Post-quantum algorithms, the AI child, and food transportation emissions

Like a baby, the neural network learns elementary physics

Post-quantum algorithms, the AI child, and food transportation emissions .Computer scientists have developed a programme that can learn basic physical laws about how objects behave and can exhibit surprise when those rules appear to be broken, drawing inspiration from research on how infants learn.

Researchers used animated movies of basic items like cubes and balls to train a neural network, a software system that learns by identifying patterns in vast volumes of data. The Physics Learning through Auto-encoding and Tracking Objects (PLATO) network was trained on tens of hours of videos of basic mechanisms, like two balls bouncing off one another or a ball rolling down a slope, and it eventually learned to predict how those objects would behave in various scenarios.

When PLATO was shown recordings of 'impossible' events, such an object abruptly vanishing, it could calculate the discrepancy between the footage and its own prediction, indicating how surprised it was.

According to PLATO's designers, it was not intended to be a simulation of infant behaviour but rather a first step toward artificial intelligence that might test theories about how human infants learn 

Selected "quantum proof" encryption methods

Cryptographic techniques that are expected to be immune to attack from quantum computers have received official support from the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

The ability of future quantum computers to crack the cryptographic keys that are now used to protect everything from smartphone apps to online payments has many people worried.

NIST issued a call in 2016 for computer experts to submit their top suggestions for algorithms that should be immune to attacks from quantum computers. With the announcement of the first batch of four eThese include three algorithms for use in digital signatures, which allow identity identification, and the encryption method CRYSTALS-Kyber, which is used to secure online data. They all rely on tried-and-true mathematical methods, notably the structured lattices meNow, NIST and other organisations will think about how to implement the algorithms in practical applications and carry out test deployments. Once this phase is complete, technology providers will be able to introduce the algorithms during periodic software updates.thod.ndorsements on July 5, that procedure has now reached a significant milestone.

Food transportation produces enormous volumes of carbon dioxide.

According to the first thorough assessment of the industry's worldwide carbon footprint, moving materials and food products accounts for approximately one-fifth of carbon emissions in the food chain, a substantially larger portion of emissions than previously estimated.

A significant amount of greenhouse gas is released into the environment by clearing land for agriculture, keeping livestock, and transporting food to and from stores. It is difficult to quantify the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that is a direct result of the food system's emissions, particularly those from transportation, due to the complexity of the food system.

In the past, most studies underestimated emissions since they only took into account the emissions associated with transporting a single item to and from a store, excluding the transportation required to obtain the raw materials.

Mengyu Li, a sustainability researcher at the University of Sydney in Australia, and her colleagues gathered data from 74 countries and regions and examined the origins, destinations, and methods of food transportation in an effort to address this gap . They discovered that, in 2017, food transportation increased atmospheric emissions by up to 7.5 times, to the tune of 3 gigatonnes of CO2 .

Despite only making up about 12 percent of the world's population, wealthy countries produced over half of the emissions associated with international food transit. Only 20% of international food-transport emissions were produced in low-income nations, which are home to roughly half of the world's population.

This discrepancy results in part from the fact that wealthier countries are more inclined to import food from other countries. When transporting fresh produce, they also utilise refrigeration, which produces a lot of emissions. Moving produce resulted in twice as much CO2 production as growing it.

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