Berkeley has become the first city in the nation to ban the installation of natural gas lines in new homes. The City Council on Tuesday night unanimously voted to ban gas from new low-rise residential buildings starting Jan. 1. The San Francisco Chronicle reports: The natural gas ordinance, introduced by Councilwoman Kate Harrison, requires all new single-family homes, town homes and…
Tag: Berkeley
10 Important Ways Analytical Skills Boost Your Resume
Analytical skills say a lot about a person. In particular, they say a lot of things that are very attractive to an employer no matter what job position you hold. When you demonstrate an ability to analyze data and make informed recommendations, you quickly become an indispensable part of the team. You become the go-to person for helping making sense of…
Scientists scramble to build payload for 2021 moon landing
Scavenging spare parts and grabbing off-the-shelf hardware, University of California, Berkeley, space scientists are in a sprint to build scientific instruments that will land on the moon in a mere two years. Source: https://phys.org/news/2019-07-scientists-scramble-payload-moon.html…
Uranus’ rings surprisingly bright in ‘heat’ images
The rings of the 7th planet, Uranus, are thin and dark. But new thermal images from the ALMA and VLT telescopes show them glowing brightly. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/uranus-rings-glow-thermal-image-alma-vlt-uc-berkeley…
This Horrifying App Undresses a Photo of Any Woman With a Single Click
The $50 DeepNude app dispenses with the idea that deepfakes were about anything besides claiming ownership over women’s bodies.Source: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/kzm59x/deepnude-app-creates-fake-nudes-of-any-woman…
How To Evaluate Computers That Don’t Quite Exist
sciencehabit writes: To gauge the performance of a supercomputer, computer scientists turn to a standard tool: a set of algorithms called LINPACK that tests how fast the machine solves problems with huge numbers of variables. For quantum computers, which might one day solve certain problems that overwhelm conventional computers, no such benchmarking standard exists. One reason is that the computers, which…
How Information is Like Snacks, Money, and Drugs To Your Brain
A new study by researchers at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business has found that information acts on the brain’s dopamine-producing reward system in the same way as money or food. From a report: “To the brain, information is its own reward, above and beyond whether it’s useful,” says Assoc. Prof. Ming Hsu, a neuroeconomist. “And just as our brains like…
Adobe’s Experimental AI Tool Can Tell If Something’s Been Photoshopped
Adobe and UC Berkeley researchers are working on tool that can tell if a photo has been manipulated in Adobe Photoshop. The goal is to cut down on fake content and “to increase trust and authority in digital media.” TheINQUIRER reports: A bunch of images were created using Photoshop’s “Face Aware Liquify” tool, and mixed with a set of expertly human-doctored…
Is Jupiter’s Great Red Spot disintegrating?
Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is a giant storm, the largest known in our solar system. It’s been seen through earthly telescopes for more than 300 years. Lately, it’s been showing signs of breaking apart. Is this the beginning of the end for the beloved Spot? Source: https://earthsky.org/space/is-jupiters-great-red-spot-disintegrating…
China’s CRISPR Babies Could Face Earlier Death
A new report finds that the CRISPR babies created by Chinese scientist He Jiankui last year may be at risk of an early death. It finds that genetic mutations similar to those He created, to a gene called CCR5, shortens people’s lives by an average of 1.9 years. MIT Technology Review reports: “It’s clearly a mutation of quite strong effect,” says…