens with every heartbeat. The fluid was collecting
Searching collapsed building survivors using Robotised insects
The first cyber-roach goes back to 1997, when Shimoyama Isao of Tokyo University sent electrical signals to a cockroach’s antennae, causing it to turn either left or right depending on which antenna was stimulated. Others have built on this approach by recruiting extra sense organs, such as the rear-facing cerci. They have also begun fitting
Buying Guns in America
The motives for mass murder vary. The teenager in Buffalo who on May 14th shot and killed ten people, most of them black, was driven by racial paranoia. The 68-year-old who killed one and injured five on May 16th in a Californian church hated Taiwanese people. Guns are simple, reliable tools for killing. A man
Meta VR platform Sexual Assault
Campaigners say the avatar of a 21-year-old researcher was sexually assaulted in Meta’s virtual reality platform Horizon Worlds. Earlier reports of virtual assaults on avatars and inappropriate “creepy” behaviour prompted Meta to introduce new safeguards into its virtual worlds in February. Personal Boundary prevents avatars from coming within a set distance of each other, making