Science, Space, Health & Robotics News - Page 400

Elon Musk is doing a world-first by launching a red Tesla Roadster into space, loading up the vehicle onto the first Falcon Heavy rocket that will leave our atmosphere and deliver the car to aliens, I guess.

Musk said that he would launch the Tesla Roadster into space with most thinking he was joking around, but SpaceX has confirmed that it is indeed true.

Musk took to Twitter, where he tweeted: "A Red Car for the Red Planet Test flights of new rockets usually contain mass simulators in the form of concrete or steel blocks. That seemed extremely boring. Of course, anything boring is terrible, especially companies, so we decided to send something unusual, something that made us feel. The payload will be an original Tesla Roadster, playing Space Oddity, on a billion year elliptic Mars orbit".

Tesla has stepped up to the plate by saving the Loy Yang Power Station that recently experienced a 560 MW drop on December 14th, this drop in MW has caused a dip in the frequency from 50Mz to 49.80Hz.

The Tesla Powerpack is currently connected to Neoen's Hornsdale Wind Farm near Jamestown about three hours drive out of Adelaide, South Australia. The Powerpack has a massive capacity of 100MW and to save the coal-powered mining station the Powerpack supplied 7.3MW from to Loy Yang which is a massive distance of 620 miles away located near the border of Victoria (1000 kms).

The best bit about this is the fact that a Wind Farm which naturally generates energy not only just saved a coal-powered power plant from a frequency drop, but it also beat the back-up unit which is contracted to provide power within a very short 6 seconds of a frequency drop. Tesla didn't even give them a chance, by the time they went to back up the power plant the problem was already fixed.

Virgin Group invested into Hyperloop One earlier this year, which saw Virgin boss Richard Branson being placed onto the board, and adding Virgin's name to Hyperloop One.

Axios is now reporting that Branson is the new Hyperloop One chairman, replacing Shervin Pishevar who took a leave of absence after he was swept into sexual harassment allegations and an arrest for rape (that didn't result in a charge) just last month.

Now that Branson is the chairman of Virgin Hyperloop One, the company is reportedly receiving a bunch of new funding to the tune of $50 million from current investors Caspian Venture Capital and DP World. These two companies are based in Russia and Dubai, respectively, with Virgin Hyperloop One starting off on its capital and running out, with 300 employees at risk of losing their jobs if more funding wasn't secured.

In the wonderful world of science, today we are happy to report that scientists have worked out a new way of a possible way to fight cancer: using sperm.

A team of researchers at the Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Material Research Dresden have recently completed a study where they turned sperm into an effective drug delivery tool. If you were like me, you wouldn't know that sperm has many different benefits when it comes to delivering drugs.

First, sperm is mobile - the drugs can be encased so that it doesn't get diluted by body fluids or leak out, and they protect the drug from enzymes that could break them down. They also don't cause immune responses like other cell types, and they also don't duplicate and form unwanted colonies.

It would be quite an honor to step foot on the International Space Station as only a very small amount of people get the opportunity, with this achievement though is a sacrifice and that is all the entertainment luxuries earth has to offer. Luckily, Disney and NASA are not allowing the Astronauts aboard the International Space to miss out on one of the luxuries and that is of course Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

Spaceflight reporter Robin Seemangal took to Twitter and posted this news "I received confirmation from Disney and NASA sources that the crew aboard the International Space Station will be screening Star Wars: The Last Jedi".

Inverse then followed up this report by asking NASA if this news was true or not, a NASA spokesperson said that the movie would be shown to Astronauts aboard the International Space Station.

The ability to pass down knowledge from one to another through a repetitive teaching reward system has proven to be one of the pivotal aspects of human life. An example of this would be teaching a dog to sit or roll over, then to reward it with a treat after completion of the desired task.

This basic principle practice increases the likelihood of the dog performing the same task more efficiently once learned that their is a reward after.

The same principle practice can now be applied to AI robots, being named one of the 10 breakthrough technologies of 2017 by MIT Technology Review, this revolutionary kind of AI learning will mean that AI will be able to adapt and take in new information without human interaction, simply by experimenting.

SpaceX has added a newly updated funding round to this year's summer collection. Adding $100 million on to it's already $351 million funding round bringing the total to around $450 million, putting Space X's total post-money valuation to $21.5 billion.

James Gleeson, the spokesperson for SpaceX has replied to the amended filing by saying: "This filing simply discloses that SpaceX received an additional $100 million of investment as part of the last funding round which was disclosed earlier this summer."

SpaceX has massive ambitions, outlining plans for a trip to Mars in 2022 and launching satellites for the U.S military using its Falcon 9 rocket. It's clear why investors see SpaceX as a trustworthy investment, the track record for Elon provides its benefits of reassurance.

Quantum encryption is the wish of most in the security industry as you can't even look at the data without making changes to it, but using quantum encryption - until now - was always slower than traditional methods.

Not for long, as researchers have made a new quantum encryption key distribution system that is between 5-10x faster than previous methods, and can keep up with conventional encryption when run side-by-side. How did they do it? By getting more data into each photon.

Engadget reports "Normally, you can only encode one bit per photon by using a weak laser. The team discovered that it could encode two bits by tweaking the release time of photons and using high-speed photon detectors to track these changes. Effectively, they're giving photons properties they couldn't have before". Crazy stuff, isn't it?

Elon Musk, or the real life Tony Stark, has taken the first step into solving the standstill traffic problem that LA is known for. Musk has begun the process with his firm 'The Boring Company' by filing a permit to start digging within city limits.

Keeping the momentum going forward Musk has already acquired a verbal approval and has also posted a photo from the first stage of the project near his office in Hawthorne, in southwestern Los Angeles County near LAX. Musk hopes the route of tunnel will stretch from the entirety of the "whole 405" from LAX to Interstate 101 in "a year or so."

In April, The Boring Company released a video showing a car being lowered into the tunnel from a platform in the city streets. Users of the tunnel will be able to take "express" trips through the main tunnel with "no intermediate stopping", side tunnels will also be connected to the main tunnel for entry and exit.

Earlier this year the state-funded Russian Foundation for Advanced Research Projects unveiled the Final Experimental Demonstration Object Research - or better known as FEDOR. The robot demonstrated the ability to fire pistols correctly at targets, crawl and even drive a car.

In a tweet from Russian Deputy Prime Minister and Deputy Head of the Military-Industrial Commission Dmitry Rogozin said "Robot FEDOR showed the ability to shoot from both hands. Fine motor skills and decision-making algorithms are still being improved."

FEDOR is now having its decision making algorithms upgraded as the robot is destined to orbit the Federatsiya in 2021. Cosmonauts plan to use this very same spacecraft to hopefully carry astronauts to the moon one day, and also aspire to travel to Mars it the FEDOR as well.