All posts tagged: engineering

Crystal-based cooling could make fridges more sustainable

Crystal-based cooling could make fridges more sustainable

Published by skeptic

Refrigerators and freezers typically get their cooling power from environmentally harmful fluids Mint Images Limited/Alamy A new type of crystal could enable refrigerators and air conditioners to keep us cool without warming the planet. Refrigerators and air conditioners get their cooling power by circulating a liquid through the device, which absorbs heat and causes chilling through a cycle of evaporation and condensation. But many such liquids contribute to the greenhouse effect, causing further warming when they leak. Now, Jenny Pringle at Deakin University in Australia and her colleagues have made a climate-friendly alternative to these liquids using “plastic crystals” – crystals with molecules that can move just enough to make them pliable. Under enough pressure, these plastic crystals can transform. Their molecules go from being randomly oriented to aligning themselves into a neat grid. Then, when pressure is removed, they become disordered again. As part of this disordering process, the crystals absorb heat, effectively cooling their surroundings. Such pressure-based cooling has been investigated before, but most materials capable of this transition could only do so …

The Ingenious Engineering of Leonardo da Vinci’s Self-Supporting Bridge, Explained

The Ingenious Engineering of Leonardo da Vinci’s Self-Supporting Bridge, Explained

Published by José

The video above from Sabins Civ­il Engi­neer­ing promis­es to reveal “the MAGIC behind Da Vinci’s Self Sup­port­ing Bridge.” That sounds like a typ­i­cal exam­ple of YouTube hyper­bole, though on first glance, it isn’t at all obvi­ous how the frag­ile-look­ing struc­ture can stay up, much less sup­port the weight of a cross­ing army. Not only does the design use no per­ma­nent joints, says the nar­ra­tor, “the more weight on the bridge, the stronger it becomes.” The key is the dis­tinc­tive man­ner in which the pieces inter­lock, and how it directs force to cre­ate a “fric­tion lock” that ensures sta­bil­i­ty. Remove just one piece of the bridge, how­ev­er, and it all comes crash­ing down, which is more fea­ture than bug: designed to facil­i­tate troop move­ments, the struc­ture could be dis­man­tled to pre­vent use by the ene­my even more eas­i­ly than it was put up in the first place. Just one of the var­i­ous tools of war Leonar­do came up with, this bridge was con­ceived under the patron­age of the famous states­man Cesare Bor­gia (a chief inspi­ra­tion for …

How Medieval Islamic Engineering Brought Water to the Alhambra

How Medieval Islamic Engineering Brought Water to the Alhambra

Published by José

Between 711 and 1492, much of the Iber­ian Penin­su­la, includ­ing mod­ern-day Spain, was under Mus­lim rule. Not that it was easy to hold on to the place for that length of time: after the fall of Tole­do in 1085, Al-Andalus, as the ter­ri­to­ry was called, con­tin­ued to lose cities over the sub­se­quent cen­turies. Cór­do­ba and Seville were recon­quered prac­ti­cal­ly one right after the oth­er, in 1236 and 1248, respec­tive­ly, and you can see the inva­sion of the first city ani­mat­ed in the open­ing scene of the Pri­mal Space video above. “All over the land, Mus­lim cities were being con­quered and tak­en over by the Chris­tians,” says the com­pan­ion arti­cle at Pri­mal Neb­u­la. “But amidst all of this, one city remained uncon­quered, Grana­da.” “Thanks to its strate­gic posi­tion and the enor­mous Alham­bra Palace, the city was pro­tect­ed,” and there the Alham­bra remains today. A “thir­teenth-cen­tu­ry pala­tial com­plex that’s one of the world’s most icon­ic exam­ples of Moor­ish archi­tec­ture,” writes BBC.com’s Esme Fox, it’s also a land­mark feat of engi­neer­ing, boast­ing “one of the most sophis­ti­cat­ed hydraulic …

The Engineering of the Strandbeest: How the Magnificent Mechanical Creatures Have Technologically Evolved

The Engineering of the Strandbeest: How the Magnificent Mechanical Creatures Have Technologically Evolved

Published by José

Life evolves, but machines are invent­ed: this dichoto­my hard­ly con­flicts with what most of us have learned about biol­o­gy and tech­nol­o­gy. But cer­tain spec­i­mens roam­ing around in the world can blur that line — and in the curi­ous case of the Strand­beesten, they real­ly are roam­ing around. First assem­bled in 1990 by the Dutch artist Theo Jansen, a Strand­beest (Dutch for “beach beast”) is a kind of wind-pow­ered kinet­ic sculp­ture designed to “walk” around the sea­side in an organ­ic-look­ing fash­ion. Jansen has made them not just ever larg­er and more elab­o­rate over the decades, but also more sta­ble and more resilient, with an eye toward their even­tu­al­ly out­liv­ing him. Improv­ing the Strand­beest has been a long process of tri­al and error, as explained in the Ver­i­ta­si­um video above. Jansen’s process espe­cial­ly resem­bles bio­log­i­cal evo­lu­tion in that the changes he makes to his cre­ations tend to be retained or dis­card­ed in accor­dance with the degree to which they assist in adap­ta­tion to their sandy, watery envi­ron­ment. Get­ting them to walk upright in the sand was hard …

Why prompt engineering is one of the most valuable skills today

Why prompt engineering is one of the most valuable skills today

Published by skeptic

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More In a world that is rapidly embracing large language models (LLMs), prompt engineering has emerged as a new skill to unlocking their full potential. Think of it as the language to speak with these intelligent AI systems, enabling us to tap into their vast capabilities and reshape how we create, work, solve problems and do much more. It can allow anyone — including your grandma — to program a complex multi-billion parameter AI system in the cloud. LLMs are fundamentally built on deep learning algorithms and architectures. They are trained on massive datasets of text. Like a human who has devoured countless books, LLMs learn patterns, grammar, relationships and reasoning abilities from data. Internal settings can be tuned to change how the model processes information and adjusted to improve accuracy. When given a prompt at the inferencing stage, the LLMs use their learned knowledge and parameters to generate the most probable and contextually relevant output. It …

Climate engineering off US coast could increase heatwaves in Europe, study finds | Climate crisis

Climate engineering off US coast could increase heatwaves in Europe, study finds | Climate crisis

Published by skeptic

A geoengineering technique designed to reduce high temperatures in California could inadvertently intensify heatwaves in Europe, according to a study that models the unintended consequences of regional tinkering with a changing climate. The paper shows that targeted interventions to lower temperature in one area for one season might bring temporary benefits to some populations, but this has to be set against potentially negative side-effects in other parts of the world and shifting degrees of effectiveness over time. The authors of the study said the findings were “scary” because the world has few or no regulations in place to prevent regional applications of the technique, marine cloud brightening, which involves spraying reflective aerosols (usually in the form of sea salt or sea spray) into stratocumulus clouds over the ocean to reflect more solar radiation back into space. Experts have said the paucity of controls means there is little to prevent individual countries, cities, companies or even wealthy individuals from trying to modify their local climates, even if it is to the detriment of people living elsewhere, …

Crystal engineering research at the forefront of chemistry advancements

Crystal engineering research at the forefront of chemistry advancements

Published by skeptic

The Université de Sherbrooke, a top-ten Canadian research university, is poised to revolutionise organic synthesis, energy utilisation and medicine with crystal engineering. From quantum science to crystal engineering, the Université de Sherbrooke has distinguished itself with cutting-edge technology and equipment, internationally recognised researchers, a culture of partnerships, and an interdisciplinary vision across emerging areas with significant impacts for society. Professor Leonard MacGillivray, the university’s newest recruit, is leading the Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) in Crystal Engineering for Green Chemistry and Sustainable Materials. Leonard Macgillivraya He is applying his expertise in the field of crystal engineering, an emerging branch of chemistry that has implications in connected areas such as green chemistry, pharmaceutical chemistry, and materials sciences. The role of crystal engineering Crystal engineering allows scientists to tailor the properties of molecular solids by gaining control of the three-dimensional arrangement that atoms and molecules adopt in space with atomic precision. This field of knowledge can equip scientists with powerful tools to help sustain and support our planet. The Canada Excellence Research Chair in Crystal Engineering for …

Forget about prompt engineering, Typeface Arc uses AI agent approach to power marketing campaigns

Forget about prompt engineering, Typeface Arc uses AI agent approach to power marketing campaigns

Published by skeptic

Discover how companies are responsibly integrating AI in production. This invite-only event in SF will explore the intersection of technology and business. Find out how you can attend here. In the generative AI era, organizations have generally been using prompts at each step of a content generation process. AI startup Typeface thinks there is a better way. The San Francisco based startup launched in 2023, with a goal of enabling highly customized, on-brand generative AI content. Typeface has built out integrations with multiple vendors including Microsoft and Google for its technology, to help organizations with marketing workflows.  Today the company is going a step further with the launch of its Typeface Arc technology. The vision behind Typeface Arc is to enable a user to state a high-level marketing objective and then have the system automatically plan and generate all the assets. Those assets could include emails, images and notifications that are all connected to execute a true connected story arc to engage customers. “It’s not that exciting to sit there typing one prompt at a …

Scientists Say: Genetic Engineering

Scientists Say: Genetic Engineering

Published by skeptic

bacteria: (singular: bacterium) Single-celled organisms. These dwell nearly everywhere on Earth, from the bottom of the sea to inside other living organisms (such as plants and animals). Bacteria are one of the three domains of life on Earth. cell: (in biology) The smallest structural and functional unit of an organism. Typically too small to see with the unaided eye, it consists of a watery fluid surrounded by a membrane or wall. Depending on their size, animals are made of anywhere from thousands to trillions of cells. Most organisms, such as yeasts, molds, bacteria and some algae, are composed of only one cell. chemical: A substance formed from two or more atoms that unite (bond) in a fixed proportion and structure. For example, water is a chemical made when two hydrogen atoms bond to one oxygen atom. Its chemical formula is H2O. Chemical also can be an adjective to describe properties of materials that are the result of various reactions between different compounds. crop: (in agriculture) A type of plant grown intentionally grown and nurtured by farmers, …

Fisker stiffed the engineering firm developing its low-cost EV and pickup truck, lawsuit claims

Fisker stiffed the engineering firm developing its low-cost EV and pickup truck, lawsuit claims

Published by skeptic

Henrik Fisker stood on a stage last August and proudly debuted two prototypes designed to catapult his eponymous EV startup Fisker into the mainstream. There was the Pear, a low-cost EV meant for the masses, and the Alaska, Fisker’s entry into the red-hot pickup truck market. In the weeks that followed, Fisker stopped paying the engineering firm that helped develop those vehicles, according to a previously unreported lawsuit filed in federal court this week. The firm, a U.S. subsidiary of German engineering giant Bertrandt AG, also accuses Fisker of wrongfully holding onto IP associated with those vehicles. It’s asking for around $13 million in damages. The lawsuit adds to a pile of legal trouble facing Fisker, which is on the brink of bankruptcy. At least 30 lawsuits alleging lemon law violations have been filed, a handful of which Fisker has already settled. A former director has filed a proposed class action suit claiming unpaid wages. A textile supplier has also sued Fisker for more than $1 million that it alleges the EV startup never paid. …