In a galaxy far, far away
Ancient disk galaxies
Hello, and welcome to The Edge, the newsletter that brings you groundbreaking stories from the frontiers of technology and science.
We’ve got some great stories for you today, including Microsoft’s new supercomputer, a Rogan-Spotify mash-up and disk galaxies. As always, we’ve added extra stories under each article should you find yourself in a curious state of mind.
Rogan and Spotify team up
Image credit: Michael S. Schwartz/Getty Images
Joe Rogan’s podcast is becoming a Spotify exclusive
The Joe Rogan Experience, one of the most popular podcasts in the world, is moving to Spotify. Rogan and Spotify are turning the podcast into a Spotify exclusive, meaning full audio and video episodes will only be available on Spotify. Up until now, the show has not been exclusive to any channels. According to the BBC, the deal is worth $100 million.
From September 1st, the show will become available on Spotify globally, shortly after which it will become exclusive. Listeners will only be able to access the podcast if they become Spotify users. Rogan will retain creative control over his show and Spotify will work with an ad agency to sell advertisements against the podcast. Rogan’s YouTube channel will remain live but will not contain full episodes.
Spotify’s 2020 investment plans
Named after Arthur M. Wolfe
Image credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF/S. Dagnello
Astronomers discover immense galactic disk from the early universe
To this day, not all questions about how galaxies are formed have been answered. To answer these questions, telescopes are turned to the sky in the hopes that findings and observing distant galaxies might let astronomers learn their secrets.
In a new study, an international team of astronomers have detected light from a huge, ancient, galactic disk, hidden away in a distant corner of the universe. The disk formed some 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang, meaning that its light took around 12.5 billion years to reach us. To find the galaxy, the astronomers used the Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-millimeter Array (ALMA), one of the largest telescopes on the planet. Originally, the astronomers were studying a distant quasar, when they noticed some of the quasar’s light being absorbed by the galaxy. Using ALMA and Hubble, the astronomers were able to clearly define some of the galaxy’s features, bringing it out from the darkness. The findings prove the existence of these early gas-rich, disk galaxies, which previous studies had only hinted at.
The official name of the galaxy is DLA0817g, but it’s been nicknamed the Wolfe Disk in honour of astronomer Arthur M. Wolfe.
The OpenAI Supercomputer
Image credit: Tadas Sar/Unsplash
Microsoft’s OpenAI supercomputer has 285,000 CPU cores, 10,000 GPUs
Microsoft’s $1 billion investment into OpenAI is paying off. At the Build 2020 developer conference, Microsoft announced that it had developed an Azure-hosted supercomputer built specifically to test OpenAI’s enormous artificial intelligence models.
AI has gotten pretty good at focusing on singular tasks, like recognising images or translating languages. However, new research is pushing the technology even further, to the point where an AI system needs to be able to do multiple things at once. This could include generating code after exploring a code repository or moderating a game stream. To run these AI models, the computer needs to be very powerful.
That’s why the supercomputer sports 285,000 CPU cores and 10,000 GPUs, each of which are connected by 400 gigabit per second connections. Microsoft has also said the supercomputer is in the TOP500 list of publicly disclosed supercomputers.
Supercomputers are important at many levels
Drones making the world greener
Image credit: Flash Forest
Flash Forest is using drones to plant tens of thousands of trees
Flash Forest, a Canadian startup, is one of multiple startups using drones to plant trees. Currently, the drones are planting trees in an area north of Toronto that burned in a wildfire. By the end of this month, the goal is to have planted 40,000 trees there. By the year 2028, the goal is to have planted 1 billion globally.
Flash Company’s work is crucial to the fight against climate change. According to The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, enough trees to cover roughly the entire United States need to be planted to help limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celcius.