Did you know that social sciences in Albania have a unique history? Unlike many countries, they didn't start in universities but in the public sector. This brought together professionals, politicians, and businesspeople to tackle social problems. Today, this collaboration still matters, especially w
You might have heard about Ethereum's big change from Proof-of-Work (PoW) to Proof-of-Stake (PoS). This change was meant to reduce the energy use of mining Ether, the cryptocurrency. Researchers looked into how investors reacted to this change. They studied how Ethereum (ETH), Ethereum Classic (ETC)
Imagine Texas experiences another harsh winter storm like the ones in 2021 and 2022. The chance of power outages could be around 50% in a bad storm, and nearly 80% in a really severe one. That's according to a recent report from ERCOT, the state's power grid operator. They called it a "worst-case sc
Aerosols, tiny particles in the air, can really mix things up in the sky. They change how clouds form and behave, and even influence the amount of rain that falls. Scientists used a special weather model to see what happens when there are different amounts of aerosols over the North Atlantic Ocean.
Ever thought about managing your home's heating in a smart way? Well, one cool project did just that in Québec! The idea was to use models—called gray-box models—to figure out the best times to heat a house based on new electricity rates. First, let's talk about the place. It was a two-story resear
Believe it or not, understanding how households use electricity can be like reading a book. Thanks to smart meters and a technique called Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), we can now decode these "energy stories. " LDA, typically used for analyzing text, has been applied to sort through hours of me
The Matter smart device standard has rolled out a new update called Matter 1. 4, which brings several exciting changes to smart homes. This update focuses on adding support for new types of devices, many of which relate to energy management. For instance, solar power systems, batteries, heat pumps,
Imagine trying to understand how people use electricity at home. It's like reading a big book, but with smart meters instead of words. As smart meters become common, we have lots of data, but figuring out what it all means is tricky. Scientists have come up with a clever way to make sense of this d
Election Day saw Bitcoin bouncing back to $70, 000. This happened as the U. S. presidential race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump tightened. What's interesting is that Bitcoin's value had been hovering around its peak, reaching $73, 562 last week, just a step away from its record high of $73,
You know how we thought the strongest gamma rays in the universe came from supermassive black holes far, far away? Well, scientists just found a tiny black hole nearby that's giving those giants a run for their money! This little powerhouse is called V4641 Sagittarii. It's a binary system, meaning
