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We can’t truly switch to renewable energy without a breakthrough. Follow my channel for more informative videos In the past few decades, solar and wind energy have made remarkable progress; they're now satisfying significant portions of our energy demand. But there's a problem holding us back from relying on them even more: They can’t be stored very well. Solar energy is only generated while the sun is up, and wind energy while the wind is blowing. But our power grids are designed to respond to demand whenever it occurs. Even suddenly, as is the case with storms and heat waves. When solar and wind are not available and demand spikes, the power companies need to burn fossil fuels — particularly natural gas, because it can be stored easily. If we ever want a power grid that relies solely on solar and wind energy, we’ll need to come up with ways to store them. Luckily, experts and engineers worldwide are coming up with some genius plans. Watch the video above to learn more about how we might be able to store solar and wind energy and, finally, transition away from fossil fuels. Read Neel's article energy storage here: https://bit.ly/3oPWAFd

And remember the Mannequin Challenge? Yep, they used that too. Follow my channel for more informative videos The quest for computer vision requires lots of data — including real world images. But that can be hard to find, which has led researchers to look in some pretty creative places. The above video shows how researchers used Tik Tok dances and the Mannequin Challenge to train AI. The quest is for “ground truth” — real world examples that can be used to train or grade an AI on its guesses. Tik Tok datasets provide this by showing lots of movement, clothing types, backgrounds, and people. That diversity is key to train a model that can handle the randomness of the real world. The same thing happens with the Mannequin Challenge — all those people pretending to stand still gave researchers — and their models — more real world data to train with than they ever could have hoped for. Watch the above video to learn more. Further Reading: Here’s the original project pages for each researcher in the video: Tik Tok aided depth: https://www.yasamin.page/hdnet_tiktok Mannequin Challenge: https://google.github.io/mannequincha... Geofill and Reference-Based Inpainting: https://paperswithcode.com/paper/geof... Virtual Correspondence: https://virtual-correspondence.github... Densepose: http://densepose.org/ Make sure you never miss behind the scenes content in the Vox Video newsletter, sign up here: http://vox.com/video-newsletter

Concrete emits a ton of carbon. Here's how we get it to net-zero. Follow my channel for more informative videos Cement accounts for 8 percent of our global carbon emissions. It’s also an incredibly difficult material to do without: It’s the glue that holds together the rock, sand, and water in concrete. And concrete is the building block of the world: It’s in our buildings, our streets, our sidewalks, and our infrastructure. Aside from water, there’s no material on earth we use more of. In order to get to net-zero CO2 emissions by 2050, we’ll have to address how we build and how we make cement. Because cement production is so closely linked to urbanization and development, China accounts for a vast majority of today’s cement-related emissions. Other countries with more development in their future will need to emit more emissions to produce cement, too. All that means the whole world needs to figure out how to create cement without the emissions. This video goes into the steps developed by researchers for how to get there. Note: The headline on this piece has been updated. Previous headline: Why cement is so bad for the climate Further reading: Here is a link to the Nature article that we based our key visual on. Two of the co-authors, Paul Fennell and Chris Bataille, appear in the video: https://www.nature.com/articles/d4158... I interviewed Brian Potter, who wrote this great article on how much concrete we consume: https://heatmap.news/economy/the-plan... Hannah Ritchie from Our World in Data wrote a great Substack clarifying the data on China’s cement emissions: https://hannahritchie.substack.com/p/... Make sure you never miss behind the scenes content in the Vox Video newsletter, sign up here: http://vox.com/video-newsletter

What it's like to flee Ukraine Follow my channel for more informative videos Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, more than 3 million people have been forced to flee their homes and leave the country. The vast majority are migrating west, toward the EU, and most are ending up in neighboring Poland. To escape the violence of the ground more than 2 million refugees have escaped by train, turning Ukraine’s railroad network into a vital lifeline. We sent a crew out to Przemyśl, a small Polish town on the border with Ukraine, to speak with the people who have fled Ukraine and left everything behind. In this video, we share their stories and take a look at how the railroad is operating in a war-torn country. To help us understand what a difficult operation this is, we spoke to the CEO of Ukrainian Railways, Oleksandr Kamyshin, who is running a mobile command unit to ensure Ukrainians can board trains and get to safety. To hear their stories and understand the arduous journey many make by rail, watch our video. Note: The headline on this piece was updated. Previous headline: What it's like to flee Ukraine Sources and further reading: A big challenge we faced making this video was keeping our numbers current. Every day, the UNHCR publishes new data about refugee migration. For the latest numbers, you can visit their data portal here: https://data2.unhcr.org/en/situations... You can follow the Ukrainian Railways on Telegram for updated information: https://t.me/UkrzalInfo To understand the Temporary Protection Directive in more detail, here’s the EU’s press release that links to the full document: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/press... To understand the racism experienced at the border by refugees of color, we recommend you read Vox’s article by Rajaa Elidrissi and Nicole Narea: https://www.vox.com/22962300/ukraine-... Make sure you never miss behind the scenes content in the Vox Video newsletter, sign up here: http://vox.com/video-newsletter

Can a color really beat the AI revolution? For now, it looks like it can. Follow my channel for more informative videos The greenscreen is a staple of visual effects — and it may stick around even in the age of AI “magic.” The video above explains why. It turns out that greenscreens, while imperfect, provide certain background separation benefits that are tough for AI to replicate due to the way it’s been trained and the limitations of available data. Preparation can help improve results, but this video shows why, ultimately, AI tools will remain one in a suite of options rather than a greenscreen killer. Further reading https://www.cs.unc.edu/~ronisen/ You can find more of Soumyadip (Roni) Sengupta’s papers here, including links to his various greenscreen work. https://segment-anything.com/ If you want to try the latest breakthrough in image segmentation, Meta’s demo lets you upload your own images. https://runwayml.com/ https://research.runwayml.com/publica... Runway ML has a variety of tools that sit on top of AI infrastructure, allowing you to play with all sorts of applications. They’ve documented a bit of their process at the link above. https://openaccess.thecvf.com/content... If you want to really learn more, you can read this paper that explains image matting on an important dataset. Make sure you never miss behind-the-scenes content in the Vox Video newsletter, sign up here: http://vox.com/video-newsletter

Cheap solar is a policy success story. Follow my channel for more informative videos Since 2009, the price of solar energy has come down by 90 percent. That’s no accident. It’s the result of policy interventions from the US to Germany to China. As policy analyst Gregory Nemet puts it, “No one country is responsible. It was a relay race rather than a competition.” The global flow of knowledge, people, technology, and policy helped bring down the price per watt from more than $100 in 1976 to less than $0.50 today, according to this analysis from the folks at Our World in Data. https://ourworldindata.org/cheap-rene... If we can learn the right lessons from solar’s success, it could help us develop and deploy the technology we need to keep our planet habitable and avoid the worst impacts of climate change. Make sure you never miss behind-the-scenes content in the Vox Video newsletter, sign up here: http://vox.com/video-newsletter

Ukraine is under attack. Follow Vox for the latest: https://bit.ly/3Kcg9Nb Follow my channel for more informative videos On February 24th, Russia launched a military invasion of Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin called it a “special military operation,” but the scale of the attack shows this is a full-scale war that has already caused more than 100 casualties and forced more than half a million Ukrainians to flee their homes. Ukraine and Russia’s conflict goes back to 2014, when Russia invaded and annexed Crimea and Russian-backed separatist forces took over parts of southeastern Ukraine’s Donbas region. But to understand the full context behind the invasion, it’s important to go even farther back, to the time when Europe’s current-day divisions began, and see how that shaped Europe’s power balance today. To understand the current conflict’s history in less than 10 minutes, watch the video above. Further reading: For the latest on the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, read more from Vox: https://bit.ly/3hBNll2 Or listen to our podcasts that cover the history of the situation, pull in expert voices, and more: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0QV... For more information on the human impact this war is having on the ground, check out Human Rights Watch: https://www.hrw.org/europe/central-as... For the UN’s latest information on the displacement of Ukrainians click here: https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/02/... For the latest on the situation on the ground you can check out the daily updates from the Institute for the Study of War: https://www.understandingwar.org/back... And the International Crisis Group: https://www.crisisgroup.org/europe-ce... For a detailed look at Ukraine’s decision to pull out from the 2013 EU agreement, check this out: https://www.osw.waw.pl/en/publikacje/... To better understand the annexation of Crimea and what that meant for Ukraine, click here: https://carnegieendowment.org/2014/03... To understand Putin’s grip on power, we recommend this book: https://www.amazon.com/Putin-v-People... Make sure you never miss behind the scenes content in the Vox Video newsletter, sign up here: http://vox.com/video-newsletter

The battle for Ukraine’s skies has enormous stakes. Follow my channel for more informative videos so you don't miss any videos: http://goo.gl/0bsAjO The Russian air force is huge. Ukraine’s is not. And yet, more than two weeks into Russia’s war in Ukraine, one of the biggest surprises was that Russia had not yet achieved control of the skies over Ukraine, or what’s called “air superiority.” When a military has air superiority, its planes can attack the enemy much more easily and its ground troops can advance much faster. If, or when, Russia achieves air superiority, it will have gained a major advantage in the war. To prevent or slow down that outcome, Ukraine’s allies in the west are working to deny Russia air superiority, mostly by sending weapons that can be used to shoot down planes. But Ukraine itself has asked for a more drastic step: the declaration of a no-fly zone over Ukraine, which would prohibit Russian planes from the airspace. But a no-fly zone is complicated, because to be effective, it has to be enforced. And the consequences of how that enforcement would play out could bring the war to places that were once unthinkable. Further Reading: Is the Russian Air Force Actually Incapable of Complex Air Operations? Justin Bronk, https://rusi.org/explore-our-research... What happened to Russia’s Air Force? Reuters, https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/... The curious case of Russia’s missing air force. Economist, https://www.economist.com/interactive... No-fly zone. Crisis Group, https://www.crisisgroup.org/europe-ce... EXCLUSIVE Americans broadly support Ukraine no-fly zone, Russia oil ban -poll, Reuters https://www.reuters.com/world/us/excl... War on the Rocks Podcast. https://warontherocks.com/2022/03/11-...

The ceasefire is completely ignored. Correction: In a previous version, the Russian Empire at 2:31 did not include Finland and northern Kazakhstan and at 2:34 the map mistakenly depicted the Warsaw Pact members, not the Soviet Union. At 2:03 the Minsk II agreement refers to the separatist enclaves as "certain areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine" not the DPR and LPR. Sources: Russian Empire: https://www.loc.gov/item/2015591079/ Soviet Union: https://www.loc.gov/resource/g7001f.c... Watch Vox Atlas, videos about conflicts around the world and their origins: http://bit.ly/2FOW52x Subscribe to our channel! http://goo.gl/0bsAjO The present conflict in Ukraine started in 2014. Today, there are 100,000 fighters stationed in the country, making it one of the most heavily militarized regions in the world. In Ukraine's east, Ukrainian forces are engaged in a struggle with Russian-backed separatists. A ceasefire was called in 2015, with a security zone established that was meant to foster peace. However, today the security zone remains one of the most violent places in the Ukraine. With over 10,000 deaths to date, and over 1.5 million civilians displaced, the cost of ignoring the ceasefire continues to mount by the day. And both sides are still building up their forces. To truly understand the international conflicts and trends shaping our world you need a big-picture view. Video journalist Sam Ellis uses maps to tell these stories and chart their effects on foreign policy.

Ukraine’s breakthrough counterattack, explained. Follow my channel for more informative videos In the spring and summer of 2022, the war between Ukraine and Russia settled into a stalemate. The first phase of the war had been a rapid invasion that drew new battle lines across Ukraine; this next phase saw those battle lines harden and change very little over a long period of fighting. But in September, that chapter came to an end. For the first time in several months, Ukraine scored a major victory and won back significant territory from Russia. Ukraine pulled this victory off by taking advantage of a surprising weakness in the Russian army: the difficulty it’s had maintaining its ranks of skilled soldiers, especially compared to the training and resources that Ukraine’s army has received from its allies. Reports suggest that Russia’s army has suffered catastrophic losses in the war, and that it’s attempted to replace those more highly trained forces with large numbers of mercenaries, prisoners, and men over 40. It’s an army that was stretched thin and vulnerable to the multi-pronged attack Ukraine launched in September. Russia still controls a large amount of territory in southern Ukraine, including two major cities. But Ukraine’s victory outside of Kharkiv signals a new chapter in the war — one where, remarkably, Ukraine seems to have a shot at driving out the Russians completely. Watch the video to learn more about why this attack worked and why it matters so much.

It could learn them all. But will it? Follow my channel for more informative videos. Large language models are astonishingly good at understanding and producing language. But there’s an often overlooked bias toward languages that are already well-represented on the internet. That means some languages might lose out in AI’s big technical advances. Some researchers are looking into how that works — and how to possibly shift the balance from these “high resource” languages to ones that haven’t yet had a huge online footprint. These approaches range from original dataset creation, to studying the outputs of large language models, to training open source alternatives.

From clothes to tech, why is everything so poorly made? Follow my channel for more informative video. Maybe you’ve noticed: In the past 10 years everything we buy from clothes to technology has gotten just a little bit worse. Sweaters are more likely to tear. Phones are more likely to break. Smart toasters and TVs burn out and die after only a few years. It might seem like consumer products just aren’t built to last anymore. What’s going on? Unfortunately (and fortunately!), part of the problem is us. For decades, we’ve been conditioned to buy, buy, buy, and today it’s normal for many consumers to shop for new clothes at least once a month. In order to keep up, many companies have to prioritize making things in the fastest and least expensive way possible. To do that, they cut corners with materials and labor. In turn, quality suffers, which leaves consumers with a lot of crappy things. The story with technology is a little different. And the biggest difference is that while no one in fashion is saying you’re not allowed to sew a new button on a shirt, many tech companies have actually made it impossible to repair their products. The good news is consumers have a surprising amount of control over this situation.

The four criminal investigations into the former president, explained. Follow My Channel for more informative videos. Donald Trump is now the first former US President to face criminal charges. He pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. This case involves hush money that Trump’s lawyer paid to an alleged former sexual partner. But it’s actually just one of four criminal investigations into the former president. The other three investigations focus on his behavior after the 2020 presidential election. A Georgia team is examining Trump’s efforts to persuade Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” more Trump votes after the votes had been counted and Raffensperger had declared Joe Biden the winner. Federal special prosecutor Jack Smith is heading up the other two investigations. One group is looking at the Trump team’s attempts to persuade officials in a handful of states where Biden won not to certify his victory, and instead to claim Trump won the state despite the vote counts. The other federal investigation is focused on classified documents that Trump brought with him from the White House to his Florida estate after losing the 2020 election. According to reports from the Washington Post and the New York Times, when the FBI searched his estate in August 2022, they found documents related to nuclear weapons, as well as files containing information that could put US informants in the field in danger. As president, Trump didn’t just say outrageous things, he acted in unprecedented ways. Now that he’s out of office, investigators in a variety of jurisdictions are trying to figure out if he broke the law, too.

Will carbon dioxide removal work? It has to. Follow my channel please. In recent years, over 70 countries have committed to net-zero carbon emissions, aiming to become carbon neutral by mid-century. The 2015 Paris Agreement aimed to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius and ideally limit it to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels. Despite global efforts, emissions are still rising, and achieving the 1.5-degree goal has become increasingly difficult. Most pathways to keep warming below 2 degrees, and eventually return back to 1.5 rely on negative emissions, which involve pulling carbon dioxide from the atmosphere using carbon dioxide removal (CDR) methods like enhanced weathering and direct air capture. However, these techniques are still in early development stages, and require land, energy, and money. Critics argue that relying on CDR implicitly encourages governments and companies to postpone necessary emissions reductions because counting on CDR now means relying on future generations of leaders to deliver on those promises. Preventing emissions is broadly less costly than cleaning them up after the fact. But even with dramatic cuts to emissions, experts say some amount of CDR will still be necessary.

Follow my channel for more informative videos Vladimir Putin has been ruling Russia since 1999. In that time he has shaped the country into an authoritarian and militaristic society. The Soviet Union dissolved into 15 new countries, including the new Russian Federation. In Putin’s eyes, Russia had just lost 2 million square miles of territory. But Putin’s regime has also developed and fostered the most effect cyber hacker army in the world and he’s used it to wreak havoc in the West. But the election of Donald Trump brings new hope for the Putin vision. Trump’s rhetoric has been notably soft on Russia. He could lift sanctions and weaken NATO, potentially freeing up space for Putin’s Russia to become a dominant power once again.

And how can it get better? Follow so you don't miss any videos Make sure you never miss behind-the-scenes content in the Vox Video newsletter, sign up here: http://vox.com/video-newsletter Hands drawn by robots … often just don’t look right. Why is that, and what will it take to get better? Producer Phil Edwards is exploring five different aspects of AI that help explain everything from large language models to where unusual training data comes from. In this first video, he digs into why AI art struggles with hands. The challenges range from the same ones that human artists face to those that are a unique result of how AI generative art is created. The road to improving these hands may not be as obvious as you’d think.