Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 194

We all knew it was going to happen, and it now seems that we're not far from official announcements from all major companies that they're pulling out of Computex 2020.

According to a new report from DigiTimes, it seems that AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA will be pulling out of Computex 2020 because of the current COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. It won't just be the major players like AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA -- with MSI reportedly not attending Computex 2020 either.

Computex 2020 was originally slated for its usual late-May kick off, but was delayed until September 2020 because of coronavirus. It seems that companies are now opting in for a virtual event, versus an in-person event in Taiwan.

President Trump has been pretty head on with a coronavirus vaccine, where the US president recently said that we don't even need a vaccine for coronavirus as COVID-19 is just going to go away.

Trump said: "I just rely on what doctors say. I feel about vaccines like I feel about tests: this is going to go away without a vaccine. It's gonna go away, and we're not going to see it again, hopefully, after a period of time".

He did talk about the expected second wave of coronavirus in the coming months, with President Trump adding: "There are some viruses or flus that came and they went for a vaccine, and they never found the vaccine. And they've disappeared. They never showed up again. They die too, like everything else".

Elon Musk and his partner Grimes welcomed their new baby boy into the world on May 4, 2020 -- naming him X Æ A-12 -- but no one in the world knew how to pronounce it... until now.

Musk joined Joe Rogan on The Joe Rogan Experience, where they talked about Musk's new son -- X Æ A-12. Musk gave Rogan some advice on how to pronounce X Æ A-12, explaining: "X Ash A 12". The X in his name is just pronounce "X" while the A-12 is pronounced "A 12". Easy... I guess?

During the chat, Musk explained how he and Grimes came up with the name. He said that Grimes "mostly came up with the name". Grimes also tweeted out an explanation on the name, where she said:

Can you imagine a future where a plane sniffs and smells you to make sure you're not sick, or carrying some kind of biological hazard or a bomb? Well, get ready -- because the future is about to smack you in the face, and then probably give you a sniff down.

Airbus has teamed with Koniku on developing a new air-scanning system that will -- in laymen's terms -- sniff out for viruses, bombs, and other threats. The partnership between the two companies "was originally focused on contactless and automated detection, tracking, and location of chemicals and explosives on-board aircraft and in airports".

But now with coronavirus floating around the world like a wrecking ball, the companies changed things up in order to "include the identification of biological hazards".

SpaceX is performing some upgrades on its new Crew Dragon spacecraft, adding touchscreens so that astronauts going to the International Space Station receive some next-gen SpaceX innovation.

Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley will be the first astronauts to take off in the Dragon capsule, headed up to the International Space Station, and will now get to tweak and play around with a touchscreen versus buttons and dials of yesteryear.

In a recent press interview with NASA, Behnken explained: "It's probably a dream of every test pilot school student to have the opportunity to fly on a brand-new spaceship, and I'm lucky enough to get that opportunity with my good friend here".

Elon Musk has just announced that he has become a father again, with Elon confirming on Twitter that his Canadian girlfriend Claire Boucher -- who is known as Grimes -- have had a healthy baby boy.

Musk tweeted that: "Mom & baby all good", but it was the next tweet that kinda blindsided me -- Musk was asked about the name of his baby, to which he replied: "X Æ A-12 Musk". Yeah, I think Elon is being serious by saying that he's named his baby X Æ A-12 Musk. I don't even know how to begin to think about pronouncing that.

Musk has been with Grimes for two years now, meeting at the Met Gala back in 2018. Grimes announced her pregnancy on Instagram back in January, but didn't confirm Musk was the father at the time. In March 2020, Grimes was interviewed by Rolling Stone where Musk was confirmed as the father.

A store worker in Kentucky, USA has uploaded a video to TikTok showing a customer that walks in to pay for her gas with a face mask on -- but she's got a custom one where she cut a hole in it. Yeah, I'm not kidding around.

In the video called "Karen Mask", the woman walks up to the counter to pay for her gas, saying "Hi, there, can I get 10 on pump one please?" to which store worker Joe Samaan takes her payment and then replies: "Where did you get that mask from?".

The woman replies, saying: "Well since we have to wear them and it makes it hard to breathe, this makes it a lot easier to breathe". Samaan wants to make sure he's actually seeing what he's seeing, getting her to reiterate her changes to the mask by asking: "Cutting it?"

Australia has had its COVID-19 contact tracing app COVIDSafe deployed to Australians, but the government received a huge pushback from Aussies that didn't want the app being forced on them as mandatory.

Well, India hasn't been so pleasant -- with the Indian home ministry making it mandatory for all workers to download and use their new COVID-19 contact tracing app 'Aarogya Setu'. To makes matters worse, the Indian home ministry have warned that there will be "punishment" if there's negligence.

Over 80 million people across India have downloaded the COVID-19 contact tracing app so far, but the government has hopes to hit 350 million smartphone users throughout the country -- on top of basic phone users with an interactive voice system. Yeah, India is taking things to the next level with COVID-19 contact tracing.

The one question that has been puzzling scientists' minds is, 'are we alone in the universe?'. While we haven't found any evidence to suggest that we aren't alone, it's still important to keep an open mind about it all and keep on searching.

One British scientist claims that we aren't alone, and that she is certain that there is at least some form of life out there in the vastness of space. This British scientist is Professor Monica Grady, and she claims that we should be looking for external life on Jupiter, in particular, one of Jupiter's moons Europa. The professor says that this life would resemble an "octopus", and wouldn't look like a human.

According to Grady, "When it comes to the prospects of life beyond Earth, it's almost a racing certainty that there's life beneath the ice on Europa". Grady goes on to explain that Europa could be home to new life below its very thick layer of ice, which stretches fifteen miles deep. The idea behind life being on Europa is that there's water below the thick layer of frozen water, and that the frozen water shelters the life from the harsh radiation and asteroid impacts from above.

Well, coronavirus is coming in like a wrecking ball in a bigger way than we thought -- where if it's not causing havoc worldwide through social distancing, quarantines, lockdowns, deaths, industries shuttered and businesses closed -- some permanent.

Yeah, it's not enough -- now it's time for social distancing to have its effect on what we're all sitting at home doing right now: binging TV series after TV series and movie after movie. Warner Bros. Television presidents Susan Rovner and Brett Paul recently held a conference call to talk about the studio and its future production in the weeks post-coronavirus shutdowns.

Variety spoke with a "source familiar with what was said on the call", with the site reporting that coronavirus and its social distancing impacting production from feeding the cast and crew of TV and movies, through to sex scenes and hand-to-hand combat.

The Boeing designed X-37B plane is about to take off on a new mission, and as per usual, no one really knows what it's doing and why.

The U.S Air Force is preparing to launch the Boeing designed X-37B, which is a space drone that is highly classified by the United States government. Due to the space plane being so classified, no one really knows what its missions are or what it's doing while it's off the ground, but what we do know is this will mark its sixth mission to date. The last mission the X-37B went on had the plane in the air for a total of 780 days, it was airborne from Sept. 7, 2017, until Oct. 27, 2019.

The missions are called OTV, which stands for Orbital Test Vehicle. This mission, in particular, is called OTV-6, and we can expect that the plane will be breaking the previous record it set. The Air Force hasn't disclosed what kind of payload the plane is carrying, but we do know that it isn't any kind of weaponry, or at least that is what the Air Force has said. The upcoming mission for the X-37B is scheduled to launch on May 16.

A team of international astronomers has managed to capture 15 rare images of the inner rims of planet-forming disks that are located hundreds of light-years away.

The images were published in the journal of Astronomy & Astrophysics, and shed some new light on how planetary systems are eventually born over. Planet-forming, or protoplanetary disks are formed in unison with their neighboring star. Dust particles are pulled together through gravity and eventually form into small rocks that then pull more dust particles together to eventually become what we know as planets.

According to the lead author on the study, Jacques Kluska from KU Leuven in Belgium, "In these pictures, the regions close to the star, where rocky planets form, are covered by only few pixels. We needed to visualize these details to be able to identify patterns that might betray planet formation and to characterize the properties of the disks." The images were created at the European Southern Observatory in Chile, and astronomers used a technique called infrared interferometry using the ESO's PIONIER instrument.

If you happened to miss the news due to the slew of coronavirus related stories flooding the news, NASA will be launching a helicopter from the surface of Mars after they arrive.

NASA plans on landing on the red planet with its new rover Perseverance sometime in early 2021. While the rover will be doing most of the reconnaissance work that will include a wide range of testing, there is a small aircraft aboard Perseverance that will be tagging along for the fun of it. NASA will be slapping a small helicopter on the back of the Mars rover, it has no scientific value and is merely there for a technical demonstration of launching the first man-made aircraft on another planet.

Since the launching of the helicopter on Mars will mark the first time humans have launched an aircraft on another planet, NASA has decided that the helicopter deserves a name. NASA took essay submissions from students around the country for what the helicopter should be named, and high school student Vaneeza Rupani from Tuscaloosa County, Alabama, won. NASA has now officially named the helicopter 'Ingenuity'.

For one of the biggest reveals in decades, the Pentagon has just released not one, but three different videos of UFOs -- yeah, unidentified flying objects. The truth really is out there.

I should correct myself: they're not called UFOs, because that's so 1999 -- the US Defense Department refers to them as unidentified aerial phenomena. This isn't new and it's something that I covered in 2019, with the previously released footage coming out in "unauthorized releases in 2007 and 2017".

In a statement, the US Department of Defense said: "The US Navy previously acknowledged that these videos circulating in the public domain were indeed Navy videos. After a thorough review, the department has determined that the authorised release of these unclassified videos does not reveal any sensitive capabilities or systems, and does not impinge on any subsequent investigations of military air space incursions by unidentified aerial phenomena".

There are millions of people stuck at home with the stay-at-home coronavirus quarantine lockdowns right now, with Ashley Madison -- an online website dedicated to those seeking something outside of their marriage or relationship, reporting huge spikes in online affairs.

Ashley Madison's new report says that they've been adding 17,000 new members per day during the coronavirus lockdown, which is compared to 15,500 new members per day in 2019. A spike of 1500 new people per day is pretty big, which makes up 45,000 people per month looking for something outside of their marriage -- while stuck inside with their spouse.

Paul Keable, chief strategy officer for Ashley Madison, explained: "We've spoken to members, and they're saying they're using the site as a release valve for the tension that's built up at home during the pandemic. They're looking to have needs met that aren't being met at home".

Covidsafe has now launched Down Under, with the Australian government unleashing its coronavirus tracking app -- which is powered by Bluetooth, and millions of Australians who will download it.

How does it work? Covidsafe is an app that you can download from the Australian Apple App store and Google Play store, and once installed it'll use Bluetooth to record anyone else (that has the Covidsafe app installed) that gets too close to you. Covidsafe will be scanning Australians that are within 1.5 meters (5 feet) of you, for 15 minutes or more.

Covidsafe will transfer anonymized IDs between Australians' phones over Bluetooth, gets cycled every 2 hours, and then the government promises that the data is encrypted on your phone and deleted after 21 days.

The first ever geologic map of the Moon's surface has just been released, showcasing what kind of structures are on the Moon's surface.

United States Geological Survey (USGS) in partnership with NASA and the Lunar Planetary Institute have posted the first detailed map of what the Moon's surface looks like from a geological standpoint. The map is was created using data from satellites such as the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and Japan's SELENE as well as some Apollo-era maps.

The idea behind this map is double headed. Firstly, it can definitely influence future Moon missions as scientists and the astronauts will have a much more thought out and accurate representation of the Moon. Secondly, releasing the geologic map to the public will allow for scientists and the general public around the world to further study the surface of the Moon.

In news that began spreading nearly 3 weeks ago now, it has been confirmed that hospitals are indeed getting paid more if they list patients with COVID-19... and up to 3x that amount if the patient is placed on a ventilator.

The news was reported by The Spectator on April 9, and "fact checked" by USA Today on April 26 -- where it was said that hospitals are being paid a lump sum payment of $5000 if they have a patient with COVID-19. If the patient has COVID-19 pneumonia then the payment increases to $13,000 --- but if that COVID-19 pneumonia patient gets put on a ventilator, that payment skyrockets to $39,000.

Senator Scott Jensen, R-Minn, who is a physician in Minnesota, was interviewed by The Ingraham Angle by host Laura Ingraham on April 8 on Fox News. He claimed that hospitals were being paid if they listed patients with COVID-19, where he said:

We all know that cruise ships are petri dishes at the best of time, and as someone who has been on two lengthy cruises in the last few years -- I can only imagine how fast COVID-19 spreads on a ship.

Well, according to Florida-based newspaper the Miami Herald, it seems it is really bad. At the moment, there is no global organization that keeps tabs on COVID-19 cases on cruise ships, so the Miami Herald took it upon itself to find out just how bad coronavirus has been on cruise liners across the world.

The Miami Herald found that at least 3582 people tested positive for COVID-19 either during, or right after their cruise. The death toll is "at least 65 people" because of it, while COVID-19 cases were discovered on a huge 54 cruises around the world. 54 might not sound like much, but that represents 1/5 of the global cruise ships in the oceans. Yeah 1 out of 5 had COVID-19 on-board. Yikes.

There's evidence that coronavirus may have been in the United States much earlier than thought. A man who attended the annual CES convention in Las Vegas in January has just learned that he was infected with coronavirus at the time. The attendee was Michael Webber, a 49-year-old who divides time between Texas and France. He learned this week that he had been infected with the virus and recovered.

A confirmed infected CES attendee should give pause to the 170,000 people who attended the annual technology conference between January 7th and the 10th in Las Vegas. The four-day event is huge in the technology realm and attracts people from all around the world. Coronavirus could've incubated during CES and spread globally when attendees went home. That is still conjecture at this time, but Webber's disclosure that he had coronavirus while attending the annual conference is the first direct confirmation that the virus was likely circulating at the show.

Officials are beginning to see that the virus may have been spreading around the world before previously believed. Health officials in Northern California recently confirmed a coronavirus death that happened in early February. For that person to have died in February, they're believed to have likely contracted the disease in January. Health officials in the area are still investigating and expect additional confirmed cases in the Santa Clara County area.