Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 25

Gene therapy is something most people would have heard of before, but what does it actually entail? Simply put, gene therapy is an innovative approach to medicine that uses genetic material to cure diseases.

This genetic material is administered to the patient via the individual cells and, depending on the gene therapy, elicits the production of specific proteins. Diseases and medical afflictions can be cured, but the patient must stay within the therapeutic window. There are still some problems that need to be ironed out with gene therapy, such as being able to reliably stay within the therapeutic window. Too much of the protein may be toxic to the patient, and too little results in no therapeutic relief.

However, researchers from the Baylor College of Medicine penned a new study published in the journal Nature Biotechnology, which claims they have been able to regulate protein production, metaphorically similar to the dimming of a light switch in a bedroom. The team modified RNA molecules that are meant to produce the therapeutic protein and inserted a "stop sign" at the beginning of the gene's life. Additionally, the researchers bound a portion of the RNA with the FDA-approved antibiotic drug tetracycline.

The recent earthquake that struck just off the coast of Japan has brought back many memories of the nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima plant following the magnitude 9.0 earthquake in 2011.

Japan's most recent earthquake occurred on New Year's Day with the 7.6 magnitude quake striking 6.2 miles on the west coast of Japan's main island, around 186 miles from Tokyo. The earthquake caused widespread damage, so far it has killed more than 80 people, and has left thousands without power. Notably, 30% of Japan's energy supply is from nuclear power, and the world's largest is the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant, owned by Tokyo Electric (Tepco).

Just days after the earthquake, regulators lifted a ban on the operation of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, which is located only 74 miles from the epicenter. Additionally, the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant has been offline since 2012 for safety violations. Furthermore, Tepco wants to get the plant up and running by the end of 2024, but residents and activists are strongly against the idea as they want to avoid another Fukushima event. These fears have only been exacerbated by the recent earthquake.

NASA has taken to its social channels and its mission flight log to announce that Ingenuity, which touched down with the Mars rover Perseverance in 2021, has achieved its 70th flight on the surface of the Red Planet.

Ingenuity was originally sent to Mars with Perseverance as an experiment to see if flight was possible on another planet. Ingenuity proved that it certainly was, and while it was initially designed for just five flights, the small helicopter has surpassed all expectations by NASA engineers, achieving an astonishing 70 flights and counting.

After completing its primary mission, NASA switched Ingenuity over to being a forward scout for Perseverance, which essentially entails flying Ingenuity ahead of Perseverance and capturing as much data about the terrain and upcoming environment as possible. With that data, NASA maps the safest routes for Perseverance while also identifying any upcoming locations for scientific prospects. On Flight 69, Ingenuity broke its record for most distance in a single flight, covering 2,315 feet over 135.4 seconds at a speed of 22.4 mph.

Shift Robotics is bringing its latest version of 'robotic shoes' to CES 2024, called Moonwalkers X. With six wheels (the original Moonwalkers has 10 wheels), the Moonwalkers X look like fancy roller skates designed for business and commercial use for employees that do a lot of walking.

Although they feature wheels, they're not roller skates. Each Moonwalkers X show straps onto your existing shoe, and with AI measuring your stride 100 times per second, they adjust to speed up the walking process. With Moonwalkers X, you can walk up to 250% faster than normal, which is why Shift Robotics mentions warehouse workers who might walk as many as 30,000 steps daily.

The latest version of these 'robotic shoes' (the wheels are smart enough to lock into place when they detect stairs) are significantly lighter, less than one pound for each shoe - and have been overhauled for control, safety, and agility.

Aker Solutions, a low-carbon and renewable energy projects company, has penned a front-end engineering and design (FEED) contract with the Marine Energy Test Centre (METCentre) in Norway for a new subsea power system technology designed to reduce running costs of the MetCentre's offshore wind farms.

The new contract will introduce a new power transmission technology called the Subsea Collector to MetCentre's offshore wind farm, which currently consists of two wind turbines located approximately 6 miles off the coast of Karmøy, Norway.

The test area is expected to expand the fleet to seven wind turbines from 2026, and according to a press release, the Subsea Collector throws out the traditional daisy-chain pattern used to connect wind turbines, and offers a new star-shaped pattern that enables more flexibility architecturally within the designed wind farm area, reduced cable length between turbines, and reduces installation costs. According to Aker Solutions, the Subsea Collector is expected to reduce the costs of a 1GW floating wind farm by up to 10%.

NASA has taken to its blog to share an incredible new image of a supernova remnant, or the leftover remains of an exploded star.

However, this new image doesn't feature just one of remains of a now-dead star, but at least two, with astronomers leaning on the side of more being discovered upon further inspection. The above image is 30 Doradus B (30 Dor B), and is a large region of space that contains millions of stars that have been forming for 8 - 10 million years. The region of space is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small satellite galaxy of our own Milky Way.

NASA combined data from its Chandra X-Ray Observatory (represented in purple), optical data from the Blanco 4-meter telescope in Chile (shown in orange and cyan), and additional optical data from NASA's iconic Hubble Space Telescope (black and white). Studies astronomical objects such as 30 Dor B allows astronomers to learn more about the evolution of stars, and the overall universe.

NASA's Park Solar Probe, a spacecraft designed to monitor and observe our local star, is scheduled to make a milestone pass of the Sun late next year, marking a monumental achievement for humanity.

The space probe is designed to collect valuable data about our Sun, such as solar weather, solar patterns, star evolution, and much more. Notably, the Parker Solar Probe is the fastest human-made object, and with every pass it makes of our local star, it gains speed, breaking its previous record. Last September, the Parker Solar Probe reached 394,736 mph (635,266 km/h), breaking its previous record of 364,660 mph (586,863 kmh).

On December 24, the Parker Solar Probe will pass the Sun at 435,000 mph, at a distance of just 3.8 million miles from the Sun's "surface". According to Parker project scientist Dr. Nour Raouafi, "We are basically almost landing on a star." The incredible speed of the Parker Solar Probe can be attributed to the intense gravitational pull of the Sun, and for a quick comparison of the speed, NASA's Sun probe would be moving so fast it would be similar to traveling from New York to London in under 30 seconds.

Kicking off the year with a beautiful lights display, stargazers will be in for a treat as the first meteor shower of 2024 is set to arrive this week.

The Quadrantids, as the shower is known, have been active since December 26, 2023, and will continue to be visible in the night sky well up till January 16 but will peak Thursday, January 4, making this the best time to see the first shower of the year.

The Quadrantids have the potential to be the strongest shower of the year, and it has only just begun, although the showers usually fall short due to the short length of the maximum activity, sitting around only 6 hours, and poor weather conditions. These meteors under the night sky average 25 meteors an hour and usually lack a consistent trail but instead produce large, bright fireballs.

The small robot doesn't officially have a name yet, but LG Electronics decided to give a sneak peek ahead of the coming announcement madness week of CES 2024, which is scheduled to kick off next Tuesday.

LG describes the new wheeled robot as a "moving smart home hub," which will act similarly to an Amazon Alexa device or any other similar assistant-like device. The small robot will be capable of answering questions, connecting to smart home applications to provide updates on the device status, alerting users of unusual activity, notifications for when a light has been left on, weather updates, transportation updates, personal schedules, and even reminders to take medications.

All of these features, along with its cameras, speakers, and sensors used for gauging temperature, humidity, and air quality, are all powered by Qualcomm's RB5 robotics chip. LG writes in its press release that when a user returns home to the wheeled robot, it will greet them at the front door while simultaneously analyzing the user's emotions, voice, and facial expressions. It will then select music or other content based on the analyzed data to attempt to suit the user's mood.

NASA has taken to its official social channels to share images of Jupiter's moon Io captured by its JunoCam instrument aboard its Juno spacecraft..

The new images mark the closest look at Jupiter's volcanic moon Io in decades, with the space agency explaining its Juno spacecraft made an extremely close approach with the moon on December 30. NASA writes that Juno passed above the surface of Io at an altitude of just 932 miles, and due to its low height, it was able to capture a close look at hundreds of mountains scattered across its surface.

Notably, Io is believed to be extremely volcanically active, ranking first in the category for the most volcanically active body in the solar system. This means the surface of the moon is littered with many volcanoes constantly spewing emissions and lava. Reports indicate that these volcanoes aren't massive, only 2.14 - 0.62 miles in height.

The vastness of space is quite difficult to imagine, especially considering the general measurement used to measure distances between objects is light years, but what does that actually mean? And how would light travel throughout an entire year?

What is a light year? To understand this, we must first know what light-time is - the distance light travels within a specific period of time. In just one light-second, a photon of light has traveled 186,000 miles or 300,000 kilometers. In one light minute, light travels 11,160,000 miles, and one light hour is 671 million miles. With these measurements, we can understand that it takes 8.2 minutes for light from the Sun to reach Earth and 43.2 minutes for it to reach Jupiter.

But what about an entire day? Light from the Sun will travel 16.1 billion miles over the course of a day, reaching far beyond the Kuiper Belt and 29 light-days to the inner wall of the Oort Cloud, a collection of dormant comets that would take light 1.87 years to reach. Light from the Sun will travel 5.8 trillion miles over the course of one year, and the closest star and exoplanet are Proxima Centauri & Proxima B, located 4.25 light-years from Earth.

To celebrate the end of 2023 SpaceX has fired up Starship's Super Heavy Booster in its Flight 3 static fire test.

SpaceX has taken to its X account to share an awesome video of its Starship static fire test, with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk sharing an image of the test. The double test of both Starship and the Super Heavy booster comes ahead of Starship's third orbital test flight. The test involved the firing of all 33 Raptor engines on the Super Heavy Booster 10, along with the one Raptor engine on the Starship Ship 28 located atop the Super Heavy Booster.

The first two orbital launch attempts of Starship ended in a fiery explosion and an incompletion of the company's overall objective of sending a Starship upper around the Earth and splashdown in the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii. However, each launch has provided SpaceX with a lot of data used to improve the chances of the overall objective being achieved, as Flight 2 demonstrated a successful separation between Super Heavy and Starship, which wasn't achieved in Flight 1.

Japan has been struck by a 7.6 magnitude earthquake, killing at least 48 people as of the time of reporting, injuring dozens and causing widespread damage.

The region was struck with multiple earthquakes, each ranging in severity but the largest was recorded to have a magnitude of 7.6 and occurred at a shallow depth of 6.2 miles on the west coast of Japan's main island, around 186 miles from Tokyo. The epicenter of the quake was located on the peninsula, and the majority of the damage has been concentrated there with authorities now saying that they are at a race against time to recover any survivors buried under rubble and debris.

Notably, aftershocks can slam the same affected region within the next few days, according to Japan's meteorology agency, which also informed residents living near coastal areas to not return to their homes despite the preliminary tsunami warnings that stated waves could reach as high as 16 feet, per Japanese public broadcaster NHK TV. Below are a collection of videos posted to TikTok showcasing some of the damage the massive earthquake has caused.

During its sleep in November, NASA's Mars rover captured some pretty awesome footage of the day/night cycle on the surface from the perspective of being on the surface of the Red Planet.

The legendary Curiosity rover, a car-sized robotic vehicle that has been exploring the Martian landscape in the Gale Crater and around Mount Sharp since 2012, went to sleep in November, as the Red Planet's orbit passed directly behind the Sun, temporarily severing communication for a brief period. These periods are called Mars solar conjunctions, and communications sent during this period can cause corruptions or errors, as the Sun interferes with the instructions.

NASA chose to stop communicating with the rovers during this period, but they still send back regular "health checks" to HQ. Curiosity didn't receive new instructions between November 11 and November 25, and the last task it received was to film its surroundings. Curiosity captured 12 hours' worth of snapshots over 24 hours, 37 minutes, and 22 seconds.

Elon Musk has asked MrBeast, the world's biggest YouTuber, to post his videos on the platform X, which was formerly called Twitter.

X owner Elon Musk has responded to a tweet by MrBeast informing his audience that he had posted a new video, "I Spent 7 Days In Solitary Confinement". The original post by MrBeast was responded to by @DogeDesigner, asking the YouTuber to post his videos on X, to which Musk responded, "Yeah". Musk's post was then replied to by MrBeast, who wrote that his videos cost millions of dollars to make and even if they received billions of views on X, "it wouldn't fund a fraction of it."

However, MrBeast said he wasn't completely against posting his content on X as YouTube finished off his response by writing, "I'm down though to test stuff once monetization is really cranking!". Notably, X began its ad-sharing program last year, which Musk said amounted to $5 million for the first set of payouts.

A massive loop of plasma has been caught on video by astrophotographer author and science communicator Miguel Claro, showcasing the Sun in incredible detail.

The loop of plasma occurred between February 6 and February 7, 2022, and according to Claro, who explained on his website, the solar prominence resulted in coronal mass ejection (CME) to take place, which is a cloud of solar erupting from the surface of the Sun and being shot out into space. The astrophotographer captured numerous images over the course of two days, and the plasma loop was visible. Once the images were saved, they were then stitched together, producing a 4K high-resolution solar movie.

As for the loop of the plasma itself, Claro details its size and estimates based on his measurements made using pixels; the solar prominence is approximately 10 times the size of Earth but stretches around the Sun's limb for "thousands of kilometers." Notably, the above image of the plasma loop was given the "Highly Commended" distinction in the Royal Observatory of Greenwich's Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2022 competition within the category "Our Sun".

Planetary scientists have many names for the variety of planets found in the cosmos, with descriptions such as super-Earth's, hot Jupiter's, and, strangely enough, Eyeball Planets.

These planets are unique in their own way and, oddly enough, may be abundant throughout the cosmos. So, how does an exoplanet become an Eyeball Planet? These types of planets are created through a process called tidal locking, which is a phenomenon that takes place between a pair of co-orbiting astronomical bodies when one of the bodies reaches a state where there is no net change in its rotation rate throughout a complete orbit. For example, the Moon is tidally locked to Earth, which is why we only ever see one side of the Moon.

In the same way, the Moon is tidally locked to Earth, so are exoplanets to their host stars, and some of these exoplanets can be quite close to their host stars, resulting in one side of the exoplanet being scorched and the other remaining in perpetual darkness.

NASA has published a new photograph snapped by the iconic 30-year-running Hubble Space Telescope, and it reveals a mysterious phenomenon occurring in Saturn's rings.

NASA has taken to its blog to detail the new image, which was snapped when Saturn was approximately 850 million miles from Earth. The space agency writes that Hubble's ultra-sharp vision has revealed a phenomenon called "ring spokes," which NASA describes as having a "ghostly appearance" that only occurs for two or three rotations around Saturn.

The rarity of these ring spokes makes them difficult to capture, but Saturn has been observed for quite some time by Hubble and other telescopes, with the first ring spoke being discovered in 1981 by Voyager 2, then again during the Cassini mission and continuously by Hubble.

The Megalodon is a prehistoric great white shark and one of the most fearsome predators to have ever been discovered by researchers.

Megalodons roamed the deep seas between 4 and 20 million years ago, and these fearsome 20-meter-long creatures wielded some 40,000 individual razor-sharp teeth throughout their lives. These teeth are about as long as your palm to the end of your middle finger, and while these massive predators swam through the ocean, they shed their teeth, approximately 40,000 over their life.

These teeth float down to the ocean floor, and now researchers, for the first time, have found one embedded in the seafloor 1.9 miles below the surface of the Pacific Ocean. The tooth was recovered and inspected back on the dry land, with the researchers reporting it had a broken tip but still had its serrated edges intact. The newly discovered tooth isn't the first Megalodon tooth to be discovered, nor the biggest (2.5-2.6 inches), but its condition is believed to be pristine and will be added to the historical records of the once monstrous predators that haunted the deep blue.

The US Space Force is tracking six unknown objects that were released into Earth's orbit by a mysterious space plane.

The Chinese-operated space plane launched from the Gobi Desert on December 14 and has been closely monitored by satellite trackers and amateur astronomers since its departure from Earth's surface. The only information that is publicly available on China's mysterious space plane is that its primary objective is to verify spaceplane technologies and carry out scientific experiments. Now, amateur astronomer and satellite tracker Scott Tilley, who's been tracking the spaceplane, claims it released six unknown objects upon reaching orbit.

Reports indicate the US Space Force is tracking all six objects, and the US Department of Defense has named all six OBJECT A through to F. "OBJECT A's or nearby emission is reminiscent of earlier Chinese space plane 'wingman' emissions in the sense the signal is modulated with a limited amount of data," Tilley told Space.com. As for OBJECT B, Tilley writes it is likely the spaceplane itself, with OBJECT D and E both emitting "placeholder" signals.