Category: Technica Aquarius

Enlarge / London’s Millennium Bridge had issues with excessive shaking and swaying when it first opened in June 2000. (credit: Alberto Pezzali/NurPhoto/Getty Images)

London’s Millennium Bridge is notorious for its “wobble” when it first opened in June 2000, as thousands of pedestrians streamed across. Londoners nicknamed it “Wobbly Bridge.” The accepted explanation has been that the swaying was due to a weird synchronicity between the bridge’s lateral (sideways) sway and pedestrians’ gaits—an example of emergent collective phenomena.

But that explanation turns out to be a bit more complicated, according to a recent paper published in the journal Nature Communications. “This [old] explanation was so popular, it has been part of the scientific zeitgeist,” said co-author Igor Belykh, a mathematician at Georgia State University. “Our work shows that very tiny vibrations from each person walking can get amplified significantly.” People adjust their footsteps to keep their balance in response to the wobble, which only makes things worse. Eventually the bridge becomes unstable.

As we’ve reported previously, this phenomenon is not limited to the Millennium Bridge. There’s a sign dating back to 1873 on London’s Albert Bridge warning military troops to break their usual lock-step motion when crossing, since the bridge is wont to shake and wobble—hence its nickname, “The Trembling Lady.” Other similar “unstable” bridges include the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol, UK; the Squibb Park Bridge in Brooklyn, New York; and the Changi Mezzanine Bridge in Singapore’s airport.  

Enlarge (credit: Luke Sharrett via Getty Images)

The Environmental Protection Agency today announced more stringent fuel economy standards that will require passenger vehicles to travel 70 percent farther on a gallon of gasoline.

The Biden administration announced earlier this year that it would be revising the Trump-era standards, which sought to increase fleet average fuel economy 1.5 percent per year through 2026. The new EPA standards will require automakers to improve fuel economy by 5–10 percent annually across their fleets. Five years from now, fuel economy on new vehicle Monroney stickers will average about 40 mpg combined, up from about 25 mpg today.

The move will save car and truck owners more than $1,000 over the lifetime of their vehicles, the agency said, and it will prevent 3.1 billion tons of carbon pollution through 2050. Transportation represents about a third of US carbon emissions. The rule will take effect in 60 days and will apply to model years 2023–2026. 

Enlarge / LG UltraGear 17G90Q. (credit: LG)

LG has carved out a small space for itself among mainstream users seeking an attractive, slim design. But now LG wants to push laptops toward gamers, and it has the RGB and high refresh rate to prove it, alongside an interesting choice in components.

A couple of months after a Bluetooth SIG filing made it appear that LG is working on its first Chromebook, LG has announced the UltraGear 17G90Q today as its first gaming laptop. The brand is launching right into it with some extreme, gaming-ready specs, starting with a 17-inch IPS screen that has a 300 Hz refresh rate and 1 ms gray-to-gray response time.

Graphics are handled by an RTX 3080 Max-Q. The RTX 3080 is the most powerful mobile GPU Nvidia offers; although, the Max-Q variant suggests it may be slightly less powerful than a fully specced mobile RTX 3080. LG didn’t get specific about the 17G90Q GPU’s clock speed or total graphics power, but Nvidia says the RTX 3080 can be configured to boost to 1,245-1,710 MHz.

Enlarge / Theranos founder and former CEO Elizabeth Holmes leaves the Robert F. Peckham Federal Building in San Jose, California, on December 17, 2021. (credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Who is to blame for the implosion of Theranos, the ill-fated blood-testing startup that folded in 2018, and did it amount to fraud? That’s the question before 12 people today in San Jose, California, who will decide the fate of Elizabeth Holmes, the startup’s founder and ex-CEO.

Jurors spent the final two days of last week hearing closing arguments from prosecution and defense attorneys. The latter said nearly everyone but Holmes was responsible for one of the most high-profile failures of a startup in recent history, while the former said that Holmes should be held accountable for what happened.

Holmes faced a choice

“She chose to be dishonest,” assistant US attorney Jeffrey Schenk told jurors in his closing argument. There were at least three decision points, three cash crunches, at which Holmes could have chosen to let Theranos “slowly fade.” Instead, she chose “to go down the path of fraud.”

Enlarge (credit: JOSEPH PREZIOSO / Getty Images)

Moderna announced Monday that its booster provides protection against COVID-19 variant omicron. In its testing, Moderna found a 50-microgram dose resulted in a 37-fold increase of antibodies compared to vaccinated, unboosted individuals. 

A 100 µg dose, which is the same amount used in the first two vaccine doses, provided even more protection, increasing antibody levels 83-fold. But that increased immune response was paired with slightly worse side effects than with the smaller dose. 

Moderna’s data is preliminary and has not been reviewed, but CEO Stéphane Bancel said the results are “reassuring” all the same and touted the company’s work on a booster targeted specifically at omicron. “To respond to this highly transmissible variant, Moderna will continue to rapidly advance an Omicron-specific booster candidate into clinical testing in case it becomes necessary in the future. We will also continue to generate and share data across our booster strategies with public health authorities to help them make evidence-based decisions on the best vaccination strategies against SARS-CoV-2.”