canopic jug writes:Works from 1925 are now open to all! The Center for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke Law School's blog covers the famous works which rise to the public domain on January 1, 2021.
[2021-01-01 20:46:45 UTC; updated with estimated totals for the second half of the year 2020 and for the entire year.]martyb writes:Happy New Year!The end of the year 2020 is fast upon us. There are many, I'm sure, who will be glad to see it go. And for good reason, too.I am inviting the editorial team to take a long holiday weekend; we will have reduced story coverage Friday through Sunday.There's no need to go into a recap of the world's events over this past year — plenty of other sites will do that and I see no need to waste people's time.Here's a milestone that happened a couple weeks ago that escaped my notice at the time: SoylentNews has been here, for the community, for over 2,500 days! It's amazing what can happen when people pull together in a common effort!Finances:
takyon writes:Can AI Lead to Pregnancy? Sometimes yes, if a couple struggling to conceive turn to machine learning to pick the right embryo for implantation
upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Bytram:General anesthesia and normal sleep affect brain in an amazingly similar way as consciousness fades:
upstart writes in with an IRC submission:Discovery boosts theory that life on Earth arose from RNA-DNA mix: Newly described chemical reaction could have assembled DNA building blocks before life forms and their enzymes existed.:
McGruber writes:Edmund M. Clarke, the FORE Systems Professor of Computer Science Emeritus at Carnegie Mellon University, has died of Covid-19.Obituary: Edmund M. Clarke, CMU professor who won computer science's Nobel Prize equivalent:
cafebabe writes:Last week, I compared Tesla design to Apple. Since then, it has become widely known that Elon Musk tried to sell Tesla to Apple in 2013. This has created considerable interest in Apple's autonomous vehicle project and Apple's progress with lithium batteries. However, it has not created considerable interest in Jony Ive's possible work for Ferrari nor in the progress of power transistors. I wrote about gallium LEDs and transistors in Dec 2017 and, specifically, GaNFET (Gallium Nitride Field Effect Transistor). I thought that it would be a good idea to check progress. Well, holy cr*p.On Mon 9 Nov 2020, a Texas Instruments press release announced power transistors which can switch 4kW (more than 600V, more than 6A) at 2.2MHz and, due to the 30mΩ resistance, do this with 99% efficiency. Indeed, cables may warm more than the 12mm×12mm transistors which require, at most, 40W heatsink. My calculations may be wrong but a homebrew, all wheel drive, six wheel vehicle, with 16 phase electric motors and these 4kW GaNFETs, can do a standing start quarter mile (400m) in less than 10 seconds. By 1980s standards, this is supercar performance. And from 2021 Q1, it is now possible to make this at home or a local makerspace.Read more of this story at SoylentNews.
upstart writes in with an IRC submission:With an article that covers "From Cancer to Cloud" and beyond, Techrepublic asks: What is Microsoft Doing With Linux? Everything You Need to Know About its Plans for Open Source