Author: Daily Upsider

Spanish archaeologists have used AI to locate ancient underground irrigation systems, known as qanats, in desert regions around the world.

The AI was trained to analyze Cold War-era satellite photos and detect signs of underground aqueducts that transported water from mountains to dry plains. Unlike Roman aqueducts, qanats were dug below ground, protected from the desert sun by vertical shafts for airflow and maintenance. Qanats, which date back 3,000 years, are hard to spot unless standing near their access points. Despite this, the AI correctly identified qanats in 88% of cases, analyzing images from spy satellites like HEXAGON, which surveyed the Middle East and North Africa between 1959 and 1986.

Hector Orengo from the Catalan Institute of Classical Archaeology led the study, highlighting how these systems allowed survival in previously uninhabitable areas. The AI will now continue to search for undiscovered qanats in these regions, offering a faster, safer alternative to human surveyors.

Researchers have developed a groundbreaking nuclear battery that’s 8,000 times more efficient than previous models. A team at Soochow University in China designed this battery to harness energy from radioactive decay—a process commonly associated with nuclear waste.

“Micronuclear batteries harness energy from the radioactive decay of radioisotopes to generate electricity on a small scale, typically in the nanowatt or microwatt range,” the researchers explained.

What makes this technology especially promising is that radioactive decay remains unaffected by environmental conditions like temperature, pressure, or magnetic fields. This makes the micronuclear battery a long-lasting and dependable power source in situations where traditional batteries are impractical or difficult to replace such as space or deep sea environments. This brings us closer to a future where miniature batteries can run for decades without needing a recharge.

Breakthrough in Design
While the concept of using radioactive decay for long-lasting batteries has intrigued scientists for over a century, low efficiency has always been a roadblock. This new design overcomes that issue by strategically combining materials.

The researchers used americium, a radioactive element typically regarded as nuclear waste, which emits energy in the form of alpha particles. These particles carry a lot of energy but tend to lose it quickly to their surroundings, making them hard to harness efficiently.

To solve this, the team embedded the americium in a specially designed polymer crystal that acts like a transformer. It converts the fleeting energy of alpha particles into a stable green luminescence. This glowing crystal is then paired with a photovoltaic cell—similar to a tiny solar panel, that is powered by the green glow instead of sunlight. The entire system is encased in a quartz cell, resulting in a micro-nuclear battery that, despite its small size, can provide a stable power supply for decades.

Tests showed that the battery could deliver a steady power supply for more than 200 hours, proving its remarkable longevity. It achieves this with only a small amount of radioactive material, making it a safer and more sustainable option.

While americium has a half-life of 7,380 years, the battery’s lifespan will be limited to a few decades due to the gradual degradation of the materials surrounding the radioactive core. Nonetheless, this marks a significant leap forward in the development of long-lasting, miniature power sources.

Organic and regenerative farming is gaining momentum in Ventura County, California, where industrial agriculture has left a heavy toll on the environment. Pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides have contaminated the soil and groundwater, harming local wildlife. The Rodale Institute and its California Organic Center have been working to change this. With $1 million from Patagonia and $1.5 million from the state of California, they are now able to assist farmers in transitioning to sustainable farming practices that restore soil health and biodiversity, with most startup costs covered.

It’s been just over two years since Patagonia’s founder, Yves Chouinard, declared that 98% company profits would go toward environmental causes, making Earth the company’s bigest shareholder. Since then, the Holdfast Collective, Patagonia’s non-profit arm, has quietly distributed $70 million to major conservation groups like the Nature Conservancy, the Conservation Fund, and Re:Wild. Holdfast Collective’s executive director Greg Curtis praised the Rodale Institute, calling them “peerless” in their success over the past five years in helping farmers adopt regenerative practices. This made them an obvious choice for Patagonia’s first investment in the agricultural sector since Chouinard’s announcement.

Fast Company reports that the funding from Holdfast and the state will provide farmers with business planning support, long-term produce contracts, and grants for equipment and pest management.

Elon Musk’s Neuralink achieved a significant milestone last week in its pursuit to restore vision to those who have lost it. The neurotechnology company, founded by Musk, announced on X (formerly Twitter) that it had been granted “Breakthrough Device Designation from the FDA” for its innovative Blindsight device.

Musk described the Blindsight device as capable of allowing even individuals who have lost both their eyes and optic nerves to regain sight. “As long as the visual cortex is intact, the device will even enable those who have been blind since birth to see for the first time,” Musk wrote on X. Initially, the vision provided by Blindsight will be low-resolution, Musk noted, comparing it to “Atari graphics.” However, he highlighted its potential to improve dramatically over time. While this isn’t the first time Musk has suggested that Blindsight might exceed normal vision, some experts remain skeptical. Research from the University of Washington cautioned that without significant technological breakthroughs, the vision provided by Blindsight and similar devices is likely to remain limited and imperfect.

Earlier this year, Neuralink made headlines after successfully implanting a brain chip into Noland Arbaugh, a paralyzed man. Following the procedure, Arbaugh was able to control computers and play online games using only his mind.

The FDA’s Breakthrough Devices Program aims to expedite the development and approval process for devices that offer more effective treatment or diagnosis of life-threatening or irreversibly debilitating conditions.

People with hearing loss often face the “cocktail party problem,” where it’s hard to focus on one voice in a noisy environment. OrCam Technologies’ OrCam Hear aims to solve this with a system of earbuds and an AI-powered app.
The app samples voices, creates speaker profiles, and allows users to isolate a specific voice, muting others. “Deep networks and advanced language models are used to significantly improve hearing aids and hearables,” said Amnon Shashua, OrCam’s co-founder, in a press release.

The company plans to begin production of the device later this year.