Samsung researchers have developed a new software that requires just a single source image to create “living portraits” using just one photo of a person’s face.
The program works by using a dataset of multiple talking head videos featuring people with a wide variety of facial features. Researchers then trained the program to identify the “landmark” features of those faces: the eyes, the shape of the mouth, and their noses. Instead of pasting one face onto another and using the expressions of a specific person (which is what most deepfakes currently do), the new program uses common human facial expressions to puppeteer a new face on its own. It even works on the Mona Lisa!
Hopefully, they don’t figure out how to make the hair look real… or else.
Pollution is the global issue of our time, and around the world more and more cities are trying to take measures to reduce their carbon impact.
Most recently, the city of Amsterdam has taken a MAJOR step towards cleaner air: the Dutch city has announced that it is planning to phase out all gas and diesel vehicles by 2030.
Amsterdam’s traffic councillor recently said, “Pollution often is a silent killer and is one of the greatest health hazards in Amsterdam.” You might be surprised that such a world-renowned bike-friendly city (30% of Dutch commuters travel by bike) has such an awful pollution problem, but air pollution in the Netherlands is worse than European rules permit. This is mainly due to the heavy traffic in Amsterdam and Rotterdam.
Amsterdam to ban fossil fuel cars by 2030, from the entire city! 2022: no fossil fuel buses in the city center 2025: all ferries and recreational boats, trucks, taxis, buses in the whole city to be emission-free. Only electric scooters allowed.https://t.co/YgNo804ZxF
— Kees van der Leun (@Sustainable2050) May 3, 2019
The city’s plan is to replace all gas and diesel engines with electric or hydrogen cars, or other emission-free alternatives, by 2030. The plan will begin next year when diesel engines built before 2005 will be banned from Amsterdam. The plan then calls for gradual banning of more vehicles from city streets.
The current levels of nitrogen dioxide and particle matter in Amsterdam’s air can cause respiratory illnesses and shorten life expectancy by more than a year. The city plans to get rid of public buses that run on gas by 2022, to increase the number of electrical charging stations to 23,000 by 2025, and to offer subsidies and special parking permits to encourage residents to make the switch to electric and hydrogen cars sooner than later. We all know how crucial a nice parking spot can be, right?
Hopefully, other cities around the globe will take note – and in fact Brussels, Belgium, is already looking to follow Amsterdam’s lead.
If you and your family are working toward a greener way of life, then chances are you’re looking for ways to reduce your carbon footprint in your daily life. If you’re feeling green, here are 20 ways you can inch your household closer to zero waste.
You know you need to compost, but when you’re cleaning up in a hurry, you don’t want to make two trips – one to the trash and one to the compost bin/pile. This little bin is the answer to all of your concerned-but-lazy prayers!
If you and your family are working toward a greener way of life, then chances are you’re looking for ways to reduce your carbon footprint in your daily life. If you’re feeling green, here are 20 ways you can inch your household closer to zero waste.
You know you need to compost, but when you’re cleaning up in a hurry, you don’t want to make two trips – one to the trash and one to the compost bin/pile. This little bin is the answer to all of your concerned-but-lazy prayers!
In yet another example of Madam Secretary predicting reality, a cruise ship was quarantined on the Caribbean island of Saint Lucia following the news that a passenger onboard had been diagnosed with measles.
But not just any old cruise ship – a Scientology cruise!!!
Saint Lucia’s chief medical officer, Dr. Merlene Fredericks-James, said that, after discussions with other regional health authorities, the decision to order passengers and crew to remain onboard the docked ship was made. The fact that measles is highly contagious surely played a large role in the outcome.
Saint Lucia has had no confirmed cases of measles since 1990, and if their health department has anything to say about it, the island will remain measles-free.
“We believe it’s largely because we’ve continued to immunize our population. And we encourage all persons in particular parents to ensure their children are vaccinated to prevent this disease from occurring.”
The ship was identified as the Freewinds and was docked in Castries, the country’s capital. Also, as we’ve already mentioned, it belongs to the Church of Scientology. According to scientology.org, the Freewinds “is the home of…a religious retreat ministering the most advanced level of spiritual counseling in the Scientology religion.” It also says that journeying on the Freewinds “is the most significant spiritual accomplishment of [a Scientologist’s] lifetime and brings with it the full realization of his immortality.”
Interesting because, of course, the religion is well-known for not believing in modern medicine, even though their official position is that their members should follow doctors’ advice on physical health matters.
Also, the ship’s doctor has since requested 100 doses of the vaccine for others onboard. Nothing like an infectious disease in a confined space to make one reconsider their belief in science.
The vaccines have been provided at no cost.
Since the quarantine was declared, the ship has left port and returned home to the Dutch Caribbean.
People everywhere are taking heed of what climate scientists have to say about the dire state of our planet. We have a long way to go as far as reducing waste, but one day – and one idea – at a time, right? To that end, below are 5 interesting, out-of-the-box ways people are trying to save the planet.
#1. Turning trash into treasure.
In Eskilstuna, Sweden, they’re taking the phrase “one person’s trash is another person’s treasure” to the max in a shopping center that sells only upcycled, recycled, or sustainable merchandise. Patrons can drop off objects they no longer want and mall customers can shop for everything from furniture to clothes and sporting equipments.
The Mall of America is the largest shopping center in the States and it’s also perhaps the greenest. They’ve got LED garage lighting, water-efficient toilets, air-purifying plants and trees, and they also recycle more than 2400 tons of food waste by donating it to local hog farms.
It also recycles about 60% of its total waste – 32,000 tons!
#3. Dirty diapers can still be useful.
Canadian company Knowaste was founded in 1989 and recycles diapers and other absorbent hygiene products by stripping them of their plastic and fiber and turning them into composite construction materials, pet litter, and industrial tubing.
It’s a dirty job, saving the Earth!
#4. Old crayon, new crayon.
Crayons are cheap, which makes them easy enough to toss when they’re down to nubs (or your adorable toddler goes through their “break everything” phase). They aren’t biodegradable, though, so a North California nonprofit called The Crayon Initiative melts them down and turns them back into new crayons.
They then donate them to children’s hospitals.
#5. It’s getting hairy.
If you’ve been throwing out your (or your pets) clumps of hair, you’re doing it wrong – Matter of Trust, a San Francisco based charity, collects hair and fur and uses it to make oil-absorbing mats and other tools used by Hazmat teams to clean up oil spills.
Here’s a sentence I never thought I’d write: a team of Brazilian scientists has figured out how to treat burns using fish skin. This is absolutely insane, and more than a little creepy and also… who in the world even comes up with an idea like that?!?
Ok, in all seriousness, it’s actually a really cool invention!
Researchers at the Federal University of Cearà in Brazil came up with this innovation. They use tilapia skin, which is high in collagen (a healing protein) and moisture. It reportedly speeds up healing and reduces the need for pain medication.
In modern medicine, burns are often treated with grafts of human or pig skin, both of which transfer collagen to burn victims’ healing skin. The alternative is to use burn creams and gauze strips that have to be changed out frequently, which involves a lot of pain for victims.
But in Brazil, it’s not easy to get human or pig skin for grafts. Thus, the foray into fish skin. Fish skin works similarly to other tissues — and it may even be MORE effective.
“We got a great surprise when we saw that the amount of collagen proteins, types 1 and 3, which are very important for scarring, exist in large quantities in tilapia skin, even more than in human skin and other skins,” said Dr. Edmar Maciel, a burn specialist at the José Frota Institute.
Even better, tilapia is a cheap, abundant fish. It costs 75% less than the burn cream used in Brazil. While it’s still under study and has yet to catch on mainstream, it has been used experimentally in the US on bears.
Two bears whose paws suffered burns during the California wildfires were treated with experimental fish skin bandages and released back into the wild. https://t.co/TATCnLdi04pic.twitter.com/M6nrp8FblF
