The water consumed by a single bitcoin transaction could fill a small swimming pool Radharc Images / Alamy Buying or selling bitcoin uses 16,000 litres of clean water for every single transaction, which could exacerbate existing droughts around the world. While the energy consumption and carbon emissions produced by bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have been … Read more
It can be difficult for divers to talk underwater, so they often use sign language LITTLE DINOSAUR/Getty Images Divers could soon communicate underwater over large distances by sending radio messages along the water’s surface, getting around the fact that radio frequencies can’t travel far through water. Alternative communication systems that use sound, such as sonar, … Read more
Artificial fibres that can collect water from the air, much like how spider silk gathers dew, could be used for large-scale water collection from fog. In places where the availability of drinking water can be low, harvesting water from air tends to be an energy-intensive process. Condensation, a common method, usually requires a surface that … Read more
Distributing AI projects across multiple data centres could make them more environmentally friendly Nikada/iStockphoto/Getty Images Large AIs can have a significant environmental impact because they rely on thousands of power-hungry computing servers housed within huge data centres. But the environmental damage could be reduced by better distributing the demands to different locations. Such scheduling algorithms … Read more
Patterns and initials written in water Thomas Palberg et al. (2023) Writing on solid materials, like parchment or paper, is possible because the ink binds to the surface and remains undisturbed. But in a liquid, particles are constantly moving around, and ink quickly disperses – until now. Thomas Palberg at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz in … Read more
Google had previously kept its data centre water usage secret but it has recently revealed how many billions of litres it uses each year Technology 17 January 2023 By Jeremy Hsu Pipes that carry water in and out of Google’s data centre in The Dalles, Oregon Google Billions of Google searches and billions of YouTube … Read more