Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 212

The debate for whether or not artificial intelligence will impact us positively in the future is a debate that has been going for quite some time now. Many scientists have come out for and against artificial intelligence, but what if we were to predict the future of it? and can we?

Dr James Lovelock believes he can and that he can already see the fall of humanity being a result of the artificial intelligence development that would eventually come into cyborgs taking over the entire human race. In Lovelock's most recent publication "Novacene", Lovelock describes that these cyborgs will not meld to human needs and instead replace us as rulers of Earth and convert the planet into their needs.

Lovelock also believes that this will be the natural way of things as its essential that 'knowledge' is passed onto the next stage of intelligent life. "We are now preparing to hand the gift of knowing on to new forms of intelligent beings." This hypothesis is built from Lovelock's belief of their not being any intelligent life located on other planets.

The U.S military has no shortage of classified projects going underway, and some of those projects range out into the depths of space through vehicle or flight tests.

We have recently heard about one of these classified projects, and the news comes from the U.S Air Force regarding their 'X-37B' Space Plane. While this plane's missions are exclusively classified, the U.S Air Force has discussed its achievements in general terms for the public, saying "he primary objectives of the X-37B are twofold; reusable spacecraft technologies for America's future in space and operating experiments which can be returned to, and examined, on Earth".

The space plane recently broke the endurance test record set by the Orbital Test Vehicle 4 (OTV-4). The X-37B launched on the back of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, and now has broken the OTV-4's endurance mark of 717 days, 20 hours and 42 minutes. It seems that the U.S Air Force is attempting to stretch the mission longevity as long as possible, as each of the test flights has lasted much longer than its predecessor. The dimensions for the X-37B are 29 feet long, 9.6 feet tall and a wing span of about 15 feet.

The largest bust of fentanyl might have just taken place by the Mexican government, with local media reporting that a major fentanyl bust just went down in the Mexican port city of Lázaro Cárdenas in the state of Michoacán.

The bust was absolutely huge, with local media reporting that the Mexican government announced they had seized 25 tons (23,368 kilograms, or 51,517 pounds) of fentanyl. The origin was Shanghai, China with the gigantic fentanyl shipment headed to Culiacán, Sinaloa which is where the Sinaloa Cartel is based.

Mexican authorities found the fentanyl inside of a container of a Danish flagged vessel, which saw its cargo manifest listing the contents of the cargo as Calcium Chloride. Well, that was a lie - it was reportedly fentanyl, with authorities taking a small sampling to a "specialized laboratory of Mexican Customs and the substance later tested positive for fentanyl" reports Breitbart.

Kentucky Fried Chicken has just unveiled something I don't think anyone would've predicted when the colonel began his world domination through the secret herbs and spices in 1952 -- meat-free nuggets.

The company is using Beyond Meat, which are plant-based fake meat nuggets -- with KFC testing out the new 'Kentucky Fried Miracle' in Atlanta, Georgia. The thing is that plant-based meat alternatives aren't anything new, but Kentucky Fried Chicken throwing its hat into the ring is a big deal with other giants in Burger King, Carl's Jr, and Del Taco all offering plant-based meats from either Beyond Meats, or their competitor Impossible Foods.

KFC will cook the fake meat in the same fryers used to cook the normal chicken, so it is not absolutely, completely meat-free. It's being cooked in the same oil as the meat, so I guess there will be some form of chicken floating onto the plant-based meat... right?

The world is getting pretty kinky, but I think this new story really tops them all - killer robots that will strangle their partners, is something that is being warned if robotics are not regulated properly.

Doll collector Brick Dollbanger is an "expert" on sex robots, who has warned that a "coding error" could turn your robotic girlfriend into a killer, strangling you in the act. Dollbanger works with sex robot manufacturers Realbotix and Abyss, where he warned: "It scares me to death, it's a machine and it's always going to be a machine".

I didn't quite believe this story when I first read it, so I slid into the world of this Brick Dollbanger, the doll banger. Forbes wrote a piece with a lot of girth on the doll banger in September 2018, referring to him as a "sex robot beta-tester" in an article titled Meet The Man Who Test Drives Sex Robots. So yeah, it's real.

NASA will be hosting a Reddit 'Ask Me Anything' (AMA) in a couple of days, this will no doubt spark Flat Earthers rallying to the Reddit board with numerous questions.

If you haven't heard about Reddit 'Ask Me Anything's then you have truly missed out on some of the greatest internet information harvesting events. The 'Ask Me Anything' sub-reddit is one of the most subscribed to Reddits on the platform as celebrities, high-profile businessmen, scientists, influencers and people alike take to the platform to answer community voted questions.

The people that are doing the 'Ask Me Anything' provide credible information for who they claim to be and proceed to answer any which question the community has provided them at their discretion. While you might think that they could go south since its the internet, and the internet can certainly be like the Wild Wild West, these events have actually provided some quite valuable information.

I don't know what would scare me more, seeing a hurricane off in the distance -- or a stealth bomber flying over it and dropping a nuclear bomb inside of it. Yeah, that's what President Trump wants to do.

Axios reports from sources who have heard the president's private remarks and been briefed on a National Security Council memorandum that recorded those comments "that in a meeting between President Trump and top national security and homeland security officials over threats with hurricanes, Trump said: "I got it. I got it. Why don't we nuke them?"

Trump continued: "They start forming off the coast of Africa, as they're moving across the Atlantic, we drop a bomb inside the eye of the hurricane and it disrupts it. Why can't we do that?"

NASA is in the middle of investigating its first space crime, with American astronaut Anne McClain accessing her partners bank account... from the International Space Station. This could be the first ever crime committed in the silence of space.

McClain is now back on solid ground back here on Earth, where according to her lawyer who spoke with The New York Times, she was only accessing her partners bank account to make sure their family's finances were OK. She wanted to make sure there was enough money to pay for the usual bills, and to care for their son.

Her lawyer added: "She strenuously denies that she did anything improper" and added that she was "totally cooperating".

Astronomers are constantly searching for life elsewhere in the universe and everyday we move closer to answering that big question - are we alone out here?

Scientists have presented new work at the Keynote Lecture at the Goldschmidt Geochemistry Congress in Barcelona, claiming that they have located several exoplanets that have the required conditions to harbor life. So does an exoplanet need to harbor life? Firstly, scientists and astronomers are looking for planets that come under the 'habitable zone', which means the planet must have a potential for liquid water oceans and possibly breathable oxygen.

Dr. Stephanie Olson (University of Chicago) presented this new information and says that "NASA's search for life in the Universe is focused on so-called 'habitable zone' planets, which are worlds that have the potential for liquid water oceans. But not all oceans are equally hospitable-and some oceans will be better places to live than others due to their global circulation patterns."

Two NASA astronauts have taken a leap outside the International Space Station and begun a walk to install a brand new loading bay for future visiting space crafts.

The walk lasted for 6 hours and 32 minutes and astronauts Nick Hague and Andrew Morgan worked together to install the International Docking Adapter-3 (IDA-3) to the space facing side of the station. This successful installation will serve as a literal parking spot for future NASA, SpaceX and Boeing spacecrafts.

This marked the first time Morgan has ventured out into the infinite abyss via a spacewalk, and according to Mike Barratt, spacecraft communicator in Mission Control, "Welcome to the club, you did a brilliant job." The ISS crew aboard is currently doing experiments and stem cell differentiation in a zero gravity environment. With this hopeful new found knowledge, NASA, SpaceX and Boeing believe this information will be able to assist the human-race level push to land on Mars.

Astronomers have located three Earth-sized planets which are orbiting a neighboring star that is about 12 light-years away.

The scientists estimate that all three of the discovered planets are to be at least 1.4 to 1.8 times the mass of Earth, and that they orbit their star every three to 13 days. To give a digestable example of how short this is, in our solar system, Mercury has the shortest orbit of our Sun at just 88 days. The most interesting part of this three planet discovery is the planet that has been titled as 'planet d', scientists are most interested in this planet because it falls within the star's habitable zone with the possible chance of water existing on the surface.

Ignasi Ribas, a co-author on the new paper and a researcher at the Institute of Space Sciences in Barcelona, Spain said "We are now one step closer [to] getting a census of rocky planets in the solar neighborhood". It is extremely difficult to determine if 'planet d' harbors the requirements for life to exist, as scientists need to account for the past of the star its orbiting. It could be possible that the star has ejected large amount of radiation at 'planet d', essentially ruining any possible chance of the planet having a habitable atmosphere.

A team of researchers have made a break-through discovery in quantum internet networking, announcing they have developed the first quantum internet protocol.

To understand the achievement that has been made here you must first understand current internet protocols. In classical computing and everyday use of the internet, a collection of software layers which are reffered to as a network stack enables devices to communicate with eachother, an example of this is HTTP. Professor Stephanie Wehner from the research team QuTech describes this by saying "All of us use classical link layer protocols in everyday life. One example is Wi-Fi, which allows an unreliable radio signal-suffering from interruptions and interference-to be used to transmit data reliably between compatible devices."

Quantum networking uses the same premise as traditional computing, but is still very different. Due to the differences between classical computing and quantum, the team developed a new "quantum network stack" that is the "world's first link-layer protocol". Since a quantum network uses quantum bits, or qubits to transfer information, a new network protocol had to be developed due to quantum bits not retaining data reliably. This newly developed protocol overcomes those hurdles that quantum level software development was encountering.

While wide-spread pollution free energy might sound like pipe dream when thinking about how many facets of the world economy uses fossil fuels, we might not actually be that far away from it.

A Canadian group of engineers recently published a new paper detailing a method humans could extract hydrogen from oil sands and fields. This new method could enable a large-scale adoption that would ultimately cause a domino effect into energy market, making it extremely cheap to capture hydrogen instead of expensive. The researchers inject oxygen into the oil fields which then raises the temperature and liberates the hydrogen, filters are then used to separate the hydrogen from the other gases that are present.

The commercialization of this new method is already taking place and, Grant Strem, CEO of Proton Technologies has given a statement regarding the discovery "This technique can draw up huge quantities of hydrogen while leaving the carbon in the ground. When working at production level, we anticipate we will be able to use the existing infrastructure and distribution chains to produce H2 for between 10 and 50 cents per kilo. This means it potentially costs a fraction of gasoline for equivalent output".

Elon Musk has announced that in six states residents will be able to rent solar panels from Tesla for an extremely low cost. Say goodbye to high-level electricity bills.

Musk announced via Twitter over the weekend that Tesla would be re-opening its solar arm for residents in select states. Residents will be able to choose from three different solar panel variabitities and will even have the option of renting setups from Tesla at extremely low costs.

Depending on your state, Tesla will rent solar panels to you for as low as just $50 a month ($65 a month in California), this would of course be for the lowest package they offer. It is also detailed on their website that those who sign up can cancel at anytime but a $1500 removal fee will be slid your way to restore the roof back to its previous state. The states that are currently ready for this are: California, Arizona, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New Mexico.

The Hubble Space telescope is nothing short of incredible, and today we have another breath taking image of two distant galaxies bound for a collision of beautiful cosmic doom.

The image was released by NASA on their Hubble Twitter account and it showcases an amazing display of two galaxies engaging in a cosmic level dance that will eventually result in their impending doom. Scientists have titled the collision UGC 2369, and we know that they will unfortunately collide due to the gravitational distortion of their shape and the bridge of gas that can be seen transferring from one to the other.

The galaxies are about 424 million light-years away, and according to the European Space Agency (ESA), "Interaction with others is a common event in the history of most galaxies. For larger galaxies like the Milky Way, the majority of these interactions involve significantly smaller so-called dwarf galaxies. But every few billion years, a more momentous event can occur." Take our galaxy for example, The Milky Way, at the moment we are currently on a 4 billion year collision course with our neighboring galaxy, Andromeda.

Remember when Elon Musk launched a car into space? Well, that Tesla Roadster and its driver 'Starman' have just completed their first lap around the Sun.

When checking out the 'Where is Roadster' website we can see that the cosmic driver has finally managed to complete his first orbit around the Sun. Starman took to the skies 557 days ago when SpaceX launched the Falcon Heavy rocket aimed for orbiting the Sun, and according to the travel data the car has clocked 762 million miles.

Since the car has traveled 762 million miles, it means that it has exceeded its original 36,000-mile warranty over 21,000 times. If you were hoping to spot the roadster from Earth, you unfortunately won't be able to since Earth is currently positioned on the opposite side of the Sun.

The future of treating depression might not be therapy and medication, but rather a headset that you strap on and stimulates your brain in the right ways. Medical technology company Flow out of Sweden is on the forefront of this new wave of technology.

Flow started back in 2016 with Daniel Mansson, CEO of Flow and a clinical psychologist, founded the company after writing his master's thesis on brain stimulation. Mansson also spent years skating between psychology and software, and thus Flow was born. A new hardware product is now being sold as a medication-free treatment to depression.

TechRadar spoke with Mansson, with some hands-on time with the Flow headset. They report that it "looks a bit like a miniature VR headset", sitting on your forehead wiht a band that goes over the top of your head to keep it still. There are two big suction pads that connect to your forehead, with Flow providing single-use cloth pads that sit between your skin and the suction pads.

Elon Musk must've tipped a few back over the weekend as the SpaceX founder and CEO teased the idea of nuking Mars again... but this time, he has t-shirts. Musk took to Twitter over the weekend with a simple tweet:

This isn't the first time Musk has talked about nuking the red planet, where four years ago he went on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert and talked about detonating nuclear bombs over the poles of Mars. Musk said this was one of the strategies of making Mars more livable. The interview with Stephen Colbert is below:

Better yet, the official Twitter account for DOOM tweets out that they want Musk to use their BFG 10000:

Researchers have managed to create a new endoscope design that is capable of self-calibrating and taking images of objects smaller than a single cell.

For those that don't know, endoscopes are tiny instruments that are used to view the internals of the body. Traditional endoscopes use camera and light to capture images, while researchers that have developed this new endoscope have achieved 3D image capturing without the use of any optical, electrical or mechanical components. This new endoscope measures in at just 200 microns across, which is approximately the size of a needle.

This new endoscope will have widespread medical application and since its tiny, and doesn't feature any bulky components, it's expected that it will be especially useful in optogenetics. Juergen W. Czarske, Director and C4-Professor at TU Dresden, Germany and lead author on the paper gave a statement regarding the endoscope, saying "The lensless fiber endoscope is approximately the size of a needle, allowing it to have minimally invasive access and high-contrast imaging as well as stimulation with a robust calibration against bending or twisting of the fiber."

While our eyes cannot see high-energy radiant called gamma rays, NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope certainly can and it has produced incredible images of the cosmic rays hitting the Moon.

Above we have some progression images of the Moon's gamma ray exposure, and according to Mario Nicola Mazziotta and Francesco Loparco from Italy's National Institute of Nuclear Physics in Bari, these images give us a better understanding of how fast-moving particles called cosmic rays interact with the Moon. The particles we are seeing are electrically charged and since the Moon has no magnetic field these charged particles make it to the surface.

When the particles hit the Moon's surface they produce a gamma-ray emission, while the Moon does absorb most of the particles some escape its clutches. Since NASA are planning on returning humans to the Moon by 2024, these findings of gamma exposure on the Moon emphasize the importance of NASA equipping our astronauts with gamma-protection suits so they aren't doused in these cosmic rays. For a more in-depth analysis, check out this article here.