The US Navy is engaged on methods to construct, deploy, and management 1000’s of small drones which can be capable of flock collectively to overwhelm anti-aircraft defenses with sheer numbers, price range paperwork reveal.
The battle in Ukraine has proved the value of small drones, which have carried out reconnaissance, guided artillery fireplace, and destroyed tanks. Such drones are at the moment restricted by the truth that each wants its personal operator. In a swarm, nonetheless, lots of or 1000’s of drones are managed as a single unit.
Many nations are engaged on such swarms, together with China, Russia, India, the UK, Turkey, and Israel, which in 2021 turned the primary nation to make use of swarming drones in fight. But the US Navy has at all times been a frontrunner on this area, and the price range paperwork that MIT Technology Review has learn reveal bold plans for swarms vastly greater than something but seen. Read the total story.
—David Hambling
Inside the enigmatic minds of animals
More than ever, we really feel an obligation and need to increase empathy to our nonhuman neighbors. In the final three years, greater than 30 nations have formally acknowledged different animals—together with gorillas, lobsters, crows, and octopuses—as sentient beings.
A trio of recent books from Ed Yong, Jackie Higgins, and Philip Ball, element creatures’ wealthy internal worlds and seize what has led to those developments: a booming area of experimental analysis difficult the long-standing view that animals are neither acutely aware nor cognitively advanced.
But although all three assemble troves of fascinating analysis that gives home windows into the lives of animals, we’re left asking how shut we actually are to bridging the species divide. Read the total story.
—Matthew Ponsford
This piece is from our forthcoming mortality-themed subject, launching this Wednesday. If you wish to learn it when it comes out, you possibly can subscribe to MIT Technology Review for as little as $80 a 12 months.