Science, Space, Health & Robotics News - Page 329

A Bill and Melinda Gates-funded biotech firm has released thousands of genetically modified mosquitoes in the United States.

The biotech firm Oxitec has confirmed in a press release that the release of these genetically modified mosquitoes is for population control of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that spread diseases such as dengue and malaria. All of the genetically released mosquitoes are male, and have a self-limiting gene that causes offspring to die before they can reach adulthood and reproduce again.

Oxitec has already begun testing this type of technology in Brazil, where it saw a 95% drop in the Aedes aegypti species after just 13 weeks. Oxitec announced a collaboration with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation back in 2018, check out the press release here. In a recent press release, the company emphasized that the genetically modified mosquitoes it was releasing are unable to bite. For more information on this story, check out this link here.

China is building its own space station, and last week, it launched the first module, the living quarters for future astronauts.

The module was carried up to space on the back of China's Long March-5B rocket, and while the launch was deemed a success, the rocket is now in out-of-control orbit. The rocket weighs in at 21-tonnes, and according to SpaceNews, the rocket is expected to crash back down to Earth in the next coming days/weeks. At the moment, the rocket is traveling at 16,000 mph and is making one full rotation of Earth in just 90 minutes.

SpaceNews said, "It will be one of the largest instances of uncontrolled reentry of a spacecraft and could potentially land on an inhabited area". So, where will it land? Unfortunately, due to the multitude of possibilities, such as atmospheric drag, and solar activity influence, researchers are struggling to pinpoint the exact location of where it will crash land. SpaceNews said, "The high speed of the rocket body means it orbits the Earth roughly every 90 minutes and so a change of just a few minutes in reentry time results in reentry point thousands of kilometers away".

A week-long exercise led by NASA has shown that space agencies wouldn't be able to stop an asteroid from hitting Earth even if they had 6 months to prepare.

The simulation, or hypothetical scenario, posed an asteroid located 35 million miles away that was anywhere between 114 feet to half a mile in size was going to hit Earth in 6 months. Experts were tasked with developing ways to save Earth, and participating experts found that with the given timeframe, it wasn't possible to launch any type of spacecraft out to it in time to change its trajectory.

The participants said, "If confronted with the 2021PDC hypothetical scenario in real life, we would not be able us to launch any spacecraft on such short notice with current capabilities." Experts also considered launching nuclear weapons at the asteroid to knock it off its hypothetical course with Europe. "Deploying a nuclear disruption mission could significantly reduce the risk of impact damage", said the participants. However, due to the size of the asteroid fictitiously named 2021PDC, the chance of a nuke being effective was unclear.

Venus is a neighboring planet of ours, and despite its close position to Earth, there is still quite a lot of things we don't know about it.

One of those mysteries was 'how long is a day on Venus?'. Now, researchers from the University of California have managed to figure it out after 15 years of observations. The researchers used a radar to bounce radio signals off of the surface of the planet. From doing this, the researchers learned not only how long a day is on the sister planet but also the actual size of the planet's core, as well as how much it's tilted.

The researchers found that one day on Venus is 243.0226 Earth days or two-thirds of an Earth year. The reason for a day on Venus being 243 Earth days is because Venus rotates extremely slowly. Researchers suspect that Venus' thick layer of sulfuric acid clouds may be impacting the speed at which the planet is rotating. As for the core, researchers found that the planet's core is 2,200 miles across, which is similar to the size of Earth's core. For more information on this story, check out this link here.

Last week, China launched its first piece of its own space station that is expected to be completed by 2022.

Unfortunately, the launch wasn't all sunshine and rainbows as a 21-tonne rocket that carried the space station module to space is now going to crash back down to Earth. SpaceNews has reported that the Long March 5B rocket is out of control, and is likely to crash back down to Earth in the coming days. The rocket is currently travelling at 16,000 mph, and is circulating the Earth every 90 minutes.

Another unfortunate factoid is that due to the ever-changing variables of the rocket it's almost impossible to predict where it's going to land. At the moment projections estimate that the rocket could land anywhere between New York in the northern hemisphere and Wellington, New Zealand, in the southern hemisphere. Luckily, majority of the planet is covered in water, so the chances are it will land somewhere in the ocean, and not in someones backyard. For more information on this story, check out this link here.

Giant squid caused many people to tell tales of what was known in folklore as the Kraken. Now, researchers have found the real-life "Kraken", the Architeuthis dux.

The Architeuthis dux (A. dux) is the world's largest known squid, and while it's not as big as the folklore tales describe the Kraken to be, it's still incredibly large growing to about 46 feet, or about the length of a semi-trailer. These giant squid are hardly spotted in their natural habitat, but that all changed back in 2012 when a team of marine scientists managed to capture a young A. dux 2,000 feet below the sea in south Japan.

A new study has explored why these giant squid, despite their size, are so hard to capture in their environment. The researchers explain that part of the reason the giant squid is so hard to observe in its natural habitat is because of its massive eyes. Due to the A. dux living so far beneath the ocean's surface, the creature has developed the largest eyes in the animal kingdom, as no sunlight can penetrate to the depth of its natural habitat.

The United States wants to leave behind the way it has fought previous wars and move into something that is "very different".

According to speech excerpts provided to Reuters, United States Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin says, "The way we'll fight the next major war is going to look very different from the way we fought the last ones". Speech excerpts called for harnessing technological advances, as well as implementing military operations globally as it will allow the US to "understand faster, decide faster, and act faster."

The speech excerpts didn't mention rival nations such as China or Russia, but the speech excerpts have been published right as President Joe Biden has ordered US troops to withdraw from Afghanistan. Austin also states that the last two decades have been spent "executing the last of the old wars", and understanding the mistakes that were made. It should be noted that Austin didn't make any statements regarding what the US will be doing specifically and to what country.

More than 2,000 years ago, a Greek mathematician proved that the surface of the Earth was curved and not flat.

That mathematician was Eratosthenes, who was a geographer, poet, astronomer, and music theorist. So, how did a mathematician debunk the modern-day theory that the Earth is flat 2,000 years ago? As explained by Carl Sagan in the above video, Eratosthenes planted a stick in the ground in Syene, a city south of Alexandria, and another in Alexandria. The distance between the two sticks was 800 kilometers.

Now, if both of the sticks that were planted casted an identical shadow at the same time of day, it would suggest that the surface of Earth is flat. However, Eratosthenes found that the shadow casted by one of the sticks wasn't identical to the other, in fact, the difference between the shadow casted in Alexandria, and the one in Syene was 7 degrees.

I don't know about you but I would do anything to fly around in one of these Gravity Jet Suits, just like the Royal Marines did during a successful training exercise using the Iron Man-like jet suits. Check them out, taking off, flying up and next to and then landing on the ship.

The Royal Marines are using Gravity Industries' own Gravity Jet Suit here for their operations, with 1000bhp of Jet Engine power to fly around with. The marines look so awesome easily flying off from their boat onto the ship, flying up to it and gracefully landing onto it -- reminding me of the graceful way Christopher Reeves' Superman used to land in the original Superman movies.

Former Oil Trader & Royal Marines Reservist, Richard Browning, founded Gravity Industries in March 2017 to introduce what will be a part of the future of combat -- taking "human flight into an entirely new era" explains the company on their YouTube video.

Damn... and just like that NASA and SpaceX have had their $2.9 billion Starship-based lunar landing system deal torn up and thrown into space -- I guess where no one can hear (everyone who wants to see this happen) scream.

The reason? Blue Origins Federation and Dynetics have submitted protests with the US Government Accountability Office, stopping the NASA and SpaceX deal far, far before liftoff. The space industry expected the historic $2.9 billion contract would go to two companies, but it went to one -- SpaceX -- and now its competitors are pissed.

Dynetics filed a protest with the US Government Accountability Office, arguing that NASA chose "the most anti-competitive and high risk option available" when it tasked SpaceX with using its Starship to build a Human Landing System for its mission to the moon.