Recent Finds

Interesting things I've read recently...

1. A 15-Year-Old Built a $12 Electric Generator to Power Remote Homes Using Ocean Currents (dailygalaxy.com) - She got the idea from the waves under her boat and thought of her Ethiopian pen pal who doesn't have access to reliable energy. She protoptyped it, entered it in a contest, won a bunch of money (which she's sharing with her pen pal and her pen pal's school) and as part of the contest, is now working with 3M to try to bring the idea to market.
    
2. ‘Robots don’t bleed’: Ukraine sends machines into the battlefield in place of human soldiers (cnn.com) - A look at how Ukraine is using robots in place of soldiers in battle. This is the early days of those Terminator documentaries, right?
    
3. Daring and Dazzling, a New LACMA Floats Above Los Angeles (nytimes.com) - It's had its detractors, but the new LACMA gallery sounds pretty cool. 
    
4. The avionics suite designed to let anyone fly a plane (newatlas.com) - Airhart Aeronautics is trying to build an interface/dashboard for airplanes that make them much more straightforward, with the idea that flying should be something anyone can pick up.
    
5. AI is eliminating one of the biggest bottlenecks of car design (fastcompany.com) - Computers replaced models and wind-tunnels, but the processing still takes a lot of time. AI is speeding that way up.
    
6. Mercury has a 10-mile-thick layer of diamonds under its surface (thebrighterside.news) 
    
7. How Airports Are Preparing for Advanced Air Mobility (flyingmag.com)
    
8. A Middle School Student Built a Sidewalk Material That Absorbs Rainwater Instead of Flooding Streets, Using Materials Most People Throw Away (dailygalaxy.com) - apparently quite an improvement on current "porous concrete" - could change the way storm water systems are integrated into roadways
    
9. Scientists discover a universal law across every form of life on Earth, severely challenging evolution theory (earth.com) - 30,000 measurements across 2,700 species (humans, animals, plants, microbes) determined that all have a pretty consistent point where their efficacy drops off dramatically. (This has implications for the rising heat on this planet.)