How harmful is noise to our house and what kind of effects can it half. A sinking city bangkok is desperate for solutions to explore a problem. Traffic jams and backed up streets could be a thing of the past with self driving cars. With a computer at the helm they could smooth the traffic flow by up to 30 percent but it was official Intelligence Systems know whats going on around them. The also official Intelligence Systems that drive Autonomous Vehicles have to interpret what computer scientists call optical flow that is patterns of light in official scene to identify objects in the trajectory. Its crucial the optical flow systems get it right almost time. So do they. Thats what 3 researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in typically in 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. Your car is moving to the right then and then your optical so its going to look like yellow in the color map and the foster moves the brighter the colors so if its moving right at a really high speed then you see like a bright yellow thing and then if its moving slowly then its more towards the right so we have 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 iraq run john thats one way the optical fly represents that in yellow. If you go to the other way it turns papel. The Computer Vision system also predicts the 5 a movement of objects its identified is the color of the head 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 its 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 ai systems involves trying to trip them up the Research Just have indeed succeeded at least with the one theyve been working with certain patterns with certain colors which time both humans play havoc with this optical flow algorithm. Researchers have identified several such patterns but this one has the biggest negative effect. With the motion. Sparrows. If they cover the pattern up things go back to normal. There and cover the pattern and the ai is confused again the colors are not what they should be. This ystem contact densify objects will track their movements anymore. But the extent of the problem surprised us we werent surprised that there was interference they had already been research that identified problems with whats worrying is that such a small patch relative to such a large field of vision can have such an impact the sun shone. A patch or pattern like not only needs to occupy one percent of the visual field to mess up the processing of a full half the field. Of people learning letters which can work in rain or which can work and in like foggy climate and stuff but 1st we can find sort of noise pattern its like this mysterious can be a lot worse for these. The scientists who designed the troubling patterns they didnt just crop up what that means is that my line hackers could probably also create disruptive patterns and cause havoc on the ropes once Autonomous Vehicles as a ping around freely 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. Its an evolving system. The point of this kind of research is to develop optimal on top to really 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. But were not there yet traffic still creates a lot of noise especially in cities and that isnt just annoying in the long term it can even make us sick. Even when the noise doesnt pose a direct threat ill go to you respond as if it does. The adrenal glands really 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. If over time this physiological response can even make you 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 a european 104 but at what point does sound become bothersome noises or even Noise Pollution thats what researchers at the Technical University of dresden in germany want to find out. There john outen 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 camille measured with great precision the researches know that certain sound qualities bother us more than others. Flick presence and 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 decibels is enough to blow out a candle. A loud speaker also generates 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 the 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 for over 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 about 2050. Wrong things the thing to solve is how to increase human lifespan while maintaining good health. 90 i would like to know the answer to more philosophical questions is our soul eternal and is death the end of our existence. That b. N. Is concerned about how we can transit more quickly turnberry 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 lackies. 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 her after the. Plant is receiving its 1st supply of salt the start up 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 their homes are new sold into the unit and are keen to see how much water our evaporative 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 more stir from the surrounding air the resulting more tight 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. 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. For this us you can hear the salt solution being hauled up into the young and 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 stores are awful. Next the fan in the absorber unit is switched on. As are you because 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. Systems are designed to be installed on rooftops the cost about 1600. 00 euros for a 4 person household. As it is in this aspect isnt our primary goal we wanted to invent a. System to provide water in arab 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 program 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. 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 not a cycle at the seal. Before the testing continues philip for plan to have an appointment with a visitor from a variant center for innovation and technology transfer. Mother for 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 from 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. Just minutes or so 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 40. 50 or 60 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 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 he had simply terrorizes by 2 degrees celsius 360000000 people could be affected by floods. Rising sea levels are a threat to asias large coastal cities mega cities that are home to millions. This is a buddhist temple one of many across thailand. What certain what can somewhat chin apart is that its now out at sea the coastline 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. But the erosion of the land has a number of causes human activity storms and the rising sea level the abba tells us theyre experiencing Climate Change directly here and hes amazed by the indifference he encounters or die nobody shows any interest when we talk about it. People just carry 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 this 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 yes. If you are thinking about to protect the ethic of that in a way. That runs 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 half a centimeter a year. And the 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 canals still runs through the center of the city. The remaining canals help drain the area but theyre often overwhelmed. In 2011 floods devastated much of thailand parts of bangkok were under water for 2 months. But. The city has flood barriers pumps and drainage tunnels that 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 our 150 years from now were going to go you know. 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. That. If i leave there will be nobody left who remembers what happened. What erosion has done here. Or where. You go in bangkok just dont care any way. He says the temple should serve as a warning to all that we must treat nature with respect. Mangrove forests could provide some protection to bangkok coastline. And planting more trees in general is good. The climate because there absorb the Greenhouse Gases from the atmosphere but they only have a limited capacity. If youre in algeria has been thinking about the alternatives and sent in a question. It. 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 a 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 now. Trees can. Sow replanting forests is necessary in any case. But artificial trees might one day do their part in mitigating Climate Change. If outlet is red white are great but if i made it do you have a science question that youve always wanted and say it like were happy to help out send it to us as a video text over as well if we answer it on the show will send you a little surprise as a thank you can i just ask. You to find us at v. W. Dot com slash science or drop us a line i did over you underscore site x. On facebook d. W. Dot science. Next time its all about med what keeps them healthy. And its also about sex what does actually do join us next week when we put men under the microscope by. In 2015 the refugee crisis was given a phase. The 3 year old syrian boy drowned while fleeing to greece. His father survived the tragedy. Years later hes trying to make a new start in the. Global 3000. And 30 minutes on d w. Every team counts for us and for our planet. The ideas is on its way to bring you more conservation. How do we make cities streamer how can we protect animals and their habitats what to do with the lower east. Region and make a difference by choosing reforestation over the forest to show recycling over disposable Smart New Solutions oberstein said in our graves to those truly unique and we know that their uniqueness is what allows us to live and survive bloom idea as the environmental suits to global 3000. 00 on g. W. And on mine. How does a virus spread. Why do we panic and when will all this. 100 or 3 of the topics that weve covered in the weekly radio show is called spectrum if you like and information on the chrono laroche or any other science topic you should really check out our podcast you can get it wherever you get your podcast you can also find us at christines album. Science fiction. We know that this is a scary time for the coronavirus is changing the world changing our lives so please take care of yourself keep your distance wash your hands if you cant stay out how were g. W. For here for you we are working tirelessly to keep you informed on all of our platforms were all in this is being run together to make it. Stick you say to everyone these days it is to say stay safe please stay safe. This is the w. s live from berlin victory for all those euro skeptics president and judge ruled out wins a 2nd term scoring a narrow victory over his e. U. Friendly challenger what does the conservative win mean for the countrys next 5 years also coming up. A scolding for tourists flouting pandemic rules on so