All posts tagged: valuable

Cornell method converts electronics waste into valuable materials

Cornell method converts electronics waste into valuable materials

Published by skeptic

The ever-growing pile of electronics waste poses a significant environmental challenge, with around 50 million tons discarded annually and only 20% effectively recycled. Addressing this e-waste crisis requires innovative solutions to extract valuable resources and mitigate environmental harm. A groundbreaking method developed by researchers at Cornell University promises not only to recover gold from discarded electronics but also to repurpose it to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Why tackling e-waste is crucial The rapid advancement of technology has resulted in shorter product lifecycles and a culture of disposability, leading to the accumulation of e-waste. Improper disposal of electronics not only squanders valuable resources like gold, silver, and rare earth elements but also releases toxic substances, including lead and mercury, into the environment. Recycling electronics waste is more than just an environmental imperative – it’s an economic opportunity. Recovering precious metals reduces dependence on mining, conserves energy, and creates jobs in the recycling industry. Furthermore, addressing e-waste aligns with the principles of a circular economy, where resources are reused, and waste is minimised. The hidden wealth in …

British Museum Receives Its Most Valuable Gift Ever

British Museum Receives Its Most Valuable Gift Ever

Published by skeptic

Source: The British Museum, London.   The British Museum announced its acquisition of the Sir Percival David Foundation’s world-famous private collection of Chinese ceramics. The collective value of the 1,700 objects in the collection is estimated at £1 billion ($1.2 billion), making this gift the highest-value donation in U.K. museum history.   Private Collection of Chinese Ceramics Worth £1 Billion David Vases, Yuan dynasty, 1351. © The Trustees of the British Museum.   Sir Percival David (1892-1964) was a British businessman, scholar, and collector. Fueled by a lifelong passion for Chinese art and culture, David amassed one of the world’s most significant private collections of Chinese ceramics. Its billion-dollar holdings span from the 3rd century to the 20th century. David’s connection with the British Museum began in 1929. That year, he donated a Ming dynasty shrine to the museum. As per David’s wishes, his foundation loaned the entire collection to the British Museum in 2009. It is now housed in a specially designed bilingual room with an accompanying catalog.   Colin Sheaf, chair of the …

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 …

3,800-year-old fragment of valuable scarlet-dyed cloth mentioned 25 times in the Bible discovered in Cave of the Skulls – OpentheWord.org

3,800-year-old fragment of valuable scarlet-dyed cloth mentioned 25 times in the Bible discovered in Cave of the Skulls – OpentheWord.org

Published by skeptic

3,800-year-old scarlet cloth discovered in Cave of the Skulls located in the Judean desertCredit: Dafna Gazit, Israel Antiquities Authority Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) archaeologists announced that they found a once very valuable fragment of scarlet-colored textile in an Israeli cave, the Daily Mail reports. It is estimated that the two-centimeter piece of cloth discovered in the Cave of the Skulls located in the Judean desert in 2016 was 3,800 years old. The Scarlet or Crimson color, which is referenced 25 times in the Bible, was made from a worm-type bug found in oak trees, often referred to as the ‘Tola‛at Hashani’ or the Crimson worm. The female worms and their eggs were collected, dried, and then ground down and used as the base for the dye. The carminic acid contained within the female bugs and their eggs produced a scarlet color. According to the Jerusalem Post, the worms could only be collected for a brief period when their scarlet color peaked. This along with the intensive labor needed to create the dye made it extremely …

Nikola Jokic named NBA Most Valuable Player for third time

Nikola Jokic named NBA Most Valuable Player for third time

Published by skeptic

Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic was named NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP) for the third time in four seasons on Wednesday, May 8. The 29-year-old Serbian star, who won the award in 2021 and 2022, finished runner-up in the voting in 2023 but had the satisfaction of leading the Nuggets to a first NBA title. This season he averaged 26.4 points, 12.4 rebounds and 9.0 assists in the regular season and beat out Oklahoma City Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Luka Doncic of the Dallas Mavericks in final voting for the award. In another season in which Jokic managed to make brilliance almost look routine, he became the second player, after Oscar Robertson, to record 2,000 points, 900 rebounds and 600 assists in a season. His 25 triple-doubles and 68 double-doubles were both second in the league. Jokic enters elite territory with a third MVP crown. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s six MVPs are the most ever. Bill Russell and Michael Jordan won five apiece and Wilt Chamberlain and LeBron James four. Jokic joins Moses Malone, Larry Bird …

My deepfake shows how valuable our data is in the age of AI

My deepfake shows how valuable our data is in the age of AI

Published by skeptic

Synthesia has managed to create AI avatars that are remarkably humanlike after only one year of tinkering with the latest generation of generative AI. It’s equally exciting and daunting thinking about where this technology is going. It will soon be very difficult to differentiate between what is real and what is not, and this is a particularly acute threat given the record number of elections happening around the world this year.  We are not ready for what is coming. If people become too skeptical about the content they see, they might stop believing in anything at all, which could enable bad actors to take advantage of this trust vacuum and lie about the authenticity of real content. Researchers have called this the “liar’s dividend.” They warn that politicians, for example, could claim that genuinely incriminating information was fake or created using AI.  I just published a story on my deepfake creation experience, and on the big questions about a world where we increasingly can’t tell what’s real. Read it here.  But there is another big question: What happens …

Fool’s gold (Pyrite) may actually be as valuable as gold after all

Fool’s gold (Pyrite) may actually be as valuable as gold after all

Published by skeptic

Remarkably, the team detected abundant lithium in pyrite minerals within shale, a phenomenon deemed unprecedented by Bhattacharya. (CREDIT: Olpo (Shutterstock)) Airlines strictly forbid passengers from stowing laptops in checked luggage due to the inherent danger posed by lithium-ion batteries. Why? Because lithium, a key component of these batteries, is highly reactive. When exposed to water, pure lithium reacts violently, emitting heat and generating flammable hydrogen. Despite its volatile nature, lithium’s reactivity makes it an ideal candidate for battery production, playing a crucial role in the transition to green energy. Lithium-ion batteries not only power electric vehicles but also store energy from renewable sources like solar and wind. The demand for lithium has surged in recent years. While primary sources such as pegmatites and volcanic clays are well-understood, discovering additional safe and economically viable lithium deposits would be advantageous. Addressing this challenge, a team led by researchers from West Virginia University is investigating whether past industrial activities, such as mining operations or drilling activities, could offer untapped lithium reservoirs without generating new waste. Shailee Bhattacharya, a sedimentary …

‘Water is more valuable than oil’: the corporation cashing in on America’s drought | Environment

‘Water is more valuable than oil’: the corporation cashing in on America’s drought | Environment

Published by skeptic

One of the biggest battles over Colorado River water is being staged in one of the west’s smallest rural enclaves. Tucked into the bends of the lower Colorado River, Cibola, Arizona, is a community of about 200 people. Maybe 300, if you count the weekenders who come to boat and hunt. Dusty shrublands run into sleepy residential streets, which run into neat fields of cotton and alfalfa. Nearly a decade ago, Greenstone Resource Partners LLC, a private company backed by global investors, bought almost 500 acres of agricultural land here in Cibola. In a first-of-its-kind deal, the company recently sold the water rights tied to the land to the town of Queen Creek, a suburb of Phoenix, for a $14m gross profit. More than 2,000 acre-feet of water from the Colorado River that was once used to irrigate farmland is now flowing, through a canal system, to the taps of homes more than 200 miles away. A Guardian investigation into the unprecedented water transfer, and how it took shape, reveals that Greenstone strategically purchased land …

2 Zodiac Signs Learn A Valuable Life Lesson On March 31, The Day Before Mercury Retrograde Starts

2 Zodiac Signs Learn A Valuable Life Lesson On March 31, The Day Before Mercury Retrograde Starts

Published by skeptic

Let’s face it: when we are in the mood for love and romance, we don’t want to mess around with a Venus transit that has us judging or doubting ourselves during the process. When we have one such transit, like … Moon square Venus, which comes around on this day, March 31, 2024, we already know in advance that at least two zodiac signs are not going to make the best of it, as this day definitely comes with its ‘romantic’ challenges. That’s not to say we won’t rise above the odds — we will, most definitely, but getting to that place will be the test. For these two zodiac signs, patience is not a built-in virtue. So, the real test of this day is about waiting, trusting that things will work out — especially if the ‘topic of the day’ is love, and realizing that some things take time and that this is the season for misfired communications.  We have the oncoming approach of Mercury in retrograde on April 1. For the two zodiac signs that …

Jared Kushner Says Israel Should “Finish the Job” in Gaza So It Can Focus on Building Valuable “Waterfront Property”

Jared Kushner Says Israel Should “Finish the Job” in Gaza So It Can Focus on Building Valuable “Waterfront Property”

Published by skeptic

In 2017, on the eve of his inauguration, Donald Trump made a bold and unintentionally hilarious prediction: His son-in-law, Jared Kushner, was going to bring peace to the Middle East. “If [Jared] can’t produce peace in the Middle East, nobody can,” Trump said, adding, “All my life, I’ve been hearing that’s the toughest deal to make, but I have a feeling Jared is going to do a great job.” Unfortunately, Jared did not do a great job, and failed to even come close to bringing peace to the region, despite reading “25 books” on the topic. Yet, he still apparently believes his insights on the matter are valuable, and recently offered Israel a big piece of advice: It should get rid of everyone in Gaza so it can focus on developing hot “waterfront property” on the strip. Yes, in a February interview at Harvard that was posted online this month and uncovered by the Guardian on Tuesday, Kushner opined that the Gaza Strip could be “very valuable” from a real estate perspective, if Israel could forcibly remove …