Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 238

According to reports, the CEO of Tesla Motors and SpaceX Elon Musk agreed to help fund the Nikola Tesla Museum, thanks to Matthew Inman's illustration in The Oatmeal.

Inman led the fundraising via Indiegogo to bring up a museum based on Nikola Tesla's invention by using one of his facilities which was going to be torn down. Inman was able to successfully raise $1.5 million to buy the property in time. He needed to raise $8 million more so that the facility can be converted into a museum.

Recently he posted a two-part comic about owning a Tesla Model S. In part One he called it as a 'magical space car' and in Part 2, it was about asking Tesla Motor's Elon Musk to help him fund for the museum via twitter. Inman explained why it would be a good gesture for the electric car company to help fund this project.

For countless decades, scientists have been gagged and bought when it comes to "global warming" or "climate change". You might not want to hear it, but if you dig deep enough, the rabbit hole begins to make sense. For those who have never heard of "Suspicious0bservers" on YouTube, you might want to check out his videos - he's quite the expert and spokesperson to the masses.

Suspicious0bservers, or Ben Davidson, has over 180,000 subscribers on YouTube, but his latest video "Why Global Warming Failed" should be an eye-opener for you. The video above has plenty of data and links to papers he cites from, with some very large points to be made. It's not just the Earth that is experiencing changes, but virtually every single planet in our solar system is going through some form of change. Those planets aren't having changes due to man now, are they?

We, mankind, are causing some form of pollution and "climate change" but it is in no way near the numbers scientists, governments and corporations are reporting. During the video (at around the 8:30 mark), you can see the CO2 levels on Earth are skyrocketing - something that man is surely doing. But, the temperature - "global warming" - is right on the models that have been tracked over the last 300,000 years. We're actually seeing the temperature in Antarctica dropping a few degrees in the last 300,000 years - where every 100,000 years we're seeing a drop of a couple of degrees.

Scott White from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has been working on something quite incredible: a plastic that is lined with something similar to an artificial vascular system, just like the veins and arteries that see the blood flow through your body, that can repair for larger breaks.

This new system features two different liquids, with the first containing long, thin molecules, and the other with three-sided molecules, in separate channels. Once these fluids mix, a reaction sees them joining together to create a scaffold, which forms a thick gel. Mixing in some other ingredients causes the gel to solidify over a few hours.

Once the plastic is fractured, the vascular system is damaged, with the two liquids pouring out. The liquids mix together, forming a restorative gel. This gel can fill a 4mm hole with 35mm of surrounding cracks within 20 minutes, hardening in a 3-hour span of time. The patch that is created is around 60% as strong as the original plastic, so we're not talking about a complete 100% strength, but this is an incredible feat nonetheless.

As NASA and other space programs ramp up Mars research, the U.S. space agency is interested in creating a plant-growth experiment in mid-2020. As part of the Mars Plant Experiment (MPX) project, it could be an important step towards potential manned missions and colonization endeavors.

"In order to do a long-term, sustainable base on Mars, you would want to be able to establish that plants can at least grow on Mars," said Heather Smith, MPX deputy principal investigator, in a statement. "This would be the first step in that... we just send the seeds there and watch them grow."

MPX would focus more on being a self-contained project, rather than trying to plant seeds in the Martian dirt. The rover would provide water and researchers will check back within 15 days to see if the greenhouse project is successful.

NASA takes a lot of time to kill bacteria and other contaminants on spacecraft that it sends into space. It's particularly important to kill off any bacteria that might be on a spacecraft that will land on the surface of another planet to prevent contamination. The problem NASA is having is that some of the bacteria on spacecraft are nearly impossible to kill.

In fact, some have proven so resilient that NASA is looking for new ways to kill bacteria on future spacecraft. Some of those bacterial spores can survive space and NASA fears that it might be sending life out into space away from Earth. This poses problems for future missions that may send probes to other world's.

One specific bacterium called Bacillus pumilus SAFR-032 has a high resistance to the techniques used to clean spacecraft such as peroxide treatment and UV radiation. Those spores can also survive in the vacuum of space. NASA placed these spores outside the ISS and they survived for 18 months. One of the big challenges for NASA is to develop methods of killing bacteria on smaller spacecraft that can't survive the heat of NASAs currently approved dry heat microbial reduction. Some believe that in the near term this is a moot point because bacterial exchange between mars and Earth has been going on for millennia.

The Pentagon has been building itself some robots, with a new Terminator-like rescue robot that would be deployed into disaster situations, where it would search for survivors.

The 6-foot 2-inch robot named Atlas is one of the entrants in a contest that is designed to build a robotic hero, thanks to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The competition sees entrants' robots capable of finding their way through rough terrain and entering buildings. The competition was created after the magnitude-9 earthquake in Japan which crippled the Fukushima nuclear plant and sent a tsunami into the country.

DARPA is The Pentagon's go-to research department, which has just shown off its Atlas robot - featuring LED lighting, but was switched off and simply in a "static" display for the competition. Head of DARPA's Tactical Technology Office, Brad Tousley, told US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel that Hollywood has portrayed an unrealistic expectation in peoples' minds about what robots are capable of - at least at this point in time.

Wireless power is something I simply can't live without, but I can only charge one or two devices at once. But, over in Daejeon, Republic of Korea, scientists have used something they call the Dipole Coil Resonant System to charge 40 smartphones simultaneously, even if the power source is up to 5m away.

We already know about MIT's Coupled Magnetic Resonance System (CMRS) which was unveiled in 2007, which used a magnetic field in order to charge devices - but it had an envelope of 2.1m. CMRS had some major technical limitations for commercialization, most of which haven't been solved: "a rather complicated coil structure (composed of four coils for input, transmission, reception, and load); bulky-size resonant coils; high frequency (in a range of 10 MHz) required to resonate the transmitter and receiver coils, which results in low transfer efficiency; and a high Q factor of 2,000 that makes the resonant coils very sensitive to surroundings such as temperature, humidity, and human proximity".

Chun T. Rim, a Professor of Nuclear & Quantum Engineering at KAIST, along with his team, developed the "Dipole Coil Resonant System" or DCRS. This system is for an extended range of inductive power transfer, at up to 5 meters between transmitter and receiver coils. Professor Rim's solution to CMRS' problems are all but solved with DCRS.

In something that feels like it's right out of HBO's 'True Blood,' we're looking at a future of artificial blood, mass manufactured on an industrial scale - in the near future.

Wellcome Trust is behind the research, with scientists working on getting to the point of reaching a trial stage of using artificial blood made from human stem cells. Principal researcher, Marc Turner, has said that his team has made red blood cells that are capable of being used in a clinical transfusion. Professor Turner has talked of a technique to culture red blood cells from induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells - cells that have been taken from humans, and 'rewound' into stem cells.

From there, biochemical conditions that are similar to what happens inside of the human body are recreated to induce the iPS cells to mature into red blood cells - best of all, in the universal blood type O. Prof Turner explains: "Although similar research has been conducted elsewhere, this is the first time anybody has manufactured blood to the appropriate quality and safety standards for transfusion into a human being".

Well, it looks like the military is having some fun above the skies of Texas, where defense technology blog Ares is reporting on a mysterious, unidentified flying object flying over the skies of Amarillo, Texas, back on March 10.

Bill Sweetman, Aviation Week's defense experts is perplexed, but he is convinced it's real. "Three of us here-myself, Graham Warwick and Guy Norris-concur that the photos show something real. Guy and I have known Steve Douglass for a long time, and know that the reason that he sees (and monitors by radio) unusual things is that he spends time looking for them. Here is Steve's account of one of his better radio intercepts. This is more than a random image.

The photos tell us more about what the mysterious stranger isn't than what it is. The size is very hard to determine, for example, although the image size at contrailing height suggests that it is bigger than an X-47B. However, the basic shape-while it resembles Boeing's Blended Wing Body studies or the Swift Killer Bee/Northrop Grumman Bat unmanned air system-is different from anything known to have flown at full size, lacking the notched trailing edge of Northrop Grumman's full-size designs".

Mayim Bialik isn't just a leading cast member of the hit CBS show "The Big Bang Theory," she's also a neuroscientist and strong advocate for helping develop science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) interest in the United States. Bialik plays the role of "Amy Farrah Fowler," a neurobiologist, enjoying her time studying animals as part of her research.

Bialik continues to strengthen her leadership in driving interest in US STEM programs, especially for women trying to break into the field.

"Right now, research shows that more than half of high school freshmen who declare interest in STEM-related fields lose interest by the time they graduate," Bialik recently told TweakTown. "For female students, the problem continues into college. One-third of women who enter STEM bachelor's degree programs switch their major to a non-STEM field by the time they graduate,"

It's no secret that Google has been swooping in and buying robotic companies left and right, and one of those acquisitions is making headlines today. Schaft Robotics, a company Google bought last year has made it to the finals of a DARPA sponsored robotics competition, and today Google announced that it would not accept funding for the competition that the US government had previously offered.

In a statement released by the DARPA last Friday, the government says that Google has switched to Track D of the program which means it will be fully funding the program from its own bank account, and no government funding will be accepted. The DARPA Robotics Challenge or DRC is a competition that challenges companies to create a robot that can handle disaster zone task such as navigating heavy debris, opening a door, climbing a ladder, and even turning off gas and water valves.

Google's Schaft Robot will be competing in the finals which are scheduled to be held some time between December 2014 and June of 2015. Google's other robotics company, Boston Dynamics, will also be competing in the event with its bipedal robot, Petman. This is one competition I would love to watch live, and I hope to get that chance during the next round!

Back in December, the ISS had a significant problem with its cooling system. The issue required a couple spacewalks to repair. It appears that whatever the problem with the ISS coolant loop is, the issue has returned.

NASA has confirmed that a coolant loop problem has again reared its head aboard the orbiting space station. NASA says that on Wednesday one of the two coolant loops on the space station shut down. A NASA spokesperson said that at no time was the crew aboard the ISS in any danger.

As a result of the coolant issue, some non-essential equipment aboard ISS modules was shut down. Some of the equipment was also changed over to use the other coolant loop. NASA believes that the coolant issue is linked to a valve problem, which was the same sort of issue that caused the coolant problems late last year. Presumably, a space walk will be needed to fix the coolant system, but no announcement has been made at this time.

The future is filled with technology, and especially robots and artificial intelligence, something that Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates recently talked about. Gates spoke at the American Enterprise Institute think tank in Washington, DC, where he said that both governments and businesses need to prepare for a world where people will be fighting for jobs with robots.

Gates said: "Software substitution, whether it's for drivers or waiters or nurses... it's progressing. Technology over time will reduce demand for jobs, particularly at the lower-end of skill set... 20 years from now, labor demand for lots of skill sets will be substantially lower. I don't think people have that in their mental model."

The Microsoft co-founder even talked about what governments would do to prevent social unrest because of the mass unemployment, where he said they should basically get on their knees and beg big businesses to keep employing human beings instead of robots. This could lead to a future without payroll tax and corporate income taxes, while keeping the minimum wage low enough that businesses continue to employ people cheaply, versus using an automated, never-sleeping, non-demanding robot.

Time-lapse videos of nature are one of my favorite genres of internet video to watch, especially when shot the right way. A new video released recently by Project Yosemite is just the type of time-lapse that I love. The video features expansive views from deep within Yosemite National Park during both the day and the night. Breathtaking shots of the Sierra Nevada mountain range framed by a very bright and sharp Milky Way take this video above and beyond.

Project Yosemite is a coloration between Colin Delehanty and Sheldon Neill, two videographers who met through Vimeo that decided to shoot the undeniable beauty that is Yosemite National Park. The videos are a compilation of more than 45 days spread over ten months of work to generate the five minute video. The pair hiked over 200 miles to get the shots seen in the video and had to carry more than 70lbs of camera gear with them. The video below is simply amazing. I highly recommend setting it to HD, cranking up the sound and going full screen when viewing it for the first time.

A few years ago a pair of scientists theorized that there was another planet in our solar system orbiting far beyond the orbit of Pluto. The scientists that offered the theory are John Matese and Daniel Whitmire from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Both men are physics professors.

Their theory grabbed a lot of attention when it was first published back in 2011. The scientists hoped that when NASA finished combing through the data from its WISE, Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, survey that their theory might be proven correct.

NASA is finished with that survey and has announced that it found no proof of Planet X, also known as Tyche. The scientists had theorized that Planet X is a gas giant four times larger than Jupiter and would be found in the Oort cloud.

NASA is always-on the lookout for asteroids that are coming close to the Earth to ensure that we have some warning of one if them is going to hit the planet and to study ones that pass nearby for science. Today an asteroid that is about 90-feet in diameter is going to streak by the planet between the Earth and moon's orbit.

That sounds close if you don't keep in mind the vast distances in space. The asteroid, called 2014 DX110, will be about 217,000 miles from the Earth at its closest point. It is actually very far away from the planet, even though on a cosmic scale this is a close call.

The asteroid will pass the earth at 33,000 mph. At 217,000 miles away from the Earth, it is about 9/10ths of the distance to the moon from the Earth. The asteroid will be at that distance from the planet for about seven hours.

Giant single celled organisms that thawed out from arctic ice and took over mankind use to be a thing only heard of in low-budget, b-grade movies from the 60's and 70's, but the reality is that large viruses frozen in permafrost is a very real reality. Recently, scientist thawed out a block of 30,000-year old permafrost and allowed any viruses that survived to infect the cells of amoebas.

The amoebas used in the study were also a strain found in 30,000 year old permafrost that were reanimated by researchers. When combined with the viruses, the amoeba cells burst, or what is called cellular lysis. When inspected, the burst cells contained a virus that was one of the largest ever discovered and is very similar to a previously discovered ancient virus named Pandoravirus. Due to the similarities and its jug like shape, the new virus was named Pithovirus after a type of amphora used by Pandora.

The Pithovirus contains a genome of just 600,000 DNA bases which is small in terms of modern-day viruses. Extra space inside the virus is consumed by proteins that are needed for the virus to begin replication. Additionally the Pithovirus is only able to encode 467 proteins which is much less than any other giant virus ever discovered.

The use of social media with real-time capability could one day be used to track drug and medical issues, hopefully able to prevent medical outbreaks. Using Twitter analytics and linking the collected information with drug use and geographic data, for example, could allow big data to provide another good tool for medical researchers.

"Ultimately, these methods suggest that we can use 'big data' from social media for remote monitoring and surveillance of HIV risk behaviors and potential outbreaks," said Sean Young, David Geffen School of Medicine assistant professor, in a statement.

There is growing interest among university researchers and the private sector teaming up to monitor medical risk behavior - and to try and predict where a medical outbreak might occur next - though it's still a complicated matter. Of 550 million tweets collected from May 26 to Dec. 9, 2012, researchers found 8,538 tweets related to sexually risky behavior - and more than 1,300 implying stimulant drug use.

Research into remote mind-control took another step forward this week when scientist from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute managed to use a laser beam to convince a fly to mate with a ball of wax. The experiment, dubbed Fly Mind-Alternating Device (FlyMAD for short), utilizes a laser beam which is projected onto the fly's head and stimulates the fly's brain which has been altered with heat-activated proteins.

By using FluMAD to warm the fly's brain, researchers were able to cause the fly to instantly court the closest object nearby and then proceed to mate with it. The study says that the effects of the laser were so effective that it took an entire quarter of an hour for the fly to calm back down and return to normal. A similar study took place with mice and used normal white light to stimulate neurons in the rodent's brains, but the white light was ineffective on flys as it is unable to penetrate the insects exoskeleton.

Despite what you may think (I'm Looking at you Anthony), this research is not being conducted to bring forth mind control, but rather is being used to help researchers determine what happens when two neurons of opposing effects are activated simultaneously. This will help researchers map how the brain prioritizes neuron traffic, as well as finally understand how decision making parts of the brain function in different people, animals, and insects.

A recent study from Michael Ranson, a Senior Associate with Abt Associates, has quite the claim about global warming. His study claims that global warming will lead to more violent crimes, including rape and murder.

Ranson claims that climate change will lead to an additional "1.2 million aggravated, 2.3 million simple assaults, 260,000 robberies, 1.3 million burglaries, 2.2 million cases of larceny and 580,000 cases of vehicle theft in the United States". The study is called "Crime, Weather and Climate Change", and you can take a look at it here.

Ranson states that the analysis he provided is from a "30-year panel of monthly crime and weather data for 2997 US counties. I identify the effect of weather on monthly crime by using a semi-parametric bin estimator and controlling for state-by-month and county-by-year fixed effects".