Valleys

Credit: Dturme, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons When were the Dry Valleys of Antarctica last wet? It's a question that's long puzzled Antarctic researchers, but Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington adjunct lecturer Dr. Marjolaine Verret may now have the answer. "Past data has shown with certainty that the…

Silicon Valley-based Tribe Capital, which was founded by former executives of Chamath Palihapitiya’s venture capital firm Social Capital, plans to launch an India-dedicated fund with a corpus of $250 million.The timing of the India-focussed fund is significant as it coincides with risk investors turning cautious about the technology sector that has undergone a steep correction over the past year after the excesses of 2020-21. The fresh pool of capital for India will be separate from Tribe’s global fund, which has so far…

Apple has told the Indian officials that it needs "concrete reason or a legal requirement" to fully comply with its directive to disable betting apps from its App Store. This and more exclusives in today’s ETtech Morning Dispatch.Also in the letter:■ Slowdown hits used car startups■ A bunch of startups buck trend to offer double-digit hikes■ US fund slashes Eruditus’ valuation by 8.6% to $2.9 billionExclusive: Apple says it needs concrete reason to take down banned betting apps Amid a government crackdown on…

This image from ESA’s Mars Express shows Nectaris Fossae and Protva Valles, complex geological features found on Mars. Round impact craters are scattered across the frame, and a band of fractured grooves, resembling scratches and scars carved into the rock, stretches from the top left to bottom right.This image comprises data gathered by Mars Express’ High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on May 23, 2022. It was created using data from the nadir channel, the field of view aligned perpendicular to the surface of Mars, and…

As Silicon Valley Bank collapsed before our eyes on Thursday, a founder told me that the world felt like it did when COVID-19 first bared its teeth. I scoffed at his analogy at first: are we really using a still on-going and devastating pandemic to describe the fall of a prominent bank? But then I realized, we are indeed witnessing the crumbling of something sacred. Now, I see the similarity between those dreary COVID days and the surreality of the past weekend — even among the collective relief that echoed through…

The new artificial-intelligence tools getting widespread attention for spitting out text, images and computer code are also generating something else: talk of the next technology bubble.Technologists broadly agree that the so-called generative AI that powers systems like ChatGPT has the potential to change how we live and work, despite the technology’s clear flaws. But some investors, chief executives and engineers see signs of froth that remind them of the crypto boom that recently fizzled. Even tech workers who weren’t…

Good things come to those who wait Fans of the modern classic farming simulator that is Stardew Valley, and likely its massive 1.5 update which added mountains of new content to the game, will be thrilled to hear that the expansion is finally available on mobile platforms. The update first released on PC back in 2020, and mobile players have been asking when they’ll get a chance to check it out ever since. Eric Barone, the solo developer behind the title, tweeted out on January 6th that the 1.5 update had been…

Elon Musk has sometimes seemed like the person Silicon Valley would create if venture-funded engineers figured out how to build humans in a lab: the bold innovator fearlessly disrupting one industry after another with a nerdy verve.And yet these days, Silicon Valley’s investors, leaders and commentators are profoundly divided about tech’s billionaire icon, in ways that are revealing about Mr. Musk and about the state of the industry. Mr. Musk’s hurly-burly two-month tenure as Twitter’s…

Shaded relief map showing Ubehebe Crater and the lateral extent of its pyroclastic surge deposits and the study sites that define that extent or are otherwise referred to in this paper. Credit: Geophysical Research Letters (2022). DOI: 10.1029/2022GL100561 When magma bubbles up toward Earth's surface and meets groundwater, steam pressure builds, sometimes bursting into eruptions that spew currents of hot ash, potentially burning…

When glaciers covered the Sierra Nevada mountains several times over the last million years, rivers flowing down the mountains grew more powerful, cutting channels a mile wide and 100 feet deep into what is now California’s Central Valley. When the glaciers receded, high-velocity meltwater surged down the slopes, carrying with it scoured gravel and rock. As the flow slowed along the valley below, the cobble dropped out of the water column, filling the canyons. These “paleo valleys” long lay undiscovered below the ground,…