Weird & Interesting science, take 2

[nocarename]

We missed noticing this back in September; it's being discussed in at least one end-of-year news retrospective.

Syrian Civil War Prompts First Withdrawal From Doomsday Seed Vault In The Arctic

End of which year Rob? That appears to date from 2015 rather than 2024.

[robkelk]

We missed noticing this back in September; it's being discussed in at least one end-of-year news retrospective.

Syrian Civil War Prompts First Withdrawal From Doomsday Seed Vault In The Arctic

End of which year Rob? That appears to date from 2015 rather than 2024.

Whichever year. We still missed it.

[robkelk]

Japanese wooden satellite launched to the ISS

The satellite was launched to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard a SpaceX cargo flight on November 5. Following its arrival at the ISS, it will be deployed from the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM), aka Kibō, a month later.

So, in space but not deployed yet.

It's been deployed.

[Bob Schroeck]

Japanese wooden satellite launched to the ISS

The satellite was launched to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard a SpaceX cargo flight on November 5. Following its arrival at the ISS, it will be deployed from the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM), aka Kibō, a month later.

So, in space but not deployed yet.

It's been deployed.

In its wake, Juraian shipyards are eagerly awaiting a flood of new contracts...

[classicdrogn]

An Engineering Fairy Tale: Cascade Failure at the Super Kamiokande

[robkelk]

This is believed to be the first time a meteorite strike has been recorded* with both video and audio, and it's known to be the first meteorite found and classified on Prince Edward Island. The video is followed by an interview with the meteorite collection curator at the University of Alberta (who was on vacation in PEI at the time).

* "Recorded", not "seen" - there's a low wall in the way.

[robkelk]

I expect that everybody heard about the new open-source  LLM AI that made the news yesterday.

Maybe they should have called it DeepFake, or DeepState, or better still Deep Selloff. Or maybe the other obvious deep thing that the indigenous AI vendors in the United States are standing up to their knees in right now.
-- Timothy Prickett Morgan, January 27, 2025

A few articles on The Register go into some depth about it:

• China's DeepSeek just dropped a free challenger to OpenAI's o1 – here's how to use it on your PC
  
• How Did DeepSeek Train Its AI Model On A Lot Less – And Crippled – Hardware?
  
• DeepSeek isn't done yet with OpenAI – image-maker Janus Pro is gunning for DALL-E 3
  
• DeepSeek's R1 curiously tells El Reg reader: 'My guidelines are set by OpenAI'