Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 79

Swedish company Oumph! released its limited edition Human Meat Plant-Based Burger late last year for Halloween.

The company set out to create a plant-based meat patty that recreated the taste and texture of human meat for Halloween, to prove that they can make their plant-based meats taste like any other meat "you can ever imagine." Claiming to have never eaten human meat, Ankan "The Duck" Linden researched online to determine what texture and taste would be necessary to replicate human flesh.

Linden made the meat with soy protein, mushrooms, wheat protein, starch, and "some secret spicing." The resultant burger has since won a Silver Brand Experience and Activation Lion at the Cannes Lions Festival, among 1,919 other entries. The burger isn't listed on the Oumph! website, but it may resurface for Halloween later this year.

Researchers in Australia have made a breakthrough in increasing the efficiency and stability of solar windows.

Solar windows use semi-transparent solar cells to replace regular window glass, allowing light through while generating power, which could soon lead to powering massive structures like skyscrapers. Researchers from Monash University and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) have created a new solar cell that converts power with 15.5% efficiency while letting 20.7% of light through.

This result has a lower efficiency than a previous demonstration of a solar window prototype by the same team in 2020, which had 17% power-conversion efficiency. However, that window had only 10% visible transmittance, making it much less viable. The team has now also developed a second prototype semi-transparent solar cell, with 4.1% power-conversion efficiency and 52.4% visible transmittance, providing a second solution to broaden potential real-world applications.

NASA's Perseverance rover landed in the Jezero Crater on Mars on February 18, 2021, and since then, it has been exploring the Red Planet.

Perseverance has been roaming around the Jezero Crater for many months now and has collected several samples throughout its journey. The rover is designed to carry 43 sample tubes, and has so far only collected a few. Eventually, NASA wants to bring the martian samples back to Earth for analysis under the best instruments possible. The task of getting the samples back to Earth is a difficult one, but the space agency is confident that they can pull it off and get 30 samples back to Earth sometime in the early 2030s.

The Philadelphia Inquirer contacted NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and presented a list of questions sourced from the public after a NASA presentation held in May. The questions were answered by Mars Sample Return scientists Michael Meyer and Lindsay Hays. Many of the questions that were answered were regarding the safety of the Mars samples and if NASA has considered testing the samples for life/microbes before returning them to Earth.

NASA is moving forward with its ambitions of taking humans back to the Moon with the launch of the CAPSTONE satellite.

The satellite was launched from New Zealand last week aboard Rocket Lab's Electron rocket, and for the six days after launch, the small 55-pound satellite was continuously increasing its altitude and speed. After gaining enough speed, the NASA satellite broke free of Earth's orbit and began its relatively slow journey to the Moon.

The space agency explains that the CAPSTONE satellite stands for Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment, and after its four-month journey to the Moon (arriving in November), it will enter a never-before-flown orbit where it will fly within 1,000 miles of the Moon's North Pole, and 43,500 miles from the South Pole at its farthest orbital point. The CubeSat will stay in this elongated orbit for six and a half days to study dynamics.

A YouTuber has decided to take it upon himself to recreate the wheels on a bicycle, and the results are truly impressive.

The YouTube channel "The Q" posted a video around the end of last month titled "Just a Normal Bike Math: 0.5 x 2 = 1 Wheel", and the video shows an individual riding a bike, crashing into a curb, and destroying the front wheel. The bike is then quickly dismantled by the individual and put through a seemingly long process of improvements, where the frame of the bike was extended, the back wheel was cut in half, and customization was done to the chain's placement.

The YouTuber decided to cut the back wheel in half, placing one-half of the wheels where the typical back wheel would be and the other half behind it on the custom-made elongated frame. The rider is still able to use the bike as you would normally, as the video shows it successfully riding in a straight line at a cruising speed and going down curbs without any problem. Does this new design of bicycle replace the traditional whole-wheel design? Absolutely not, but it's fun to watch nonetheless.

Thousands of Americans are traveling around the country for Fourth of July celebrations, and right as travel is peaking, American Airlines has found a glitch in its scheduling system.

The news comes from CNBC, which reported that a glitch in American Airlines' scheduling system has resulted in more than 12,000 flights lacking a captain, first officer, or both. On Saturday, American Airlines announced that it would be suspending the scheduling service, but also stated to Fox News Digital that the glitch won't have any "operational impact".

American Airlines explained in a statement that pilots use a trading system for flights, and that the technical issue caused certain trading transactions to be processed when they shouldn't have been. Notably, American Airlines states that its engineers have already restored the "vast majority" of the trips that were affected by the glitch. This glitch that has affected thousands of flights comes at the peak of travel throughout the year, when flights are already regularly delayed and canceled. Airlines are also suffering from staffing problems.

Germany is building a large tower near the Spree river in Berlin, which will functionally resemble a large thermos when completed.

The tower was unveiled by German power provider Vattenfall on June 30th, 2022, which stands at 45 meters (147.6 feet) tall and can hold up to 56 million liters (14.8 million gallons) of hot water. Effectively acting as a large battery, the giant tank receives excess electricity from the grid produced by renewable energy sources like wind and solar. This energy is used to heat the water to almost boiling temperatures.

The facility will cost 50 million euros ($52 million) to complete and will have a thermal capacity of 200 Megawatts (MW). Its insulation will allow it to keep water hot for up to 13 hours and helps smooth out fluctuations in power availability from renewable energy sources during the day as the Sun disappears or wind levels drop. The giant thermos will be Europe's largest heat storage facility, larger even than an upcoming one planned for the Netherlands.

A study on the implant titled "Soft, bioresorbable coolers for reversible conduction block of peripheral nerves" has been published in the journal Science.

Researchers from Northwestern University have created a small, flexible, biocompatible device that can be implanted into a patient to provide pain relief as an alternative to painkilling medications like opioids, circumventing any problems arising from the highly addictive properties of such drugs. The device softly wraps around nerves and cools them, numbing them and preventing pain signals from being sent to the brain, and the patient can adjust it to provide more or less relief with an external pump.

The implant is water-soluble and bioresorbable, meaning when it is no longer needed, the body can absorb it, bypassing the need for it to be extracted with surgery. It contains perfluoropentane, a liquid coolant it releases from one small channel to mix in a shared chamber with nitrogen gas from a second channel. The mixing causes the perfluoropentane to evaporate, cooling the nearby nerve, while an integrated temperature sensor protects against tissue damage by ensuring the nerve doesn't get too cold.

The Astrophysics Stratospheric Telescope for High Spectral Resolution Observations at Submillimeter-wavelength (ASTHROS) mission will launch no earlier than December 2023.

The mission is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California and will use a balloon larger than a football field to carry the ASTHROS mission to the stratosphere at an altitude of 130,000 feet (~40,000 meters) over Antarctica. ASTHROS will study star formation, particularly a phenomenon that stops them from forming in some galaxies, over about four weeks.

The telescope uses an 8.2-foot (2.5 meters) primary mirror, which gathers light into the telescope, and is the tied for the largest mirror to ever fly with a high-altitude balloon. Mirrors for telescopes operating on Earth and in space have key differences in their construction, but the high-altitude setting provided challenges for constructing ASTHROS' mirror. It had to be made light enough to be carried by the balloon while being strong enough to resist Earth's gravity from deforming its perfect shape by more than roughly 0.0001 inches (2.5 micrometers).

A study on birds and wildfires titled "Wildland fires ignited by avian electrocutions" has been published in the journal Wildlife Society Bulletin.

Humans, lightning, and even the Sun on particularly hot days are common causes of wildfires. However, birds that enjoy perching on power lines can sometimes bridge two wires or form a connection to the ground, resulting in a potentially fiery death from electrocution.

Researchers from EDM International, a Colorado-based engineering consultancy firm, documented fires occurring between 2014 and 2018 using Google Alerts, narrowing down the results by filtering out reports that didn't have evidence of a bird being the cause. Ultimately, they identified 44 individual wildfires sparked by birds in regions prone to them due to droughts and other environmental factors.

A new report has revealed that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has granted SpaceX approval for an expansion of its Starlink satellite internet service.

CNN has reported that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has approved SpaceX for bringing Starlink internet to trains, ships, and other vehicles such as RVs and planes. Commercial airlines and private jets currently use ground-based cell towers and satellites for internet connections. However, the distance between the plane and the cell tower or satellite is extreme, sometimes reaching 22,000 miles (satellite). This extreme distance can cause inconsistent connection/speed.

Switching to Starlink would reduce the distance between the plane and the satellite, giving a more stable internet connection per the proximity of the satellites. SpaceX has launched Starlink satellites into lower-Earth orbit, which are only a few hundred miles from the surface of Earth. Having the satellites closer to the ground gives Starlink a lower latency internet connection, according to SpaceX. Notably, Hawaiian Airlines has already signed a deal with SpaceX back in April to implement Starlink services to its selection of jets.

A study on astronaut bone loss titled "Incomplete recovery of bone strength and trabecular microarchitecture at the distal tibia 1 year after return from long duration spaceflight" has been published in the journal Scientific Reports.

Researchers studied seventeen international astronauts, comprising fourteen males and three females, before they went to space, upon returning to Earth, and at six and twelve-month intervals following their return. They scanned the astronauts' tibia (shinbone) and radius (forearm) to determine their resistance to fracturing, known as the failure load, bone mineral content, and thickness.

Overall, the average result for 16 of the astronauts was the incomplete recovery of their shinbones from bone loss sustained in space after one year back on Earth. However, the forearm did recover completely. The average pre-flight shinbone failure load was 10,579 newtons of force, which dropped by 152 newtons to 10,427 newtons, while bone mineral density reduced by 4.5 milligrams per cubic centimeter from 326.8 mg/cm³ pre-flight.

A study on the bacteria titled "Biosynthesis of polycyclopropanated high energy biofuels" has been published in the journal Joule.

Researchers from the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory have found a way to produce jet fuel by harvesting a specific molecule created by streptomyces, a common bacteria found in soil. Streptomyces synthesize an energy-rich carbon molecule called Jawsamycin, named after the movie 'Jaws,' that is created by the bacteria as it metabolizes glucose.

Any molecule which requires a large amount of energy to produce can subsequently be broken up to release that energy. Jawsamycin is a large molecule containing multiple triangular cyclopropane groups, which require much more energy to hold together than open carbon chains. The researchers hope to scale up their process for producing Jawsamycin to avoid waiting millions of years for more fossil fuels to launch rockets with, opting for a more sustainable alternative.

NASA is gearing up for science operations to begin on the almost-ready James Webb Space Telescope that launched from Earth on Christmas day, 2021.

The $10 billion observatory has been in development since 2004 has been plagued with numerous issues, but the task was finally completed and Webb launched from Earth and sent a million miles away into a specific orbit around the Sun. The observatory is outfitted with next-generation instruments that officials says will "unfold the universe" by allowing researchers to see far further back in time than what was previously possible.

Not only will Webb be able to see further than any space telescope before it, NASA has also equipped it with planet-examining instruments that are primarily designed to observe exoplanets and identify their atmosphere's.

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) has delivered its verdict on the case of West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency.

The decision restricts the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions to curb climate change and help the nation reach climate targets. The final ruling was 6-3, determining that the EPA does not have the authority to push broad limits across the country without receiving approval directly from the U.S. Congress.

West Virginia led nineteen states and various power companies against the EPA to prevent it from capping carbon dioxide emissions and fining those out of line. The EPA originally issued its Clean Power Plan in 2015, setting emissions targets for states that included limiting carbon emissions in 2022 while targeting a 32 percent reduction by 2030.

On January 15, 2022, an underwater volcano erupted, that caused a violent explosion that shook the island of Tonga.

The underwater volcano named the Hunga Tonga is a submarine volcano that is located approximately 40 miles north of Tonga's capital, Nuku'alofa. Upon eruption, the massive underwater volcano immediately created a four-foot-tall tsunami that devastated the Tongan islands, wiping out most houses and structures. The Tongan government declared the event an "unprecedented disaster".

The explosion from the volcano was so large that it was detected in space by a NASA satellite. The above video was captured by the GOES West Earth-observing satellite that is operated by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and it showcases a large cloud of smoke suddenly erupting. The large plume of smoke reached 36 miles in altitude, and the power of the explosion was estimated to be ten megatons of TNT exploding, or more than 500 times as powerful as the nuclear bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima.

A study predicting upcoming solar activity titled "Overlapping Magnetic Activity Cycles and the Sunspot Number: Forecasting Sunspot Cycle 25 Amplitude" was published in the journal Solar Physics.

Astronomers have observed daily changes in the Sun's surface for centuries and began to record phenomena like sunspots in 1749. By the mid-19th century, astronomers realized they followed a cyclic behavior and that the Sun operated on a roughly 11-year solar cycle. Twenty-four cycles have been completed since records began, and the twenty-fifth is currently underway.

The cycles themselves vary from one to the next. Cycle 25 was forecasted by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to involve mild solar activity; however, the Sun has been much more active than expected. Now, cycle 25 looks like it could be one of the strongest cycles observed. Another team of researchers, however, made predictions in 2020 that are much closer to the current reality.

A study on the chip titled "Electrical control of surface acoustic waves" has been published in the journal Nature Electronics.

Researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have created a chip that can use sound waves to carry data instead of electromagnetic (EM) waves. Though acoustic waves are slower than EM waves for a given frequency, they are still applicable in classical or quantum computing and communications technology, as short acoustic waves can keep interference relatively low.

A study on space travel and the atmosphere titled "The Climate and Ozone Impacts of Black Carbon Emissions From Global Rocket Launches" has been published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

Researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) suggest that the ever-growing rate of rocket launches may damage the ozone layer and change atmospheric circulation patterns. The NOAA says a "10-fold increase in hydrocarbon fueled launches," which includes kerosene-burning rocket engines that emit black carbon (soot) as exhaust into the stratosphere.

The stratosphere contains the ozone layer, which shields life on Earth from ultraviolet radiation, mitigating skin cancer, weakened immune systems, and disruptions to ecosystems and agriculture that would otherwise arise. Rockets are the only source of pollution above the troposphere, the lowest level of Earth's atmosphere, followed by the stratosphere, which could see 0.5 - 2° Celsius (~1-4° Fahrenheit) increases due to increased pollution from rocket exhaust, and atmospheric circulation slowing by up to 3.5%.

A video shared by Jordanian state media shows security camera footage of the devastating incident.

A crane on the docks in the Aqaba port in south Jordan was loading tanks containing chlorine gas onto a cargo ship on Monday, June 27th, 2022, picking them up from trucks queuing up with additional tanks to be loaded. The container dropped from the crane as it was being loaded onto the ship, causing yellow chlorine gas to explode in massive plumes, covering the ship and the docks.

The tanks contained liquid chlorine, created by pressurizing and cooling chlorine. However, the tank rupturing upon impact with the ship allowed the poisonous gas to rapidly form and spread, causing dock personnel to flee on foot. The gas, used during World War I for chemical warfare, causes pain, difficulty breathing, and fluid in the lungs. In households, chlorine is useful in creating bleach and sanitizing things like water.