In 2004, it took the world a full year to install 1 gigawatt of solar power capacity. Today, twice that amount goes online each day. Now, the real driver is self-interest: lower cost and greater energy security. (5/5)
www.science.org/content/arti...

Material advances are enabling wind turbine blades to get longer and harvest more energy, while designs for floating turbines could vastly expand the offshore areas in which they could be deployed. (4/5)

Technological progress could power future gains. Solar cells today are made of crystalline silicon, but another kind of crystal, perovskites, can be layered in tandem with silicon to make cells that gain efficiency by capturing more colors of light. (3/5)

China’s industrial engine is the driver. After years of nurturing the sector through subsidies, China now dominates global production of renewable energy technologies. It makes 80% of the world’s solar cells, 70% of its wind turbines, and 70% of its lithium batteries. (2/5)

Read the full study here: "Persuading voters using human–artificial intelligence dialogues"
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Researchers found that chatbots influence voter opinions not by using emotional appeals or storytelling, but by flooding the user with information. The more information the chatbots provided, the more persuasive they were — but they were also more likely to produce false statements. (4/5)

After a conversation with an AI chatbot, the person’s ratings shifted towards that candidate by two to four points. Previous research has found that people’s views typically shift by less than one point after viewing conventional political adverts. (3/5)

To understand how persuasive AI can be when it comes to political beliefs, researchers asked nearly 6,000 participants from three countries to rate their preferences for specific candidates in their country’s leadership elections that took place over the past year on a 0-to-100 scale. (2/5)

Harvard denied the request publicly, saying that it would be a violation of academic freedom. In response, the administration froze the institution’s research grants. Harvard sued on 21 April. Full story here:
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

In early April, government officials contacted Harvard and presented it with a list of demands that must be met in order for the university to continue receiving federal money, some of which would give the government oversight of its admissions and hiring practices. (3/4)

The US government funds about 11% of Harvard’s annual $6.4 billion budget, and these cancellations will be devastating. “Harvard cannot, even with its vast resources, just make up for this,” says a biological chemist who lost two NIH grants totalling $4.3 million. (2/4)