List of All Articles with Tag 'ci'

OpenAI's ChatGPT is getting a major update that will enable the viral chatbot to have voice conversations with

India’s Chandrayaan-3 lander only touched down on the Moon a month ago, but already it's made some major contributions to science. The spacecraft arrived on the satellite's unexplored south pole on 23 August, securing India's place as the first country to achieve this ambitious feat. Its rover, named Pragyan (or "wisdom" in Sanskrit) then embarked on an exploration of the rocky terrain, equipped with two instruments for conducting chemical experiments. And now, India's space agency, the ISRO, has published the ground-breaking data collected by the bold robot. Pragyan's findings offered a new, detailed insight into what makes up the lunar soil. And whilst scientists were unsurprised by the presence of iron, titanium, aluminium and calcium in the rocks, they were stunned to note a much higher concentration of sulphur than expected. The discovery is significant for a number of reasons. Most significantly, perhaps, because the sulphur could be used to help create a human base on the Moon. As Jeffrey Gillis-Davis, a planetary scientist, pointed out in a piece for Science Alert: "Astronauts and robots could travel from the south pole base to collect, process, store and use naturally occurring materials like sulfur on the Moon – a concept called in-situ resource utilization. "In-situ resource utilization means fewer trips back to Earth to get supplies and more time and energy spent exploring. Using sulfur as a resource, astronauts could build solar cells and batteries that use sulfur, mix up sulfur-based fertilizer and make sulfur-based concrete for construction." Gillis-Davis went on to explain that sulfur-based concrete has a number of advantages over the more common variety used in building, pointing out that it "hardens and becomes strong within hours rather than weeks, and it's more resistant to wear". "It also doesn't require water in the mixture, so astronauts could save their valuable water for drinking, crafting breathable oxygen and making rocket fuel," he added. The presence of sulphur near the Moon's south pole also suggests that highland soils at the lunar poles could have very different compositions to highland soils at the lunar equatorial regions. This would have key implications for our understanding of how the Moon works as a geological system, given that sulfur mainly comes from volcanic activity. Still, there's plenty of work to be done. And while this is all just one small step in Chandrayaan-3's mission, it could mean a great leap in how we view our dear celestial companion. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

BERLIN German carmaker Mercedes-Benz has applied for tax breaks for potential projects at two of its U.S. plants

Et tu, Billy?

If you thought Australia’s spiders were scary, wait until you see the prehistoric version. Scientists have found a fossilised giant trapdoor spider in New South Wales, only the fourth specimen of its kind to be found in Australia. The creature would have roamed and hunted in the surrounding areas which were once a lush rainforest, researchers said in a recently filed report. Last year, scientists unearthed fossils of the rainforest area from millions of years ago, teeming with specimens including plants, trapdoor spiders, giant cicadas and wasps. Now the area is a grassland region known as McGraths Flat. Researchers have named the spider fossil ‘Megamonodontium mccluskyi’. It would have lived in the Miocene period 11m to 16m years ago. “Only four spider fossils have ever been found throughout the whole continent, which has made it difficult for scientists to understand their evolutionary history,” said palaeontologist Matthew McCurry of the University of New South Wales and the Australian Museum. “That is why this discovery is so significant, it reveals new information about the extinction of spiders and fills a gap in our understanding of the past. “The closest living relative of this fossil now lives in wet forests in Singapore through to Papua New Guinea. “This suggests that the group once occupied similar environments in mainland Australia but have subsequently gone extinct as Australia became more arid.” The spider was found among many other Miocene fossils. In some of them, the fossils were so well preserved that subcellular structures could be made out. “Scanning electron microscopy allowed us to study minute details of the claws and setae on the spider's pedipalps, legs and the main body,” said virologist Michael Frese of the University of Canberra. The details meant scientists could confidently place it near the modern Monodontium, or trapdoor spider. However, it is five times larger than its modern day relatives. Megamonodontium mccluskyi's body is 23.31 millimetres long – that is just over an inch. The discovery of the species also tells us something of the past climate of Australia, the report added. The fact that it was found in a layer of rainforest sediment means the region was once much wetter than it is now. That could, in turn, help scientists understand how a warming climate has already altered the country’s life forms – and how it might change them again. "Not only is it the largest fossilized spider to be found in Australia but it is the first fossil of the family Barychelidae that has been found worldwide," said arachnologist Robert Raven of Queensland Museum. "There are around 300 species of brush-footed trapdoor spiders alive today, but they don't seem to become fossils very often. "This could be because they spend so much time inside burrows and so aren't in the right environment to be fossilized." The findings were published in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Federico Dimarco has confirmed that he wants to renew his contract at Inter despite interest from Chelsea and Manchester City.

Amazon said on Monday that it's investing $4 billion into the artificial intelligence company Anthropic in exchange for partial ownership and Anthropic's greater use of Amazon Web Services (AWS), the e-commerce giant's cloud computing platform.

Today's Premier League rumors include Jan Oblak linked with Manchester United, Adnan Januzaj a target for Everon and Adrien Rabiot possibly on his way to Newcastle.

Huawei has disappointed legions of fans — and US officials — eager to know more about its Mate 60 Pro smartphone, which has quickly become a symbol of the tech rivalry between the United States and China since it went on sale last month.

JAKARTA (Reuters) -Indonesia may issue on Tuesday a regulation on the use of social media to sell goods in the

NFL fans are set to feast again as there is another Monday Night Football doubleheader on tap in Week 3. What four teams will be playing under the Monday night lights?

Christy Turlington has revealed that she had a last-minute panic before she shot the 'Freedom!' music video.