You haven’t seen the last episode, have you?

No.

I didn’t give anything away just now, did I?

No, no, you were tending in the directions I think had been set up. I’m even more eager to see it now. I do have an acting question: How do you and your fellow actors play the same person who is not the same person?

In the very first season, we created this idea that they sit around dinner and they have the same movements—that that’s a cultural thing among these three people. We had these technical ways of making their shared consciousness visual and actable in. We just practiced it. We came up with this little dance that we would do with those dinner table scenes. In the second season, we did something different with it. We created this idea of one who’s not going to follow the rules, who’s just going to do it differently, whether the other brothers like it or not.

Oh, interesting.

I love working with Terry [Mann, who plays Brother Dusk] and Cassian [Bilton, who plays Brother Dawn] and Laura. It’s such a unique concept that [writer and producer David S. Goyer] had with these cloned emperors that are all living together as family, and there are lots of different ways to look at it. I think it’s a completely original idea, and in line with the questions that Asimov asks in Foundation and his other work.

Lee Pace with (hopefully fake) bloody knuckles and a red iPhone on the set of Foundation.

Courtesy of Lee Pace

Lee Pace working on Foundation.

Courtesy of Lee Pace

I completely agree that it’s a genuinely original idea. There’s always a new way to play basic blues, but this is a really new idea that I can’t think of an antecedent for. Maybe there is one.

It’s about time, too. It’s about time. You can do this thing with time and generations, and that’s what I feel like now we’ve done in season three. We’ve now covered 300 years, and we look back even further.

Much like Asimov did.

He worked on this story over so many different decades, writing the Foundation books, writing them with collaborators and finding ways to tie in other short stories and storylines that he had written in other books and series, and expanding this world of Foundation.

Yes, but I would also imagine that much source material can be overwhelming.

I really love how on this show we have not treated the making of the series like fan fiction, where we would be like, OK, now we do the scene where this happens and now we do the scene where this happens and this happens and this happens. But we let the hugeness of the story that Isaac Asimov left us be on the table, and we can explore the plotlines that he wrote, plotlines that are referred to, plotlines that happen offstage, the plotlines that he discovered later in writing and realizing about the story.

Right, it stays true to the shape of Asimov’s ideas without being beholden to them.

As a science fiction fan myself, I feel like that’s like a good opportunity taken when we could bring it to screen, to use and be inspired by everything we have in front of us with what he has achieved in writing Foundation and then tying in all of these other different stories and plotlines that he had created throughout. I mean, he’s just an incredibly prolific writer.

E-scooters have often been identified as more dangerous than e-bikes, but that picture changes when they are compared on equal terms. A recently published study from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, shows, in fact, that the crash risk is eight times higher for e-bikes than for e-scooters, calculated based on the trip distance with rental vehicles in cities.

This surprising result provides a better basis for cities to make decisions on how much to facilitate different types of micromobility. The paper is published in the Journal of Safety Research.

“Previous studies have often compared apples with oranges,” says Marco Dozza, Full Professor in Active Safety and Road-User Behavior at Chalmers. “They have lumped together e-bicycles with ordinary bicycles, and haven’t taken into account where, how and how much these vehicles are used—or whether they are rented or privately owned. When we took all these factors into account, we found that e-scooterists actually have a lower rate of crashes than e-cyclists.”

GPS data contributed to equitable comparison

The study is based on a unique data set from trips using rented e-bicycles and e-scooters in seven European cities: Gävle in Sweden, Berlin and Düsseldorf in Germany, and the U.K. cities of Cambridge, Kettering, Liverpool and Northampton.

The researchers analyzed 686 crashes involving e-scooterists and 35 involving e-cyclists. The high number of crashes involving e-scooters reflects that they were used much more frequently than e-bicycles. But their crash risk was actually much lower—regardless of whether the risk was calculated on the basis of the number, duration, or distance of the trips.

“When we calculated using trip distance, it turned out that e-cyclists were eight times more likely to have a crash than e-scooterists. It’s a result that surprised us,” says Dozza.

This is the first time that a study of this kind has been able to compare micromobility in such a detailed and equitable way, and from so many countries and cities. A key to being able to do the study in this way was the use of GPS data. This made it possible to measure what is termed “exposure”—which refers to how much a vehicle is actually used—with greater precision than previously.

All vehicles in the study were rented and used in city centers, which makes the comparison more equitable than previous studies that have often mixed together urban and rural settings, or mixed rented vehicles with privately owned vehicles.

Safety of e-scooters grossly underestimated

Despite their results, the researchers stress that they should not be seen as definitive proof that e-scooters are safer than e-bicycles. Uncertainties remain, such as under-reporting of crashes and differences in the way these vehicles are used.

“But what we can say is that previous studies have grossly underestimated the safety of e-scooters in relation to e-bicycles,” says Dozza. “This in turn could have consequences for how cities regulate and plan micromobility. In some cities, attempts are being made to steer micromobility towards e-bicycles, which are considered to be better because previous research has created the idea that all types of cycling are safer than all types of e-scootering,” he adds.

“Now that it turns out that isn’t correct, decision-makers may need to think again. The results might also affect consumers’ decisions if they have rented e-bicycles instead of e-scooters because they believed it’s safer,” he says.

According to the researchers, future analyses of crash risk should always include GPS data and precise information about how the vehicles are used. They would also like to see additional comparable data sets from other parts of the world; in particular, data sets that include more e-bicycle journeys in order to improve statistical reliability.

“With more detailed data, we can make better decisions about transport for the future. And to achieve that, it’s important that we compare apples with apples,” says Dozza.

More about the research

The study only compares e-scooters with e-bicycles, unlike previous studies where e-bicycles and ordinary bicycles were lumped together in the same group. It is also the first study to also include several other important factors in the comparison: ownership, geographical location, usage, and exposure.

• Only rented vehicles were included in the study.
• The locations were limited to highly urbanized city centers using geofencing.
• Usage type was further controlled by comparing e-scooters and e-bicycles from the same rental company.
• Exposure was investigated using three different measures: number, duration, and distance of the trips.

The difference in crash risk between these vehicle types was greatest when trip distance was used as the measure for exposure, when the crash risk was 8.3 times higher for e-bicycles than for e-scooters. But even when using the other two measures for exposure, the crash risk was considerably higher for e-bicycles.

The data in the study comes from GPS data from trips with rented e-scooters and e-bicycles in seven European cities in the years 2022–2023 and includes a total of 686 reported crashes with e-scooters and 35 with e-bicycles. Despite the low number of crashes with e-bicycles, the results of the study are statistically significant when the data from all the cities was weighed together.

Soil liquefaction can be a major threat to the infrastructure and built environments in an earthquake-prone area. This happens due to substantial loss of soil stiffness and strength due to applied stress. Loose, moderately granulated, sandy soil is more prone to soil liquefaction.

Recognizing the urgent need to enhance urban resilience in seismic-prone regions, particularly in rapidly urbanizing areas vulnerable to such hazards, scientists are focusing on different mitigation techniques. Soil compaction technique is one of the effective methods developed to enhance the liquefaction resistance of the soil.

However, developing a proper evaluation method is also of the utmost importance. Traditionally, stress-controlled cyclic triaxial tests are done for the evaluation. However, the results are often inconsistent and this can lead to an overestimation of the resistance capacity.

Also, focusing on sustainable options is an inevitability in present times. So, the scientists are also trying to focus on formulating and testing environment-friendly grouting substances.

To bridge the methodological gaps and promote safer, eco-friendly ground improvement for the global infrastructure, Professor Shinya Inazumi from College of Engineering, Shibaura Institute of Technology (SIT), Japan, along with a small team of researchers, developed a strain-controlled testing method using cyclic triaxial.

“We pursued this research after recognizing the urgent need to improve urban resilience to earthquakes,” mentions Prof. Inazumi, talking about the motivation for the study. The findings were published in the journal Results in Engineering.

As a grouting solution, an environment-friendly formulation of colloidal silica (CS) and geothermal-recycled sodium silicate were used. Compared to conventional grouting solutions, this reduces carbon-dioxide emissions during production by approximately 60%. Three different concentrations of CS–6%, 8%, and 10% were tested.

The stress-controlled test was conducted following previously established protocol. For the strain-controlled cyclic triaxial test, double-amplitude axial strain was maintained constant at 5%, simulating large cyclic deformations from earthquakes. Cumulative dissipated energy was evaluated as an alternative indicator of liquefaction potential.

The phase transformation angle was evaluated. Cumulative dissipated energy as a unified evaluation index was also evaluated. Pore pressure-based criterion, strain-based criterion, and energy-based criterion were assessed to evaluate the resistance.

The test result revealed that a higher concentration of CS increases the resistance, with 10% concentration yielding the best result. Analysis of the cumulative dissipated energy confirmed that energy-based evaluation is a viable approach for assessing liquefaction resistance.

“This new method is superior to the present evaluation methods,” mentions Prof. Inazumi. “It reduces the need for multiple specimens, which makes it cost-effective and produces consistent, reproducible results.”

The team also observed a linear relationship between dissipated energy and liquefaction resistance ratio (R_{L20, 5%}) which can be a potential calibration path for integrating strain-controlled results into existing stress-based design charts. This can save time and improve previous test results significantly.

The new method’s potential of being integrated into energy-based designs supports its use in performance-based seismic design frameworks, as proposed in recent studies.

“The research has profound real-world applications, especially in earthquake-prone regions,” says Prof. Inazumi.

“One key application is retrofitting existing structures, based on the updated test results. Chemical grouting with CS can be used to mitigate liquefaction hazards in waterfront projects, such as expanding school buildings, residential complexes, and medical facilities near seawalls.”

Furthermore, this method can stabilize loose sands against lateral spreading. The eco-friendly nature of the silica formulation can also ensure the safety of marine environments. Additionally, owing to the low-vibration nature of this method, it could be ideal for crowded urban areas, aiding in the development of bridges, ports, and dams in regions such as Japan and California.

Taken together, integrating this new method of testing into global standards could save lives, minimize economic losses by providing precise, cost-effective liquefaction mitigating strategies.

In the future, the testing method could be used to evaluate other types of soil, other grout types, and testing methods. The study hugely contributes to the development of performance-oriented ground improvement design under seismic loading conditions.