Curating the Internet: Science and technology digest for February 26, 2020

Researchers suggest that Moore's Law has ended and suggest a path forward; Vote-buying goes mainstream on the EOS blockchain; Tim Draper eschews stocks in favor of Bitcoin and predicts BTC $250,000 by 2022; The first known animal that doesn't breathe has been discovered; and a Steem essay talks about the use of robotics in the oil industry

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First posted on my Steem blog: SteemIt, SteemPeak^*, StemGeeks.

1. We’re not prepared for the end of Moore’s Law - In 1965, Intel's Gordon Moore observed that the number of transistors that could fit on a chip would double every year. For decades, the observation proved to be amazingly prescient, and this drive towards miniaturization led to all sorts of new capabilities, including watches, phones, and other consumer devices. In recent years, however, 10 nm chips were delayed for five years after 14 nm chips, and many industry observers have declared that Moore's Law has ended. If that characterization turns out to be compress, computer scientists predict that future improvements will need to be found in software, algorithms, and specialized chip architecture. One paper, for example, found a 47x improvement in speed by switching from the python scripting language to the C programming language. While these techniques offer promise for continued advances, they also signal the end to general purpose computing. In order to realize more speed, computing may need to return to its roots with every environment uniquely tailored to match its purpose. As a result of the decline of Moore's law, researchers are calling for a modern-day Marshall Plan to move towards newer chip architectures. (On the heel's of last week's call for a new Manhattan Project.)


2. On EOS Blockchain, Vote Buying Is Business as Usual - The Genpool service was introduced earlier this month to let EOS block producers share rewards with the people who vote for them. The service was announced in a Medium post by EOS block producer, GenerEOS. With a market cap of $3.76 billion, EOS is currently the 8th highest valued blockchain. While most democracies discourage or prohibit vote buying, it is now becoming a standard way of doing business on the EOS block chain. The payments from block producers to voters are known as voter rebates. Similar services have also launched in Asia, but Genpool is the first English language service.


3. Billionaire Investor Tim Draper Quit Stocks for Bitcoin 6 Months Ago - Venture capitalist, Tim Draper, recently revealed that he has eliminated public stock investments from his financial portfolios and replaced them with Bitcoin. When asked about the extent of his faith in bitcoin, he said, "It’s a lot, it’s a lot, a lot". He also disclosed that his VC firm is still active in private markets and that a crypto-fund that he manages has more than doubled since the start of the year. Draper is also known for his Bitcoin price predictions, and he now believes that BTC will be worth $250,000 by 2022. Draper also disagreed with Warren Buffet's recent anti-cryptocurrency statements, where he (Buffet) said, "Cryptocurrencies basically have no value and they don’t produce anything".


4. Scientists discover first known animal that doesn't breathe - Henneguya salminicola is a parasitic multi-cellular blob, and it was recently discovered to be the first known animal that doesn't breathe. According to a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, every other animal that has ever gone through gene sequencing has revealed some evidence of mitochondrial genes, which are necessary for respiration. In H. salminicola, however, no such genes were present. Microscopic inspection also revealed no evidence of a respiration system. Evolutionarily descended from jellyfish, the organism is unique in other ways, too. In fact, one of the study's co-authors, Dorothée Huchon says it has lost not just its ability to breathe, but also, "their tissue, their nerve cells, their muscles, everything". The researchers speculate that this "evolutionary downsizing" advantages the organism because it thrives by reproducing quickly. Without the ability to breathe, researchers aren't sure how it produces energy, but they speculate that it may import ATP (molecular energy) from its host organisms. -h/t RealClear Science


5. Steem @carlos84: Let's explore the most relevant aspects of robotics and artificial intelligence in the oil industry - A couple weeks ago, Curating the Internet: Science and technology digest for February 14, 2020 covered Boston Dynamics’ dog robot Spot is going to patrol an oil rig in Norway. Today, we find more about the topic on the Steem blockchain. In this post, the author tells about the use of robots in general and Spot in particular by the oil industry, saying that they largely fulfill two key functions: (i) independent monitoring and (ii) capturing high quality images. As in the previous article, the author notes that using robots for these tasks reduces the level of danger for humans in the industry.
   
   Here is another video of Spot, which I had not seen before:

   (A 10% beneficiary setting has been applied to this post for @carlos84.)

   Spot was previously covered in this series on: April 21, 2019, September 25, 2019, September 29, 2019, and January 26, 2020.

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