Month: December 2015

For all its flaws, Wikipedia is an amazing resource. Despite the vandalism, edit wars, and arguments over what constitutes a point of view, it provides key information about a dizzying variety of topics. Most entries have the basics—who, what, when, where, and why—and a long list of reference if going beyond the basics is required. I've relied on them for a lot of information.

Most, but not all. Disturbingly, all of the worst entries I have ever read have been in the sciences. Wander off the big ideas in the sciences, and you're likely to run into entries that are excessively technical and provide almost no context, making them effectively incomprehensible.

This failure is a minor problem for Wikipedia, as most of the entries people rely on are fine. But I'd argue that it's a significant problem for science. The problematic entries reinforce the popular impression that science is impossible to understand, and isn't for most people—they make science seem elitist. And that's an impression that we as a society really can't afford.

(credit: Sgt. Sarah Dietz, U.S. Marine Corps)

The kickable "robotic mule", also known as AlphaDog or LS3, created by Alphabet-owned Boston Dynamics under a contract with DARPA, has proved too loud to fight alongside the US Marines. Following an extended test period during the "Rim of the Pacific" military exercise last year, the project has been suspended.

The Legged Squad Support System (LS3) was created to carry heavy equipment for the Marines during marches, bearing a load of up to 400 pounds (180kg). This would've provided much-needed relief for the fighters: the average soldier is supposed to carry no more than 72 pounds (32kg) when marching and 48 pounds (22kg) when fighting, but paratroopers fighting in Iraq in 2003 carried up to 101 pounds (46kg). In total, about $42 million (£28 million) was awarded to Boston Dynamics to develop the robodog.

Unfortunately for those over-laden soldiers, however, the military exercise clearly showed that LS3 in its current state is not suitable for real-life use by the US Marine Corps, Military.com reports.

(credit: 东方)

China has passed new anti-terrorism legislation that requires telecoms and Internet companies to provide "technical interfaces, decryption and other technical support assistance to public security organs and state security organs conducting prevention and investigation of terrorist activities in accordance with law" (Article 18). Chinese authorities must be able to carry out surveillance on all services, including encrypted communications. However, there is no explicit requirement to add backdoors to systems, as was proposed in an earlier draft version of the law published in January 2015.

Article 19 of the new law spells out the requirements in more detail: "Telecommunications operators and internet service providers shall, according to provisions of law and administrative regulations, put into practice network security systems and information content monitoring systems, technical prevention and safety measures, to avoid the dissemination of information with terrorist or extremist content."

In addition, where "information with terrorist or extremist content" is discovered, its dissemination must be halted, websites closed, records saved, and a report made to "public security organs." This also applies to information held outside China: "Departments for network communications shall adopt technical measures to interrupt transmission of information with terrorist or extremist content that crosses borders online."

The Audi e-tron quattro concept paves the way for a forthcoming battery electric vehicle from the German marque. (credit: Jonathan Gitlin)

It's rumored that Audi will use next month's Detroit auto show to unveil a sister car to the e-tron quattro that we saw up close in Los Angeles last month. Dubbed the Q6 h-tron by Autocar, the new alternative fuel SUV will use a hydrogen fuel cell. Audi has registered h-tron as a trademark and some journalists have sampled an A7 h-tron. Whether or not the fuel cell rumors pan out for Detroit remains to be seen. But what is certain is that electrification is going to be a significant theme for Audi in the coming years, as we found out recently when we sat down with Filip Brabec, director of product management for Audi of America, and Siegfried Pint, head of Audi's electric vehicle powertrain development.

Although it's tempting to see Audi's push towards electrification as a response to the diesel emissions scandal plaguing it and Volkswagen Group stablemates, it's actually been in the works for quite a long time, Brabec told Ars. And it goes beyond just developing EVs—it requires an investment in infrastructure, something that Tesla and its network of superchargers has made quite evident. Brabec was bullish about the his company's progress here: "fewer than 10 [Audi] dealers across the United States have signed up to the E-ready program" of installing EV chargers, he said.

The next step will be to offer customers a compelling product, Brabec said. "We wanted to go into a volume segment, and develop a car with mainstream appeal. An SUV is the right place, and the C-segment [for mid-size SUVs] is the right place. We're not looking to sell five cars in an obscure state. What we want is a car that's marketable, that's desirable, that people want to buy," he told us. What's more, don't expect radically styled EVs that look nothing like conventional cars. "Developing an EV isn't the easiest or cheapest, so you want mainstream appeal," he said, possibly signaling an end to the "Prius effect."

Red areas show regions where the need for fertilization is the highest, but number of wild bees is lowest. (credit: University of Vermont)

In the first-ever study that uses data modeling to track the populations of wild bees in the US, scientists have uncovered a disturbing trend. Bee populations are dropping in the regions of the country that need them most.

Dozens of staple foods depend on bees for pollination, including almonds, apples, berries, potatoes, onions, and broccoli. Because of declining bee populations in the past decade, farmers have come to depend more on domestic honey bees to keep their crops thriving. But as University of Vermont environmental planner Inso Koh and his colleagues point out in a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, wild bees are also crucial, accounting for at least 20 percent of bee pollination.

These wild bees also require large areas of grassland for their habitats. And those habitats are vanishing, as more farmers turn grassland into agricultural ecosystems devoted to corn, soy, and other crops that aren't dependent on bees as pollinators.