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Science and Technology links (August 17th 2019)
- Google may soon release an augmented-reality version of Google Maps for mobile phones. I have always found it difficult to identify the streets I see in an unfamiliar setting, and it looks like Google may be solving this very problem. I am looking forward to seeing how well it works in practice.
- The delivery company UPS has been using self-driving trucks for some time. However the trucks are still manned by a driver and an engineer.
- Researchers have rejuvenated the brain cells of old rats. There is a press release.
- Blood pressure is an important health marker and it would be important to monitor it more broadly. There are cheap devices to measure blood pressure automatically, but they typically require that you put a strap around your arm. Researchers have shown that we can measure blood pressure using the camera of a smartphone. It remains to verify that it can work outside of the lab, in the real world.
- Are electric cars good for the environment? According to Holland et al., they are worse than gasoline cars on average, even though they may be preferable where you live:
Ignoring local pollution leads to an overestimate of the benefits of electric vehicles and an underestimate of the geographic heterogeneity. Accounting for both global and local pollution, we find electric vehicles generate negative environmental benefits of 0.73 cents per mile on average relative to comparable gasoline vehicles. (…) On average, electric vehicles driven in metropolitan areas generate benefits of about $0.01 per mile while those driven outside metropolitan areas generate benefits of −1.7 cents per mile.