14 November 2020 | New Scientist | 21PalaeontologyRobot controlled
with plain languageTELLING a robot where to go
without having to speak like a
robot is now a lot easier, thanks
to a new model based on how
people actually give directions.
Currently, many robots use
simultaneous localisation and
mapping (SLAM) to know where
they are in a given landscape. With
this they must concurrently keep
track of their location on a map,
while constantly updating theirAdd some potassium
for better batteriesINCLUDING a dash of potassium
salt in lithium-metal batteries
could make them safer and boost
their charging efficiency.
These batteries are lighter and
can store more energy than the
more commonly used lithium-ion
ones, but their widespread use has
been limited by safety concerns,
says Lauren Marbella at Columbia
University in New York.
Unlike lithium-ion batteries,
which contain an electrode
typically made of graphite,
lithium-metal ones have an
electrode made of lithium.
Because of how lithium-metal
batteries charge, this can lead to
tiny filaments of lithium being
deposited on the electrode
that can cause short circuits.
The result can be explosive,
says Marbella. “Basically the
whole system just goes into
runaway failure,” she says.Technology^ Artificial intelligenceAN ANCIENT squid-like animal with
a shell that looked like a 1.5-metre-
long paper clip may have typically
lived for two centuries.
Diplomoceras maximum
lived about 68 million years ago,
making it a contemporary of
Tyrannosaurus rex. It was an
ammonite – a now-extinct group
of tentacled cephalopods.
The creature’s unusual shell
shape makes it hard to unravel
its biology, but Linda Ivany and
Emily Artruc at Syracuse University,
New York, believe individuals
might have had very long lives.
The evidence comes from chemical
signatures locked away in samples
taken at regular intervals along
a 50-centimetre-long section
of D. maximum shell.
When the pair examined the
carbon and oxygen isotopes alongthe shell, they found a repeating
pattern in the isotopic signatures
that they suspect reflects the
annual release of methane from
the sea floor. This pattern tallied
with the sculptural ridges, or ribs,
perpendicular to the shell’s length.
This suggests D. maximum added
one rib each year. “These shells
grow by accretion, adding a new
increment annually,” says Ivany.
Given the large number of ribs in
a 1.5-metre-long shell, that leads
to an obvious conclusion. “The only
scenario that seems to work is
to make this thing 200 years old,”
says Ivany, who presented the
research at an online meeting of
the Geological Society of America.
Why D. maximum might have
had such a long lifespan is unclear
as all modern cephalopods live
fast and die young. Colin BarrasCreature resembling a giant
paper clip lived 200 years
knowledge of the environment.
“The challenge for humans
to interact with SLAM-based
machines is we need to think
on their terms,” says Jason Corso
at the University of Michigan.
“The goal is to flip that and
have the robot adapt to the
human language.”
Corso and his colleagues moved
a robot around a tabletop maze.
One person, a driver, remote-
controlled the robot but couldn’t
see the maze. Another person, a
navigator, gave directions on how
to solve the maze from another
room using an online chat.
As the robot moved around,
a language processing model
translated the navigator’s orders
to the driver. Once a list had been
produced of the phrases used,
a model that translates them was
trained in a simulation – the team
couldn’t use a lab due to covid-19
restrictions. The model learned
to follow plain-text commands
(arxiv.org/abs/2010.12639).
Chris Stokel-Walker“It’s a recipe for disaster.”
Marbella and her team
found that adding a small
amount of potassium salt to
lithium-metal batteries stops
these dangerous deposits.
“Whenever we had the potassium
in the battery, we had less of these
microstructures growing and
we also had a higher efficiency
battery,” she says.
The potassium boosted the
batteries’ charging efficiency
from 84 to 88 per cent (Cell Reports
Physical Science, doi.org/fg73).
Even such a modest improvement
can go a long way, says Marbella,
particularly in applications such
as electric vehicles.
A big barrier in the transition
to electric vehicles is their limited
range, says Marbella. “You’re
limited in how far you can go
before you have to charge your
battery again,” she says. “The
development of lithium-metal
batteries would help eliminate
some of the range anxiety because
they last longer.” Layal LiverpoolJAM
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MAGESNews In brief