Robotics
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), commonly known as drones, are already used in countless settings to tackle real-world problems. These flying robotic systems can, among other things, help to monitor natural environments, ...
Computer Sciences
Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen have examined the general intelligence of the language model GPT-3, a powerful AI tool. Using psychological tests, they studied competencies ...
Feb 6, 2023
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103
Machine learning & AI
A new machine learning model can detect early signs of depression in written text like Twitter posts, according to a study by University of Alberta computing scientists.
Jul 24, 2020
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34
Engineering
For years, unrecycled plastic bottles have been dumped in landfills. Now, thanks to new research from UBC Okanagan, those bottles may have a second life in that landfill—stabilizing its earth walls.
Jul 20, 2023
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12
Engineering
MIT engineers aim to produce totally green, carbon-free hydrogen fuel with a new, train-like system of reactors that is driven solely by the sun.
Oct 16, 2023
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87
Energy & Green Tech
Millions of U.S. households would benefit from heat pumps, but the cost of installing the technology needs to come down to make their use a more attractive proposition, according to researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's ...
Feb 13, 2024
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121
Engineering
Drawing inspiration from nature, Penn State scientists have developed a new device that produces images by mimicking the red, green and blue photoreceptors and the neural network found in human eyes.
May 12, 2023
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334
Energy & Green Tech
A breakthrough into splitting water into its parts could help make renewable energy pay off, even when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing.
Mar 9, 2020
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202
Energy & Green Tech
The effectiveness of non-mechanical, low-energy methods for moderating temperature and humidity has been evaluated in a series of experiments by researchers from the University of Cambridge.
Nov 20, 2019
5
390
Energy & Green Tech
Research led by the University of Strathclyde suggests that solar energy can be accessed and converted into hydrogen—a clean and renewable fuel.
May 5, 2022
8
117
Nature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. It ranges in scale from the subatomic to the cosmic.
The word nature is derived from the Latin word natura, or "essential qualities, innate disposition", and in ancient times, literally meant "birth". Natura was a Latin translation of the Greek word physis (φύσις), which originally related to the intrinsic characteristics that plants, animals, and other features of the world develop of their own accord. The concept of nature as a whole, the physical universe, is one of several expansions of the original notion; it began with certain core applications of the word φύσις by pre-Socratic philosophers, and has steadily gained currency ever since. This usage was confirmed during the advent of modern scientific method in the last several centuries.
Within the various uses of the word today, "nature" often refers to geology and wildlife. Nature may refer to the general realm of various types of living plants and animals, and in some cases to the processes associated with inanimate objects – the way that particular types of things exist and change of their own accord, such as the weather and geology of the Earth, and the matter and energy of which all these things are composed. It is often taken to mean the "natural environment" or wilderness–wild animals, rocks, forest, beaches, and in general those things that have not been substantially altered by human intervention, or which persist despite human intervention. For, example, manufactured objects and human interaction generally are not considered part of nature, unless qualified as, for example, "human nature" or "the whole of nature". This more traditional concept of natural things which can still be found today implies a distinction between the natural and the artificial, with the artificial being understood as that which has been brought into being by a human consciousness or a human mind. Depending on the particular context, the term "natural" might also be distinguished from the unnatural, the supernatural, or synthetic.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
