Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 18

Sega Toys has a line of robot cats as part of its 'KIMIT Ragdoll' line, which attempts (arguably creepily) to recreate the look of a real cat. This means it has synthetic fur, so you can cuddle and pet it like the real thing. It even purs, though the eyes lighting up is a little strange.

Unfortunately, two months after their February 29th, 2024 debut (priced at around $215 USD), these robot cats are being recalled due to a 'burning smell.' At this point, you can probably put two and two together - electrical components mixed with synthetic fur lead to heat issues and an unpleasant plastic-burning smell.

As of writing, there aren't any reports of cat robots catching on fire, but Sega has issued an immediate recall of all models (including white and brown robot cats). Sega also asks users to turn them off immediately and go through the refund and returns process.

If you thought robot dog flamethrowers were a thing of the future, you would have thought wrong as they are completely real, and you can buy one today.

Introducing Thermonator, the world's first flame-throw-wielding robot dog, and it's capable of launching a stream of fire up to 30 feet. The robot dog has been built on the Unitree Go2 quadruped robot that is akin to Boston Dynamics' iconic robot dog called Spot, except smaller and lighter. It should be noted that Boston Dynamics requires its buyers not to turn their robot dogs into weapons of any kind, which is why Thermonator is designed for "wildfire control and prevention," "snow and ice removal," and "entertainment and SFX."

Thermonator is equipped with a LIDAR sensor for navigation through mapping the objects it detects through its laser eyes, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, smartphone remote control, and first-person navigation through an on-board camera system. Thermonator weighs 37 pounds, is 30 × 20 × 20 inches, and features an ARC Flamethrower with a built-in fuel tank that can be filled with gasoline or a gasoline/diesel mixture.

A space startup has claimed to have discovered a breakthrough force of nature humans will use to propel objects for the next 1,000 years.

The claims come from Exodus Propulsion Technologies, who's co-founder is Charles Buhler, a former NASA engineer that worked on a selection of legendary NASA programs such as the International Space Station (ISS), the Hubble Space Telescope, and the Space Shuttle. Additionally, he is the lead scientist and co-founder of NASA's Electrostatics and Surface Physics Laboratory at Kennedy Space Center and has a PhD in Condensed Matter Physics from Florida State University.

According to Buhler, who spoke to The Debrief, the startup presented its new findings of a breakthrough force that Buhler believes "will be this force that we will use to propel objects for the next 1,000 years... until the next thing comes." Adding, "There are rules that include conservation of energy, but if done correctly, one can generate forces unlike anything humankind has done before."

GUNNAR has unveiled its latest glasses, which were made in collaboration with Amazon Studios for the new Fallout TV show.

Titled the "Fallout Vault 33," glasses are a limited-edition run of glasses that are heavily inspired by Bethesda's Fallout franchise and Amazon Studios' recent hit TV show "Fallout," which is based on the games. The glasses are smudge-resistant and anti-reflective and feature a retro-futuristic square style that is made of stainless steel and nylon. The glasses have flexible spring hinges and the classic GUNNAR patented lens technology that is designed to block out harmful blue light and 100% UV.

These limited-edition glasses feature an olive/gunmetal colored frame and an epic Fallout collectors case to store them in. Within the case are a microfiber pouch and a microfiber cleaning cloth, both of which are also collector's items. It should be noted that these glasses are officially licensed by Amazon Studios, and I've been told they have exceeded GUNNAR's expectations, nearly selling out completely.

NASA has taken to its website to explain that bacteria aboard the International Space Station (ISS) have mutated and become distant from their Earth counterparts.

Principal Investigator Dr. Kasthuri Venkateswaran of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory examined thirteen strains of E. bugandensis, a type of bacteria that on Earth is known to be drug-resistant. The findings were published in a new scientific paper, and according to NASA, the strains were isolated aboard the ISS for some time. During their time aboard the ISS these strains mutated, becoming genetically and functionally distant compared to their counterparts found on Earth.

According to the space agency, these strains of bacteria were able to live isolated with multiple other microorganisms, and, in some cases, potentially helped the other organisms survive.

A top brain expert and a former CIA officer has said he was instructed to write a paper on the number of injuries sustained by US military serviceman after encountering a UFO, or UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena).

Detroit Professor Christopher Green, a forensic neuroimaging expert who worked at the CIA since the 1960s, said in 2010, he was asked by an unnamed government defense program that was tasked with monitoring UFOs to write a paper on the injuries military personnel received after encountering an "anomalous" craft, or UFO/UAP. The doctor said he has dealt with "hundreds of patients" that range from special forces officials and other military serviceman, with some of these patients later dying.

Dr. Green's paper, titled 'Clinical Medical Acute & Subacute Field Effects on Human Dermal & Neurological Tissues' was released under the Freedom of Information Act and mentions patients developing the following symptoms post-UFO encounter: sclerosis, brain damage, and burns.

NASA is preparing to launch its massive solar sail into space on the back of a rocket to test the power of sunlight and determine whether it will be a viable means of propulsion to traverse the solar system.

The technology seen in the 2002 animated Disney movie Treasure Planet is about to be tested in space by NASA, as the space agency has announced via its blog that its very own solar sail is about to be transported into space on Tuesday, April 23, aboard a Rocket Lab Electron rocket. NASA explained that the CubeSat for the mission will be deployed 600 miles above Earth, which is about twice the altitude at which the International Space Station (ISS) orbits the planet.

Once in position, the CubeSat, which is approximately the size of a microwave oven, will undergo a two-month-long system check that will then be followed by the deployment of its solar sail. When fully unfurled, the solar sail will be as big as half a tennis court. The test will consist of many up and down maneuvers to hopefully prove the solar sail is able to use sunlight as a viable means of propulsion.

Dubai has been hit with a historic amount of rainfall this week, which some are blaming are a result of the United Arab Emirates' use of weather modification techniques.

Cloud generation is a real thing, and the United Arab Emirates has been leading the charge on technology for decades. The nation has been conducting experiments with the intention of assisting the generation of clouds in the region that lead to rainfall. The process works by cloud seeding planes releasing crystalline chemicals into already present clouds to increase rainfall, but now that technology has been thrown into question as Dubai has received an unprecedented amount of rainfall, the most in the region in the last 75 years.

Some areas received as much as 10 inches of rainfall within 24 hours, resulting in the unequipped region to suffer under intense flooding. Notably, neighboring country Oman has reported as many as 18 deaths as a result of the rainfall, with some of those deaths being schoolchildren.

Boston Dynamics, one of the leaders in the robotics industry that has seen successful commercialization of its products, has unveiled its next-generation humanoid robot that replaces the well-known Atlas robot.

A few days ago, Boston Dynamics announced it was retiring the hydraulic Atlas robot, which has gone viral numerous times throughout its 10 years of development with demonstrations of its impressive mobility capabilities and human-like movement. Boston Dynamics writes in its blog post that all the data gathered throughout the past 10 years has gone into developing a fully electric Atlas robot that will be designed for real-world applications such as working with people.

This new version of Atlas is stronger, more dexterous, more agile, and has been designed to move in the most efficient way possible to complete any given task. This design choice is different from the previous generation of Atlas, which was built around replicating the human range of motion. Next-gen Atlas will have movement capabilities that exceed a human's range of motion, which was demonstrated in an extremely impressive and disturbing way in the above video.

Ingenuity, NASA's Mars helicopter was forced to end its mission after taking some critical damage in a landing, but the small helicopter will not be going gently into that good Martian night.

NASA landed its Mars helicopter in the Jezero Crater with its Mars rover named Perseverance in 2021, with the initial goal of Ingenuity being a flight demonstration. NASA simply wanted to see if flight was possible on another planet.

Ingenuity achieved this goal and became the first aircraft to conduct a powered and controlled extra-terrestrial flight. Ingenuity was only intended to make five flights, but went on to complete 72 across its three years of service, serving as a reconnaissance vehicle for Perseverance by scouting areas of interest and upcoming terrain which NASA can then use to map the safest path for Perseverance.

If you haven't seen the torrential rain flooding Dubai in the UAE, well, the country has experienced extreme flooding after the gigantic downpour on Monday. The downpour disrupted everything in Dubai, closing schools and flooding homes and businesses.

A meteorologist has warned that potential future "weather wars" will happen between countries if cloud seeding technology gets "out of hand". There have been theories of how the torrential rain in Dubai occurred -- possibly by cloud seeding or chemtrails, geoengineering technology to make it rain -- something that sees chemicals injected into clouds, sparking precipitation (rain).

This kind of technology has been around for close to 100 years, with one of the notable uses of it in the last few years being China spending millions of dollars to control the weather ahead of the Beijing Olympics back in 2016, something the country had been using the modify the weather since 2008.

A team of researchers has penned a new study detailing the use of a cheap NVIDIA chip to control a hypersonic weapon.

The new study published in Propulsion Technology, a Chinese academic journal, details a team of researchers using a NVIDIA Jetson TX2i module to control and perform real-time optimization of the fuel supply system of a scramjet engine used in an air-breathing hypersonic missile. Notably, NVIDIA intends the Jetson TX2i module to be a low-cost solution for edge-computing, or AI. More specifically, the module contains a CPU, GPU and memory, all for a low price of just a few hundred dollars.

Additionally, the Jetson TX2i module isn't subjected to US export restrictions laid against China, which has curbed the exportation of high-end, powerful GPUs. It appears China is demonstrating that even cheap NVIDIA silicon, or any other low-cost silicon, can be used to control some of the deadliest weapons on the planet and that even if an export ban has been placed on the nation, it will find a way to create and control these weapons with chips that only cost a couple hundred dollars.

NASA has confirmed in a new blog post that it will be sending a nuclear-powered Dragonfly, a newly designed rotorcraft, to Saturn's moon Titan.

The space agency took to its blog and explained it's made the decision to point the Dragonfly rotorcraft mission at Saturn's organic-rich moon Titan, enabling engineers to enter the final stages of the rotorcraft's development and testing. NASA explains the Dragonfly mission was confirmed with a total lifecycle cost of $3.35 billion and a launch date of July 2028, which is a cost that is two times what was originally proposed, and a delay of more than two years from the initial launch year of 2019.

Due to funding constraints, NASA had to re-juggle the Dragonfly mission, and to compensate for the delay, NASA has added a more powerful rocket that will reduce the time it takes to arrive at its destination. Engineers have equipped the rotorcraft with eight rotors and various scientific instruments. When flown, it looks like a large drone. It's expected that Dragonfly will arrive at Titan in 2034, and once it does, it will mark the first time that "NASA will fly a vehicle for science on another planetary body," writes the space agency.

NASA officials announced on April 15 that the initial plan to get the Mars samples collected by NASA's Perseverance rover is now deemed impractical.

NASA's Mars rover Perseverance has been exploring the Red Planet's desolate landscape since 2021 and collecting samples along the way. These samples are precious as they could contain evidence of ancient microbial life that once lived on Mars, which would mean Earth isn't the only planet capable of hosting life, giving credence to the theory that many planets throughout the universe could also be hosting life. However, we won't know for sure until NASA returns to the samples back to Earth for an in-depth analysis.

Here lies the problem. NASA's initial plan for returning the samples has been plagued by delays, cost overruns, and long timelines. An example of how bad costs have gotten came from an independent review board that estimated in 2020 NASA's return mission would cost anywhere between $2.5 and $3 billion. Now NASA is saying its mission would cost $11 billion, and the samples wouldn't be returned until 2040, with previous estimates putting the return timeline in the 2030s.

In early March, a man from Naples, Florida, took to X, formerly Twitter, to report that an object crashed through his home's roof and two floors, almost hitting his son, who was home at the time of impact.

The homeowner is Alejandro Otero, and on March 8, an object smashed through his roof and both floors of his two-story home, luckily missing his son. Following the impact, NASA launched an investigation into the origin of the object, with predictions from astronomers tracing its origins back to jettisoned debris from the International Space Station (ISS).

NASA has since wrapped up the investigation and confirmed the object is debris from the ISS that was launched from the floating laboratory three years ago. NASA engineers took the object to Kennedy Space Center and confirmed it was a piece of the EP-9 support equipment that was used to mount batteries onto a cargo pallet.

Oscar-winning movie Oppenheimer directed by the distinguished Christopher Nolan pushed practical filmmaking to its limits, and now a videographer has attempted to recreate an important part of the movie, the Trinity nuclear test.

For those that don't know, Christopher Nolan decided not to use any special effects to capture scenes, such as Oppenheimer imagining scientific processes interacting at the atomic level. Instead, Nolan thought of ways to capture it all in-camera. The same standard was applied to the Trinity nuclear bomb test, which took set teams various tests to get absolutely perfect for the movie.

Now, macro videographer Thomas Blanchard has decided to recreate that test with Nolan's same standard, zero special effects, and the results were very impressive. Blanchard used various lenses, liquids, and objects to create the above video, such as a Canon 100mm macro lens, gold powder, an electric screwdriver, alcohol inks, magic candles, paper clips, and a laboratory shaker. The project took the filmmaker three months to create, but as per a typical filmmaker's curse, the most difficult shot he captured wasn't included in the final edit.

After every solar eclipse the first question that everyone asks is "when is the next one?" Below you will find a list of all the solar eclipses scheduled to happen over the next 10 years.

The April 8, 2024 total solar eclipse captured the internet for a few days as millions of people across North America had a chance of witnessing the cosmic phenomena. How long will it be again before a total solar eclipse passes through North America? Unfortunately, it will be an eight year wait until the next North American total solar eclipse, scheduled to happen over Utqiagvik, Alaska in 2033. But what if you can't wait that long and don't mind traveling to catch one?

Within the next 10 years there will be seven total solar eclipses happening in various locations around the world. The next total solar eclipse will happen on August 12, 2026, and it will be in Europe, marking the first total solar eclipse in Europe for 27 years. The path of totality will pass over Greenland, western Iceland, and northern Spain.

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has pointed its sensitive instruments at a spacecraft passing by, capturing the below image.

The space agency took to its blog on April 5 to showcase some photos captured by the LRO, which has been orbiting the Moon for 15 years now. The satellite captured several images of Korea Aerospace Research Institute's Danuri lunar orbiter, which is the nation's first spacecraft at the Moon. The images were captured last month as both spacecrafts passed each other in opposite directions between March 5 and March 6, 2024.

The relative velocities between the two spacecrafts were about 7,200 miles per hour, making it extremely difficult for NASA teams at its Goddard Space Flight Center to hone in on the Republic of Korea's satellite. Despite the LRO's camera exposure being set to a very short 0.338 milliseconds, the Danuri still appeared smeared in the image and is about 10 times its actual size. This smear was caused by the extremely fast velocities between the two spacecraft.

Millions of Americans looked skyward on April 8, 2024, when the Moon passed between the Sun and the Earth, creating an extremely rare phenomenon that only happens a few times in a lifetime.

But what if you were instantly teleported from seeing the total solar eclipse in North America to space? The spectacle wouldn't have been that impressive if you had looked at Earth, and if you had looked at Earth, you would have seen a large ominous shadow slowly moving eastward across the planet. NASA was able to capture this point of view of Earth from the Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC), which is located on the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) satellite.

The satellite is located 1 million miles away from Earth and captured views of Earth being doused in a lunar shadow between 16:02 and 20:32 Universal Time (12:02 and 4:32 p.m. Eastern Time). As you would probably agree, the view of the solar eclipse is much better from Earth's surface, which grants viewers located in the path of totality a rare view of the Sun's active outer atmosphere, or corona. According to Michael Kirk, a NASA research scientist in the Heliophysics Division at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, "This view of the corona will never happen again, ever."

The solar eclipse of April 8, 2024 was a total solar eclipse, meaning the Moon passed between Earth and the Sun, obscuring our vision of our local star.

Millions of Americans across North America experienced day briefly turn into night when the Moon passed between Earth and the Sun, creating a dramatic effect that thousands, potentially millions of people captured with their smartphones. Looking at the Sun during any period of time can cause eye damage, which is why scientists recommended people interested in observing the Sun during the eclipse to pick up a pair of eclipse glasses that are designed to filter out the dangerous light rays.

But what about your smartphone camera? Camera sensors, much like human eyes, can easily be damaged by the Sun, which is why many photographers that want to capture images of the Sun and don't want to damage any expensive gear decide to purchase a solar filter, which serves the same purpose as solar eclipse glasses for humans.