Science, Space, Health & Robotics News - Page 419

NASA's Cassini spacecraft has sent yet another stunning image from space.

The photo was taken when Cassini was 870 million miles (1.4 billion kilometers) away from Earth, and it shows our planet between the rings of Saturn.

Although far and too small to be visible in the image, the part of Earth facing Cassini at the time was the southern Atlantic Ocean. Even Earth's Moon is visible in a zoomed-in version of the image.

Google had some of its best engineers on its Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) project, but some of them have departed the search giant for one of the most secretive AI projects in the world.

The engineers left Google, teaming with one of Silicon Valley's top venture capitalists, Chamath Palihapitiya. The company that Palihapitiya lured the engineers to is called Groq Inc., at least for now - but there's little known about Groq. There are a few SEC filings from October and December, with the company raising $10.3 million. In its SEC documents, Groq named three principals: Jonathan Ross, who helped invent the TPU, Douglas Wightman, an entrepreneur and former engineer at the Google X "moonshot factory" and Palihapitiya, the founder of investment firm Social Capital. The listed address is Social Capital's headquarters, reports CNBC.

Palihapitiya said in an email: "We're really excited about Groq. It's too early to talk specifics, but we think what they're building could become a fundamental building block for the next generation of computing". The fundamental building block for the next generation of computing? Alright, now I'm excited.

Languages... who needs them? These are the thoughts that go through Tony Stark's Elon Musk's mind, so the Tesla and Space X founder and his think tank have devised a device that would plant a neural plant inside of your head.

Musk's grand plan would make AI assistants of today look like they were made in the stone age, for one big reason: languages. These brain implants would push through "uncompressed" communication between people, so that you could upload your thoughts instantaneously between your brains - without language barriers. It sounds fantastic, doesn't it?

During a recent interview, Musk said: "If I were to communicate a concept to you, you would essentially engage in consensual telepathy. There are a bunch of concepts in your head that then your brain has to try to compress into this incredibly low data rate called speech or typing. If you have two brain interfaces, you could actually do an uncompressed direct conceptual communication with another person".

After a little over a week with just four crew members on board the Space Station, the Expedition 51 is now complete. After a six-hour flight, NASA astronaut Jack Fischer and cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin of the Russian space agency Roscosmos arrived at the International Space Station.

The two launched aboard the Soyuz MS-04 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Before docking to the Station, they orbited Earth 4 times.

The arrival of Fischer and Yurchikhin increased the Station's crew complement to five. The two join Expedition 51 Commander Peggy Whitson of NASA and Flight Engineers Oleg Novitskiy of Roscosmos and Thomas Pesquet of ESA (European Space Agency).

After more than 12 years studying Saturn, its rings, and moons, NASA's Cassini spacecraft has entered the final year of its epic voyage. The conclusion of the historic scientific odyssey is planned for September 2017. Cassini already sent some impressive images of Saturn's atmosphere and shown us detailed images of Saturn's rings.

However, Cassini's most important discovery reveals much more. NASA has announced that a form of chemical energy that life can feed on appears to exist on Saturn's moon Enceladus. The paper from researchers with the Cassini mission, published in the journal Science, indicates hydrogen gas, which could potentially provide a chemical energy source for life, is pouring into the subsurface ocean of Enceladus from hydrothermal activity on the seafloor.

The presence of ample hydrogen means that microbes if they exist there, could use it to obtain energy by combining the hydrogen with carbon dioxide dissolved in the water.

Expedition 50 crew members safely returned to Earth on Monday after 173 days in space.

The Soyuz MS-02 spacecraft, carrying Expedition 50 Commander Shane Kimbrough of NASA, and Flight Engineers Sergey Ryzhikov and Andrey Borisenko of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, has landed in Kazakhstan at approximately 7:20 AM. The three touched down southeast of the remote town of Dzhezkazgan in Kazakhstan.

"It was a textbook touchdown," said NASA's spokesperson Rob Navias. "The Soyuz was pulled by its main parachute onto its side, but the crew was quickly extracted and are in good shape."

SpaceX made history by successfully launching and landing already used Falcon 9 rocket. This is the first time in history that an already used rocket has been launched again.

The Falcon 9 in question was first used in April last year when it launched the Dragon towards the International Space Station. It was the second rocket that SpaceX successfully landed, and the first one that they landed on an ocean platform.

SpaceX has been landing rockets for little over two years now. Up until then, rockets were only disposable, destroyed after the launch. The company has now shown that the rockets can be re-used, which will lower the cost of space missions and space flights.

SpaceX just made history. Again. They have just successfully launched and landed an already used Falcon 9 rocket. This is the first time in history that an already used rocket has been launched again.

The Falcon 9 in question was first used in April last year when it launched the Dragon towards the International Space Station. It was the second rocket that SpaceX successfully landed, and the first one that they landed on an ocean platform.

SpaceX is all set to make history on Thursday, March 30th, when they plan to launch their first reusable rocket.

The Falcon 9 rocket, which they plan to launch on Thursday, was first used in April last year when it launched the Dragon towards the International Space Station. It was the second rocket that SpaceX successfully landed, and the first one that they landed on an ocean platform.

SpaceX test-fired the rocket this week, and they announced that the static fire test was successful.

Elon Musk is making some big moves towards getting your mind inside of a machine, with The Wall Street Journal reporting that Musk has launched a new company called Neuralink, which is pushing the boundaries on something Musk teases as "neural lace technology".

Back in February, Musk said that humans can communicate at around 10 bits per second when typing on smartphones, but computers can talk to each other at trillions of bits per second. In order for the human race to begin trying to keep up with advanced machines will be a high-speed link, something Musk calls neural laces, between computers and our brains. Oh, is that all, Elon?

WSJ's sources say that Musk has taken a key role in Neuralink, and might even be in a leadership position. Neuralink co-founder Max Hodak confirmed the company is in operation, and Musk is involved, but it's early days for Neuralink.