Autonomous Vehicles Safer Than Human Drivers – Except in Two Cases

Researchers at the University of Queensland in Australia have found that autonomous vehicles are almost always safer than human drivers. They analysed data from more than 37,000 accidents in California from 2016-2022. They found that autonomous vehicles were outperforming humans except during dusk or dawn (5 times higher accident rate) or when turning (twice as high). Autonomous vehicles excelled in particular in broadside accidents (⅕ of the accident rate) or off-road accidents in which they were a remarkable 50 times safer. The researchers say the major reason for the difference is that autonomous vehicles have better sensors and faster real-time processing than our mediocre human brains. Paper here.

This episode of Science News covers pi. String theorists have calculated the value of pi. Didn’t we already know the value of pi? At least the first one hundred trillion digits or so. Yes, but this is an interesting story about the relation between maths and physics. Let’s have a look. You can take the quiz here.

New World Record for Data Transmission

An international research team led by Japan's National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) has set a new world record for data transmission in a standard, commercially-available optical fibre. The team transferred a stunning 402 terabits per second (Tb/s) or roughly 50 TeraBytes per second (TB/s) over 50 kilometres, using 1,505 channels across six different optical bands. Going by the average file size on YouTube, that’s about 17,000 hours of video content every second. Sign me up. Press release here.

Geoengineering in the USA Would Mess Up European Climate

Researchers from UCSD and the National Center for Atmospheric Research have looked at the consequences of marine cloud brightening, a method of geoengineering that can reduce local temperatures. It works by spraying sea salt into existing stratocumulus clouds to make them whiter so that they reflect more light. For the new study, the researchers simulated this process in the Western United States. They found that while this would reduce high temperatures in the area where the clouds were brightened by up to 55%, it also decreased rainfall in the U.S. and caused more frequent heat waves in Europe. Europe to America: Please don’t. Paper here, more here.

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