Curating the Internet: Science and technology micro-summaries for September 16, 2019

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Authored by @remlaps

A new paper suggests that a moon elevator is feasible and affordable with existing materials; A low cost device that generates electricity from darkness; An AI technique that gives early warning for heart attack risk; The inventor of social media launched a blockchain startup, Revolution Populi; and a Steem essay arguing that blockchain 3.0 is set to disrupt online crowdfunding

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  1. A space elevator to the moon could be doable — and surprisingly cheap - An arXiv paper by graduate students Zephyr Penoyre and Emily Sandford suggests that a space elevator from the earth to the moon could be built by anchoring a cable to the moon with a span of about 200,000 miles to a point about 27,000 miles above the Earth's surface. The simplest concept would be about the width of a pencil led. It would be made from kevlar or another existing material, and held taut by the Earth's gravity. Space travelers could then take a space vehicle to the end of the cable, and then transfer to solar-powered robotic vehicles that would make the climb to the moon (over a period of a few days). To get back, the traveler would just reverse the process. At a cost of about $1 billion, a paper by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics estimates that the cable would pay for itself in 53 trips. Marshall Eubanks, chief scientist at Space Initiatives, is quoted saying that the calculations are sound, but also notes that - like a railroad - you don't build something at this scale unless you are sure you'll have substantial traffic, and expresses concerns about collisions between satellites and the cable. h/t RealClear Science

  2. This Device Generates Electricity From Darkness - The amount of energy coming in from the Sun is roughly balanced with the amount leaving the planet in the form of radiative cooling. In a new paper by UCLA's Aaswath Raman and Stanford's Wei Li and Shanhui Fan, the team describes a device from $30 in equipment that is able to harvest enough energy from radiative cooling to power a LED. According to Fan, "The amount of power available for harvesting is very large." The proof of concept device is a large aluminum disk that is painted black and hooked to thermoelectricity generators. Heat flows from the Earth into the air, then through the generators and into the disk, which acts as a radiative cooler and radiates the heat upward. With larger disks and improved insulation and efficiency, the researchers think they can generate enough energy to light a house. The device could also reverse the energy flow during the day, capturing energy from incoming sunlight. Lead author, Aaswath Raman, says that solar power is about 100 times more powerful, but this device is low-cost, lasts longer than batteries, and operates at times when solar can't. h/t RealClear Science

  3. A.I. technology could identify those at risk of fatal heart attacks, research claims - Earlier this month, Oxford University announced that its researchers have used machine learning to create a "fat radiomic profile" that can be used to identify heart-attack risk years in advance. Oxford's Charalambos Antoniades drew the analogy to creating "a fingerprint of 'bad' characteristics around people's arteries", and noted that the tecnhique has huge potential to save lives by identifying the risks early and implementing preventative measures. h/t Communications of the ACM

  4. Computer Scientist David Gelernter Wants To Revolutionize Social Media - Credited with predicting the rise of the world wide web, David Gelernter is also a Yale professor, an artist, and a survivor of a unabomber attack. I'm not normally a fan of podcasts. In general, I prefer reading to listening, but I started listening to this one, and hope to finish it later. Topics include tech bias, online privacy, and artificial intelligence. Along with Rob Rosenthal, Paolo Coppola, and Todd Aydelotte, Gelernter is also a co-founder of Revolution Populi, which is a project aiming to establish a publicly-governed, decentralized, user-owned blockchain database. Sounds like a natural ally or a competitor for Steem - or both. ; -) Maybe a client for steem-engine and/or SMTs... h/t Communications of the ACM

  5. STEEM Blockchain 3.0 to disrupt Crowdfunding - In this Steem post, @cryptoherman describes blockchain evolution in a 3-stage process. Phase 1 was the emergence of bitcoin and blockchain for use as digital currency; Phase 2 was the emergence of smart contracts and Ethereum; and Phase 3 - termed Blockchain 3.0 is the focus on scalability and building decentralized applications. The article argues that blockchain's properties of immutability, transparency, and decentralization, mean that blockchain 3.0 will disrupt online crowdfunding for backers, by providing escrow solutions, and for creators, by providing access to funding with low cost transactions. (A 10% beneficiary setting has been applied to this post for @cryptoherman)

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"...the team describes a device from $30 in equipment that is able to harvest enough energy from radiative cooling to power a LED."

That's a tiny amount of power for the price. It's also a terrible thing to advocate during the beginning of a Grand Solar Minimum. As insolation declines, the ROI from the process will decline, and every watt of energy harvested will make the global cooling worse.

Thanks!

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Thanks for the feedback! I agree with this:

That's a tiny amount of power for the price.

The article points out that it's something like 100 times less efficient than solar energy (which is already pretty low in efficiency). But it's a prototype. It remains to be seen how it progresses.

w.r.t the device effecting temperatures, I guess it depends on where it is placed. If the energy that's harvested would otherwise be lost to space anyway, which is what typically happens with night time radiation, then it wouldn't have any effect on temperatures.

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Ahaha@ The space elevator is back. I have read so many things about it. It is funny that this tie, it starts to be more concrete and it looks making sense to me. However, there are always things that are overlooked, especially for such a gigantic device.

The second article is also great (for mankind)! Although for this one I won't comment anything :)

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