A computer at the helm they could smooth the traffic flow by up to 30 percent but do Artificial Intelligence systems know whats going on around them. The Artificial Intelligence systems that drive Autonomous Vehicles to interpret what computer scientists call optical flow that is patterns of light in a fish all seem to identify objects in the trajectories its crucial to optical flow systems get it right all the time. So do you think. Thats what 3 researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems and tubing and germany want to determine. This system represents the movement of an object in different colors in different degrees of brightness depending on the perceived direction and the speed its going in. If your car is moving to the right then then your optical is gonna look like yellow in the color map and the faster it moves the brighter the colors so if its moving right at a really high speed then you see it like a bright yellow thing and then if its moving slowly then its more towards the right to be had like a color wheel representation which sort of like shows the corresponding civil lawsuit is that stuff like happened in the video and objects move. On a rock run john thats one way the optical fly our it represents that in yellow. If you go the other way it times papel. The Computer Vision system also predicts the 5 in me front of objects its identified is the current ahead still moving forward or is it slowing to a stop thats key to preventing collisions for example. And it has to do all this super fast. To the computer every image is a fresh image its like it seeing the world every 30 times a 2nd brand new an optical flow is what connects things across time and allows the computer to have a consistent representation of the world much more like we do. Testing k. I systems involves trying to trip them up the Research Just havent succeeded at least with the one they found working with certain patterns with certain colors which time the humans play havoc with this optical flow algorithm. The researchers have identified several such patterns but this one has the biggest negative effect. With emotions. Sperms. If they cover the pattern up things go back to normal. There uncover the pattern and the ai is confused again the colors are not what they should be. This is dont contact them to find objects or track their movements anymore. Extent of the problem surprised us we werent surprised that there was interference theyd already be researched but identified problems with whats worrying is that such a small patch relative to such a large field of vision can have such an impact this. Patch a pattern like not only needs to occupy one percent of the visual field to mess up the processing of a full half the field. There are people learning methods which can work and bring in a rich can work and in like foggy climate and stuff but 1st we can find certain noise back and its like this with tourists can be a lot worse for the snow and of course the scientists who designed the troubling patterns they didnt just crop up what that means is that my line hikers could probably also create disruptive patterns and cause havoc on the ropes once Autonomous Vehicles as a ping around for a mate there may be a bit of a war going on between people trying to attack and people trying to produce robust systems this is exactly what we see also with any kind of Security Software you know hackers find a loophole in some operating system they inform the manufacturer of the new defenses are made and then you know its an evolving system. The point of this kind of research is to develop optimal optimally secure ai systems for self driving vehicles the hope is that they will eventually prove safer than cars driven by fallible humans. If the Driverless Cars of the future are electric theyll produce fewer emissions and that includes emissions of noise. That were not there yet traffic still creates a lot of noise especially in cities and less isnt just annoying in the long term it can even make us sick. Even when the noise doesnt pose a direct threat to our body responds as if it does. The adrenal glands release stress hormones part of the bodys fight or flight response. Our heart beats faster and our Blood Pressure rises. Glucose and fatty acid reserves are pumped into the blood to supply additional energy. The immune and digestive systems are weakened. Over time this physiological response can even make the sick it can lead to high Blood Pressure type 2 diabetes and high cholesterol and that in turn can lead to cardiovascular disease or even a heart attack. According to the World Health Organization or w h o one in 5 people in europe are regularly exposed to high levels of noise there isnt as much data about the rest of the world but the problem is certainly not just the european one. But at what point does sound become bothersome noise or even Noise Pollution thats what research is at the Technical University of dresden in germany want to find out. That john out and soy has created a set up that mimics the experience of traveling by automobile. Hes investigating how we hear and perceive different sounds. The Acoustics Lab is completely soundproofed even the floor is insulated against noise the research is have to walk on a net that keeps the reflection of sound waves in this room to an absolute minimum so sounds coming measured with great precision. The researches know that certain sound qualities bother us more than others. But higher frequencies always draw our attention and that makes the more problematic temporal variations are also an issue we tend to be very sensitive to sounds that arent constant but very. So if a sound or source of noise is highly variable like the sound of a train that passes every 15 minutes that tends to bother us much more than a continuous noise. Sound is measured as the sound pressure level expressed in decibel the higher the pressure caused by a sound wave the louder the sound the sound wave at 90 decibel is enough to blow out a candle. A loud speaker also generate sound waves an increase of 10 decibels causes us to perceive a sound as twice as loud 10 decibels less half as loud. The sound pressure level isnt the only deciding factor frequency the number of cycles of a sound wave in one second is also an issue. With humans tend to be more sensitive to sound at higher frequencies especially in a 1. 00 to 5. 00 kilohertz range. Thats why there are different ways to express the sound pressure levels. D. B. A. Level is weighted to approximate the way the human ear hears we tend to perceive sound in easily or double frequencies as the most bothersome. The World Health Organizations european guidelines recommend that traffic noise levels shouldnt exceed an average of 53. 00 decibel of a 24 hours at night it should remain below 45. 00 decibels according to recent findings many places in europe exceed those guidelines. For courts and it is estimated that about 4 percent of all cases of coronary Heart Disease and that means above all heart attacks are due to traffic noise. So within the European Union about 50000. 00 fatal heart attacks per year can be attributed to traffic noise. So its high time for new legislation to limit Noise Pollution. Whats your vision of the future we asked you on facebook which questions you think science should answer by 2050. Roll things the thing to solve is how to increase human lifespan while maintaining good health. But. Now i would like to know the answer to more philosophical questions is our soul eternal and is death the end of our existence. Bobby and is concerned about how we can transit more quickly turned viral mentally Friendly Energy sources. Also has an ecological concern he says that water is likely to be an expensive resource in 2050 and so we need low tech ways of producing fresh water so that people wont lack is. Thanks for your comments. Water shortage is a serious threat to future life on. Our planet is heating up and dry seasons are lasting longer and longer. The United Nations predict that 135000000 people could be displaced by 2045 because of a lack of water at home. Engineers from munich have an idea that they think might help. This is a big moment for acquiring the. Plant is receiving its 1st supply of salt the startup wants to make fresh water for regions where its scarce engineer and physicist Philip Plunkett will be using this salt solution to extract water from the air there. Are new salt into the unit and are keen to see how much water our evaporator can produce weve tested it in the lab now its for real. The new process could bring much needed Drinking Water to the worlds arid regions. Engineer spend half in a is helping to test the pilot unit in germany the basic principle behind extracting water from air is a simple one. A concentrated salt solution absorbs moster from the surrounding air the resulting more tie loop solution is then heated using solar energy to evaporate the water. That water vapor then condenses yielding distilled water the salt solution is also used as a coolant during the condensation phase. This eliminates the need for a separate cooling system and helps reduce costs. And has applied for a patent for this invention. On top of the container is the absorber unit it brings the salt solution into contact with the air. As if it is us you can hear the salt solution being talked into the young it then it flows down through this corrugated cardboard. When you have an idea on how to improve the process and reduce costs it makes you happy as an engineer and entrepreneur. Are awful. Next the fan in the absorber unit is switched on. As are you can you can feel hear how the fan is pulling add into the unit. The system is powered by the sun one square meter of solar panels yields around 3 liters of Drinking Water a day. Or systems are designed to be installed on rooftops that cost about 1600. 00 euros for a 4 person household. As in the Business Aspect isnt our primary goal we wanted to invent a system to. Divide water in arid regions using more people that have a lot of namely the sun. The basic concept is a solid one but some of the details have still to be worked out. During the test phase the system needs to be optimized to extract as much water from the air as possible. A number of glitches keep cropping up. This provision was a recurring problem is that bubbles start to form as the water heats up that introduces an end to the pump and then we have to turn off the unit so that. Its ok stack now the water levels rising again grated worked up we were able to remove the bubbles and keep the system running thats good. Ultimately we want to automate the process there was. Before the testing continues philip for plan to have an appointment with a visitor from a variant center for innovation and technology transfer. Other meyer focuses on Energy Technology we ask him what he thinks of aqua harris invention. Its nature isnt it its an Interesting Technology with a lot of potential and its not likely to do any direct harm to the environment but it will affect the microclimate its the same with any technologies take cars for example a system might work in isolation but when you have a 100000 of them the impact is different this will see when its implemented as humans and its. Her its test phase here in germany will last for 6 weeks then the unit will be shipped to morocco there it will be set up at an orphanage near marrakech to be tested under realistic conditions. The senator said were looking forward to seeing how much water we can extract that we need 23 percent humidity in the ethanol system to work because germany we have 4050 all see. 6 percent humidity so not realistic conditions in morocco will have the real thing itll be interesting to see what happens with recession one aqua harris test unit produces distilled water. Its free of impurities but that doesnt mean its ready to drink quite yet. The boss of me and i the water needs minerals that theyre easy to act by sending the water through a mineral cartridge that you can drink it or not uncommon this one about the. Water is an essential life force but too much of it is also dangerous floods and storm surges are among the consequences of Climate Change if the earths temperature rises by 2 degrees celsius 360000000 people could be affected by floods. Rising sea levels are a threat to asias large coastal cities megacities that are home to millions. This is a buddhist temple one of many across thailand. What. A part is that its now out at sea the coast live has receded a kilometer over the past half century. He added some look at the party takes us on a tour. There used to be a school over there where the water tank is now on but everybody looked at nobody thought about prevention or solution. The erosion of the land has a number of causes human activity storms and the rising sea level the other tells us theyre experiencing Climate Change directly here and hes amazed by the indifference he encounters. Nobody shows any interest when we talk about it people just. On as if it were business as usual even when i tell them about Global Warming nobody cares. They are. Just 20 kilometers from the coast is the thai capital bangkok built on marshy ground in the delta of the child prior river 14000000 people live in the metropolitan region much of the land is just a metre and a half above sea level. Climate change scenarios for c. The gulf of thailand being hard hit under an optimistic scenario the sea level could rise 3 meters over the next 3 centuries. In the worst case it could rise 7 metres. So does bangkok have a future persistent extensive flooding is already a problem and its set to get worse fast the city has been the countrys capital since the late 18th century but theres talk about moving it geologist tunnel what their own plans are called has been tracking coastal erosion for decades and all it shows us photos of what can somewhat chin temple taken in 1974 when it was still on dry land. A 1000000 People Living near the coast are under imminent threat is. On if you ever think you know how to protect the ethic of thats why i think that when its foolish you have to think of how to adapt. He says planting mangroves along the coast would help combat erosion but what about bangkok itself. There were people will still be able to live there but they will have to change their way of life there will be more rain and floods and nightmarish traffic if we just carry on the same way but i dont expect bangkok to just sink into the sea like the temple. Currently the sea level is rising high. If a centimeter a year. And a city is sinking 2 centimeters a year. Bangkok used to be called the venice of the east because it was crisscrossed by lots of canals but many of them were filled in as the city grew. The sunset come out still runs through the center of the city. The remaining canals helped drain the area but theyre often overwhelmed. In 2011 floods devastated much of thailand parts of bangkok were under water for 2 months. But you know. The city has flood barriers pumps and drainage tunnels and work is underway to improve the Flood Control systems. Were going to continue to have this under control and we already have the technology to monitor the Situation Technology will advance and well still be on top of things are 150 years from now. At the temple in the sea the monks have to enter via a window the floor of the prayer room has been raised. Despite the trying conditions but some look at it on you is determined to stay. If i leave there will be nobody left who remembers what happened. What erosion is done here. Or where. People in bangkok just dont care anyway. He says the temple should serve as a warning to all but we must treat nature with respect. Mangrove forests could provide some protection to bangkok coastline. And planting more trees in general is good for the climate. Because there absorb the Greenhouse Gas from the atmosphere but they only have a limited capacity. And. If youre in the tyria has been thinking about the alternatives and sent in a question. That. Could artificial trees help mitigate Climate Change. Real trees are an important ally in the fight against Climate Change they slow down Global Warming by absorbing climate killing c o 2 through the natural process of photosynthesis c o 2 is used to produce glucose and oxygen. Researchers in switzerland calculated that 900000000 hectares of additional forest could absorb 2 thirds of the c o 2 generated by human activity that could help limit Global Warming to 1. 5 degree celsius. But critics say its unrealistic to plant a forest on an area about the size of the united states. And existing forests will need to be preserved instead theyre being destroyed for example to make room for agriculture. Some Scientists Say that one day artificial trees might absorb up to 1000 times more c o 2 than their natural counterparts they wouldnt even need to look like natural trees. Fans like these could suck c o 2 out of the air using special filters but the world would need 250000. 00 of these systems to remove just one percent of the worlds c o 2. Then the Carbon Dioxide would need to be stored underground because the artificial trees dont convert the c o 2 into oxygen like natural trees k. So replanting forests is necessary in any case. But artificial trees might one day do their part in mitigating Climate Change. If outlet is right why are they if you pay to have it do you have a science question that youve always wanted oncet were happy to help out send it to us as a video text ovoid smell if we answer it on the show well save you a little surprise as a thank you can all just ask. Youll find us at v. W. Dot com slash science or drop us a line i d w underscore site tech on facebook t. W. Dot science. Next time its all about meg what keeps them healthy. And its also about sex what does bum actually do join us next week when we put men under the microscope by. Enchanting forests that invite visitors to dream. To bear witness change time. Reliance to wind. The tourist valley. Bohemian switzerland by rail. On w. A week of. Doing the corona pandemic. Why not. The big paris fashion designers have gotten creative in the crisis. Theyre presenting their collection on modern. Your romance. In 60 on d w. Like. All of the a mug or just some of our food for the russians so. It runs deep. So many different walks of life. Some are pumpin and ugly. But all of them come straight from the heart looks for a cd even when theres no money dilution the marsh will enjoy come. From the fruit of the log on to their final resting place the russians are g. W. Documentary. Trains and the elder valley. A blend of history and nature i wake passengers here. When the sun is rising and the sandstone is being let up its really special to ride through this narrow valley through. This is that there are lovely landscapes here and the tunnels still have neo gothic arches dating back to when they were 1st built about bugs in