Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 208

A new study has pointed fingers towards climate change adding to the ageing affects of thousands of bridges across the United States.

A new study measures the impact that climate change is having on bridge infrastructure across the nation. Hussam Mahmoud, a Professor of Civil Engineering out of Colorado State University, and Susan Palu a master's graduate student in civil engineering did an analysis on about 80,000 "simply supported steel girder bridges". The researchers took into account the expansive higher temperature rates projected for the years 2040, 2060, 2080 and 2100.

What they found was that bridges and infrastructure located in the northern portion of the United States would be more susceptible to higher average temperatures that weren't accounted for when they were first built. This means that bridges and their infrastructure could have their joints expanded and cause buckling or cracking over long periods of time. The engineers aim with this research was to be able to rank the bridges in order of most needed maintenance to the least.

Scientists have for the first time observed the birth of a heavy element from the ruins of a collision between two neutron stars.

Astronomers used ESO's X-shooter spectrograph on the Very Large Telescope (VLT) to observe the neutron star merger called GW170817. Originally, astronomers suspected that if heavier elements would be produced from a merger between neutron stars, that those elements would be present in the explosive aftermath.

The technical term for an neutron star colliding with another neutron star and the explosion it creates afterwards is called 'kilonova'. European researchers pointed their telescopes at GW170817's kilonova and what X-shooter was able to find was a presence of heavy elements, and more precisely the presence of the element strontium. Darach Watson from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark said "By reanalysing the 2017 data from the merger, we have now identified the signature of one heavy element in this fireball, strontium, proving that the collision of neutron stars creates this element in the Universe."

NASA has reaffirmed its stance on wanting to get humans across the stars and walking on the red neighboring planet, Mars.

According to Jim Bridenstine, NASA's Administrator, NASA plans on first achieving a successful Moon landing in 2024 and then moving onto Mars in 2035. Bridenstine sat down at a planel discussion at the International Astronautical Congress and said "If we are accelerating the moon landing, we are accelerating the Mars landing. I suggest we can do it by 2035."

The reason for Bridenstine to push up the Mars landing to 2035 from 2033 is because "We need to learn how to live and work in another world. The moon is the best place to prove those capabilities and technologies. The sooner we can achieve that objective, the sooner we can move on to Mars." Vice President, Mike Pence also spoke out at the panel and said that the United States' vision is to be a leader when it comes to space travel into the unknown, and that they are always willing to work with and help like-minded, freedom-loving nations.

Dogs are commonly known as mans best-friend, and if you have the choice to be able to take a small portion of your dog at its healthiest time, and then store it for future use, wouldn't you?

If you answer was 'yes', then don't worry because that option has just become available. A company called Gallant has just launched its new line of canine stem cell storage units. Pet lovers can now bring their dog into the vet for a regular check up while they are young, proceed with the normal check-up routine, and then get a quick stem cell remove for potential future use.

Gallant will be providing procedures for $395 with also a storage fee consisting of $95 annually or a one-time fee of $595 for lifetime storage. If the situation arises where you need to use the stem cells, pet owners will also have to pay the vet to acquire them. At the moment the procedures are currently only available for dogs, but cat owners should not be worried as Gallant has invested in a cat equivalent company who is investigating chronic kidney disease.

SpaceX is racing ahead with its ambitious Starlink initiative, which will see the US space agency started by Tesla Motors founder Elon Musk, which is now saying it will offer Starlink to US customers in mid-2020.

The news is coming from SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell, who told the media that Starlink will offer satellite broadband starting in mid-2020. SpaceX still has to get more satellites into space, with 6-8 more missions planned between now and then.

SpaceX recently signed paperwork with the International Telecommunications Union (which governs the international use of global bandwidth) for its Starlink initiative, but is now talking about connecting customers, at least in the US.

The first moon rover from the United Kingdom will be a small spider-bot that has the ability to jump and capture video in full HD.

This small, four-legged robot is expected to arrive on the Moon in 2021 aboard a United Launch Alliance Vulcan rocket which will be launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The UK company Spacebit are the ones responsible for creating this spider-bot and will be placing it inside the Peregrine lander for a total of a 10-day mission on the Moon.

The tiny spider-rover can jump and is super light weight coming in with a total weight of only one kilogram or a little over two pounds. While on the moon the spider-rover will be travelling 10 meters away from the lander and to record and send back full HD videos. Thinking ahead into the future, if this first mission is a success for Spacebit, more of these spider-like rover could be sent to explore certain parts of the Moon.

NASA astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir made history this past Friday with a successful spacewalk mission to replace a broken part on the International Space Station's (ISS) power grid.

The astronauts main goal was to replace a faulty 19-year old charge-regulating device for one of the new batteries that was installed last week. NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine spectated the historical event from the NASA's HQ in Washington, here is what he had to say about the achievement "We have the right people doing the right job at the right time. They are an inspiration to people all over the world including me. And we're very excited to get this mission underway."

For those that don't know, the astronauts aboard the ISS are replacing old nickel-hydrogen batteries with new next-gen lithium ion batteries that are expected to last the rest of the floating laboratories lifespan. If you are after a more in-depth explanation at what these batteries are powering, check out my breakdown post here. In summary, congratulations to both Christina Koch and Jessica Meir for this achievement, women around the world are no doubt looking up to them both.

In some news that should be categorized as "why the hell did they do this", researchers from Telecom Paris have made an artificial skin that has some truly unique properties. Check out this video:

The new artificial human skin is interesting, as it reacts to stroking, pinching, tapping, and even tickling... with the researchers covering a smartphone with it and using it on the back of the device. They also used it on a smartwatch, and I'm sure it'll have a million-and-one use cases, but for now I'm just scratching my head.

Skin-On Interfaces are "sensitive skin-like input methods than can be added to existing devices to increase their capabilities" which is explained on this website. This project saw the researchers wanting to make the "perfect human interface that is the skin for existing devices". The researchers took inspiration from human skin in order to design the "perfect artificial skin".

Researchers out of the Johns Hopkins University have performed numerous experiments on mosquito's regarding their sense of smell and how repellents affect the insects.

According to the above video, Chris Potter, Associate Professor of Neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine discusses that him and his fellow scientists have been studying a specific type of mosquito called Anopheles. The scientists took Anopheles and genetically engineered them to produce a color on their nose when the neurons detect a sense of smell.

Once the scientists successfully genetically engineered the mosquito's they gathered to most common insect repellents and puffed the oder onto their noses. To the scientists surprises, the repellents didn't raise any color in the mosquito's noses, meaning that the insect repellents actually hide the natural 'human scent' that mosquito's would usually detect. This means that insect repellents act as an 'invisibility cloak' for humans.

Rocket Labs can now add another successful rocket launch to its already eight launches the company has under its belt.

The rocket launched from the LC-1 launch site in New Zealand and as the 'As The Crow Flies' mission took to the at precisely 9:22 PM ET (6:22 PM PT) well deserved celebrations were underway for the company. Rocket Labs now has nine successful Electron launches in total and eight for commercial customers. This launch in particular carried Astro Digitals next-generation geocommunications satellite called 'Palisade'.

According to Rocket Lab founder and CEO, Peter Beck who spoke to TechCrunch, "Electron is a launch on demand service - we're ready when the launch customer is". From this comment it seems that Beck is attempting to showcase how versatile the launch services are for his company and how well Rocket Labs can adapt to the needs of the consumer wanting to get something up into space.

So you want to go to space? Well, you will have to save every penny you have got because commercial spaceflight company Virgin Galactic are raising their ticket prices.

Back in 2004, more than 600 space tourists purchased tickets to go to space via Virgin's SpaceShipTwo for $200,000 each. In 2013, the company raised the ticket pricing to $250,000 and now according to Virgin Galactic CEO Georgo Whitesides, space tourists should expect another raise in ticket price before commercial launches expect to begin in 2020.

Due to the many delays of the tourist spaceflight, such as in 2014 Virgin's SpaceShipTwo Unity trial ending in a tragedy that killed one pilot and critically injured another. Virgin has had to continuously delay commercial spaceflights so much that purchasing tourists have been asking the company for refunds on their tickets. Whitesides says that "I think it's going to be a few years" before ticket prices reduce to the expected $60,000 each, but before that happens prices will actually increase due to the company believing they accidentally undervalued initial pricing.

Under Armour has teamed with Virgin Galactic on some new space apparel, something that Virgin Galactic passengers will wear when they're throwing down $250,000 to fly into space.

The new spacesuit looks pretty slick, like it's ripped right out of Star Trek with a blend of Fallout 76 with Under Armour retrofitting the UA RUSH -- the mineral-infused fabric that it sells to athletes. Under Armour says that its new spacesuit will help regulate temperatures and sweat management, which is very important.

I'm digging the blue style that UA has gone with here, but an interesting fact is that the gold accents used on the suit are inspired by rays of sunlight. Under Armour adds that each iteration of the spacesuit went through heaps of testing, with UA getting pilots, spaceship engineers, medical professionals and astronaut instructors to test them out.

Elon Musk must never sleep -- I think that much is a given, with SpaceX filing the necessary paperwork with the International Telecommunications Union (which governs the international use of global bandwidth) for its Starlink initiative. Starlink is SpaceX's grand plans of launching the world's largest low-Earth-orbit broadband constellation.

SpaceX wants to send 30,000 satellites into orbit for its Starlink global broadband constellation, with the private space firm already approved to launch 12,000 satellites. SpaceX needs more because it wants to ensure great network speed and wants to meet demand "responsibly".

In a statement to TechCrunch, a SpaceX spokesperson explained: "As demand escalates for fast, reliable internet around the world, especially for those where connectivity is non-existent, too expensive or unreliable, SpaceX is taking steps to responsibly scale Starlink's total network capacity and data density to meet the growth in users' anticipated needs".

Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, caused quite the fervor among viewers as he smoked from a joint on an episode of Joe Rogan's popular podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience.

If you would like to see the full 2hr podcast video, it can be found here. It gives a very interesting look at Elon Musk, the man behind Tesla and SpaceX.

Now with that understanding of the events prior. NASA took this as a warning sign and wanted to step in since SpaceX is a contractor for NASA projects such as the construction of space capsules. While California is one of many states that have passed laws allowing for recreational use of marijuana, the drug is still a controlled substance and illegal on the federal level.

NASA has debuted a new press release that details that some changes are coming to the spacewalk schedule that is going to happen aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

At 4:30pm today, NASA will be hosting a media conference that will be streamed on their website. Throughout this conference, Kenny Todd, manager of International Space Station Operations Integration, and Megan McArthur, deputy chief of NASA's Astronaut Office will be taking live questions about the recent changes that have been put in place regarding the spacewalk scheduling. For those out of the loop, NASA and the astronauts aboard the ISS are upgrading the space station's power system through replacing old batteries with new ones, more on that here.

The space station managers have decided to postpone three spacewalks that were previously planned to be executed this week and next week. Here's why, according to the press release "Space station managers have postponed three spacewalks previously scheduled for this and next week to install new batteries in order to first replace a faulty battery charge/discharge unit (BCDU)". The press release continues and says "The BCDU failed to activate following the Oct. 11 installation of new lithium-ion batteries on the space station's truss. The three spacewalks previously planned to continue the installation of additional lithium-ion batteries will be rescheduled."

The world of sex robots is an interesting one where I've previously reported that sex robots with "coding errors" could strangle, and kill you in the act -- but now let's move into the design of "ethical" sex robots.

These ethical sex robots will have to provide their partner with consent before they have sex, with university researchers from Australia and the Netherlands seeing a future where "consent modules" will be used in sex robots. These consent modules would require the sex robot to give consent before sex.

Anco Peeters of Australia's University of Wollongong and Pim Haselager, an associate professor at The Netherlands' Radboud University recently published an article that talked about a future where "ethical" sex robots were a thing. The research article explains: "We propose that virtue ethics can be used to address ethical issues central to discussions about sex robots. In particular, we argue virtue ethics is well equipped to focus on the implications of sex robots for human moral character. Our evaluation develops in four steps".

Astronomers that have been observing the comet that arrived in our solar system from deep space, discovered that the comet is much more ordinary than first expected.

Sometimes space discoveries aren't all celebrations, as sometimes what was expected to be found is a bit more ordinary than originally thought. This is one of those times, as amateur astronomer, Gennady Borisov found back in late August a comet from deep space which was then named 2I/Borisov. This comet was the second interstellar object ever found to enter our solar system, and as astronomers studied its qualities it has been found to be quite the ordinary comet.

A team led by Piotr Guzik at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland maned the telescopes at the Canary Islands and Hawaii to observe the visitor further. What they found is that the comet has a reddish color with a fuzzy tail extending from its 2-kilometre-wide nucleus. The team found that the comet is more normal than once thought, and is extremely similar to the comets that are currently floating around our sun. Astronomers will continue to study 21/Borisov as its trajectory is will closely approach the sun on the 8th of December. After that it will continue outwards to the edges of our solar system.

Scientists have managed to create a nano-electronic circuit that can vibrate and play guitar notes without any external force.

The scientists from the Lancaster University and University of Oxford have used a tiny suspended wire that is positioned much like a guitar string to showcase their experiment that reveals how a simple nano-device can generate motion by itself. Researchers used a carbon nanotube, a wire with a diameter of about 3 nanometers or to put it into a musicians perspective - about 100,000 times thinner than a normal guitar string.

Researchers mounted the nanotube onto metal supports at each end and then cooled it down to 0.02 degrees. Researchers then passed an electric current through the wire and measured its change in electrical resistance. Much like a normal guitar string when its plucked, the nanotube wire vibrated when the electric current passed through it, what was the surprising part was when the researchers stopped forcing the voltage and the wire continued vibrate by itself.

Its now official, astronomers have managed to locate another Earth-like planet, the news has recently come out of NASA's Kepler Space Telescope.

According to PhysicsAstronomy, astronomers using NASA's Kepler Space Telescope managed to discover another Earth located in the Goldilocks zone of our galaxy. The planet is titled Kepler-186f. Its about 500 light-years away from Earth in Cygnus constellation which is a known habitable zone due to its position next to a star and atmospheric pressure that can sustain liquid water on surfaces.

Scientists have recognized that there at least 40 billion Earth-sized planets currently floating around in our Milky Way galaxy. But this is the first time one of these planets has been discovered in the habitable zone of another star. Elisa Quintana, research scientist at the SETI Institute at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., and lead author of the paper published in the journal Science said "We know of only one planet where life survives - Earth. When we hunt for life outside our solar system, we emphasis on discovering planets with features that mimic that of Earth. Discovering a habitable zone planet similar to Earth in size is a major breakthrough."

Humans have undoubtedly created some quite questionable weapons in our time, and nuclear weapons are definitely within the top five of that category. So what exactly happens if one was to be launched at any city on the planet?

Above we have a new video from Kurzgesagt - In a Nutshell, they explore the affects of a Nuke hitting a downtown city, and how the events of that explosion would roll out on the residents. Firstly, one millisecond after the detonation a 2km wide ball of plasma hotter than the sun erupts from the center of the blast zone, evaporating everything within its radius.

The light that's emitted from the blast is so hot it produces a thermal pulse which burns anything that is able to burn within 500 squared km, or a 13km radius. As the explosion progresses, a bubble of super heated and super compressed air begins to rapidly expand faster than the speed of sound, decimating most already burning buildings, people and anything else in its way. Then a mushroom cloud made from rubble, fire, dust and ash erupts from the center and rises kilometers into the sky, drawing in an abundance of oxygen fueling the already burning fires.