Bees are capable of learning.

https://youtu.be/rc58xOwjwto?is=IImVzDLGrOEFhMW3

Robot thinks beyond mimicking

https://youtu.be/IJvyS2aPsnA?is=kIf-0aasG4QQ6bBN

0:45 as far as I can tell, the robot is figuring out that the nut can be spun with a rapid motion once it's loosened, or perhaps generalizing from watching a human loosen other nuts. 

From an AI summary of the OM-1 robot: OM-1 is trained exclusively on human data captured through the Omnibody Hand, a wearable seven-degree-of-freedom device. The company claims the system can generalize zero-shot across robot bodies—including tabletop arms, industrial arms, and humanoids—without teleoperation data, on-robot training, or robot-specific fine-tuning. A temporal history of these streams allows the policy to reason about how contact and task progress evolve.

The model translates the twisting motion from a human demonstration directly to different mechanical bodies—such as tabletop arms or humanoids—without needing robot-specific fine-tuning.

OM-1 natively processes a continuous stream of high-frequency data, balancing tactile signals and inter-finger proximity alongside visual tracking. 

Zombies in the streets from fentanyl - so sad

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1Hmhpm3tuE/

The dark truth behind targeted advertising.

https://youtu.be/U0-8SrbG0xA?is=Opkx8NFPkluRqfIL

Skip ahead to 13:13 to skip the setup that companies are definitely not listening to your phone microphone; but they are using reams of metadata. 

A gold mine of hundreds of facts about you and your interests are shared to thousands of advertisers in the milliseconds before you're shown an ad. Hundreds of times a day. 

Rare earth metals.

https://youtu.be/BXLGV0Sj0n8?is=jUz6af0gh9FNVJId

China's carefully crafted and executed monopoly on rare earth metals accomplished over 30 years annihilated the competition and placed a stranglehold on foreign military production. Companies like MP (Mountain Pass) are being supported by fixed prices that ensure longevity for the mine. 

Harnessing AI for forest fire detection

https://youtu.be/PSnJBfa183Y?is=dEWPd1YwS4lJmA2v

Temu: not always a bargain.

Bitterness

“Staying bitter only disturbs the one harboring the bitterness.” - folk wisdom

Catapult built by spider

https://youtube.com/shorts/AQApHRcfFMY?is=p5k0aY2gfE5I1k2s

Megaproject to divert River in Fargo

https://youtu.be/-4FmTyqES_g?is=0yNkutH-Nqlzjxhk

Cerebellum

80% of the total number of neurons in the brain are in the cerebellum. It is not purely a motor system - many insufficiently with the entire neocortex. It is now thought to coordinate and "smooth" the output of all brain regions - regulating emotion, or planning a smooth sentence/conversation. 

Episode "Song of the cerebellum" Radiolab. 

https://radiolab.org/podcast/song-of-the-cerebellum

60 Words

https://radiolab.org/podcast/ea1c84b585e58d5befeefebf

Really interesting podcast that studies the actual meaning of declaring war after 9/11, and how the words declaring war have been used and misused. 

Panthalassa wave generator - now I get it.

https://youtu.be/VcmDN4T90Fw?is=cjjwMY3zysF-Uv2E

These untethered wave generators incorporate AI data centers, so they float across the ocean sending AI compute results to the web, and use ocean water for passive cooling of the computer chips. 

This eliminates traditional electrical distribution entirely. The electricity generated by the ocean's waves is consumed entirely on-site by modular AI data centers housed right inside the generator nodes.

1:58 "Panthalassa" is the name of the mega-ocean that once surrounded the conglomerate continent Pangea. 

Huge N Korean scam of fake IT jobs and ID theft.

https://youtu.be/RUhdmIFpb-w?is=tu1CXtWXeSNoFl_4

This is a thorough investigation by the Wall Street Journal into an extensive scheme of raising money for the North Korean government by enslaving workers who apply for US jobs using either stolen identities or actual US middlemen criminals who share the salary for the work done remotely online. Hundreds of millions of dollars. Incredibly elaborate. 

Breakthrough 36 passenger electric passenger plane for short-haul 2hr flights

 

https://youtu.be/nM86DBOqgPM?si=nPszTyfr-EOOde_n

2:53 Jet engines are far more complex - take the turbine blades, for example which must be grown as a single crystal of a nickel super-alloy to withstand the heat and physical forces. 

https://youtu.be/QtxVdC7pBQM?is=SCbLua2xNvguGoTK

5:30 they built a 400kW electric motor. (Standard Tesla motors are 137 - 200 kW.)

7:45 actuators: Boeing aircraft have 2 or more backup systems to drive hydraulic systems (electric pump, ram-air turbine in case of total engine failure) — what backup systems will this aircraft have for flight control systems? Maybe a hydraulic pump run by the hybrid engine. 

9:45 hardest design challenge was dealing with a diverted flight destination: 1 in every 1000 flights is diverted. That's why they needed a hybrid engine design. 

12:55 first flight