Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 108

The artwork was made by Sacha Jafri, who made the world's largest painting on canvas over seven months during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The artwork to be placed on the Moon was revealed at The USA Pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, on February 23rd, 2022. It will make its way to the lunar surface as part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, marking the first commercial lunar mission under the initiative.

The mission has been brought together by Selenian, a company specializing in the curation of art in space. Selenian is working with Spacebit, a company developing space exploration technology, and Astrobotic Technology Inc., which provides end-to-end delivery services for Moon-bound payloads, to put the artwork on the Moon. The landing site for Jafri's artwork will become a world heritage landmark, to be preserved forever.

A study on the new technology titled "Quantum sensing for gravity cartography" has been published in the journal Nature.

Researchers from the University of Birmingham have made a breakthrough in mapping the underground using a quantum gravity gradiometer. The technology was developed under contract for the Ministry of Defense as part of the UKRI-funded Gravity Pioneer project and was used to locate a tunnel buried a meter below ground in real-world conditions.

The sensor detects variations in microgravity using the principles of quantum physics and has profound implications for several fields, including national security. The technology opens the commercial pathways to reduce costs and delays associated with construction projects, assist in studying and predicting natural phenomena such as volcanoes, and uncover hidden resources and structures such as precious archaeological finds without risking damage through excavation.

Russia's recent military actions have sparked global concern as the President of Russia Vladimir Putin says that he has sent troops into Ukraine under the banner of "peacekeeping".

As nation's around the world watch the moves made by Russia and the seemingly contradictory statements coming from the country's leader, satellites orbiting the planet are photographing the region in question. Satellites operated by Maxar Technologies snapped images of military activity across several locations such as Belarus, Crimea and western Russia.

Russia began its movement into Ukraine on Monday, February 22 and in response to the movement President Joe Biden issued a statement that describes the situation as "the beginning of a Russian invasion of Ukraine," and went on to authorize new sanctions on Russia as well as sending US troops to the Baltics. The images showcase several helicopters, ground attack aircrafts, air defense units, and vehicles.

The BYU Police Department shared a story on its Facebook page that detailed a DIY rocket fuel project that went up in flames in a dorm kitchen.

The BYU Police Department begins by dubbing the story "Rocket Man", and then states that officers and firefighters were called to respond to a fire alarm that was triggered at Heritage Halls Building 4. When the emergency responders arrived at the scene, they saw that the fire sprinklers had been activated and that the walls and stovetop were covered in flames.

It was later discovered that the resident of the room was attempted to create his own rocket fuel on the stovetop, and the extremely flammable mixture exploded. The police report that no one was injured from the incident, but some residents will be "displaced due to the flooding caused by this kitchen chemist". The police gave a public reminder to keep the experiments in the laboratory and make sure that trained professionals observe them.

The International Space Station (ISS) recently docked a spacecraft with the help of a robotic arm controlled by a NASA astronaut.

In a new video posted to the International Space Station Twitter account, the Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo spacecraft that launched on Saturday from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Virginia, arrived at the ISS on Monday and was met with the Canadian Space Agency's (CSA) Canadarm2.

The above video showcases the Canadarm2 slowly moving out to be connected with the cargo ship. NASA astronaut Raja Chari is operating the arm from within the ISS, and once the cargo ship was connected to the arm, Chari proceeded to rotate and dock the spacecraft on the station's Unity module. At the moment, the ISS has five spacecrafts docked at its port, and they are as follows; Cygnus-17, SpaceX Crew Dragon, Russia's Soyuz MS-19, Progress 79, and Progress 80.

A study on the battery titled "On-Chip Batteries for Dust-Sized Computers" has been published in the journal Advanced Energy Materials.

Researchers from the Chemnitz University of Technology have developed the world's smallest battery, inspired by the Swiss roll dessert. They layered current collectors and electrode strips onto a tensioned water surface, which could then self-assemble through a "micro-origami" process into what they describe as a "self-wound cylinder micro-battery."

The battery is one square millimeter in size, roughly the size of a speck of dust. With a minimum energy density of 100 microwatt hours per square centimeter, the researchers say the battery could be used to power tiny computer chips used in biosensors in the human body. They claim their battery could power the world's smallest computer chips for around ten hours, expanding the applications of biosensors that typically rely on harvesting energy through other means.

The study is titled "Efficacy of Ivermectin Treatment on Disease Progression Among Adults With Mild to Moderate COVID-19 and Comorbidities" and has been published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.

Malaysian researchers conducted a randomized clinical trial to assess the efficacy of ivermectin treatment across twenty public hospitals and a COVID-19 quarantine center in Malaysia between May 31st and October 25th, 2021. Of 241 patients that received ivermectin, 52 developed severe COVID-19, compared to 43 developing severe COVID-19 out of 249 patients that did not receive ivermectin.

A study on the treatment titled "Effectiveness of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy-Based Intervention in Preventing Gaming Disorder and Unspecified Internet Use Disorder in Adolescents" has been published in the journal JAMA Network Open.

The World Health Organization (WHO) currently recognizes an unhealthy addiction to video games or the internet on its International Classification of Diseases. Such addictions are associated with mental health problems and decreased academic performance. Researchers have developed a new cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) approach called PROTECT (Professional Use of Technical Media) to address the issue.

A study on the incident titled "Enhanced Interplay of Neuronal Coherence and Coupling in the Dying Human Brain" has been published in the journal Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience.

Researchers from the University of Tartu, Estonia, studied the brain waves of an 87-year old epilepsy patient using an electroencephalography (EEG) device. Unfortunately, the patient had a heart attack and passed away during the experiment while still connected to the EEG device. From this, the researchers were afforded the unique opportunity to study the brainwaves of a dying individual.

The researchers observed an increase in brain waves known as gamma oscillations, which are associated with dreaming and memory retrieval. The researchers suggested this may mean a person dying experiences memories from their life appearing before their eyes. A caveat of the study is that it examined only one patient who also had a history of seizures and brain swelling. Still, past research has shown similar brain activity in rats, potentially indicating a universal experience across many species.

Two studies on the fusion experiment titled "Design of inertial fusion implosions reaching the burning plasma regime" and "Burning plasma achieved in inertial fusion," have been published in the journal Nature Physics.

Scientists from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in Northern California announced a record-breaking energy release during a nuclear fusion experiment at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) last year, the world's largest laser. The experiment released 1.3 megajoules of energy in 100 trillionths of a second, equating to 10 quadrillion watts of power.

The experiment used a small pellet of hydrogen fuel encased in a spherical polycarbonate diamond shell, contained in a hohlraum, a small cylinder made of depleted uranium lined with gold. The pellet was heated with 192 lasers, resulting in high enough temperatures that the pellet "imploded" and created a "burning" plasma.

A new study published in the journal Small describes the treatment.

Researchers from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT University) have used high-frequency sound waves to turn stem cells into bone cells. Considerable bone cells are needed to help regrow bone, which typically requires complicated and expensive equipment to enable mass production.

The majority of clinical trials focusing on bone regrowth have extracted the stem cells for the treatment from a patient's bone marrow, a highly painful process. Now, the RMIT research team has demonstrated their stem cell conversion method to be effective for multiple types of stem cells, such as fat-derived stem cells, which are much less painful to source from a patient.

Moderna is expanding its mRNA pipeline with three new vaccine development programs.

The latest press release by Moderna includes announcements for three different vaccine candidates: mRNA-1608, a vaccine candidate against Herpes simplex virus (HSV), mRNA-1468, a vaccine candidate against varicella-zoster virus (VZV) to reduce the rate of herpes zoster (shingles), and mRNA-4359, a new checkpoint cancer vaccine.

A new study on the conversion process has been published in the journal Nature Biotechnology.

Researchers from Northwestern University and LanzaTech have engineered and optimized a strain of bacteria to convert carbon dioxide into the more valuable industrial chemicals acetone and isopropanol (IPA). The benefits of the new gas fermentation process are two-fold; removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere directly and bypassing the use of fossil fuels that would normally occur in generating acetone and IPA.

The combined global market for acetone and IPA is around $10 billion. IPA is the basis for one of the two World Health Organization's (WHO) recommended sanitizer formulas, while acetone is a widely used solvent. Starting with the anaerobic bacterium Clostridium autoethanogenum, researchers reprogrammed the bacteria at LanzaTech to ferment carbon dioxide to make acetone and IPA.

The exoplanet is named WASP-121b and is the focus of a new study published in the journal Nature Astronomy.

WASP-121b is a type of gas giant exoplanet known as a "hot Jupiter" and is almost double the size of Jupiter. It was found in 2015, orbiting a star about 850 light-years from Earth. The planet is "tidally-locked" to its host star, resulting in a "day" side that permanently faces it and a "night" side that always faces away.

Astronomers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have observed the perpetually dark side of the exoplanet with the most clarity yet, which, combined with their observations of the permanent dayside, have allowed them to study the atmosphere as a whole.

A new study that has yet to be peer-reviewed has explored the capabilities of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and whether it's possible the world's most powerful space telescope will be an instrument that reveals alien life on other worlds.

The best way researchers can find alien life on other worlds is by collecting information about a planet and comparing that information to how humans evolved on Earth. Humans produce quite a lot of chemicals into the atmosphere, as well as large amounts of heat, and if researchers were hunting for intelligent alien life, they would observe the atmosphere of a planet look for evidence of chemicals that wouldn't be in the atmosphere without some kind of external intervention.

It's possible that since humans are using chemical detection in the atmosphere to search for life that aliens are doing so as well, which means that the chemicals humans produce into the biosphere that are, not only slowly killing the planet, may also be acting as a cosmic flare to anyone looking. Within the new pre-print study, researchers proposed how scientists would search for these chemical compounds that wouldn't usually be in the atmosphere of planets, and suggested specifically searching "potent greenhouse agents with long atmospheric residence times".

NASA has published a short movie shot by one of its Mars rovers of Martian clouds drifting high sky, allowing scientists to understand the planet more.

If you have ever wondered if there are clouds on Mars, you now have your answer as NASA has recently published a short movie showcasing Martian clouds drifting over the agency's Curiosity rover. NASA's Mars rover used its navigation camera to take eight images of the sky on December 12, 2021, and the 3,325th Martian day of the mission.

While these images are certainly a spectacle, they also provide researchers with information to understand Mars better. NASA explains that from the video, scientists are able to calculate the altitude of the clouds, and according to NASA's Mars blog, these clouds are nearly 50 miles above the surface of Mars. It's extremely cold at that altitude, which is why NASA researchers believe that these clouds are composed of carbon dioxide ice.

NASA has taken to its blog and social channels to showcase an image captured by its famous Hubble Space Telescope.

NASA has posted the image to its blog where the space agency explains that Hubble has snapped an image of a distant galaxy merger called IC 2431 that's located approximately 681 million light-years away from Earth within the constellation Cancer. The space agency writes that IC 2431 is three galaxies merging in slow motion with a thick cloud of dust residing in the center of the image.

However, light from the background galaxy is able to pierce the other regions of the galaxy where the density of dust is minimal. Additionally, NASA mentions that lots of star formation is happening within IC 2431 as the galaxies slowly collide, mixing all of their elements. If you are interested in reading more about this story, check out this link here.

The European Space Agency (ESA) has published a first-of-its-kind image that showcases a giant solar eruption.

The ESA has taken to its website to publish an image captured by the ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter that showcases what is called a "solar prominences", which are "large structures of tangled magnetic field lines that keep dense concentrations of solar plasma suspended above the Sun's surface." These solar prominence's often appear as long filaments that look like arching loops. Additionally, the ESA says these eruptions are regularly associated with coronal mass ejections (CME).

The ESA explains that on February 15 a coronal mass ejection occurred on the Sun, which resulted in a large amount of charged particles being ejected out of the Sun. These CMEs can cause geomagnetic storms on Earth if the blast is directed towards our planet, but in the instance of the CME that occurred on February 15, it was heading in the opposite direction.

One astronaut aboard the floating laboratory called the International Space Station (ISS) has snapped an image of Earth's closest neighbor, the moon.

NASA astronaut Mark T. Vande Hei took to his personal Twitter account to post a picture he snapped of the moon, with the Vande Hei writing that it was looking "shockingly bright as I opened our shades". The NASA astronaut goes on to say that "soon we'll be exploring our neighbor again", which is no doubt a reference to the upcoming Artemis mission that will take the first woman and person of color to the surface of the moon.

The upcoming Artemis mission will be the first crewed mission to the moon since the Apollo missions more than 50 years ago. As for Vande Hei, the NASA astronaut is currently scheduled to break the record for the longest stay in orbit with a 355-day stay, which will beat the previous record of 340-days set back in 2016 by NASA astronaut Scott Kelly. Notably, the record for the longest single space visit was set by Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov who spent 437 days and 18 hours aboard the Mir space station.

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) peered down at Earth and witness an erupting volcano that was spewing lava and smoke.

Being 250 miles above the surface of the Earth provides a fantastic vantage point for viewing the surface of the Earth, and while astronauts are unable to see objects such as cars and people, they can observe natural events such as hurricanes and volcanoes. European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Matthias Maurer posted to Twitter an image of Mount Etna erupting and the image showcases a plume of smoke billowing from the volcano's summit.

Maurer wrote in his post that "Etna is clearly smoking (and spitting lava as I learnt from the news)". Maurer wasn't the only astronaut aboard the ISS to spot the active volcano as Russian cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov reported on the event, writing, "Red-hot lava flows out of the crater, and clouds of ash and smoke are in the sky over Sicily. The activity of the volcano then stops, then resumes with a series of powerful explosions." Space.com reports that Mount Etna was extremely active throughout 2021 and as a result grew by about 100 feet in just 6 months.