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Motion capture is guiding the next generation of extraterrestrial robots

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“How do we build robots that can optimally explore space?” is the core question behind Dr Frances Zhu’s research at the University of Hawai’i. One part of the answer is, “with motion capture”.

“It is my hope that my research contributes to the way extraterrestrial robots move and make decisions on other planets,” explains Zhu (main picture), an assistant researcher and deputy director at the University’s Hawai‘i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology.

That research is in its early stages, but NASA has seen the value in it and awarded Zhu an EPSCoR grant by the name “Autonomous Rover Operations for Planetary Surface Exploration using Machine Learning Algorithms”. [Read more…] about Motion capture is guiding the next generation of extraterrestrial robots

How climate change and fires are shaping the forests of the future

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Forest fires are already a global threat. “But considering how climate change is progressing, we are probably only at the beginning of a future that will see more and bigger forest fires,” explains Rupert Seidl, Professor of Ecosystem Dynamics and Forest Management in Mountain Landscapes at TUM.

In many places, fire is part of the natural environment, and many tree species have become naturally adapted to recurrent fires.

These adaptations range from particularly thick bark, which protects the sensitive cambium in the trunk from the fire, to the cones of certain types of pine, which open only due to the heat of fire, allowing a quick regeneration and recovery of affected woodland. [Read more…] about How climate change and fires are shaping the forests of the future

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    How climate change and fires are shaping the forests of the futureForest fires are already a global threat. "But considering how climate change is progressing, we are probably only at the beginning of a future that will see more and bigger forest fires," explains Rupert Seidl, Professor of Ecosystem Dynamics and Forest Management in Mountain Landscapes at TUM. In many places,…
    Tags: forest, climate, fires, ecosystem, will, change, fire, yellowstone, forests, explains
  • Hidden mangrove forest in the Yucatan peninsula reveals ancient sea levels
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    Hidden mangrove forest in the Yucatan peninsula reveals ancient sea levelsDeep in the heart of the Yucatan Peninsula, an ancient mangrove ecosystem flourishes more than 200 kilometers (124 miles) from the nearest ocean. This is unusual because mangroves – salt-tolerant trees, shrubs, and palms – are typically found along tropical and subtropical coastlines. A new study led by researchers across…
    Tags: ecosystem, climate, forest, change, region, future, features
  • Fossil trees on Peru's Central Andean Plateau tell a tale of dramatic environmental change
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    Fossil trees on Peru's Central Andean Plateau tell a tale of dramatic environmental changeOn an expedition to the Central Andean Plateau, researchers from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) and colleagues were astounded to find a huge fossil-tree buried in the cold, grassy plain. The plant fossil record from this high-altitude site in southern Peru contains dramatic reminders that the environment in the…
    Tags: climate, ecosystem, models, trees, region, will, tree, environment, change, forests

Food home delivery companies need up to 8,000 daily services to be profitable in a big city

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Various platforms which offer food home delivery services through courier services, such as riders or other types of distributors, have proliferated very quickly in recent years, especially in big cities.

Due to this boom in last-mile delivery or logistics, UOC experts have studied the operation of the main food home delivery platforms, such as Just Eat, Glovo and Deliveroo, which work in the city of Barcelona, to analyse the profitability of these business models and estimate the number of orders needed to achieve this profitability.

“It’s very difficult for these business models to be profitable by themselves”, said Eduard J. Álvarez Palau, a researcher from the SUMA research group of the UOC’s Faculty of Economics and Business, the main author of this work together with Ángel A. Juan, principal investigator of the ICSO research group of the UOC’s IN3. [Read more…] about Food home delivery companies need up to 8,000 daily services to be profitable in a big city

Population and climate change point to future water shortages

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A new study suggests that reductions in agricultural water use will probably play the biggest role in limiting future water shortages.

Climate change plus population growth are setting the stage for water shortages in parts of the U.S. long before the end of the century, according to a new study in the AGU journal Earth’s Future.

Even efforts to use water more efficiently in municipal and industrial sectors won’t be enough to stave off shortages, say the authors of the new study. The results suggest that reductions in agricultural water use will probably play the biggest role in limiting future water shortages. [Read more…] about Population and climate change point to future water shortages

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  • Self-watering soil could transform farming
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    Self-watering soil could transform farmingA new type of soil created by engineers at The University of Texas at Austin can pull water from the air and distribute it to plants, potentially expanding the map of farmable land around the globe to previously inhospitable places and reducing water use in agriculture at a time of…
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  • Will global warming bring a change in the winds? Dust from the deep sea provides a clue
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    Will global warming bring a change in the winds? Dust from the deep sea provides a clueThe westerlies – or westerly winds – play an important role in weather and climate both locally and on a global scale, by influencing precipitation patterns, impacting ocean circulation and steering tropical cyclones. So, finding a way to assess how they will change as the climate warms is crucial. Typically,…
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  • Snow chaos in Europe caused by melting sea-ice in the Arctic
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    Snow chaos in Europe caused by melting sea-ice in the ArcticThey are diligently stoking thousands of bonfires on the ground close to their crops, but the French winemakers are fighting a losing battle. An above-average warm spell at the end of March has been followed by days of extreme frost, destroying the vines with losses amounting to 90 percent above…
    Tags: climate, study, news, environment
  • How climate change and fires are shaping the forests of the future
    36
    How climate change and fires are shaping the forests of the futureForest fires are already a global threat. "But considering how climate change is progressing, we are probably only at the beginning of a future that will see more and bigger forest fires," explains Rupert Seidl, Professor of Ecosystem Dynamics and Forest Management in Mountain Landscapes at TUM. In many places,…
    Tags: climate, will, future, news
  • Groundwater wells worldwide run risk of running dry
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    Groundwater wells worldwide run risk of running dryAs many as 20% of groundwater wells worldwide are at risk of running dry if groundwater reserves continue to decline according to a new study, which evaluated data from nearly 39 million wells from across the globe. The findings reveal critical vulnerabilities to even modest reductions in groundwater levels, suggesting…
    Tags: water, news, environment

Similarity of legs, wheels, tracks suggests target for energy-efficient robots

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A new formula from Army scientists is leading to new insights on how to build an energy-efficient legged teammate for dismounted warfighters. 

In a recent peer-reviewed PLOS One paper, the US Army Combat Capabilities Development Command, known as DEVCOM, Army Research Laboratory’s Drs Alexander Kott, Sean Gart and Jason Pusey offer new insights on building autonomous military robotic legged platforms to operate as efficiently as any other ground mobile systems.

Its use could lead to potentially important changes to Army vehicle development. Scientists said they may not know exactly why legged, wheeled and tracked systems fit the same curve yet, but they are convinced their findings drive further inquiry. [Read more…] about Similarity of legs, wheels, tracks suggests target for energy-efficient robots

Using waste heat to power an environmentally sustainable future

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In his most recent published research, appearing in Applied Thermal Engineering, City, University of London’s Dr Martin White explores a novel organic Rankine cycle system, based on a two-phase expansion through numerical simulations of the system.

His paper, Cycle and turbine optimisation for an ORC operating with two-phase expansion, considers the use of modern fluids whose properties could help to mitigate concerns around turbine damage, whilst allowing the benefits of two-phase expansion to be realised.

Waste heat from a range of industries, ranging from iron and steel to food and drink, is currently ejected into the environment. Thus, the recovery of this wasted energy could have a significant role in reducing the environmental footprint of the manufacturing sector and help to ensure future manufacturing practices are sustainable. [Read more…] about Using waste heat to power an environmentally sustainable future

Antarctica remains the wild card for sea-level rise estimates through 2100

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A massive collaborative research project covered in the journal Nature this week offers projections to the year 2100 of future sea-level rise from all sources of land ice, offering the most complete projections created to date.

“This work synthesizes improvements over the last decade in climate models, ice sheet and glacier models, and estimates of future greenhouse gas emissions,” said Stephen Price, one of the Los Alamos scientists on the project.

“More than 85 researchers from various disciplines, including our team at Los Alamos National Laboratory, produced sea-level rise projections based on the most recent computer models developed within the scientific community and updated scenarios of future greenhouse gas emissions,” said Price. [Read more…] about Antarctica remains the wild card for sea-level rise estimates through 2100

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    Melting ice sheets over the past 300 years raised sea levels 18 metresIt is well known that climate-induced sea level rise is a major threat. New research has found that previous ice loss events could have caused sea-level rise at rates of around 3.6 metres per century, offering vital clues as to what lies ahead should climate change continue unabated. A team…
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  • Population and climate change point to future water shortages
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    Population and climate change point to future water shortagesA new study suggests that reductions in agricultural water use will probably play the biggest role in limiting future water shortages. Climate change plus population growth are setting the stage for water shortages in parts of the U.S. long before the end of the century, according to a new study…
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Climate change impacts conservation sites across the Americas

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A continental-scale network of conservation sites is likely to remain effective under future climate change scenarios, despite a predicted shift in key species distributions.

New research, led by Durham University and published in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, investigates the impacts of potential climate change scenarios on the network of Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas (IBAs) across the Caribbean, and Central and South America.

The research was carried out in collaboration with Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre, BirdLife International and the National Audubon Society. [Read more…] about Climate change impacts conservation sites across the Americas

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  • African great apes to suffer massive range loss in next 30 years
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    African great apes to suffer massive range loss in next 30 yearsA new study published in the journal Diversity and Distributions predicts massive range declines of Africa's great apes – gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos – due to the impacts of climate change, land-use changes and human population growth. For their analysis, the authors compiled information on African ape occurrence held in the…
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Implications are global in new study predicting human exodus in Bangladesh

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Rising sea levels and more powerful cyclonic storms, phenomena driven by the warming of oceans due to climate change, puts at immediate or potential risk an estimated 680 million people living in low-lying coastal zones (a number projected to reach more than one billion by 2050). In nations like Bangladesh these populations are already moving to escape sea-level rise.

In a new study, “Modeling human migration under environmental change: a case study of the effect of sea level rise in Bangladesh,” researchers led by Maurizio Porfiri, an engineer at the Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP) at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering, apply data science to predict how the cascading effects of the migration in Bangladesh will ultimately affect 1.3 million people across the country by 2050. The work has implications for coastal populations worldwide.

The new study, co-authors of which include first author Pietro De Lellis, an engineer at the University of Naples Federico II, Italy, and Manuel Ruiz Marin, a mathematician at the Technical University of Cartagena, Spain, presents a mathematical model of human migration that considers not just economic factors but also human behavior – whether people are unwilling or unable to leave and if they later return home. [Read more…] about Implications are global in new study predicting human exodus in Bangladesh

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    Fossil trees on Peru's Central Andean Plateau tell a tale of dramatic environmental changeOn an expedition to the Central Andean Plateau, researchers from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) and colleagues were astounded to find a huge fossil-tree buried in the cold, grassy plain. The plant fossil record from this high-altitude site in southern Peru contains dramatic reminders that the environment in the…
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Consumers are willing to pay for ecosystem services

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Many consumers are willing to pay for improved environmental quality and thus non-market values of impacts of food production on, for example, water quality, C sequestration, biodiversity, pollution, erosion or GHG emissions may even be comparable to the market value of agricultural production.

Diverfarming project elucidated how consumers value agro-ecosystem services enabled by diversification and provided consumer perspectives for developing future agricultural and food policies to better support cropping diversification.

The researchers quantified consumers’ willingness to pay for the benefits of increased farm and regional scale diversity of cultivation practices and crop rotations. [Read more…] about Consumers are willing to pay for ecosystem services