Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 157

A company that is aiming to reverse the aging process by changing human cells back into stem cells is reportedly being funded by Jeff Bezos.

The company is named Alto Labs, and according to reports, it has received more than $270 million in funding from individuals all around the world, including Bezos. Alto Labs is investigating anti-aging technologies, and according to Screen Shot, one method that the company has shown interest in is teaching cells the ability to convert back to their "stem cell" origins.

Alto Labs has recruited Doctor Shinya Yamanaka, who was awarded a Nobel Prize for the discovery of four proteins that are now referred to as the "Yamanaka factors". These proteins can essentially reprogram a cell back into a stem cell state, which Alto Labs and other researchers believe can lead to age reversal. It's unclear if Alto Labs will be successful with the new anti-aging technology, but one thing is for sure if it is successful, people are going to be raising some ethical questions.

NASA has announced that its Perseverance rover has officially collected its first-ever rock sample from the Red Planet.

Perseverance and the small scout helicopter named Ingenuity landed in the Jezero Crater back in February, and since then, both robots have been observing their surrounding. Perseverance has previously attempted to collect a sample of rock from Mars but failed. Now, Perseverance has announced on its Twitter account, as well as NASA has confirmed that Perseverance's first sample has been collected and secured.

The first is a drilled-out core of a rock, and it was collected on September 6. The rock sample has been sealed inside a titanium tube and will be a part of a collection that Perseverance will acquire over its mission. NASA expects that Perseverance will carry around a dozen of these core samples, all of which will eventually be transported back to Earth for analysis.

Showtime is currently airing its series "UFO" with Episode 4 "They Also Found a Live Alien" detailing some truly mind-boggling information about not just aliens... but a male alien named Eva, and the fact their technology is beyond our imagination.

During the clip, you see Former Air Force Intelligence Officer Richard Doty explain that there were two crashes in the late 1940s and that the US government talked to an alien named Eva. Eva explained to them how their UFO technology worked, and that it was 50,000 years ahead of what we had at the time... which is kinda, no it truly is mind-blowing.

Doty said: "But during that time period that he was with us, he told us a plethora of information of what they have learned about the universe -- and what their technology is, they're technology is probably estimated to be about 50,000 years ahead of us".

Four ancient roman battering rams have been discovered by marine archaeologists, changing the understanding of Roman navy strategies.

In 264 B.C, the First Punic War between Ancient Rome and Carthage took place in the western Mediterranean, and throughout that time, warships used battering rams constructed out of bronze as weapons against their enemies. The batterings rams were fitted to the bow of the ship, and when collided with an enemy vessel, it would tear massive holes into the hull. Many of these relics of the past are still located on the seafloor, and four were just recovered.

From historian accounts, it's believed that the Roman navy sunk up to 50 Carthaginian ships using the battering, and the four that were successfully recovered were from wrecks off the coast of Sicily. Each of the rams was found to have inscriptions from judges "that affirmed these weapons were made in accordance with the high Roman engineering standards," per allthatsinteresting.com. Researchers previously believed that Romans attempted to RAM enemy ships broadside, but the rams were found to have damage from head-to-head collisions.

A new study published on June 30 has detailed a rare class of object known as a brown dwarf star or a failed star.

The study was published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters and explains that a brown dwarf is can be up to 80 times the size of Jupiter but only hold a small fraction of the Earth's mass. Brown dwarf stars can't be spotted through visible light, but researchers have used infrared telescopes to observe around 2,000 brown dwarfs throughout the galaxy, and one brown dwarf in particular called The Accident caught the attention of researchers in the recently published study.

Davy Kirkpatrick, an astrophysicist at Caltech in Pasadena, California, and lead author on the study, said that "This object defied all our expectations" as it didn't look like the typical brown dwarf. The Accident was observed in infrared wavelengths of light to be faint, which led researchers to believe that it was cold and been around for quite some time. However, in other wavelengths of light, it was observed to be warm, which indicates that it's a young dwarf star.

NASA is making moves towards implementing a hive mind infrastructure with satellites that are currently monitoring the Earth.

Engineers are working on software that will be used to connect what is described as "swarms" of satellites allowing communication through each of them and creating a "hive mind". The satellites would be used to collect data on important weather patterns at different times of the day across the planet from multiple angles. Additionally, researchers will be able to select targets for the satellite swarm to inspect. Once a target is selected, the satellite's software will take over and begin the inspection process.

According to Engineer Sabrina Thompson, who's working on the software, "We already know that Saharan dust blowing over to the Amazon rainforests affects cloud formation over the Atlantic Ocean during certain times of the year." Adding, "How do you capture that cloud formation? How do you tell a swarm of satellites what region and time of day is the best to observe that phenomenon?"

The US Navy is currently developing a new weapon that is designed to make it extremely difficult for an individual caught on the receiving end of it, to speak.

So, how is this possible? The weapon plays on the phenomenon of individuals finding it difficult to speak when they hear their own voice played back to them with a slight delay. The new device is called the handheld Acoustic Hailing And Disruption (AHAD), and it uses a long-range microphone that can record an individual's voice.

While recording an individual's voice, the device then relays what the individual is saying, but with a slight delay, back to the individual through long-range directional speakers. These speakers are designed to be extremely precise and can be used to target one person in the group without the others knowing. It should be noted that this weapon won't work on everyone as some people aren't prone to delayed auditory feedback problems. However, the large majority of people are.

Astronomers have successfully captured what is believed to now be the best view of matter colliding with the surface of a young star.

Catherine Espaillat, an astrophysicist at Boston University, spoke to Space.com and explained the process of a young star and how a local system of celestial objects can form around it. Newborn stars are surrounded by a protoplanetary disk of dust and gases, and from this disk, the objects that we commonly observe throughout the universe, such as moons, planets, and asteroids, are born. The star's magnetic field connects to this disk, as shown in the above concept image.

Espaillat is also the lead author on a new study that has examined the location on a star "where a star's magnetic field deposits protoplanetary disk material onto a star", per Space.com. Espaillat explains, "This footprint is called the 'hot spot,' since the material is very hot when it slams on to the surface of the star." The researchers concentrated their efforts on a star named GM Aurigae, as it's roughly the same mass as our sun, but is only about 2 million years old. Our sun is 4.6 billion years old.

A man was charged nearly $70,000 in hospital bills. He then decided to make his own X-ray machine to see if he could build one cheaper than he was charged.

The man is a YouTuber named William Osman, and in the above video, you can see Osman jokingly going through his possessions to see which ones he could sell to pay off his hospital bill of $69,210.32. Osman explains that he will only have to pay $2,500 thanks to the health insurance he is on. However, Osman says that the bill he received made him think if he could build his own X-ray machine for cheaper than the hospital charges.

Osman successfully created his own X-ray machine, but the creation doesn't come without obvious health risks. Osman notes, "My will to do science is significantly stronger than my will to live," adding, "this is my magnum opus. This is the most dangerous contraption I have ever built." So, how did Osman do it? The engineer purchased a $155 X-ray vacuum tube that was recovered from an old X-ray machine that was purchased off eBay.

It's one of the most exciting times ever in terms of space telescopes as NASA is currently at the end of the launch runway fro the James Webb Space Telescope.

The James Webb Space Telescope is pinned by the Hubble Space Telescope successor, and while that sounds like Webb will replace Hubble, that isn't the case, as both space telescopes will be working in tandem. As for how much better Webb is when compared to Hubble, a general understanding can be acquired from knowing that Hubble is designed with 1980's technology, and Webb has been outfitted with the latest and greatest sensors - making it the most powerful space telescope ever designed.

Webb is 100 times more sensitive than Hubble, and is a conjoined effort of thousands of people working for more than thirty years on the one project. Digital Trends spoke to Nestor Espinoza of the Space Telescope Science Institute and Antonella Nota of the European Space Agency (ESA). Both will be working with Webb when it's operational. Espinoza explained that "James Webb is going to be revolutionary. Literally revolutionary."

NASA's brand new space telescope that is nearing its launch date is poised as the telescope that may answer the one big question; are we alone in the universe?

The James Webb Space Telescope is a joint venture between NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). The telescope is slated to be the replacement for the Hubble Space Telescope that has been in use for more than thirty years now, but how much better is Webb?

According to Antonella Nota from ESA, who spoke to DigitalTrends, "Webb is a hundred times more sensitive than Hubble, and because of that, Webb will be able to reveal the faintest details in the farthest corners of the very distant universe, with exquisite resolution." Nestor Espinoza of the Space Telescope Science Institute said, "James Webb is going to be revolutionary. Literally revolutionary. It's going to allow us to see stuff that we've been expecting to detect for a long time but haven't had the technology to see, and I'm pretty sure it's going to detect stuff that we are not thinking of."

If you haven't been watching the Showtime documentary that's streaming right now in parts, but the "They Also Found a Live Alien" is pretty explosive.

Episode 4 of the "UFO" series on Showtime has former Air Force Intelligence Officer, Richard Doty, saying that the infamous UFO crash in New Mexico, USA in 1947 was actually a collision between two UFOs. There was one UFO that crashed in Corona, New Mexico -- whilst the other crashed "way out west" of Magdalena, New Mexico and was found 2 years later.

But the first crash in Corona, New Mexico saw the UFO recovered and the US government also recover its pilot -- an Alien named EBE, or Extraterrestrial Biological Entity. EBE told us all about their technology and how much they know of the universe, with Doty saying that EBE "was a male, he was transported to Los Alamos where he lived out his life. He died in 1952".

A galaxy that is relatively close to Earth has been photographed by astronomers, capturing its tendrils in incredible detail.

The galaxy that is front and center in the image is Centaurus A, which is more than 12 million light-years from Earth, a relatively short distance in space. Centaurus A is located in the southern constellation Centaurus and was first discovered back in 1826 by Scottish astronomer James Dunlop from his home in Parramatta, New South Wales, Australia. Due to how bright the galaxy is, it's one of the most studied galaxies in the southern sky.

The supermassive black hole located at the center of the galaxy is estimated to contain 55 million times the mass of our Sun and is also shooting out jets of matter that is causing a bright source of radio light that astronomers are interpreting. The tendrils seen encompassing the black hole are comprised of dust, which came from a collision of another galaxy in the past. Researchers used the Dark Energy Camera that is located at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile to take the image.

Astronomers have located an asteroid that is mysteriously exhibiting comet-like activity. Their new study aims at figuring out why.

Firstly, comets are known for their tails that can be seen as they fly through space. These tails are the result of a process commonly referred to as "outgassing". The tails themselves are ice, rock or other material and usually occur when the comet is heated. This process of "outgassing" isn't exclusive to comets, as moons and other icy bodies have been observed giving off gas when heated.

With all of that now in mind, it would be understandable to be confused when observing an asteroid that's rock outgassing material. Phaethon is a 3.6-mile wide asteroid that has been the focus of a study led by Joseph Masiero of Caltech's IPAC (Infrared Processing & Analysis Center) research organization. The team of researchers observed the asteroid's comet-like behavior as its orbit approached the Sun. What the researchers found was that the likely source of the outgassing was heated sodium.

Space tourism is just taking its first baby steps now, but before we know it you'll be buying your friends trips to space as birthday presents.

The main goal behind companies that are pioneering the space tourism industry is to make the trips to the edge of our atmosphere as accessible as possible to the everyday person, which essentially boils down to making travel as cheap as possible. At the moment, space tourism flights are well above the $50,000 mark, but as the industry matures and evolves, those costs will be reduced.

So, what will you see if you take a trip to space? Later this month, four civilians will be climbing aboard SpaceX's Dragon Capsule, Resilience, which has already docked with the International Space Station (ISS) twice. Due to this mission named Inspiration4 not requiring any docking, SpaceX has equipped Resilience with a glass dome that the four passengers will be able to look out of. NASA has confirmed that it's the biggest window to ever been flown in space.

China's Zhurong Mars rover has snapped a gorgeous panoramic image of Mars' baron horizon right before it will enter safe mode.

China's Zhurong rover has been exploring and documenting the Utopia Planitia for 100 days, and to celebrate this milestone, it has taken a panorama. The rover has covered 3,491 feet since it arrived on Mars on May 22, but in mid-September, China's National Space Administration will initiate the rover, and its orbiting companion Tianwen-1 to enter safe mode for more than a month as the Sun's charged particles will interfere with communications sent from Earth.

As the time to switch the rover and its companion into safe mode approaches, researchers captured their surroundings with the above panoramic image. The image shows the Zhurong rover's antenna and a dune that is a possible location for the rover to inspect. If you are interested in reading more about the Zhurong rover, check out this link here.

NASA is moving to upgrade one of the most central pieces of technology used to unlock more knowledge of the universe.

The US space agency is upgrading "the largest and most sensitive scientific telecommunications system in the world" called the Deep Space Network. The Deep Space Network is a large array of radio antennas used for communication with various space missions. The array of large antennas is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and connects researchers and distant spacecraft exploring the universe.

At the moment, the Deep Space Network consists of three antenna locations evenly placed around the world; one at Goldstone complex near Barstow, California, one in Madrid, Spain, and the last in Canberra, Australia. Currently, the network is supporting communications with 39 missions, and with the ever-growing space industry, the need for more capacity on the system is becoming apparent.

Flights can be long and tough, and sometimes the mind can wander into strange places. Have you ever wondered what would happen if you opened an airplane door mid-flight?

First of all, you should never try an open an airplane door mid-flight, but you also won't have to worry about anyone else opening it because they never will be able to. At typical cruising altitude for a passenger airplane, there is about 3.3 lbs of pressure applied to every square inch of the surface of the plane. Taking into account the size of a plane door, which is about six feet tall and 3.5 feet wide, it can be estimated that an individual would have to provide more than 24,000 lbs or 10.9 metric tons of force to open the door.

From that simple arithmetic, you can understand that no one would be able to do that, but let's say that someone did manage to get the door open, what would happen then? The door opening would cause a rapid decompression that would depressurize the plane cabin in a matter of seconds, causing a strong suction pull. This strong suction pull would cause all loose objects to be sucked outside the plane, including people who aren't buckled in.

Elon Musk's spaceflight company SpaceX was the first company to successfully launch a first-stage rocket booster and land it upright for reuse.

The idea of having a reusable object was once deemed "ridiculous", but the world was proven wrong when SpaceX achieved it. Now, the company is paving the way forward in spaceflight by nailing the process of landing a launched rocket, and with every launch, the landing becomes more and more precise. The idea behind having a reusable rocket is to reduce the overall costs for space missions, which are very expensive.

So far, SpaceX has delivered cargo to the International Space Station (ISS) twenty-three times, with the most recent mission occurring on August 29. The following Wednesday, SpaceX posted a video of the landing process with the camera positioned on the booster. The video shows the Falcon 9 boosters descending through the clouds for a calm touchdown on the landing pad. For more information on this story, check out this link here.

Researchers have warned that a "catastrophic" supervolcano eruption could be much more likely than previously estimated.

A new study has warned that the likelihood of the super volcano beneath Sumatra's Lake Toba has a much higher chance of an eruption than previously thought. The researchers in the study say that previous estimations for an eruption have been based on the presence of liquid magma, but the new research states that "eruptions can occur even if no liquid magma is found".

According to Martin Danisik, Associate Professor at Curtin University in Australia and lead author on the paper that has been published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment said, "The findings challenged existing knowledge and studying of eruptions, which normally involves looking for liquid magma under a volcano to assess future hazard. We must now consider that eruptions can occur even if no liquid magma is found underneath a volcano - the concept of what is 'eruptible' needs to be re-evaluated."