LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 13, 2023--

Baidu Inc. is positioned to be the best proxy to own as artificial intelligence tools help China shift

Adin Ross recently invested millions of dollars to completely furnish his warehouse, creating quite a buzz

Scientists think they could have found the cause of a series of “slow-motion” earthquakes that have shaken New Zealand in recent years – a hidden ocean which sits two miles beneath the sea floor. The water was revealed as part of a giant volcanic area formed about 125 million years ago, when an eruption forced a plume of lava bigger than the US to the surface of the Earth. Researchers found the region by towing 3D seismic sensors behind a boat to build up an image of the ancient volcanic area. There, they found thick, layered sediments around long-buried volcanoes which contained much more water than expected. Andrew Gase, from the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics, who carried out the research, said: “Normal ocean crust, once it gets to be about seven or 10 million years old should contain much less water.” The ocean crust scanned by researchers was 10 times as old as this – but water made up nearly half its volume. The tectonic fault line which runs through New Zealand is known for producing slow-motion earthquakes, also known as slow slip events. During one of these, the energy from an earthquake gets released over days or months, often causing little or no harm to people. Scientists don’t know why they happen more at some faults than at others, but they are thought to be linked to buried water. Finding this new area of water at the fault line which creates so many slip events could provide an explanation. Gase said: “We can't yet see deep enough to know exactly the effect on the fault, but we can see that the amount of water that's going down here is actually much higher than normal.” If researchers can work out how the water reserves affect slip events – possibly by dampening them – they could, in turn, understand normal earthquakes better. Scientists also think underground water pressure could play a key part in creating conditions that release tectonic stress via slow slip earthquakes. As a result, Gase said scientists should drill even deeper to find out where the water ends up. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

A tablet that's as powerful as a conventional laptop but still slim and light enough

Mixer was a Microsoft-owned streaming service that was shut down in 2020, following which Ninja moved to Twitch and he now streams on Kick

US corn farmers and biofuel producers are poised to gain from turning ethanol into sustainable jet fuel —

Batteries in older Nissan Leaf electric vehicles are getting a new life as portable power sources that can be used to run gadgets on the go or deliver emergency power in disasters

COPENHAGEN/OSLO A volcanic eruption in Iceland close to the capital Reykjavik is slowing and gas pollution is easing,

The S&P Semiconductors Select Industry Index has topped both price-wise and on a relative basis. That bodes poorly for the sector.

When he’s not making radical, controversial changes to Twitter/X, Elon Musk is eyeing up plans to colonise Mars in the coming years with his company SpaceX – and now a team of researchers at the Virginia-based George Mason University claims it has found out the minimum number of people needed to successfully takeover the red planet. In the study – the results of which were published to the research platform Arxiv in August - the academics established a model to find out the ‘initial population size’ required on Mars to produce a “stable colony size”. They ran the model five times for 28 Earth years, and increased the population by 10 people each time - from 10 to 170 individuals. “Given that there are four critical tasks that are needed continuously (air, water, food production and waste removal) in addition to handling disasters, and two skills needed for each task, we chose a population size of 10 as the minimum needed for a ‘stable’ colony size. “The population is allowed to dip below 10 as long as it bounces back within 1.5 years, or the amount of time between Earth resupply shuttles.” The test found all initial population sizes over 50 were able to sustain a population of at least 10 people across the time period, and that the bare minimum number to meet that criteria is at least 22 people. There you go, Elon. You’re welcome. It’s certainly a decrease in the minimum number previously suspected by French researcher Jean-Marc Salotti in June 2020 – that was the rather astronomical figure (sorry) of at least 110 people. And the Virginia researchers didn’t stop there, either, as they also took a look at the personality types best placed to handle the highly stressful environment that is living on a completely different planet. There’s four: “agreeables”: low competitiveness and aggressiveness, and not fixated on “stringent routine “socials”: medium competitiveness, extroverted, require social interaction but not fixated on stringent routines “reactives”: medium competitiveness and fixed on stringent routines “neurotics”: high competitiveness, highly aggressive and a “challenged ability to adapt to boredom or a change in routine” Perhaps unsurprisingly, the “agreeables” came out on top. The researchers added: “In all runs, the Agreeable personality type was the only one to survive the full duration of model runs. This is likely because it has the highest coping capability.” Their results found that while the “neurotic” was “most likely to fail”, and both “reactives” and “socials” fluctuated, the “agreeables” was the “most resilient”. “While this model assigns equal numbers of each personality type, future work could try adjusting the proportion of each to possibly lead to a lower required minimum initial population. For example, a crew of all Agreeable personalities may be more successful,” they suggest. Musk, meanwhile, said earlier this year that he was optimistic humans landing on Mars was "possible" in the next five years, and "highly likely" in a decade. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Sister Sledge was right, we are family. It's well-known that all humans share a common ancestor but according to researchers almost all Europeans can trace that back to one guy. That guy is Charlemagne, the first Holy Roman Emperor. In 2013, scientists Peter Ralph and Graham Cooper published a study indicating that all Europeans are descendants from the same people, mainly from the ninth century. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Charlemagne, who lived during the 800s allegedly produced eighteen children with seven different women. By number standards, this means that people of European decent are most likely related to Charlemagne in some way. Celebrities like Bill Hader and Brooke Shields have revealed that they share the common ancestor. Even Sir Christopher Lee is a descendant of the Holy Roman Emperor. And if you're European, you probably are too. According to Scientific American, "because Charlemagne lived before the isopoint and has living descendants, everyone with European ancestry is directly descended from him." Some Europeans who take a DNA tests can see even their lineage directly traced back to the common ancestor. But before you jump at the chance to see for yourself, more than likely it won't pop up- even if you are a descendant of the Roman Emperor. This is because bloodlines have been diluted and not all genes are passed on from parent to child. So while you may be vaguely related to Charlemagne, you may not carry any of the same genes. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.