Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 6

NASA has confirmed its Mars rover has discovered a Martian sample unlike any other the rover has found throughout its travels across the plains of the Red Planet.

The Mars rover named Perseverance is making its way out of the Jezero Crater, which it landed in with the now-deceased Mars helicopter in 2021. Perseverance has been exploring the Jezero Crater in search of evidence of ancient microbial life. Part of its mission is to collect samples of the Martian environment, which will eventually be sent back to Earth for scientific analysis. NASA recently announced Perseverance has stumbled across and now collected a sample that is unlike any other it has collected before.

According to the space agency, the new "one-of-a-kind treasure" is a 1.1-inch rock sample collected from an area called "Silver Mountain". NASA wrote on the official Perseverance X account the rock sample has "textures, unlike anything we've seen before." According to NASA, the rocks in the area Perseverance is exploring are of great scientific interest as they have the possibility of offering a peek into Mars' past. As for the exciting sample, and others like it in the area, researchers believe they have been pushed up from deep within the planet after an asteroid impact that occurred billions of years ago.

The world's most powerful space telescope has captured stunning images of the minuscule objects surrounding a celestial object located approximately 450 light-years away from Earth.

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has honed in on the newborn star known as Herbig Haro 30 (HH 30), which is located in the constellation Taurus. The European Space Agency (ESA) has taken to its website to detail the above photograph, which shows the young star seemingly encased in a dense cloud of dust. However, that isn't all that is present within the image. Astronomers are particularly interested in HH 30 and, by extension, these new images, as they show an example of outflowing gas from the star-forming a narrow jet.

These intense jets of gas cause shockwaves through the dust and gas that are forming a disk around the newborn star. The shockwaves heat the material surrounding the star, resulting in a luminescent glow. Astronomers are particularly interested in the evolutionary formation of these disks, as the same process is what created the solar system we are living in today.

Apple has teased the future with a team of robotics researchers at the company designing and prototyping a robot with lifelike movements, that looks like a lamp that you'll have on your desk.

In a new video published last month on the Apple Machine Learning Research website, we get a look at something that resembles Pixar mascot Luxo Jr. The video shows the robot interacting with a person in a lifelike way, with the user asking the robot what the weather will be like today, and the robot looks out the window before responding with the forecast... a nice touch.

The user says that they'll be going for a hike that day, but the robot looks sad when it finds out it's not invited on the journey. In another situation, the robot responds to the user's hand gestures by moving to provide the desired lighting for iPhone photography. In another test, the robot pushes a mug on the desk towards the person, acting as a reminder to drink more water.

Microplastics are becoming more and more of a concern as researchers are discovering them in almost every facet of life, and now a new study has pointed to the presence of microplastics in... human brains.

It was only last year that researchers from the University of Mexico discovered microplastics in human testicle tissue, and now a new study published in the scientific journal Nature Medicine has revealed through sample analysis microplastics in the human brain tissue. The tissue was collected from people in 2016 and 2024, and according to the study, each of the brain samples contained microplastics and even smaller plastics called nanoplastics. Notably, the more recent samples contained 50% more plastics than the older samples.

The discovery of microplastics in the brain isn't totally new, as researchers penned a study in 2024 that detailed their presence, but this new study has looked at how microplastics can enter the brain, and according to the researchers, inhalation is a key factor. The researchers explain that when individuals inhale microplastics, which can be present in something as innocuous as indoor dust, the microplastics can travel through the nose to the olfactory bulb, a region of the brain responsible for processing smells.

When you hear the word 'cordyceps' - one might shudder at the mental visual of a fungus-brained humanoid. After all, it was a real condition (Ophiocordyceps unilateralis) occurring in ants that inspired the infection in The Last of Us.

You can add a new fear to the list, as a similar parasite was discovered in spiders located in Northern Ireland. The zombie-spider fungus, entitled G. attenboroughii (after Sir David Attenborough) was originally discovered in 2021 during the filming of BBC's Winterwatch in a gunpowder storeroom at Castle Espie. As reported by LiveScience, the parasite infects spiders while they're still alive. It causes a fluffy white fungus to accumulate on their bodies and has a range of 'zombie-like' effects as it takes over its host.

In a study published January 24th, G. attenboroughii was officially confirmed as a new species. Similar to the zombie-ant fungus, the infection works by penetrating the host's body, producing toxins to kill said host, while releasing antibiotics to preserve the corpse while extracting nutrients. From there, under the right conditions, the fungus eventually grows long structures to spread spores and reproduce. Leading to disturbing visuals such as that pictured below:

Keeping an eye on space for any potentially hazardous space rocks is a paramount mission for astronomers, which is why systems have been put in place for automatic detection of any suspicious objects.

A NASA-operated telescope located in Chile detected a suspicious object last year on Christmas Day, which resulted in the space agency's Asteroid Terrestrial Last Alert System (ATLAS) being triggered and manual follow-up observations being conducted by human researchers. Researchers then discovered the object was an asteroid, which has now been named 2024 YR4. The team found the asteroid's orbit around the Sun is elongated, and it's currently traveling directly away from Earth, almost in a straight line.

However, its almost straight-line trajectory has made it difficult for researchers to get accurate measurements of its speed, size, and characteristics. Preliminary estimations put 2024 YR4 at anywhere between 130 and 300 feet in diameter, it's speed at 38,700 mph, and a composition of silicate minerals, which are rock-forming minerals. Researchers will be able to see the asteroid until April this year, as it will disappear around the Sun and won't be visible again until 2028. That's when things could begin to get hairy, though.

What's the point of creating a humanoid robot if you can't race it? Well, many people agree with that sentiment, as a first-of-its-kind event is being planned where humans will take on humanoid robots over several miles.

In what seems like a humorous story at face value, engineers have been officially asked by event organizers to enter their bipedal robots into a long-distance running race that will take place in the Chinese capital's Daxing district. The event is being organized by the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area (E-Town), and tech firms have been invited to enter their humanoid robots, but there are a few stipulations.

Engineers must make sure their robot has a humanoid appearance and mechanical structure designed to be bipedal, meaning it moves using two legs. As you can probably imagine, using wheels to create any movement is wholly forbidden. Other rules include the height requirement of between 19.7 inches and 78.7 inches, with a maximum leg extension distance, which measures from the hip joint to the base of the foot, of 17.7 inches.

When NASA announced it had collected samples from asteroid Bennu, a 4.5 billion-year-old asteroid, the recovered samples were much more than anticipated, approximately double the total planned weight.

The quantity of the samples actually proved to be a problem for researchers as NASA struggled to get the capsule open for nearly three months, eventually resulting in special tools being designed to remove the lid of the capsule. NASA set a mission goal of 60 grams to call the asteroid sample collection mission a success, but OSIRIS-REx gathered more than 120 grams. Those samples have now been analyzed by a large team of scientists from more than 40 institutions around the world, with the researchers publishing a new study in the scientific journal Nature.

The study examined the contents of the samples, and through analysis of the mineral grains' exact structure, along with a chemical composition analysis, the team discovered 14 of the 20 amino acids that create the proteins required for life as we know it on Earth. Additionally, the team found a high concentration of ammonia, and five nucleobases life on Earth uses to transmit genetic instructions within DNA and RNA.

Scientists have admitted to a blunder in space, and it involves Elon Musk's car. The admittance highlights the importance of accurate near-Earth object tracking.

The Minor Planet Electronic Circular listed the discovery of an asteroid on January 2, but the entry into the database was promptly removed after the researchers realized the object wasn't an asteroid at all but Elon Musk's car, specifically the Tesla Roadster that was launched into space on February 6, 2018. The correction was issued less than a day after the discovery of the suspected asteroid, with an editor notice being published informing readers the designation of 2018 CN41 "is being deleted".

While the misidentification of the object was corrected promptly by the researchers after they realized the object's orbit matched the orbit of the Falcon Heavy Upper stage with the Tesla Roadster attached, the mistake does highlight a problem with space-object identification in general.

Humanity has reached a point where, according to scientists, it's at the closest point to destroying itself since the inception of the renowned Doomsday Clock.

The Doomsday Clock was first introduced in 1947 and is updated by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a group that was founded by University of Chicago scientists who assisted with the creation of the first nuclear weapons under the Manhattan Project. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists assesses the global risk of humanity destroying itself in various ways. According to the researchers, the clock has now been moved to just 89 seconds to midnight, marking the closest it's ever been to midnight, which represents the end of humanity as we know it.

According to the researchers, the world is less safe/stable than it was a year ago, with "Arms control treaties are in tatters, and there are active conflicts involving nuclear powers," said Dan Holz, chair of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists' science and security board. Moreover, Holz stated misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracies are serving as a "threat multiplier". Suzet McKinney, a member of the bulletin's Board of Science and Security and a director of Life Sciences for Sterling Bay, said biological threats, such as diseases, are currently a major concern, especially when considering their development being paired with sophisticated AI models.

Elon Musk has said that President Trump has requested that SpaceX bring the 2 astronauts that are currently stranded on the International Space Station (ISS) back home "as soon as possible".

In a post on X, the SpaceX and Tesla boss said "The POTUS has asked SpaceX to bring home the 2 astronauts stranded on the Space Station as soon as possible. We will do so", while adding "terrible that the Biden administration left them there so long".

NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams have been stuck on the ISS since June 2024 after arriving on the Boeing Starliner spacecraft as part of the Crew Flight Test mission. NASA decided that they would come home on Dragon after "uncertainties" surrounding Starliner.

Pushing the limits of what is possible is one of the fundamental principles of science, and China has taken yet another step toward the unknown with its recent nuclear fusion test that generated temperatures six times hotter than the surface of the Sun.

The news comes from Chinese state media and states researchers operating the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) nuclear fusion reactor conducted a test on January 20 that resulted in a loop of plasma being able to maintain adequate temperatures for 403 seconds. While that might not sound very long, these researchers are attempting to create an "artificial Sun," which, if they succeed, will theoretically unlock a limitless energy supply.

However, nuclear fusion is incredibly difficult, or at least maintaining the temperatures and the pressure needed to sustain the reaction for long periods of time. But progress is being made. In January 2022, researchers at EAST sustained a temperature of 70 million degrees Celsius (126 million degrees Fahrenheit), and maintained it for 1,056 seconds. The end goal of this experimentation is to create a nuclear fusion reaction that is strong enough that it can self-sustain itself, much like the Sun. To reach this, researchers must create a nuclear fusion reaction strong enough that it releases more energy than what was required to get it started.

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has captured a stunning panoramic view of the Milky Way's closest celestial neighbor, which is schedule to collide with our own galaxy in approximately 4.5 billion years.

The incredible image has been posted to NASA and the European Space Agency's (ESA) social channels as well as its website's where it's detailed the image is comprised of a ridiculous 2.5 billion pixels. For those that don't know, Andromeda is located approximately 2.5 million light-years away, and the image is actually a more than 10 year effort by the Hubble Space Telescope which snapped approximately 600 different fields of view of Andromeda.

Notably, the image shows the galaxy "almost edge-on," or tilted 77 degress relative to Earth's view. Because of our position Hubble was required to orbit Earth more than 1,000 times to gather the images required to piece this behemoth together.

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang is working with TSMC on something new: robots and autonomous vehicle development.

The NVIDIA CEO invited its AI supply chain partners to a "trillion-dollar banquet" in Taiwan last night, with TSMC boss C.C. Wei in attendance, it was announced that the two companies would be working on robotics and self-driving cars moving forward.

In recent news, NVIDIA's next-gen Jetson Thor SoC was teased as a "ChatGPT moment" for physical AI and robots, dropping in the coming months (sometime in 1H 2025). NVIDIA's upcoming Project GROOT is a new robot that will compete with Tesla's Optimus humanoid robot, and it seems that the company is collaborating with TSMC on the project.

A man has just achieved nuclear fusion at home on his kitchen bench, at a cost of just $3000 using Amazon-powered Anthropic's Claude AI.

The Canadian man goes by Hudzah on his substack, hosting a livestream on X using materials easily available to people including hydrocar and deuterium oxide (otherwise known as heavy water). He used Claude to go through the documentation and debugging instructions for the fusion energy project, with OpenAI o1 pro helping by clearing out the confusion over electrical wiring and assembly.

Hudzah wanted to build a nuclear fusor capable of splitting atoms, as well as producing plasma. His experiment wasn't to built a fusor capable of fusion, but to detect neutrons. He said that the hardest part of the project was building a chamber that was capable of sustaining extremely low air pressure, measurable in single-digit or low-digit millitorrs (mTorr).

SpaceX has just wrapped up its 7th test flight of the world's largest and most powerful rocket, Starship, with the company once again proving its ingenuity in being able to launch and catch the 200-foot-tall booster called Super Heavy.

The launch took place from Starbase, located in Boca Chica, Texas, and marked the first Starship flight of 2025. As always, SpaceX set very ambitious goals for Flight 7 and explained in a recent blog post on its website that it planned to repeat the success of its previous flight, where it caught Super Heavy on the Mechazilla launch tower. SpaceX achieved that, but, unfortunately, there was a slight hiccup as Starship, or Ship, had communications severed approximately eight and a half minutes after flight was engaged.

Despite the wireless data transmission severance, Starship still managed to light all six Raptor engines successfully and stayed within its designated launch corridor. SpaceX explained in an update on its website that initial data indicates a fire developed in the aft section of the ship, which resulted in SpaceX engaging in a process called "rapid unscheduled disassembly," or boom.

Elon Musk says that every single human being on the planet will want one -- or even two -- of Tesla's new humanoid Optimus robots, and that we can expect 500,000+ of the Optimus robots to be made in 2027.

In a new interview with the SpaceX and Tesla boss, who said: "Humanoid robots will be the biggest product in history. Every human will likely want one-or even two. My guess is a 3:1, 4:1, or even 5:1 ratio of robots to humans, meaning 20-30 billion robots worldwide. In the good AI scenario, we won't need universal basic income. We'll have universal high income".

Elon added: "Our Optimus robot is the most sophisticated humanoid robot in the world. We aim to build several thousand this year, test them at Tesla factories, then scale to 50,000-100,000 next year, and 500,000 in three years. Maybe we should think of them in Roman legions-5,000 robots per legion".

Samsung's Ballie, a spherical robot that was first revealed at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas in 2020 is finally coming to market, putting to bed the longstanding assumption that Samsung will never release the peculiar robot.

CES 2024 is littered with prototype concepts that will never make it to market for various reasons, and since its unveiling and lack of release, Samsung's Ballie has fallen into that category. However, it appears that is no longer the case as CNET reports Samsung will be releasing the AI-powered companion sometime in 2025. For those who don't know, Ballie is a stay-at-home robot companion that is capable of greeting its owners at the door, projecting video/images on surfaces, and being able to control other Samsung smarthome devices.

Ballie communicates with users through a text-based app, but users can also throw commands at the AI robot with their voice. Additionally, through its array of cameras and sensors, Ballie is able to determine the best viewing angle for its projected image/image based on the location of the users face.

The human brain is truly and incredible piece of wetware that even the smartest of researchers have yet to fully understand, but when it comes to speed researchers have found the human brain is quite slow, especially compared to something as ubiquitous as Wi-Fi or a phone call from a smartphone.

According to new calculations that were published in a recent entry into the scientific journal Neuron, the human brain processes a thought at just 10 bits per second, which is remarkably slow when compared to an average Wi-Fi connection in the US being capable of 260 million bits per second, or even a simple phone call at approximately 64,000 bits per second.

To arrive at this number the team looked at feats of human achievement and applied methods from the field of information theory, and what they found was even mentally intensive activities that are blended with minimal physical movement barely breached the 10 bits per second mark.

Current Backyard has just unveiled its new Model P Smart Pizza Oven at CES 2025, an all-electric smart pizza oven that can be used both indoors and outdoors, has Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity and costs just $599. Check it out:

The company says its new Model P smart pizza oven can reach a maximum temperature of 850F, of which is the temperature that can cook a Neapolitan-style pizza in two minutes. Current Backyard says that the internal design of its new smart pizza oven uses an algorithm alongside top-mounted graphite and under-stone circular calrod elements to ensure uniform heating across the pizza.

Current Backyard also says that the construction used also eliminates the need for their future smart pizza oven owners to rotate their pizzas while they're cooling, with a cordierite cooking stone helping with the even doneness, which helps to get that delicious crispy crust.