Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 181

Giant squid caused many people to tell tales of what was known in folklore as the Kraken. Now, researchers have found the real-life "Kraken", the Architeuthis dux.

The Architeuthis dux (A. dux) is the world's largest known squid, and while it's not as big as the folklore tales describe the Kraken to be, it's still incredibly large growing to about 46 feet, or about the length of a semi-trailer. These giant squid are hardly spotted in their natural habitat, but that all changed back in 2012 when a team of marine scientists managed to capture a young A. dux 2,000 feet below the sea in south Japan.

A new study has explored why these giant squid, despite their size, are so hard to capture in their environment. The researchers explain that part of the reason the giant squid is so hard to observe in its natural habitat is because of its massive eyes. Due to the A. dux living so far beneath the ocean's surface, the creature has developed the largest eyes in the animal kingdom, as no sunlight can penetrate to the depth of its natural habitat.

The United States wants to leave behind the way it has fought previous wars and move into something that is "very different".

According to speech excerpts provided to Reuters, United States Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin says, "The way we'll fight the next major war is going to look very different from the way we fought the last ones". Speech excerpts called for harnessing technological advances, as well as implementing military operations globally as it will allow the US to "understand faster, decide faster, and act faster."

The speech excerpts didn't mention rival nations such as China or Russia, but the speech excerpts have been published right as President Joe Biden has ordered US troops to withdraw from Afghanistan. Austin also states that the last two decades have been spent "executing the last of the old wars", and understanding the mistakes that were made. It should be noted that Austin didn't make any statements regarding what the US will be doing specifically and to what country.

More than 2,000 years ago, a Greek mathematician proved that the surface of the Earth was curved and not flat.

That mathematician was Eratosthenes, who was a geographer, poet, astronomer, and music theorist. So, how did a mathematician debunk the modern-day theory that the Earth is flat 2,000 years ago? As explained by Carl Sagan in the above video, Eratosthenes planted a stick in the ground in Syene, a city south of Alexandria, and another in Alexandria. The distance between the two sticks was 800 kilometers.

Now, if both of the sticks that were planted casted an identical shadow at the same time of day, it would suggest that the surface of Earth is flat. However, Eratosthenes found that the shadow casted by one of the sticks wasn't identical to the other, in fact, the difference between the shadow casted in Alexandria, and the one in Syene was 7 degrees.

I don't know about you but I would do anything to fly around in one of these Gravity Jet Suits, just like the Royal Marines did during a successful training exercise using the Iron Man-like jet suits. Check them out, taking off, flying up and next to and then landing on the ship.

The Royal Marines are using Gravity Industries' own Gravity Jet Suit here for their operations, with 1000bhp of Jet Engine power to fly around with. The marines look so awesome easily flying off from their boat onto the ship, flying up to it and gracefully landing onto it -- reminding me of the graceful way Christopher Reeves' Superman used to land in the original Superman movies.

Former Oil Trader & Royal Marines Reservist, Richard Browning, founded Gravity Industries in March 2017 to introduce what will be a part of the future of combat -- taking "human flight into an entirely new era" explains the company on their YouTube video.

Damn... and just like that NASA and SpaceX have had their $2.9 billion Starship-based lunar landing system deal torn up and thrown into space -- I guess where no one can hear (everyone who wants to see this happen) scream.

The reason? Blue Origins Federation and Dynetics have submitted protests with the US Government Accountability Office, stopping the NASA and SpaceX deal far, far before liftoff. The space industry expected the historic $2.9 billion contract would go to two companies, but it went to one -- SpaceX -- and now its competitors are pissed.

Dynetics filed a protest with the US Government Accountability Office, arguing that NASA chose "the most anti-competitive and high risk option available" when it tasked SpaceX with using its Starship to build a Human Landing System for its mission to the moon.

It looks like Tesla has silently launched its upgraded Powerwall+ system, not long after Elon Musk updated the world through Twitter on the power upgrades to Powerwall.

The new Tesla Powerwall+ system has a much upgraded max power output, with 9.6kW max power output up from 7kW on the regular Powerwall. The new Powerwall+ system also has a new inverter with an integrated breaker that sits above the Powerwall+ which will provide Powerwall+ owners with a new unique look over the regular Powerwall installation.

Tesla explains its new Powerwall+ battery pack: "Powerwall+ is an integrated solar battery system to store energy from solar production. Its integrated design and streamlined installation allow for a simple connection to any home, and improved surge power capability brings whole home backup in a smaller package. System smart controls enable owners to customize system behavior to suit their renewable energy needs".

Intel Inside has been a marketing term for what feels like forever, but now Intel is Inside of NASA's Perseverance rover that is rolling around on Mars -- not only is Intel inside, but so is SSD controller giant Phison.

Inside of the Perseverance rover is a credit-card-sized computing module that stores, and sends the photos we've been seeing from the Red Planet back to our Pale Blue Dot. The module itself is running Linux, and is powered by an Intel Atom (BayTrail) processor -- the module was made by Israel-based CompuLab in the form of the COMEX-IE38.

There are 2 x COMEX-IE38 modules inside of the NASA Perseverance rover, an off-the-shelf product that you could buy from CompuLab for around $150. There are 23 cameras on the Perseverance rover, with the data from each individual camera being fed in raw format to the DSU (data storage units) through an Ethernet link, compressed by the COMEX-IE38 module, and then stored on a 480GB SSD (thanks to Phison and its PSS4A111-8G) and then blasted back to NASA engineers back on Earth.

At some point, everything will come to an end, and Earth won't exist anymore, but where is that ending, and how will it be caused?

A new article published in the journal Frontiers in Conservation Science by Corey Bradshaw, a scientist working in the ecology field at Flinders University and has published over 260 peer-reviewed scientific articles, has said that humanity is causing a rapid loss of biodiversity.

Through this human-induced rapid loss of biodiversity, Bradshaw says that Earth is losing its ability to support complex life. "But the mainstream is having difficulty grasping the magnitude of this loss, despite the steady erosion of the fabric of human civilization", said Bradshaw. Additionally, the article mentions that the world's economic and political systems are currently focusing on short-term solutions to problems that present themselves, which causes long-term problems such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and ecological destruction to go unnoticed.

A new recall has appeared on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) website, and this time it's for numerous products from Velvet Ice Cream.

The voluntary recall has been issued for dozens of Velvet Ice Cream's products, and it ranges across multiple different flavors. The reason for the recall is that the products are potentially contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes, which is an organism that can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, according to the FDA.

Listeria infections can also be fatal for the elderly and anyone else that has a weakened immune system. So far, no illness has been linked to the recalled products that were sold in the following states; Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, and West Virginia. The recalled products come in a variety of different sizes and containers, but all of the recalled products were "distributed and sold in supermarkets from on or after March 24, 2021." The following product codes have been recalled.

A new computer simulation using the Unity Engine has shown what it would be like if the supervolcano under Yellowstone erupted.

The simulation comes from Unity 5 ProGames, and according to the description of the video, the simulation is actually five years old, but this the updated version that can be seen above. The updated version took two weeks to develop and was created using Unity's Particle System. Now, is the simulation entirety accurate? No, it's not.

The simulation uses a lot of assumed numbers, and according to Mike Poland, the volcanologist in charge of Yellowstone, if Yellowstone erupted, we would see much more earth lifted up and larger earthquakes. Additionally, the hundreds of earthquakes that are recorded across the part would also turn into thousands. Either way, the simulation gives us an idea of what it would be like if Yellowstone erupted, not that it would happen in our lifetimes (hopefully). For more information on this story, check out this link here.

If you didn't know, China is excluded from the International Space Station. So, the country is planning on building its own.

The first key module of a new permanent space station called the Tianhe module, which is the living quarters for astronauts, has been launched from the Wenchang Space Launch Center. The Tianhe module was launched on the back of a Long March-5B rocket. Beijing has very ambitious space plans and expects that the Tiangong space station, which is Chinese for heavenly place, will be completed by 2022.

China expects to launch ten more modules within the next year. Each module would be another step towards completing the construction of the Tiangong space station. The Tiangong space station will sit in Earth's orbit at an altitude of 210-280 miles and is expected to last for at least ten years. For more information on this story, check out this link here.

In 1969, NASA astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins launched off Earth towards the Moon.

While Armstrong and Aldrin became the first humans to ever walk on the surface of the Moon, Collins stayed back and piloted the Command Module Columbia that would later take all the astronauts back down to Earth. Collins said to Armstrong and Aldrin as they descended down to the lunar surface, "you cats take it easy".

Collins traveled the farthest any human has traveled before as the command module he was piloting passed behind the Moon, cutting off any communication with Mission Control. Collins joked back in 2014, "I was the most lonesome person in the whole universe, at least according to the newspapers. Actually, I was so glad to get behind the Moon, so Mission Control would shut up."

People from around the Mar del Plata beach, which is located 250 miles south of Buenos Aires, Argentina, have come to inspect these mysterious white orbs.

On April 25, thousands of these white orbs were found littered all over the Mar del Plata beach. Onlookers inspected the orbs and weren't able to identify what they were or where they came from. According to marine biologist Alejandro Saubidet, who said, "We normally see these on the coast, but we don't see them at the density that we can see right now".

The white orbs are actually from a carnivorous sea creature known as Adelomelon brasiliana, which is a snail that lives near the coast of southern Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina. Saubidet said, "In general, they are found in the deep sea; however, certain movements that have to do with the tides or the wind cause these structures to rise and become deposited on the coast." For more information on this story, check out this link here.

Earth's magnetosphere is a layer around the globe that protects us from solar particles that are emitted from the Sun.

Last Sunday, the Sun emitted a coronal mass ejection (CME) that is plasma flown into the solar wind. This CME from the Sun is on track to hit Earth, and even though we have our magnetosphere, the CME has a chance of causing some disruptions across the planet. The CME may cause "widespread voltage control problems", and depending on how long it lasts, may cause transformer damage.

On a positive note, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), who issued the warning, said, "The transient solar wind feature is expected to cause auroral enhancements that may be visible at night in the higher latitudes under favorable sky conditions." The NOAA also noted that the solar storm can also affect navigation systems such as the Global Navigation Satellite System and "create harmful geomagnetic induced currents (GICs) in the power grid and pipelines."

Hubble has been in Earth's orbit for more than 30 years, and throughout its time being in space, it snaps some of the best images of the Milky Way.

Astronomers have released one of the best images that Hubble has ever taken to celebrate its 31st birthday, and it's of one of the brightest stars that is in our Milky Way galaxy. The star is called AG Carinae, and is about 70 times more massive than our Sun and is 1 million times brighter.

However, due to the AG Carinae's massive size, the star burns fuel very quickly, which causes it to expand in size, much like a hot air balloon. In the above image, you can see a large halo surrounding the star. This halo is glowing gas that was created by an eruption from the star about 10,000 years ago. NASA has said that stars such as AG Carniae are quite rare, and only around 50 of these types of stars are located in our local group of galaxies.

Space food is famously not that appetizing, as most of the things that astronauts eat come in tubes or packages that contain vital nutrients.

NASA has taken to its blog to update everyone on the happenings of the International Space Station (ISS), and this time we are taking a look at how the astronauts aboard the ISS were gifted with some fresh vegetables. Two of the four Vegetable Production System (Veggie) experiments, or space crop, were harvested on April 13. So, what did the astronauts bite into? Amara mustard greens and pak choi.

NASA's SpaceX Crew-1 mission commander, Michael Hopkins, used a paintbrush to pollinate the pak choi when it began to flower. These experiments led by the team aboard the ISS is foundational science that will be required when humans decide to take longer trips into space to visit new worlds. Developing a full understanding of growing plants in microgravity will be needed for prolonged space adventures, and especially if the plan is to populate a new world eventually.

So far, NASA's Mars helicopter has achieved three successful flight attempts, and during the second attempt, the small helicopter snapped some images.

The images taken mark the very first time a powered aircraft that's taken flight on an off-world planet and has taken pictures of what it sees below. The images were shared on NASA's website, and from what we can see, the view from Ingenuity is very awesome. From the above image, we can immediately notice tracks on the surface of the Red Planet, as well as a shadow, casted from Ingenuity.

You can notice around the shadow of the helicopter a circular indent in the sand. NASA states, "Wright Brothers Field" is in the vicinity of the helicopter's shadow, bottom center, with the actual point of takeoff of the helicopter just below the image." If you were wondering what the purpose of Ingenuity is, the answer is shockingly simple. Ingenuity's purpose is simply to prove that aircrafts can fly on Mars. It's not equipped with any scientific instruments but does sport a sensor that can capture images up to 4208px by 3120px in resolution.

Jeff Bezos owns the aerospace firm Blue Origin and is currently challenging NASA decision to give Elon Musk's SpaceX a high-dollar contract to design a moon lander for NASA.

Now, SpaceX CEO, Elon Musk, has taken to Twitter to poke some friendly fun at Amazon's head by replying to a New York Times report that stated Blue Origin had filed an official complaint with NASA over its decision to give SpaceX a $2.9 billion contract to build a moon lander.

Musk wrote on Twitter, ""Can't get it up (to orbit) lol", and then replied a second time with some play-on-words on Blue Origin's name, renaming the company to "blue balls" with a quick edit to an image. As you can probably imagine, the tweet garnered a lot of attention by Twitter users, which then led into a slew of more people mocking Blue Origin, some even pointing out that Blue Origin and Amazon do have "balls" - see below. For more information on this story, check out this link here.

A new horrifying species of spider has been found that appears to share characteristics of a black tarantula spider.

Originally, the Pine Rockland Trapdoor Spider was found at the Zoo Miami back in 2012, but now a second specimen has been found, confirming its existence. This type of spider is likely an "ambush predator", as similar species to this spider "create a web burrow down into soft and sandy substrate with a hinged door at the surface" - trapdoor spiders.

Zoo conservation chief Frank Ridgley said, "They spend their entire lives in that same burrow, waiting for prey to come past their trapdoor, then they lunge out from their camouflaged lair to grab their prey." Dr. Rebecca Godwin of Piedmont University in Georgia identified the spider as a new species and said that she believes it has a lifespan of more than 20 years. For more information on this story, check out this link here.

A 12-year-old that is very into science has conducted an experiment to see if he could make himself magnetic by eating magnets.

The young boy named Rhiley is extremely passionate about science, and according to his parents, he told his mother, "I tried to stick magnets to me, I wanted to see if this copper would stick to my belly while the magnets were in." Rhiley was then immediately rushed to the emergency room, where x-rays revealed that Rhiley swallowed 54 magnets that were in his stomach and bowel.

Surgeons were very concerned that the magnets could burn through tissues or vital organs, which could lead to fatal internal damage. Rhiley underwent six-hour surgery and was eventually released for recovery. That wasn't where the problems ended, though. Rhiley then spent the next ten days vomiting green liquid, leading to him having to be tub-fed and had to have a catheter inserted. Rhiley recovered in the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital. For more information on this story, check out this link here.