Category: Technology

Taboo Geoengineer Outlaws Could Counter Global Warming

(p. D3) A quarter-century ago, Pinatubo, a volcano in the Philippines, blew its top in a big way: It spewed a cubic mile of rock and ash and 20 million tons of sulfur dioxide gas into the atmosphere. The gas spread around the world and combined with water vapor to make aerosols, tiny droplets that reflected some sunlight away from the Earth. As a result, average global temperatures dropped by about one degree Fahrenheit for several years.
Powerful volcanic eruptions like Pinatubo’s in 1991 are one of the biggest natural influences on climate. So NASA researchers and other scientists are planning a rapid-response program to study the next big one.
But the climate impact of a Pinatubo-size eruption is also a natural analog of an idea that has existed on the fringes of science for years: geoengineering, or intervening in the atmosphere to deliberately cool the planet.
One geoengineering approach would use high-flying jets to spray similar chemicals in the stratosphere. So by studying the next big volcanic eruption, scientists would also gain insights into how such a scheme, known as solar radiation management, or S.R.M., might work.
“This is important if we’re ever going to do geoengineering,” said Alan Robock, a Rutgers University researcher who models the effects of eruptions and who has been involved in discussions about the rapid-response project.
. . .
Geoengineering has long had an outlaw image among much of the scientific community, viewed as risky last-resort measures to solve climate problems that would be better dealt with by cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Even discussing geoengineering concepts has long been considered taboo among many scientists.
. . .
But in the past few years, some scientists and policymakers have begun to argue for limited direct research into geoengineering concepts to better understand their potential as well as risks, and be better prepared should global warming reach a point where some kind of emergency action were deemed necessary.
A few scientists have proposed small-scale outdoor experiments to study aspects of solar radiation management, and last month the American Geophysical Union, one of the nation’s largest scientific societies, endorsed the idea of some research into what it called “climate intervention.”

For the full story, see:
Henry Fountain. “A Volcanic Idea for Cooling the Earth.” The New York Times (Tuesday, February 6, 2018): D3.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date FEB. 1, 2018, and has the title “The Next Big Volcano Could Briefly Cool Earth. NASA Wants to Be Ready.”)

Serial Breakthrough Innovators Have “Almost Maniacal Focus”

(p. C4) It’s 6 a.m., and I’m rushing around my apartment getting ready to fly to California to teach an innovation workshop, when my 10-year-old son looks at me with sad eyes and asks, “Why are you always busy?” My heart pounds, and that familiar knife of guilt and pain twists in my stomach. Then a thought flickers through my head: Does Jeff Bezos go through this?
I recently finished writing a book about innovators who achieved multiple breakthroughs in science and technology over the past two centuries. Of the eight individuals I wrote cases about, only one, Marie Curie, is a woman. I tried to find more, even though I knew in my scientist’s heart that deliberately looking for women would bias my selection process. But I didn’t find other women who met the criteria I had laid out at the beginning of the project.
. . .
The politically correct thing to say at this point is that expanding the roster of future innovators to include more women will require certain obvious changes in how we handle family life: Men and women should have more equal child-care responsibilities, and businesses (or governments) should make affordable, quality child care more accessible. But I don’t think it is as simple as that.
In my own case, I can afford more child care, but I don’t want to relinquish more of my caregiving to others. From the moment I first gave birth, I felt a deep, primal need to hold my children, nurture them and meet their needs. Nature is extremely clever, and she has crafted an intoxicating cocktail of oxytocin and other neurochemicals to rivet the attention of parents on their children.
The research on whether this response is stronger for mothers than for fathers is inconclusive. It is tough to compare the two, because there are strong gender differences in how hormones work. Historically, however, women have taken on a larger share of the caregiving responsibilities for children, and many (myself included) would not have it any other way.
Is such a view hopelessly retrograde, a rejection of hard-won feminist achievements? I don’t think so.
The need to connect with our children does not prevent women from being successful. There are many extremely successful women with very close relationships with their children. But it might get in the way of having the almost maniacal focus that the most famous serial breakthrough innovators exhibit.
I’m no Marie Curie, but I do have obsessive tendencies. If I did not have a family, I would routinely work until 4 a.m. if I had an interesting problem to chase down. But now I have children, and so at 5 p.m., I need to dial it back and try to refocus my attention on things like homework and making dinner. I cannot single-mindedly focus on my work; part of my mind must belong to the children.
This doesn’t mean that mothers cannot be important innovators, but it might mean that their careers play out differently. Their years of intense focus might start later, or they might ebb and surge over time. The more we can do to enable people to have nonlinear career paths, the more we will increase innovation among women–and productivity more generally.

For the full commentary, see:
Melissa Schilling. “Why Women Are Rarely Serial Innovators; A single-minded life of invention is hard to combine with family obligations. One solution: ‘nonlinear’ careers.” The Wall Street Journal (Saturday, Feb. 3, 2018): C4.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has a date of Feb. 2, 2018.)

Schilling’s commentary is related to his book:
Schilling, Melissa A. Quirky: The Remarkable Story of the Traits, Foibles, and Genius of Breakthrough Innovators Who Changed the World. New York: PublicAffairs, 2018.

Regulating A.I. “Is a Recipe for Poor Laws and Even Worse Technology”

(p. A27) “Artificial intelligence” is all too frequently used as a shorthand for software that simply does what humans used to do. But replacing human activity is precisely what new technologies accomplish — spears replaced clubs, wheels replaced feet, the printing press replaced scribes, and so on. What’s new about A.I. is that this technology isn’t simply replacing human activities, external to our bodies; it’s also replacing human decision-making, inside our minds.
The challenges created by this novelty should not obscure the fact that A.I. itself is not one technology, or even one singular development. Regulating an assemblage of technology we can’t clearly define is a recipe for poor laws and even worse technology.

For the full commentary, see:

ANDREW BURT. “Leave Artificial Intelligence Alone” The New York Times (Friday, January 5, 2018): A27.
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date JAN. 4, 2018, and has the title “Leave A.I. Alone.”)

Musk’s Slow Hunch May Be Undone by Smaller Satellites

(p. B3) SpaceX ‘s long-delayed Falcon Heavy rocket, slated for its maiden flight on Tuesday [February 6, 2018], faces uncertain commercial prospects and lacks a clear role in efforts to send U.S. astronauts back to the moon or deeper into the solar system.
The company conceived the rocket at the beginning of the decade, when SpaceX was an underdog fighting to increase its share of launches and needed a beefed-up alternative to a fleet of underpowered boosters. But after spending some $1 billion and grappling with five years of delays and huge technical challenges related to reliably harnessing power from 27 engines, the company is contending with significantly eroded commercial demand for such a potent heavy-lift booster.
The primary reason for the weakened demand is that both national security and corporate satellites continue to get smaller and lighter. So now, even if it performs as advertised, the Falcon Heavy might be Elon Musk’s biggest contrarian bet since he founded SpaceX over 15 years ago.

For the full story, see:
Andy Pasztor. “SpaceX Launch to Test Contrarian Bet.” The Wall Street Journal (Monday, Feb. 5, 2018): B3.
(Note: bracketed date added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has a date of Feb. 4, 2018, and has the title “New Falcon Heavy Rocket Represents a Major Bet for SpaceX.”)

Politicians Build Costly Megaprojects to Burnish Their Legacy

(p. 14) Petroski, a professor of both engineering and history at Duke and the author of such books as “The Pencil” and “The Evolution of Useful Things,” brings an eye for the little things: what kinds of guardrails are best, how roads can be made safer through better signage, which paving materials last longest. One of his key lessons is that small thinking can be a virtue, because the history of infrastructure is a series of experimental and incremental improvements.
Local governments tried endless variations of asphalt and concrete before developing paving surfaces that didn’t produce excess dust or deteriorate quickly under rain and snow. They gradually built longer bridges, learning from earlier designs that worked, and that didn’t. They tried out different paint colors for lane markings, finding the ones that drivers could see best.
This little-things perspective is needed at a time when America’s infrastructure agenda is simultaneously characterized by grandiose ambitions and limited budgets. Money is tight, and infrastructure needs are going unaddressed. At the same time, despite funding limitations, politicians have a tendency to fall in love with novel, pathbreaking, expensive projects that frequently go astray, resulting in arguments against spending more on infrastructure.
. . .
Politicians aren’t drawn to megaprojects just because they believe the initial rosy cost projections and therefore underestimate the risk of complications. They also see an opportunity to build their legacy: It’s more fun to say “I built that bridge” than “I retrofitted that bridge.”

For the full review, see:
JOSH BARRO. “Getting There.” The New York Times Book Review (Sunday, March 20, 2016): 14.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date MARCH 18, 2016, and has the title “‘The Road Taken,’ by Henry Petroski.”)

The Petroski book under review, is:
Petroski, Henry. The Road Taken: The History and Future of America’s Infrastructure. New York: Bloomsbury USA, 2016.

New Technology Reveals Fossil Secrets

(p. A11) Using a new laser imaging technique to reveal traces of soft tissue in fossils of an early feathered, birdlike dinosaur, scientists have found direct evidence of a wing structure needed for flight that was previously invisible from the preserved bone evidence.
The research is part of a body of work on the cutting edge of paleontology, leveraging new technology to flesh out the study of fossils beyond bones, to look at soft tissue and feathers. Other scientists have recently turned up evidence of the protein collagen preserved in dinosaur fossils millions of years old, and scanned feathers, muscle, skin and ligament tissue from a dinosaur’s tail preserved in amber.
Known as laser-stimulated fluorescence, the new imaging technique “is revealing information preserved in the fossil we can’t see with normal light,” says University of Hong Kong paleontologist Michael Pittman, one of the leaders of the research, published Tuesday [February 28, 2017] in Nature Communications.

For the full story, see:
Ellie Kincaid. “Imaging Reveals Soft Tissue in Dinosaur Fossil.” The Wall Street Journal (Weds., March 1, 2017): A11.
(Note: bracketed date added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date Feb. 28, 2017, and has the title “New Imaging Method Helps Scientists Look Beyond Dinosaur Bones.”)

Innovation Skeptics Fail to See Its Broad Benefits

(p. B11) Professor Juma died on Dec. 15 [2017] at his home in Cambridge, Mass. He was 64. His wife said the cause was cancer. At his death he was widely credited as having been an important force in ensuring that biotechnology would play a critical role in improving economic life in many developing countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.
“Calestous understood that people often resist the changes that come with innovation, and that overcoming this resistance can be very important in enabling societies to move ahead,” said Douglas W. Elmendorf, dean of the Kennedy School. “So he tried to understand why people resist innovation, and what can be done to make them feel comfortable with change.”
Professor Juma’s latest book, “Innovation and Its Enemies” (2016), described how technological change is often greeted with public skepticism. Beneath such opposition, he argued, is the belief that only a small segment of society will benefit from potential progress, while the much broader society bears the greatest risk.
. . .
Professor Juma could be lighthearted in the classroom or in public in order to make his points. With more than 100,000 followers on Twitter, he shared with them cartoons that teased skeptics of science and innovation. One of his last posts featured a game show called “Facts Don’t Matter.” In it, a contestant is told: “I’m sorry, Jeannie, your answer was correct, but Kevin shouted his incorrect answer over yours, so he gets the points.”

For the full obituary, see:
ADEEL HASSAN. “Calestous Juma, 64, Advocate of African Progress, Dies.” The New York Times (Tues., January 2, 2018): B11.
(Note: ellipsis, and bracketed year, added.)
(Note: the online version of the obituary has the date JAN. 1, 2018, and has the title “Calestous Juma, 64, Dies; Sought Innovation in African Agriculture.”)

The most recent book by Juma, mentioned above, is:
Juma, Calestous. Innovation and Its Enemies: Why People Resist New Technologies. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016.

Automation Is “About Doing More with the People We’ve Got”

(p. A1) Mr. Persson, 35, sits in front of four computer screens, one displaying the loader he steers as it lifts freshly blasted rock containing silver, zinc and lead. If he were down in the mine shaft operating the loader manually, he would be inhaling dust and exhaust fumes. Instead, he reclines in an office chair while using a joystick to control the machine.
He is cognizant that robots are evolving by the day. Boliden is testing self-driving vehicles to replace truck drivers. But Mr. Persson assumes people will always be needed to keep the machines running. He has faith in the Swedish economic model and its protections against the torment of joblessness.
“I’m not really worried,” he says. “There are so many jobs in this mine that even if this job disappears, they will have another one. The company will take care of us.”
. . .
(p. A8) The Garpenberg mine has been in operation more or less since 1257. More than a decade ago, Boliden teamed up with Ericsson, the Swedish telecommunications company, to put in wireless internet. That has allowed miners to talk to one another to fix problems as they emerge. Miners now carry tablet computers that allow them to keep tabs on production all along the 60 miles of roads running through the mine.
“For us, automation is something good,” says Fredrik Hases, 41, who heads the local union chapter representing technicians. “No one feels like they are taking jobs away. It’s about doing more with the people we’ve got.”

For the full story, see:
PETER S. GOODMAN. “Sweden Adds Human Touch to a Robotic Future.” The New York Times (Thurs., December 28, 2017): A1 & A8.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date DEC. 27, 2017, and has the title “The Robots Are Coming, and Sweden Is Fine.”)

Health Info from Apple Watches Will Allow Patients to “Take More Control”

(p. B1) SAN FRANCISCO — In the last months of Steve Jobs’s life, the Apple co-founder fought cancer while managing diabetes.
Because he hated pricking his finger to draw blood, Mr. Jobs authorized an Apple research team to develop a noninvasive glucose reader with technology that could potentially be incorporated into a wristwatch, according to people familiar with the events, who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to speak on behalf of the company.
. . .
In September [2017], Apple announced that the Apple Watch would no longer need to be tethered to a smartphone and would become more of a stand-alone device. Since then, a wave of device manufacturers have tapped into the watch’s new features like cellular connectivity to develop medical accessories — such as an electrocardiogram for monitoring heart activity — so people can manage chronic conditions straight from their wrist.
. . .
(p. B4) A digital health revolution has been predicted for years, of course, and so far has been more hype than progress. But the hope is that artificial intelligence systems will sift through the vast amounts of data that medical accessories will collect from the Apple Watch and find patterns that can lead to changes in treatment and detection, enabling people to take more control of how they manage their conditions instead of relying solely on doctors.
Vic Gundotra, chief executive of AliveCor, a start-up that makes portable electrocardiograms, said this would put patients on a more equal footing with doctors because they would have more information on their own conditions.
“It’s changing the nature of the relationship between patient and doctor,” he said, adding that doctors will no longer be “high priests.”
. . .
Apple is also looking at potentially building an electrocardiogram into future models of the Apple Watch, according to a person familiar with the project, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the details were confidential. It is unclear whether the EKG development, earlier reported by Bloomberg, would be introduced; such a product would most likely require F.D.A. clearance.
Separately, Apple is continuing research on a noninvasive continuous glucose reader, according to two people with knowledge of the project. The technology is still considered to be years away, industry experts said.
The current solution used by many diabetics is also coming to the Apple Watch. Dexcom, a maker of devices measuring blood sugar levels for diabetics, said it was awaiting F.D.A. approval for a continuous glucose monitor to work directly with the Apple Watch. Continuous glucose monitors use small sensors to pierce the skin to track blood sugar levels and relay those readings through a wireless transmitter.

For the full story, see:
DAISUKE WAKABAYASHI. “As Wearable Devices Evolve, The Apple Watch Offers an EKG.” The New York Times (Weds., December 27, 2017): B1 & B4.
(Note: ellipses, and bracketed year, added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date DEC. 26, 2017, and has the title “Freed From the iPhone, the Apple Watch Finds a Medical Purpose.”)

“Reject the Dark Side: Free the Net!”

(p. C5) HEALY Matt, what’s a culture/politics tidbit most people don’t know?
FLEGENHEIMER Washington’s most prolific consumer of pop culture is very likely … Ted Cruz. Amateur “S.N.L.” historian, ’80s movie buff and instigator of a Twitter feud with Mark Hamill over net neutrality. He explained the meaning of “Star Wars” to Luke Skywalker. It was very Cruz: @HammillHimself Luke, I know Hollywood can be confusing, but it was Vader who supported govt power over everything said & done on the Internet. That’s why giant corps (Google, Facebook, Netflix) supported the FCC power grab of net neutrality. Reject the dark side: Free the net! Ted Cruz 12:25 PM – Dec 17, 2017
ROGERS ’80s movie buff?
FLEGENHEIMER “The Princess Bride”! Life on the campaign trail with Ted Cruz was basically months of “Princess Bride” imitations with an occasional discussion of Obamacare.

For the full commentary, see:
MATT FLEGENHEIMER and KATIE ROGERS. “‘S.N.L.’ Kimmel. Covfefe.” The New York Times (Weds., December 27, 2017): C1 & C5.
(Note: ellipsis, bold and caps, in original.).
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date DEC. 26, 2017, and has the title “Kimmel, Covfefe, ‘Wonder Woman’: Washington on Pop Culture in 2017.” The commentary/discussion is credited to Flegenheimer and Rogers, but Patrick Healy also participated. There are a few minor differences in how the print and online versions present the Cruz tweet. The quote above, follows the print version.)

Robots May Be a Threat After They Learn How to Open a Door

(p. A1) Robots may enslave us all someday. In the meantime, if one of them goes berserk, here’s a useful tactic: Shut the door behind you.
One after another, robots in a government-sponsored contest were stumped by an unlocked door that blocked their path at an outdoor obstacle course. One bipedal machine managed to wrap a claw around the door handle and open it but was flummoxed by a breeze that kept blowing the door shut before it could pass through.
Robots excel at many tasks, as long as they don’t involve too much hand-eye coordination or common sense. Like some gifted children, they can perform impressive feats of mental arithmetic but are profoundly klutzy on the playground.
The machines stumble over tasks requiring even toddler-level balance, like kicking a ball, getting out of a car or (p. A9) climbing stairs. Grasping objects of varying size and weight is also perplexing.

For the full story, see:
Daniela Hernandez. “If the Robot Apocalypse Comes, Try Closing the Door.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., Nov. 11, 2017): A1 & A9.
(Note: ellipses, and bracketed date, added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date Nov. 10, 2017, and has the title “How to Survive a Robot Apocalypse: Just Close the Door.”)