Science, Space, & Robotics

The International Space Station (ISS) provides a unique vantage point for observing Earth, with the floating laboratory being home to not only several astronauts conducting impressive experiments in microgravity, but also a few cameras pointed directly at the surface of Earth.

One of these cameras captured something that caught the attention of Charles Black, the founder of the Earth and space livestreaming company Sen, which hosts three cameras aboard the ISS. These cameras are pointed straight down at Earth, with one's frame covering approximately 155 by 93 miles. The 4K video captured what was described as "mysterious writing etched into the sand," per Sen. From the perspective of the ISS, what was captured appeared to be letters carved into the ground of Tunisia.

These "letters" contrasted bleakly with the barren desert plains of the region, and according to Sen, the company doesn't always reveal the origin of what it's determined to be an interesting capture by its ISS cameras. The purpose of not revealing the origin is that the company wants the "audience to be engaged" by "promoting debate, discussion, and interest." The company labeled the location and let the viewers decide what they were looking at. Take a guess at what caused these markings and check if your answer aligns with the one below.

Researchers have discovered new evidence for signs of life existing beyond our solar system thanks to the intense power of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the world's most powerful space telescope.

The discovery was detailed in a new paper published in the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters and penned by an international team of researchers led by University of Cambridge astrophysicist Nikku Madhusudhan. According to the paper, Webb scanned the atmosphere of the exoplanet known as K2-18b with its infrared instruments, and the data it gathered indicate the presence of the molecule dimethyl sulfide (DMS), which, as far as its existence on Earth, is only produced by living organisms.

Colossal Biosciences made headlines yesterday when it announced the resurrection of the dire wolf, a species of wolf that hasn't roamed Earth for more than 10,000 years.

The resurrection of the dire wolf species occurred on October 1, 2024, when three dire wolves were born into captivity. How was this scientific achievement made? Researchers at Colossal used ancient dire wolf DNA of the species and combined it with the genes of a grey wolf, which is the closest living ancestor of the dire wolf. The result is a hybrid of both species that has an extremely similar appearance and structure to its extinct ancestor. However, researchers are questioning the labeling of this new species and whether or not its accurate to say the dire wolf has been de-extincted.

The problems with these claims. Grey wolves and dire wolves were initially thought to be closely related due to their physical characteristics, but as New Scientist reports, a 2021 study of their ancient DNA found they last shared a common ancestor around 6 million years ago. In fact, animals like jackals, African wild dogs, and dholes are genetically closer to grey wolves than dire wolves are - even though dire wolves look more like grey wolves.

A species of wolf that became extinct approximately 12,500 years ago has now been resurrected by researchers who used ancient DNA samples of the species and combined that with bioengineering.

The achievement has been made by Dallas-based biotech company Colossal Biosciences who created three dire wolf pups by using ancient DNA of the species and advanced technologies such as cloning and gene-editing tools. The researchers took the ancient DNA and by using the aforementioned tools they combined it with the genes of a gray wolf, which is the dire wolf's closest living relative. The result is a hybrid of both species that has an extremely similar appearance and structure to its extinct ancestor.

Kawasaki has unveiled a new futuristic robot called the CORLEO at the Osaka-Kansai Expo in Japan, with the new robot being designed to respond to the movements of its rider. Yes, a ridable robot.

The CORLEO should be thought of as similar to a robotic horse combined with a panther, as the company behind it explains its four legs are designed to navigate various terrains, similar to how a panther or wolf would agilely move across them. However, riders mount it like a horse. The idea behind the concept is to provide an alternative to all-terrain motorcycles, offering increased maneuverability and stability, particularly enabling access to difficult mountainous areas/regions.

The CORLEO is powered by a hydrogen fuel cell and contains a 150cc engine. Its four legs operate autonomously, and the system is integrated with AI software designed to improve stability, balance, and navigation. CORLEO is designed to respond to the body movements of the rider, with the rider shifting their center of gravity to steer the robot in a direction. Moreover, CORLEO comes equipped with a heads-up display that provides the rider with data such as hydrogen levels, navigation details, weight distribution, etc.

The first humans to orbit both the North and South Poles have released videos showing the desolate wastelands from a never-before-seen vantage point.

The Fram2 mission, powered by SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft named Resilience, launched on April 1, with four astronauts aboard the spacecraft on a world-first entry into a planetary polar orbit - an orbit around Earth that takes the capsule above both of Earth's poles. After a 10-minute boost to low-Earth orbit, Resilience successfully entered a polar orbit, beginning the awe for the four passengers aboard Resilience.

The four now-astronauts, Malta resident and funder for the mission Chun Wang, Vehicle Commander Jannicke Mikkelsen, Pilot Rabea Rogge, and Mission Specialist and Medical Officer Eric Philips, are now enjoying a cruisy flight above the surface of Earth while conducting valuable scientific experiments and research. The crew has twenty-two scientific and research experiments to conduct during their time aboard, with some experiments including the world's first X-ray monitoring of bone density while in space, the first mushroom growing in space, glucose monitoring, and sleep research.

Scientists are working on a new level of technology that uses the neurons inside of the human brain, merging them with semiconductors (chips) to create something that's no longer constrained by the physical limitations of a microchip.

Researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) have showed off a single, standard silicon transistor that can function like a biological neuron and synapse when operated in a specific, unconventional way. The research team has presented its work as a highly scalable and energy-efficient solution for hardware-based artificial neuron networks (ANNs).

The human brain is an amazing piece of art as it is, with studies showing that the human brain is far more energy-efficient than electronic processors with almost 90 billion neurons that form around 100 trillion connections with each other, and synapses that tune their strength as time goes by, something called synaptic plasticity, which underpins learning and memory.

A team of engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, have created the world's smallest wireless flying robot that's capable of hovering, changing trajectory, and hitting small targets.

The super-small flying robot is less than 1cm in diameter, weighing in at only 21mg, making it the world's smallest wireless robot that's capable of controlled flight. For a robot to fly, it might have a power source like a battery, as well as electronics for flight control, both of which can be hard to integrate into something so small and lightweight.

In order to overcome this hurdle, the Berkeley engineers used an external magnetic field to power the flying robot and control the flight path. The flying robot is shaped like a small propeller, packing two small magnets. Under the influence of an external magnetic field, these magnets are attracted and repelled, causing the propeller to spin and generate enough lift to raise the flying robot off of the ground. After that, the flight path of the robot can be precisely controlled by modulating the strength of the magnetic field.

SpaceX is hard at work on new Starlink satellite internet dishes that will deliver a huge 1Gbps+ download speeds to users on the ground, up from the 200Mbps average of today.

The company showed off its new 1Gbps capable Starlink dish during a recent webinar for Starlink resellers, according to someone who watched the presentation. SpaceX will not only need to ship out new 1Gbps-ready Starlink dishes, but the Elon Musk-led company will also need to roll out planned upgrades for the Starlink constellation of satellites, using a broader range of radio spectrum for the satellite internet connection.

SpaceX has plans to release new 1Gbps-ready Starlink dishes later this year, but that is dependent on SpaceX's flagship Starship rocket, which can successfully deploy third-generation V3 Starlink satellites. SpaceX President Gwenne Shotwell said back in November 2024: "Next generation, we'll have smaller beams, more capacity per beam, lower latency" with speeds of up to a blistering 2Gbps in the future.

SpaceX is about to make history by being the company to transport the first astronauts in a polar orbit under the mission "Fram2. The name is a reference to the Norwegian ship "Fram," which did Arctic to Antarctic expeditions during the 1800s and 1900s.

In a similar fashion SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft named "Resilience" will orbit over the both poles in a three to five-day journey. The capsule will be transported to orbit with SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, and much like the Inspiration4 mission, the world's first private space mission with no professional astronauts aboard, Crew Dragon will be equipped with a cupola for unparalleled views of Earth.

Crew Dragon will have four soon-to-be astronauts aboard: Malta resident Chun Wang, Vehicle Commander Jannicke Mikkelsen, Pilot Rabea Rogge and Mission Specialist and Medical Officer Eric Philips. Wang has funded the mission for an undisclosed amount of money. The goal of the mission is for the four crew members to conduct twenty-two scientific and research experiments, such as sleep research, the world's first X-ray monitoring of bone density in space, world's first mushroom growing in space, glucose monitoring, and more.