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01 / 05
Scientists Photograph Never-Before-Seen Deep Sea Species

PetaPixel | Scientific Research

Scientists Photograph Never-Before-Seen Deep Sea Species

“Scientists used an underwater robot capable of reaching depths of 14,763 feet. Using the underwater robot, the scientists were able to map a total of 20,377 square miles of the seafloor.

This not only resulted in the discovery of over 100 new species, but also four new seamounts — each with its own distinct ecosystem.”

From PetaPixel.

IEEE Spectrum | Science & Technology

Contract Bots Could Soon Be On Both Sides of Negotiations

“Walmart and Maersk are using AI agents to maintain and negotiate deal terms with so-called tail-end vendors, the many small suppliers whose low-value transactions nevertheless make up the bulk of a company’s contracts. Any large firm, especially one with expansive supply-chain and logistical needs, manages thousands of these kinds of relationships. As outlined in Procurement in the Age of Automation by the supply chain management experts Remko Van Hoek and Mary Lacity at the University of Arkansas, an AI bot can run 2,000 negotiations at the same time, all day and night, while allowing vendors time for bid preparation and counteroffers.

Say, for instance, a big-box retailer wants to replace outdoor furniture in front of its store parking lots. It puts out a call for bids and gets some offers. The Pactum AI system can use its large language models to analyze this requisition—and all previous requisitions of this type.

The language models aren’t generating new negotiation clauses here. Rather they are assembling information and identifying vendors. Data can be brought in from internal or external sources on factors like relationship strength and current market pricing, all using client-set parameters. A chatbot then sends a note to bidders with offered terms: maybe three varying options. Any acceptable? The vendor says yes or no. Next there’s either more negotiation, or, if terms are agreed within a target spectrum, the purchasing flow proceeds.”

From IEEE Spectrum.

National Bureau of Economic Research | Labor Productivity

Robots and Labor in Nursing Homes

“How do employment, tasks, and productivity change with robot adoption? Unlike manufacturing, little is known about these issues in the service sector, where robot adoption is expanding. As a first step towards filling this gap, we study Japanese nursing homes using original facility-level panel data that includes the different robots used and the tasks performed. We find that robot adoption is accompanied by an increase in employment and retention and the relationship is strongest for non-regular care workers and monitoring robots. The share of specific tasks performed by robots increases with the adoption of the respective type of robot, leading to reallocation of care worker effort to ‘human touch’ tasks that support quality care. Robots are associated with improved quality (reduction in restraint use and pressure ulcers) and productivity.”

From National Bureau of Economic Research.

Grey Goose Chronicles | Scientific Research

LIDAR Uncovers A New Mayan Lost City

“The use of LIDAR (laser imaging, detection, and ranging) in archaeology has been a complete game-changer for previously hard to access areas, including mountain ranges, deserts and rainforests. Previous LIDAR studies in the Amazon shocked archaeologists with the scope and scale of former human settlements, confirming conquistador stories of teeming cities on the banks of the river.

In yet another impressive study, aerial images over the Mexican region of Campeche have stunned the world with clear pictures of large-scale settlements, buildings and maybe even pyramids, all lost to time.”

From Grey Goose Chronicles.

Ars Technica | Space

The Next Starship Launch May Occur in Less than Two Weeks

“Less than a month has passed since the historic fifth flight of SpaceX’s Starship, during which the company caught the booster with mechanical arms back at the launch pad in Texas. Now, another test flight could come as soon as Nov. 18, the company announced Wednesday.

The improbable but successful recovery of the Starship first stage with ‘chopsticks’ last month, and the on-target splashdown of the Starship upper stage halfway around the world, allowed SpaceX to avoid an anomaly investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration. Thus, the company was able to press ahead on a sixth test flight if it flew a similar profile.

And that’s what SpaceX plans to do, albeit with some notable additions to the flight plan…

The Starship upper stage will also fly the same suborbital trajectory it successfully followed in October, however it will incorporate an in-flight relight of one of the rocket’s six engines. As Ars explained in a feature last week, this is the next milestone on the development path for Starship and is critical to allowing orbital missions of Starship to make a controlled reentry into Earth’s atmosphere.

Successfully demonstrating the capacity to re-relight Raptors in space enables SpaceX to begin flying commercial missions with Starship and likely opens the way for Starlink launches, possibly as early as the first half of next year. These larger Starlink satellites can only fit within Starship’s capacious payload and will provide direct-to-cell Internet capability.”

From Ars Technica.