🐜 Desert ant-inspired super chip, coal-fired plant goes solar, Alexander the Great's first Persian victory site

Desert ants navigate vast, featureless landscapes with uncanny precision.

These tiny creatures possess a unique ability to perceive the polarization of sunlight, allowing them to find their way back to their nest even under the harshest conditions.

Inspired by this incredible feat of nature, a team of Chinese researchers has developed a miniature, on-chip polarization photodetector. Delve deeper into our Must-Read.

🔥Today’s job of the day as featured on jobs.interestingengineering.com:

> Senior Data Operations Engineer
> Frontend Software Engineer - AI Trainer

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MUST-READ

🐜 Desert ant vision powers sci-fi style super chip to spot cancer, boost security 

The team envisions a wide range of applications for the chip, including navigation, fingerprint detection, cancer tissue identification, and even de-haze images.

“[This] compact on-chip optoelectronic device demonstrates excellent performance in a wide range of applications including accurate bionic navigation, sharp image restoration in hazy scenes, stress visualization of polymers, and detection of cancerous areas in tissues without histological staining,” the researchers wrote in the study paper.

Polarization photodetectors (pol-PDs) are high-tech sensors that can detect the orientation of polarized light. Photodetectors can enhance image quality by detecting variations in incoming light, allowing them to distinguish contrast.

🔆 US to transform polluting coal-powered plant into solar, battery facility

A$1.4 billion grant from the Department of Agriculture will turn a lignite-fired power plant in Atascosa County, Texas, into a solar + battery electricity generation facility. The federal grant will see the dirtiest power plants in Texas transition into a clean energy resource in the near future while also saving local jobs, a press release said.

The power plant in Atascosa County is a good example of how a power generation facility can retain its original purpose while completely switching from a polluting to a clean energy source.

The facility, operated by San Miguel Electric Cooperative Inc (SMECI), is located in the town of Christine, south of San Antonio, and currently serves 340,000 customers in about 47 Texan counties. Operating on the lignite mined at the site since 1982, it is one of Texas’s 14 dirtiest power-producing plants.

⚔️ 2,400-year-old battlefield of Alexander the Great’s first Persian victory found

The site of one of the most decisive battles in history, the Battle of Granicus, where Alexander the Great first defeated the Persians in pursuit of all of Asia Minor, has finally been located in northwestern Turkey.

In May 334 BCE, Alexander the Great won his first victory against the Persian Achaemenid Empire in his campaign to conquer Asia Minor. The Battle of Granicus was the first of three major battles between the two armies that allowed Alexander the Great to march onward toward India.

The exact location of one of the most legendary warring grounds in human history remained a mystery for over a century. Professor Korpe, however, began his quest to find the epic piece of land twenty years ago, upon which approximately 90,000 men clashed to the death. The area will soon become a tourist attraction as part of the Alexander the Great Cultural Route Project.

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