Computer Science: Virtual Reality (VR)
Published

Virtual reality experiences to aid substance use disorder recovery      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Researchers are combining psychological principles with innovative virtual reality technology to create a new immersive therapy for people with substance use disorders.

Geoscience: Earthquakes Geoscience: Landslides
Published

Seismic sensing reveals flood damage potential      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Rapidly evolving floods are a major and growing hazard worldwide. Currently, their onset and evolution is hard to identify using existing systems. However, seismic sensors already in place to detect earthquakes could be a solution to this problem. Researchers show that a seismometer can sense a flood, such as the devastating one that hit Germany in July 2021, up to 1.5 km away. This could act as an early warning to save lives and lessen damage. They also found that being able to measure the 'seismic footprint' of the flood provides information on its magnitude, velocity and trajectory in real time, which could be used for future flood protection.

Computer Science: Virtual Reality (VR)
Published

Smelling in VR environment possible with new gaming technology      (via sciencedaily.com) 

An odor machine, so-called olfactometer, makes it possible to smell in VR environments. First up is a 'wine tasting game' where the user smells wine in a virtual wine cellar and gets points if the guess on aromas in each wine is correct. The new technology can be printed on 3D printers.

Geoscience: Earthquakes Geoscience: Landslides
Published

Report shows tectonics to be main driver of hillslope 'connectivity'      (via sciencedaily.com) 

A new large-scale analysis of hillslope connectivity at the continental scale was recently published. The study gives new understanding of mechanisms that determine how effectively hillslopes drive floods and landslides, as well as promote the presence of wetlands.

Geoscience: Earthquakes
Published

AI predicts physics of future fault-slip in laboratory earthquakes      (via sciencedaily.com) 

An artificial-intelligence approach borrowed from natural-language processing -- much like language translation and autofill for text on your smart phone -- can predict future fault friction and the next failure time with high resolution in laboratory earthquakes. The technique, applying AI to the fault's acoustic signals, advances previous work and goes beyond by predicting aspects of the future state of the fault's physical system.

Geoscience: Earthquakes
Published

Impact that killed the dinosaurs triggered 'mega-earthquake' that lasted weeks to months      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Some 66 million years ago, a 10-kilometer asteroid hit Earth, triggering the extinction of the dinosaurs. New evidence suggests that the Chicxulub impact also triggered an earthquake so massive that it shook the planet for weeks to months after the collision. The amount of energy released in this 'mega-earthquake' is estimated at 10 to the exponent 23 joules, which is about 50,000 times more energy than was released in the magnitude 9.1 Sumatra earthquake in 2004.

Computer Science: Virtual Reality (VR)
Published

Video games offer the potential of 'experiential medicine'      (via sciencedaily.com) 

After a decade of work, scientists have developed a suite of video game interventions that improve key aspects of cognition in aging adults.

Geoscience: Earthquakes
Published

Edge waves, continental shelf fueled the 2021 Acapulco Bay tsunami      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Trapped inside the shoreline of a bay, the resonant interactions of a tsunami with regular waves can prolong the tsunami disturbance. For the 2021 magnitude 7 Acapulco, Mexico earthquake and tsunami, edge waves in the bay and the short continental shelf also had a surprisingly significant effect on the tsunami's duration, according to a new study.

Computer Science: Virtual Reality (VR)
Published

An AI message decoder based on bacterial growth patterns      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Depending on the initial conditions used, such as nutrient levels and space constraints, bacteria tend to grow in specific ways. Researchers have created a new type of encryption scheme based on how a virtual bacterial colony grows with specific initial conditions.

Geoscience: Earthquakes
Published

Deepest scientific ocean drilling sheds light on Japan's next great earthquake      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Scientists who drilled deeper into an undersea earthquake fault than ever before have found that the tectonic stress in Japan's Nankai subduction zone is less than expected.  The findings are a puzzle but will help scientists home in on the link between tectonic forces and the earthquake cycle and potentially lead to better earthquake forecasts, both at Nankai and other megathrust faults such as Cascadia in the Pacific Northwest. The drilling reached over two miles into the Nankai subduction zone and was conducted in 2018 with the IODP scientific drilling vessel Chikyu.

Computer Science: Virtual Reality (VR)
Published

Can eyes on self-driving cars reduce accidents?      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Robotic eyes on autonomous vehicles could improve pedestrian safety, according to a new study. Participants played out scenarios in virtual reality (VR) and had to decide whether to cross a road in front of a moving vehicle or not. When that vehicle was fitted with robotic eyes, which either looked at the pedestrian (registering their presence) or away (not registering them), the participants were able to make safer or more efficient choices.

Geoscience: Earthquakes Geoscience: Volcanoes
Published

Earth's newest secret: How volcanoes really work      (via sciencedaily.com) 

It isn't every day that we learn something that fundamentally changes how we understand our world. But for volcanologists across the globe, such a revelation has occurred.

Computer Science: Virtual Reality (VR)
Published

New method for comparing neural networks exposes how artificial intelligence works      (via sciencedaily.com) 

A team has developed a novel approach for comparing neural networks that looks within the 'black box' of artificial intelligence to help researchers understand neural network behavior. Neural networks recognize patterns in datasets; they are used everywhere in society, in applications such as virtual assistants, facial recognition systems and self-driving cars.

Computer Science: Virtual Reality (VR)
Published

Optical rule was made to be broken      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Engineers find a way to identify nanophotonic materials with the potential to improve screens for virtual reality and 3D displays along with optical technologies in general.

Computer Science: Virtual Reality (VR)
Published

City digital twins help train deep learning models to separate building facades      (via sciencedaily.com) 

To automatically generate data for training deep convolutional neural network models to segment building facades, researchers used a three-dimensional model and game engine to generate digital city twin synthetic training data. They found that a model trained on these data mixed with some real data was competitive with a model trained on real data alone, revealing the potential of digital twin data to improve accuracy and replace costly manually annotated real data.

Geoscience: Earthquakes
Published

Diamonds and rust at Earth's core-mantle boundary      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Scientists discover that a potential 'diamond factory' may have existed at Earth's core-mantle boundary for billions of years.

Geoscience: Earthquakes
Published

Hidden microearthquakes illuminate large earthquake-hosting faults in Oklahoma and Kansas      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Using machine learning to sift through a decade's worth of seismic data, researchers have identified hundreds of thousands of microearthquakes along some previously unknown fault structures in Oklahoma and Kansas.

Geoscience: Earthquakes Geoscience: Volcanoes
Published

Wave created by Tonga volcano eruption reached 90 meters -- nine times taller than 2011 Japan tsunami      (via sciencedaily.com) 

New research reveals more about the magnitude of January eruption, as researchers call for better preparedness The eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano in January created an initial wave 90 meters high -- almost the height of the Statue of Liberty (93m). Tsunami expert calls for better warning systems to detect volcanic eruptions, saying systems are '30 years behind' comparable earthquake detection tools.

Geoscience: Earthquakes
Published

Geological carbon sequestration in mantle rocks prevents large earthquakes in parts of the San Andreas Fault      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Researchers say ubiquitous evidence for ongoing geological carbon sequestration in mantle rocks in the creeping sections of the San Andreas Fault is one underlying cause of aseismic creep along a roughly 150 kilometer-long SAF segment between San Juan Bautista and Parkfield, California, and along several other fault segments.

Geoscience: Earthquakes
Published

Assessing the effect of hydraulic fracturing on microearthquakes      (via sciencedaily.com) 

A new article assesses the impact of hydraulic fracturing on seismic hazards like micro-earthquakes, an important issue for the safety of workers and the continuation of mining operations.