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My weekly news collection at your fingertips. Enjoy!
Science and technology:
No threat to Earth as huge asteroid zooms past
Around 80 to 100 tonnes of material such as dust and small meteorites fall on Earth every day, according to NASA, posing no serious threat, but larger objects can cause major destruction as they possess immense momentum because of their high speed. Experts estimate megaton events take place once or twice a century, and hits by bigger objects are even more infrequent.
Source: Physorg.
Coding for Qubits: How to Program in Quantum Computer Assembly Language
QSCOUT stands for the Quantum Scientific Computing Open User Testbed and consists of ionized ytterbium atoms levitating inside a vacuum chamber. Flashes of ultraviolet laser light spin these atoms about, executing algorithms written in the team’s fledgling quantum assembly code—which they’ve named Just Another Quantum Assembly Language or JAQAL.
Source: IEEE Spectrum.
OpenAI’s Sam Altman: Artificial Intelligence will generate enough wealth to pay each adult $13,500 a year
AI will enable computer programs to “read legal documents” and “give medical advice” in the next five years; in the next 10 computers will “do assembly-line work” and “maybe even become companions,” Altman wrote. “And in the decades after that, [AI] will do almost everything, including making new scientific discoveries that will expand our concept of ‘everything.’”
Source: CNBC.
Pandemics:
Did the coronavirus leak from a lab? These scientists say we shouldn’t rule it out
Last month, a team of international scientists completed a month-long visit to Wuhan to investigate SARS-CoV-2’s origins. Convened by the WHO, and closely monitored by Chinese authorities, the team concluded initially that a lab leak was so unlikely that further investigations of it were unnecessary. The WHO’s director general later walked that statement back, claiming that “all hypotheses remain open and require further analysis and studies.” A group of 26 scientists, social scientists, and science communicators—Petrovksy among them—have now signed their own letter arguing that WHO investigators lacked “the mandate, the independence, or the necessary accesses” to determine whether or not SARS-CoV-2 could have been the result of a laboratory incident.
Source: MIT Tech Review.
Five reasons why COVID herd immunity is probably impossible
The COVID-19 vaccines developed by Moderna and Pfizer–BioNTech, for example, are extremely effective at preventing symptomatic disease, but it is still unclear whether they protect people from becoming infected, or from spreading the virus to others. That poses a problem for herd immunity.
Source: Nature.
Security:
A Stealth 6th Generation Fighter Gap? The U.S. Air Force Is Worried
“I for one am confident that the technology and the test points have developed to where NGAD technology will get fielded,” General Kelly said. “And I’m confident that the adversaries on the other end of this technology will suffer a very tough day and tough week and tough war. What I don’t know — and we’re working with our great partners — is if our nation will have the courage and the focus to field this capability before someone like the Chinese fields it and uses it against us.”
Source: National Interest.
Baker's Dozen: The Geopolitics of Pakistan
Squeezed between Iran, Afghanistan, China and India, Pakistan faces tribal and ethnic challenges in Balochistan and along the Afghan frontier, and a territorial dispute with its nuclear-armed neighbor, India. Pakistan's position and history make it a focal point for China and the United States, but also for Saudi Arabia and Turkey, each vying for a stronger role in shaping the so-called Islamic world. An interview with Kamran Bokhari, director of analytical development at Newlines Institute, formerly the Center for Global Policy.
Source: Stratfor.
Verkada Hacker Charged With Wire Fraud, Identity Theft in U.S. Source: Bloomberg.
Ps. If you missed it - read my interview with David Pearce about paradise engineering.