Peace in Nagorno-Karabakh and British robo-soldiers: digest Trends No. 2

Armenia and Azerbaijan signed a peace agreement, Canada distributed social benefits to the homeless, and Norway built an office center that produces more electricity than it consumes

Topics of the week

• Peace in Nagorno-Karabakh

On November 10, 2020, Armenia and Azerbaijan, through the mediation of our country, signed an agreement to end the war in Nagorno-Karabakh. The conflict escalated back in July 2020, but the first large-scale clashes took place on September 27. During the hostilities, several thousand soldiers and civilians were killed, many were seriously injured. Under the agreement, Azerbaijan received the territories it lost after the first Karabakh war in 1992-1994, as well as several strategically important regions of the unrecognized republic. Among them is the city of Shusha (in Armenian – Shushi), located 5 km from the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, Stepanakert. Russian peacekeepers will also be sent to the conflict area.

Armenians and Azerbaijanis perceived the peace agreement differently. Residents of Baku staged festive processions, in their hands the demonstrators carried the flags of Azerbaijan and Turkey, the country’s main ally in the conflict. On November 10, mass protests began in Yerevan: their participants smashed the government building and beat Speaker Ararat Mirzoyan. The country’s authorities are detaining opposition leaders, and demonstrators are demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. Against this background, Armenian Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan stated that the agreements reached are by no means the final solution to the Karabakh problem.

Despite the fact that hostilities have ceased, humanitarian issues remain unresolved. According to the Armenian Foreign Ministry, about 90 thousand local residents left their homes. It will be difficult for them to go back: Nagorno-Karabakh is actually cut off from Armenia, and Azerbaijani troops are stationed a few kilometers from Stepanakert. peacekeepers will remain in the region until 2025, but what will happen next is unknown, since the peace agreement did not determine the status of the unrecognized republic. In addition, unexploded shells remained on the territory where the fighting took place. It will take a long time to find and neutralize them.

• Structural accumulators

The size, weight and cost of batteries make it difficult to manufacture machinery and vehicles. To solve this problem, European scientists Emil Greenlaf and Leif Asp propose to use structural batteries. Such batteries are not a separate part of the device, but part of its body. For example, the suspension of an electric car or the wing of an aircraft can simultaneously become a power source for vehicles.

As part of a joint project with Volvo, Greenlough and Asp developed a structural carbon fiber battery. It was sewn into the trunk door of one of the hybrid cars and used as an auxiliary power source that kept the air conditioner and stereo system running. Tesla has begun to use a similar approach: batteries in new models of electric cars will be built into the suspension to reduce the cost of cars. The technology will also come in handy when designing chips for smartphones and computers.

Startup of the Week: 3DBio Therapeutics 3D Prints Living Tissue

Bioprinting – 3D printing of organs and tissues – will allow the treatment of rare diseases and expand the possibilities of surgery. So, the American startup 3DBio Therapeutics has developed a technique that will help patients with microtia. Because of this disease, children are born with underdeveloped auricles and hear poorly. Right now, the only treatment option is several complicated surgeries, during which doctors rebuild the ear using cartilage from the patient’s rib. They are fastened together with liquid plastic and metal staples.

3DBio Therapeutics’ technology will simplify the process and make it less painful for patients. Cartilage cells from the patient’s ear are added to a special bioink. The resulting mixture is loaded into a bioprinter that prints an implant that fits the child in shape and size. After installing an artificial ear, the patient does not need hospitalization. 3DBio Therapeutics plans to begin clinical trials of its development before the end of 2020.

“Green” architecture: an office building produces more energy than it consumes

Architectural bureau Snøhetta has completed the construction of a business center in Porsgrunn, Norway. Solar panels have been installed on its sloping roof and south façade, which will generate more electricity than the office renting companies need. The surplus is planned to be sold to local power supply companies. The exterior of the building is clad in panels of wood and fiber cement, an environmentally friendly insulating material that keeps the business center warm even in winter.

Numbers and research of the week

• The head of the British Chiefs of Staff, General Nick Carter, suggested that in 2030 the country’s army will “serve” 30 тыс.robot soldier

Now researchers are developing for the British troops different types of vehicles that can be controlled remotely, as well as several types of attack drones. Among them is the i9 drone, equipped with two shotguns.

• In Canada, the homeless were paid$ 5,7 thousand

Canadian charity Foundations for Social Change and the University of British Columbia conducted a joint study in which 50 homeless people from Vancouver received $ 5,7 thousand, and were also able to go to career development training. The control group included 65 homeless people. They were not given an allowance, but they, along with other participants in the experiment, attended training courses. For the study, people were selected without mental disorders and drug addiction, all of them lived on the street for no more than two years.

The experiment lasted a year. Most of those who received the payment were able to move out of homeless shelters and into rented housing, with 49% doing so in the first month. Basically, the participants in the experiment spent money on rent, food, necessary clothes and medicines. In addition, they were 39% less likely to buy cigarettes and alcohol. A year after the start of the study, the former homeless, on average, still had $1 left, which they set aside for the future. The experiment also showed that such payments help to reduce the government’s costs of maintaining shelters by about $300 per year.

• Collins English Dictionary and the Russian Language Institute have chosen 2020 words of the year

The compilers of the explanatory dictionary of the English language Collins English Dictionary named the word of 2020 “Lockdown” (lockdown).

State Institute of the Russian Language. A. S. Pushkin called the words of 2020 “self-isolation” и “zero”. The final also included “voting”, “distancing”, “quarantine”, “covid”, “constitution”, “coronavirus”, “amendments” and “remote work”.

News of the week

• By 2022, a flying taxi will appear in Barcelona.
• Star What? Where? When?” Mikhail Skipsky continues to train schoolchildren, despite allegations of harassment of students.
• The SuperJob portal has launched a platform for self-employed employment.
• Californians voted in favor of Initiative 22: Uber, Lyft and other similar services will remain independent contractors.
• The British company Metalysis began to cooperate with the European Space Agency, its development allows to obtain oxygen and metals from the lunar soil.
• Bentley will only produce electric vehicles from 2030.
• Public services have a service for doctors. Through it, you can complain about the lack of medicines or protective equipment.
• China plans to tighten antitrust laws for marketplaces, and the European Commission has launched an investigation against Amazon for anti-competitive behavior in online commerce.
• McDonald’s has released a plant-based burger.

Idea: reusable packaging for the delivery of documents and parcels from online stores

Finnish startup RePack makes reusable envelopes and parcel bags out of durable polypropylene, the same plastic used to make blue IKEA shopping bags. The company operates on a packaging as a service model. When the buyer receives his order, he needs to fill out a return receipt and leave the package in which the package arrived in the post office. After that, the packaging will return to the RePack office, where the company’s employees will wash it and send it back to partner stores. When the bags wear out, they are recycled into reusable shoppers. This model reduces the carbon footprint of parcels and reduces the amount of garbage sent to landfills. RePack now cooperates with 125 European companies, and has also launched several pilot projects in the US, where Vans and North Face have become partners.

What to listen

• The release of the podcast “What’s New” about how Greenpeace activists clean up plastic on the Black Sea coast. Journalist Victoria Odissonova explains where stiletto heels and Turkish yogurt cans come from on the shore, and why the problem of garbage in reservoirs is so difficult to solve. You can read more about the Greenpeace expedition and the “plastic” resorts on the Black Sea in The Village report.
• Episode of the podcast “VTimes. In the topic” about distance education. Andrey Fetisov, director of the School of Media Communications at the Institute of Social Sciences of the RANEPA, spoke about how online learning is changing universities and schools. Associate Professor of the Department of Digital Media Communications of the Graduate School of Journalism and Mass Communications of St. Petersburg State University Kamilla Nigmatullina gave some tips to help you cope with the fatigue of constant videoconferencing.
• OpenAI launched the Jukebox project, in which artificial intelligence learns to create music in the style of famous artists and composers. You can listen to how AI imitates Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra and Chopin on the OpenAI SoundCloud page.

Event of the week

The ECA movement launched the Green Friday online marathon. During lectures and competitions, project participants will learn about the ecological footprint of the Black Friday campaign, as well as learn the rules of reasonable consumption and try to create new images from old things.

What to read

Alpina Non-Fiction Publishing House published a book by MIT professor Susan Hockfield “The Time of Living Machines. Biological revolution in technologies”, dedicated to the latest developments at the intersection of biology, chemistry and physics. Viral accumulators, protein water filters and mind-reading prostheses are just a few of the inventions Hockfield talked about.

“Tsekh” has compiled a selection of seven books that will help you improve your soft skills. For example, Laura Vanderkam, in Feeling Calm, talked about how to stay calm in a world of deadlines, and David Desteno, in The Power of Emotions, explained why gratitude, pride, and empathy help in work.

What to see:

• On November 10, Yandex held the Yet another Conference on Education conference. Experts from major Russian companies, as well as academics, journalists and educators discussed new trends and teaching methods, as well as how technology is changing the educational experience. Recordings of all performances can be found on the event website.
• Alphabet is using flashes of light to bring the internet to hard-to-reach places. The initiative was named Project Taara. The system has already been tested in the state of Andhra Pradesh in southern India, and a second pilot project will be launched in Kenya. The development consists of a transmitter and receiver, which can be installed at a distance of up to 20 km from each other. The beam of light plays the role of a fiber optic cable, while the data transfer rate reaches 20 Gbps.

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