Saturday 18th May 2024
  • Ask Ethan: Are we expanding along with the Universe?

    It only took three pieces of evidence, together, to completely revolutionize our picture of the Universe in the early 20th century. We had previously assumed that the Universe was static and unchanging, and that the entirety of existence was contained within the Milky Way. The spiral and elliptical nebulae in the sky were assumed to be objects — perhaps newly forming protostars — within our own galaxy. And yet, by the late 1920s, the combined facts of:

    overturned that picture entirely. The Universe, on the largest of cosmic scales, wasn’t static and unchanging at all, but rather was dynamically expanding.

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  • Everyday Philosophy: "Should I hide my wild past from my parents?"

    I have had a long and “crazy” life. A lot of what I learned from difficult experiences has and can help others. I have put off writing a book about my life because it might upset my 91-year-old mother. I do have a blog, but I could write more for it. Should I be patient or stop worrying about upsetting my mother and write about my life?– Ataina, US

    I was really taken with this question because I’ve experienced the same thing, but in reverse. I asked my dad three years ago to write an autobiography — an in-house thing for Thomsons to read down the generations. He took to the idea and took to writing. A week later, he called me up and said, “Jonny, I’ve had to stop. I’m worried about what you and others might think of what I’ve done.”

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  • Nearby TRAPPIST-1 exoplanet may have a rich atmosphere after all

    Atmospheres — do Earth-like alien planets have them or not? This is the killer question currently facing astronomers. In this context, “Earth-like” means terrestrial (i.e. rocky worlds) planets close enough to Earth’s mass and other conditions that we might imagine them hosting the holy grail of astrobiology: an alien biosphere. But you can’t have a biosphere unless you first have an atmosphere for all that life to breathe. And while finding signatures of biospheres (i.e. biosignatures) is going to be hard even for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), finding evidence for terrestrial exoplanet atmospheres is definitely something it can do. That’s why everyone got so excited last year when JWST started dropping new data on astronomers’ favorite Earth-like exoplanets.

    We were excited, but, to be truthful, also a little bummed out. Today’s story covers why that disappointment may have been a bit premature.

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  • UAW Vote a Tough Fight at Two Alabama Mercedes Plants

    The  United Auto Workers union faces the latest test of its ambitious plan to unionize auto plants in the historically nonunion South when a vote ends Friday at two Mercedes-Benz factories near Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

    The voting at the two Mercedes factories--one an assembly plant, the other a battery-making facility--comes a month after the UAW scored a breakthrough victory at Volkswagen's assembly factory in Chattanooga, Tennessee. In that election, VW workers voted overwhelmingly to join the UAW, drawn by the prospect of substantially higher wages and other benefits.


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  • Actors' Voices Stolen by AI Company, Lawsuit Claims

    Two voice actors sued artificial-intelligence startup Lovo in Manhattan federal court on Thursday, accusing the company of illegally copying their voices and using them without permission in its AI voiceover technology.

    Paul Skye Lehrman and Linnea Sage said in the proposed class-action lawsuit that San Francisco-based Lovo is selling AI versions of their voices without permission after tricking them into providing voice samples for the company. The actors, seeking damages of at least $5 million for the class, accused Lovo of fraud, false advertising and violating their publicity rights.


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  • Meet the AI-Powered Campaign Builder for People Who Don't Like Marketing

    For small businesses without the resources to mount a full-fledged marketing push, email campaign management firm Constant Contact has developed Campaign Builder, a new AI-powered tool that entrepreneurs can use to develop a multi-channel plan to reach their desired audience in minutes, rather than weeks. 

    Russ Morton, Contact Contact's chief product officer, said the company currently supports around 500,000 small and medium-sized businesses with email marketing outreach, with most of their customer base made up of very small "mom and pop" shops. Morton wanted to help those customers, who he said often don't even know what the word "omnichannel" means, to go beyond emails and make use of the other tactics Constant Contact offers, like SMS messaging, social media, and events. 


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  • Musk Pushes Plan for China Data to Power Tesla's AI Ambitions

    Tesla is pushing ahead with plans to power the global development of its self-driving system with data from China that could be processed within the country, part of a strategic shift by Elon Musk, according to people with knowledge of the work.

    As part of that effort, Tesla has been developing plans for a data center in China to train the algorithm needed for more fully autonomous vehicles, according to two people, who asked not to be named because the work remains private.


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  • EXCLUSIVE: The SBA is Making Smaller--and Riskier-- Loans More Available

    New data from the SBA suggests that the latest fiscal year is becoming a boon for small loans, especially for those below $150,000. The agency approved 17,550 small-dollar loans within that category--worth about $1.2 billion so far during the first half of fiscal year 2024. During that same period the year prior, the agency approved about 13,000 of such loans.

    "For many lenders, you see more than a doubling, sometimes a tripling, of their volume of small dollar loans when you're comparing the first half of this fiscal year to the first half of last year," an SBA official tells Inc. 


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  • End of Pandemic Bike Boom Has Cycle Shops Hitting the Skids

    Early in the pandemic, a surge of interest in cycling pushed sales up 64 percent to $5.4 billion in 2020, according to the retail tracking service Circana. It wasn't unheard of for some shops to sell 100 bikes or more in a couple of days.

    The boom didn't last. Hobbled by pandemic-related supply chain issues, the shops sold all their bikes and had trouble restocking. Now, inventory has caught up, but fewer people need new bikes. So, bicycle makers have been slashing prices to clear out the excess. It all adds up to a tough environment for retailers, although there are a few bright spots like gravel and e-bikes.


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