In The News

Khaleej Times: UAE Tows Icebergs From Antarctica

Emirates News Agency July 16, 2018
The United Arab Emirates has launched a website to showcase a project that entails towing icebergs from Antarctica to the coasts of UAE. The hope is to use icebergs as new sources of water for the arid region and attract positive press coverage. Researchers aim to collaborate to conduct water research and create technology that will minimize ice melting during transport and reduce costs. “A...

CNN: All 12 Boys, Coach Freed in Thai Cave Rescue

Euan McKirdy, Kocha Olarn and Steve George July 10, 2018
Divers escorted the last members of the Wild Boars soccer team from a cave today – in a complex three-day mission that required racing the clock against rains flooding the cave and oxygen depletion. Each phase of the mission took at least nine hours from divers’ entry to exit. The 12 boys and their young coach had been underground for more than two weeks, trapped by floodwaters. An international...

Wired: Blockchain Follows Tuna From Fiji to Brooklyn

Louise Matsakis May 22, 2018
Blockchain technology provides tools who want to understand how their food or other products are sourced. Writing for Wired, Louise Matsakis describes tracking a yellowfin tuna from its catch in Fiji to the landing dock, processing facility and transport on to Brooklyn – with Ethereum blockchain by startup Viant. “A plethora of startups—as well as major companies like IBM and Walmart – are...

New York Times: Improve a Billion Lives With Eyeglasses

Andrew Jacobs May 10, 2018
HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other deadly diseases are at the forefront of global health crises. This had allowed certain widespread health issues to be overlooked. Poor vision and lack of access to eyeglasses, while not necessarily fatal, afflicts more than a billion people worldwide. Eye exams and eyeglasses can be very expensive, while the resources allotted to improving vision care in...

Financial Times: AI Arms Race

Louise Lucas and Richard Waters May 1, 2018
With algorithms increasingly controlling large systems, China and the United States compete to lead in big-data advances expected to contribute to prowess in technology, finance and national security. Leaders in the industry have access to advanced algorithms, specialized computing hardware and streams of reliable data. Startups in both nations develop technologies around facial recognition,...

Japan Times: Tourism Takes Its Toll on Coral

Jessica Kozuka April 24, 2018
Coral growth is a delicate process, depending on marine microeukarvotes living inside the marine networks. Coral dies without the photosynthetic organisms. The UN Environment Program recommends a dive site be limited to 6,000 visitors per year to remain healthy. Concerned that Japan’s coral reefs receives little monitoring, a marine scientist at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology...

ScienceDaily: Agricultural Production vs. Biodiversity

April 9, 2018
Increased land use by the agriculture industry reduces wildlife and biodiversity. A team of German researchers based at Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research relied on global datasets quantifying the needs of major crops with geographical distribution of animals and their other requirements, and “found that 88 percent of the biodiversity that is expected to be lost under future agricultural...