The first study of a twin in space looks like good news for a trip to Mars https://web.archive.org/web/20200629014157if_/https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/04/11/136104/the-first-study-of-a-twin-in-space-looks-like-good-news-for-a-trip-to-mars/ Many labs can run thousands more tests a day . Containing the virus and reopening the economy both depend on figuring out how to use that capacity. Astronomers from Caltech have reported that they’ve observed a collision between two black holes. Normally such an event is invisible, but this time a more massive black hole sitting nearby helped illuminate the other two as they collided. If confirmed, the findings, published in Physical Review Letters, would be the first optical observations ever made… Astronomers from Caltech have reported that they’ve observed a collision between two black holes. Normally such an event is invisible, but this time a more massive black hole sitting nearby helped illuminate the other two as they collided. If confirmed, the findings, published in Physical Review Letters, would be the first optical observations ever made of a black hole merger. What happened: First detected in May 2019 and dubbed S190521g, the merger happened about 4 billion light-years away, within the vicinity of a supermassive black hole called J1249+3449. This object is 100 million times more massive than the sun, with a diameter roughly the size of Earth’s orbit around the sun. The two smaller black holes, each one about 150 times more massive than the sun, stumbled into the supermassive’s accretion disk: a swirl of stars, gas, and dust that is slowly being sucked toward its event horizon, beyond which not even light can escape. When the two smaller black holes collided, the force sent the merged object hurtling out of the accretion disk at about 700,000 kilometers per hour, the researchers calculate. As it sped into space, the merged black hole lit up the surrounding gas in the disk, producing light that was a trillion times brighter than the sun. How astronomers linked the merger with the supermassive black hole: S190521g, like many other black hole mergers, produced ripples in space-time that were detected on Earth by LIGO, a gravitational wave observatory. When those observations came in, an automated alert was sent out to the world’s telescopes to see if they could optically observe any events in the night sky that might coincide with the merger. About 34 days later, the Zwicky Transient Facility in California spotted the light produced by the merger event, and scientists followed a fiery trail back to J124942.3+344929. The implications: Black holes are not supposed to be visible, but these new findings suggest we can actually visualize these objects by observing the surrounding matter they light up. It’s not all that different from how the Event Horizon Telescope snapped the now-famous image of a supermassive black hole, which was released last year. That image is not exactly the black hole itself, but rather the glowing gas and dust bordering its event horizon. Establishing a way to closely observe black hole mergers in accretion disks might allow us to answer questions about how matter interacts with these objects, and whether a merger can be predicted before it happens. The Caltech team believes it’s possible these black holes were the result of a long chain of previous mergers—and S190521g was simply the latest. What’s next: The findings still have to be confirmed. Astronomers will be doing a more detailed analysis of S190521g to see if the merger and the flare associated with J124942.3+344929 really are connected. The president’s executive order to temporarily suspend H-1B visas exacerbates the US’s precarious position in the global competition for AI talent. There's a deluge of apps that detect your covid-19 exposure, often with little transparency. Our Covid Tracing Tracker project will document them. The news: US Democratic lawmakers have introduced a bill that would ban the use of facial recognition technology by federal law enforcement agencies. Specifically, it would make it illegal for any federal agency or official to “acquire, possess, access, or use” biometric surveillance technology in the US. It would also require state and local law… The news: US Democratic lawmakers have introduced a bill that would ban the use of facial recognition technology by federal law enforcement agencies. Specifically, it would make it illegal for any federal agency or official to “acquire, possess, access, or use” biometric surveillance technology in the US. It would also require state and local law enforcement to bring in similar bans in order to receive federal funding. The Facial Recognition and Biometric Technology Moratorium Act was introduced by Senators Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Representatives Pramila Jayapal of Washington and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts. Seize the moment: The proposed law has arrived at a point when the police use of facial recognition technology is coming under increased scrutiny amid protests after the killing of George Floyd in late May. Studies have repeatedly shown that the technology is less accurate for Black people, and earlier this week the New York Times reported that an innocent Black man in Michigan was arrested after being misidentified by facial recognition software. “Facial recognition technology doesn’t just pose a grave threat to our privacy; it physically endangers Black Americans and other minority populations in our country,” Markey said in a statement. Activism works: The move to restrict the use of facial recognition technology is partly thanks to pressure from technology companies themselves, admittedly after being lobbied by activists for years. Two weeks ago, Amazon announced it would place a one-year moratorium on police use of its facial recognition system, Rekognition, after IBM decided to discontinue its general-purpose face recognition system. The next day, Microsoft announced that it would stop selling its system to police departments until federal law regulates the technology. Now it’s over to the legislators, if they can muster enough support to pass it. It would take years for humans to scour the tens of thousands of hours of footage that document violations in Yemen. With machine learning, it takes just days. Smaller devices, more data, and connected health care is leading to better outcomes for patients says Medtronic’s Laura Mauri. Ethics for urgency means making ethics a core part of AI rather than an afterthought, says Jess Whittlestone.