Bitcoin’s volatility has limited its adoption for payments, so entrepreneurs created stablecoins: cryptocurrencies pegged to assets such as the U.S. dollar. But the recent settlement of a probe into the most popular stablecoin, tether, shows the need for transparency in the growing industry. Photo illustration: Sharon Shi/WSJ
Category Archives: Technology
Biotechnology: ‘mRNA Could Change The World’
The dream of mRNA persevered in part because its core principle was tantalizingly simple, even beautiful: The world’s most powerful drug factory might be inside all of us.
Like so many breakthroughs, this apparent overnight success was many decades in the making. More than 40 years had passed between the 1970s, when a Hungarian scientist pioneered early mRNA research, and the day the first authorized mRNA vaccine was administered in the United States, on December 14, 2020. In the interim, the idea’s long road to viability nearly destroyed several careers and almost bankrupted several companies.
Space Travel: NASA Seeks Water On The Moon To Fuel Missions (WSJ Video)
NASA is partnering with SpaceX, Blue Origin and others to search for water on the moon. Water is the foundation for rocket propellant, which could supply refueling stations in the cosmos and make Mars trips cheaper. Photo illustration: Crystal Tai
Telemedicine Survey: ‘High Demand’ Continues For Virtual Medical Visits
World News: Science After Covid, Rwanda & VW Chases Tesla (Podcast)
A selection of three essential articles read aloud from the latest issue of The Economist. This week: science after the pandemic, Rwanda: paragon or prison? (9:10) And Herbie goes electric (33:55)
Studies: ‘Coffee’ – Machine Learning Review Shows Benefits Of Drinking It
“It may be good for you,” says Dariush Mozaffarian, dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. “I think we can say with good certainty it’s not bad for you.” (Additives are another story.)
After the link appeared between coffee intake and a reduced risk of heart failure in the Framingham data, Kao confirmed the result by using the algorithm to correctly predict the relationship between coffee intake and heart failure in two other respected data sets. Kosorok describes the approach as “thoughtful” and says that it “seems like pretty good evidence.”
Should you drink coffee? If so, how much? These seem like questions that a society able to create vaccines for a new respiratory virus within a year should have no trouble answering. And yet the scientific literature on coffee illustrates a frustration that readers, not to mention plenty of researchers, have with nutrition studies: The conclusions are always changing, and they frequently contradict one another.
Naval Warfare: The New British ‘Dreadnought Class Submarine’ (Video)
The Dreadnought class of submarines will replace Britain’s existing fleet of Vanguards when they enter service from the early 2030s. Built by BAE and Rolls-Royce, the Dreadnought will have a payload of 16 nuclear missiles and torpedoes.
Infographic: Future Of Healthcare Is Digital
Technology: Ranking 10 Printers That Save On Ink
Printers are still the worst but at least new ink-tank printers help you save money on ink. WSJ’s Joanna Stern survived testing 10 home printers from Epson, HP, Brother and Canon to tell you which are worth buying. Personal Technology With Joanna Stern
Analysis: How The Power Grid Failed In Texas (Video)
Texas had a rough winter in 2021. In mid-February, with temperatures dropping to the single digits, demand for electricity hit a record high throughout Texas. Supply ran short, causing the state’s electric grid operator to implement rolling power outages.
At the height of the crisis, more than 4.5 million customers lost power. The freak winter storm caused neighboring states such as Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Kansas to also impose rolling blackouts. Texas residents shivered in the cold, as outages lasted for days at a time. They lost access to water. Some resorted to turning on their cars in their garages to keep warm then died due to carbon monoxide poisoning.
The historic breakdown was a wake-up call — if the power grid in Texas was so fragile, what about the rest of the United States? The U.S. has faced a 67% increase in weather-related power outages since 2000, according to data from Climate Central. Part of the problem is an aging infrastructure. Most of today’s power grid was built in the 1950s and ’60s, with the hopes that it would last for 50 years.
Boomers Daily 