Did dark matter do in the dinosaurs?
One scientific mystery may have caused another
EVERY 250m years the sun, with its entourage of planets, completes a circuit of the Milky Way. Its journey around its home galaxy, though, is no stately peregrination. Rather, its orbit oscillates up and down through the galactic disc, the place where most of the galaxy’s matter is concentrated. It passes through that disc once every 30m years or so.
This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline “Did dark matter do in the dinosaurs?”
From the February 28th 2015 edition
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Electric vehicles also cause air pollution
Though fume-free, their brake pads and tyres disintegrate over time
AI models are helping dirty industries go green
Mining companies and steelmakers are feeling the benefits
Could data centres ever be built in orbit?
A startup called Starcloud has plans to do just that
The tricky task of calculating AI’s energy use
Making models less thirsty may not lessen their environmental impact
AI models can help generate cleaner power
Energy companies are using them to increase efficiency and spot problems
Researchers lift the lid on how reasoning models actually “think”
They plan sentences far in advance. They also bullshit themselves when reasoning out loud