Stanford University Archives - Liwaiwai

Earth Likely To Cross Critical Climate Thresholds Even If Emissions Decline, Stanford Study Finds

A new study has found that emission goals designed to achieve the world’s most ambitious climate target – 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels – may in fact be required to avoid more extreme climate change of 2 degrees Celsius. Already, the world is 1.1 degrees Celsius hotter on average than it was before fossil fuel combustion took off in the 1800s. More extreme rainfall and flooding are among the litany of impacts from that warming. The study, published Jan. 30 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, provides new evidence that global warming is on track to reach 1.5 degrees…

Technology

Stanford Engineers Enable Simple Cameras To See In 3D

Standard image sensors, like the billion or so already installed in practically every smartphone in use today, capture light intensity and color. Relying on common, off-the-shelf sensor technology – known as CMOS – these cameras have grown smaller and more powerful by the year and now offer tens-of-megapixels resolution. But they’ve still seen in only two dimensions, capturing images that are flat, like a drawing – until now. Researchers at Stanford University have created a new approach that allows standard image sensors to see light in three dimensions. That is, these common cameras could soon be used to…

Stanford Physicists Help Create Time Crystals With Quantum Computers

There is a huge global effort to engineer a computer capable of harnessing the power of quantum physics to carry out computations of unprecedented complexity. While formidable technological obstacles still stand in the way of creating such a quantum computer, today’s early prototypes are still capable of remarkable feats. For example, the creation of a new phase of matter called a “time crystal.” Just as a crystal’s structure repeats in space, a time crystal repeats in time and, importantly, does so infinitely and without any further input of energy – like a clock that runs forever without any…

Stanford Algorithm Helps Modern Quilters Focus On Creativity

Stanford University computer science graduate student Mackenzie Leake has been quilting since age 10, but she never imagined the craft would be the focus of her doctoral dissertation. Included in that work is new prototype software that can facilitate pattern-making for a form of quilting called foundation paper piecing, which involves using a backing made of foundation paper to lay out and sew a quilted design. Developing a foundation paper piece quilt pattern – which looks similar to a paint-by-numbers outline – is often non-intuitive. There are few formal guidelines for patterning and those that do exist are insufficient to…

Stanford Researchers Use AI To Empower Environmental Regulators

Like superheroes capable of seeing through obstacles, environmental regulators may soon wield the power of all-seeing eyes that can identify violators anywhere at any time, according to a new Stanford University-led study. The paper, published the week of April 19 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), demonstrates how artificial intelligence combined with satellite imagery can provide a low-cost, scalable method for locating and monitoring otherwise hard-to-regulate industries. “Brick kilns have proliferated across Bangladesh to supply the growing economy with construction materials, which makes it really hard for regulators to keep up with new kilns that are constructed,”…

Stanford Path-planning Algorithm Enables Autonomous Multi-drone Aerial Surveys Of Antarctic Penguin Colonies

Stanford University researcher Mac Schwager entered the world of penguin counting through a chance meeting at his sister-in-law’s wedding in June 2016. There, he learned that Annie Schmidt, a biologist at Point Blue Conservation Science, was seeking a better way to image a large penguin colony in Antarctica. Schwager, who is an assistant professor of aeronautics and astronautics, saw an opportunity to collaborate, given his work on controlling swarms of autonomous flying robots. That’s how, three-and-a-half years later, Schwager’s graduate student, Kunal Shah, found himself at the famous McMurdo Station, ready for the first Antarctic test flight of their new multi-drone imaging…

Stanford Launches AI-powered TV News Analyzer

Cable TV news is a primary source of information for millions of Americans each day. The people that appear on cable TV news and the topics they talk about shape public opinion and culture. While many newsrooms and monitoring organizations routinely audit the content of news broadcasts, these efforts typically involve manually counting who and what is on the air. But now researchers at the Brown Institute for Media Innovation at Stanford University have launched the Stanford Cable TV News Analyzer, an interactive tool that gives the public the ability to not only search transcripts but also compute the screen time of…

Stanford Engineers Develop COVID-19 Calculator To Help Hospitals Prepare

Working at breakneck speed, a team of engineering and medical professionals at Stanford have created two novel computer tools that can tell local governments and hospitals whether they are about to be overwhelmed by the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the new calculators provides county-by-county predictions of hospitalizations tied to the coronavirus. The other allows individual hospitals to predict their own shortages of intensive care beds, ventilators and staffing. The tools were developed in mere weeks, starting in mid-March, by a group at Stanford Engineering that specializes in solving operational problems for hospitals. The team, called Systems Utilization for Stanford Medicine or…

Stanford Engineers Create Shape-Changing, Free-roaming Soft Robot

Advances in soft robotics could someday allow robots to work alongside humans, helping them lift heavy objects or carrying them out of danger. As a step toward that future, Stanford University researchers have developed a new kind of soft robot that, by borrowing features from traditional robotics, is safe while still retaining the ability to move and change shape. “A significant limitation of most soft robots is that they have to be attached to a bulky air compressor or plugged into a wall, which prevents them from moving,” said Nathan Usevitch, a graduate student in mechanical engineering at Stanford. “So,…

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