Seven years ago two Google engineers concluded, after four years of study that “Renewable energy technologies simply won’t work; we need a fundamentally different approach.” (The authors proposed a R&D portfolio pursuing “disruptive” solutions in hydro, wind, solar photovoltaics, and nuclear power, with one Slashdot reader asking “is nuclear going to be acknowledged as the future of energy production?”)

But the two engineers — still at Google — recently announced “we’re happy to say that we got a few things wrong. In particular, renewable energy systems have come down in price faster than we expected, and adoption has surged beyond the predictions we cited in 2014.”

One of them told IEEE Spectrum “It’s stunning how rapidly things have been moving since the first article was published,”

Experts now have a better understanding of how a variety of technologies could be combined to prevent catastrophic climate change, the coauthors say. Many renewable-energy systems, for example, are already mature and just need to be scaled up. Some innovations need significant development, including new processes to produce steel and concrete, and geoengineering techniques to sequester carbon and temporarily reduce solar radiation. The one commonality among all these promising technologies, they conclude, is that engineers can make a difference on a planetary scale…

Concerned about the pessimistic tone of most climate coverage, the authors argue that wise policies, market pressure, and human creativity can get the job done. “When you put the right incentives in place, you capture the ingenuity of the masses,” says Fork. “All of us are smarter than any of us.”

The Google engineers acknowledge we’ve already seen a plunge in battery prices to lows not predicted until 2050. (Along with cheap natural gas prices, this cut America’s coal consumption in half, lowering emissions.) And fossil fuel consumption has been reduced thanks to cheaper electric heat pumps and electric cars. Other suggestions from their article include:
Cleaner air travel (including clean hydrogen-powered planes) New forms of nuclear power Climate policy (including carbon pricing strategies like carbon taxes)
“So, engineers, let’s get to work.”

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Source: Slashdot – 7 Years Later, Google Engineers Revise Their Pessimistic Predictions on Climate Change

Slashdot reader fahrbot-bot shared some fascinating photos and a report from Live Science.

“This rarely seen glass octopus bared all recently — even a view of its innards — when an underwater robot filmed it gracefully soaring through the deep waters of the Central Pacific Ocean.”

Like other “glass” creatures, such as glass frogs and certain comb jellies, glass octopuses are almost completely transparent, with only their cylindrical eyes, optic nerve and digestive tract appearing opaque. The expedition crew reported two encounters with the glass octopus — an impressive count given that previously there was such limited footage of these clear cephalopods, scientists had to learn about them by studying chunks of them in the gut contents of their predators…

During the expedition, which ended July 8, a crew of marine scientists discovered a handful of what are likely newfound marine animals on nine previously unexplored submarine mountains known as seamounts. The team also completed high-resolution seafloor mapping of more than 11,500 square miles (30,000 square km) around the archipelago and video recordings of five additional seamounts filmed by the underwater robot SuBastian, according to a statement. SuBastian also snagged footage of a whale shark (the largest living fish in the world) and a long-legged crab stealing a fish from another crab.

The expedition sent SuBastian on 21 dives, enabling the robot to record more than 182 hours on the seafloor.

The expedition was run by the Schmidt Ocean Institute, a nonprofit operating foundation co-founded by Wendy and Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google.

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Source: Slashdot – Elusive Glass Octopus Spotted In the Remote Pacific Ocean

Slashdot reader Beeftopia writes: Rust has two modes: its default, safe mode, and an unsafe mode. In its default, safe mode, Rust prevents memory errors, such as “use-after-free” errors. It also prevents “data races” which is unsynchronized access to shared memory. In its unsafe mode (via use of the “unsafe” block), in which some of its APIs are written, it allows the use of potentially unsafe C-style features. The key challenge in verifying Rust’s safety claims is accounting for the interaction between its safe and unsafe code. This article from April’s issue of Communications of the ACM provides an overview of Rust and investigates its safety claims.

The article is co-authored by Ralf Jung, a prominent postdoctoral researcher in the ‘Foundations of Programming’ research group at the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems. And (spoiler alert) Jung has just received one of two ‘Honorable Mentions’ for the ‘Dissertation Award’ of the ‘Association for Computing Machinery’ (ACM), reports a nonprofit site operated by the American Association for the Advancement of Science:

In his dissertation, Ralf Jung now provides the first formal proof that the safety promises of Rust actually hold. “We were able to verify the safety of Rust’s type system and thus show how Rust automatically and reliably prevents entire classes of programming errors,” says Ralf Jung.

In doing so, he also successfully addressed a special aspect of the programming language: “The so-called ‘type safety’ goes hand in hand with the fact that Rust imposes restrictions on the programmer and does not allow everything that the programmer wants to do. Sometimes, however, it is necessary to write an operation into the code that Rust would not accept because of its type safety,” the computer scientist continues. “This is where a special feature of Rust comes into play: programmers can mark their code as ‘unsafe’ if they want to achieve something that contradicts the programming language’s safety precautions. Together with international collaborators, including my thesis advisor Derek Dreyer, we developed a theoretical framework that allows us to prove that Rust’s safety claims hold despite the possibility of writing ‘unsafe’ code,” Jung says.

This proof, called RustBelt, is complemented by Ralf Jung with a tool called Miri, with which ‘unsafe’ Rust code can be automatically tested for compliance with important rules of the Rust specification – a basic requirement for correctness and safety of this code. “While RustBelt was a great success, especially in academic circles, Miri is already established in industry as a tool for security testing of programs written in Rust,” explains Ralf Jung….
The ACM states: “Through Jung’s leadership and active engagement with the Rust Unsafe Code Guidelines working group, his work has already had profound impact on the design of Rust and laid essential foundations for its future.”

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Source: Slashdot – New Study Verifies Safety of Rust

America detonated the world’s first nuclear device in Alamogordo, New Mexico on July 16, 1945.

On its 76th anniversary, U.S. president Biden issued a proclamation:

Many brave men and women have risked their lives in service to our Nation, but few know the story of our “Atomic Veterans” — American military service members who participated in nuclear tests between 1945 and 1962, served with United States military forces in or around Hiroshima and Nagasaki through mid-1946, or were held as prisoners of war in or near Hiroshima or Nagasaki. These veterans served at testing sites like the Bikini Atoll and witnessed the destructive power of nuclear weapons firsthand.

On National Atomic Veterans Day, we recognize and honor the contributions of America’s Atomic Veterans for their sacrifice and dedication to our Nation’s security, and recommit to supporting our Atomic Veterans and educating ourselves on the role these patriots played in our national story.

Atomic Veterans served our Nation with distinction, but their service came at a great cost. Many developed health conditions due to radiation exposure, yet because they were not able to discuss the nature of their service, they were unable to seek medical care or disability compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs for their illnesses. Decades later in 1996, the United States Congress repealed the Nuclear Radiation and Secrecy Agreements Act, allowing Atomic Veterans to tell their stories and file for benefits. By then, thousands of Atomic Veterans had died without their families knowing the true extent of their service.

Our Nation has one truly sacred obligation: to properly prepare and equip our troops when we send them into harm’s way, and to care for them and their families when they return from service. As Commander in Chief, I am committed to fulfilling our obligation to the Atomic Veterans and their families, and ensuring that all of our Nation’s veterans have timely access to needed services, medical care, and benefits. On this National Atomic Veterans Day, our country remembers the service and sacrifices of Atomic Veterans. Their heroism and patriotism will never be forgotten and we always honor their bravery and devotion to duty.

July 16, 2021 was named “National Atomic Veterans Day.”
The proclamation ended with a call on all Americans “to observe this day with appropriate ceremonies and activities that honor our Nation’s Atomic Veterans whose brave service and sacrifice played an important role in the defense of our Nation.”

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Source: Slashdot – America Honors Its Atomic Veterans