Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 95

Oxitec has successfully released its genetically modified mosquitoes in Florida with plans for California underway.

Oxitec has released almost five million engineered Aedes aegypti mosquitoes in the Florida Keys over seven months. The genetically engineered male mosquitos carry a gene that is lethal to female offspring, causing them to die before they can reproduce. Male offspring born from the engineered males mating will inherit the gene, causing future generations of females to die off, leading to an overall reduction in the population size.

Oxitec collected over 22,000 eggs laid by wild female A. aegypti to bring back to the laboratory for analysis. They confirmed that all females that inherited the lethal gene died before reaching sexual maturity. The gene persisted in the wild population for two to three months, or about three generations of offspring, before disappearing. No mosquitos carrying the gene were found more than 400 meters (1312 feet) from their release point.

A pre-print paper on humanity's timeline titled "Avoiding the Great Filter: Predicting the Timeline for Humanity to Reach Kardashev Type I Civilization" has been published on arXiv.

Russian astrophysicist Nikolai Kardashev proposed the Kardashev Scale in 1964, a scale that categorizes civilizations into three types: planetary, stellar, and galactic, or Types I, II, and III, respectively. Each category relates to the extent of energy that the respective civilization can harness, with Type I being able to harness all of the stellar energy that reaches its home planet, Type II harnessing all of the energy of its host star, and Type III harness the energy of its host galaxy.

Carl Sagan further popularized the idea and expanded on the concept by adapting it to a continuous scale rather than three discrete stages. Humanity reaching Type I status would mean harnessing 10¹⁶ watts, the average amount of solar energy that reaches Earth. Currently, we use about 10¹³ watts, which on Sagan's scale puts our civilization at roughly 0.73.

The Lyrid meteor shower will be the first significant meteor shower since the Quadrantid in January this year.

The Quadrantid meteor shower took place on January 3rd, and now, 109 days (over 15 weeks) later, the April Lyrids will peak in the morning hours of April 22nd. While many meteor showers and shooting stars are witnessed throughout the year, the Quadrantids and Lyrids represent two of the ten 'principal' meteor displays.

The Lyrids are considered one of the weaker principal displays, with about 10 to 20 meteors per hour being visible at most. If poor weather prevents you from viewing the Lyrids in your area, the shower still occurs with about one-quarter of its peak strength for two days on either side of the maximum peak on the 22nd.

Saturn, Mars, Venus, Jupiter, and the moon are all set to align in the sky on April 23rd.

The orbits of each planet have coincided to allow them all to appear in the same portion of the sky when viewed in the northern hemisphere, starting with Venus, Mars, and Saturn in late March. Jupiter joined the group around mid-April, and Mercury will join around mid-June this year to create an alignment of five planets. 2020 was the last time five planets aligned in the night sky, with preceding alignments in 2016 and 2005.

On April 23rd, the moon will be in its last quarter phase and situated to Saturn's right in the night sky. To Saturn's left and below will be Mars, followed by Venus, and then Jupiter. The alignment will be most visible in the northern hemisphere, about an hour before sunrise.

Former Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield spoke to Futurism about the future of cannabis in space and aboard the International Space Station.

Being intoxicated or inebriated in space would be too much of a liability presently, as the people consistently in space are responsible for too much. But in the future, as more space stations become operational and the price of space tourism continues to fall, it's feasible that recreational vacations in space involving the consumption of cannabis or alcohol could be possible.

A study on the new stellar explosion titled "Localized thermonuclear bursts from accreting magnetic white dwarfs" has been published in the journal Nature.

Astronomers have used NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), and European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (ESO's VLT) to observe a new kind of stellar explosion, dubbed a micronova. They are extremely powerful events but still significantly less energetic than conventional stellar explosions, known as novae. They last only several hours and can burn through about 20,000,000 trillion kilograms, or 3.5 billion Great Pyramids of Giza, worth of stellar material.

Earth has experienced two radio blackouts in two days that can be sourced back to an action sunspot region releasing multiple solar flares.

On April 20, officials recorded around 19 solar flares in 24 hours coming from an active sunspot region, and the barrage seemingly isn't stopping, with reports indicating the sunspot group called AR2993-94 released a very large M9.6 class flare. Unfortunately, the sunspot group was almost directly Earth facing when the flare occurred, which resulted in a shortwave radio blackout over southeast Asia and Australia (again).

The strong X-class flare that was reported on April 20 caused the same level of radio blackout across the same regions of the planet. The US Air Force reported that the April 21 solar flare caused a Type II solar radio burst. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported, "Additionally, Type II and IV radio sweeps were detected by the USAF Radio Solar Telescope Network (RSTN), with an estimated velocity of 1132 km/s".

Sun has been on a rampage with activity lately, releasing a succession of solar flares and coronal mass ejections.

On April 20, officials confirmed that in a 24-hour period, an active sunspot group flared 19 times, with six of those flares being M-class (moderate) explosions followed by a very powerful X2.2 (strong) class flare. These flares came from a region just beyond the southwest limb of the Sun, "likely former Region 2992," according to the National Oceanic And Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Notably, the large flare of the barrage that was released came from a sunspot located on the edge of the Sun, meaning that Earth didn't experience the full force of the blast. Officials at the US Air Force confirmed that the flare caused a Type II solar radio burst. NOAA reported that it impacted large portions of the sunlit side of the Earth; southeast Asia and Australia. Throughout this time, radio operators would have noticed a loss of connection at frequencies below 30 MHz for about an hour.

A four-year-old Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) was fulfilled by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), providing nearly 1,600 pages of unclassified documents to Motherboard.

These 1,600 pages of documents contain various scientific research papers, old contracts, presentations, briefings between individuals about certain programs, and memos. Additionally, Vice reports that the documents contain information on what the Advanced Aerospace Weapons System Application Program (AAWSAP), an arm of the DIA, was researching.

The AAWSAP and the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), another arm of the DIA, as explained by a DIA spokesperson, "[AATIP] was the name of the overall program. [AAWSAP] was the name of the contract that DIA awarded for the production of technical reports under AATIP." According to the documents, the focus was put on invisibility cloaking, traversable wormholes, antigravity, negative energy, gravity communications, and nuking the moon to create a tunnel from one side to the other.

Since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine, the tensions between the United States and the Kremlin have increased, but apparently, it hasn't affected the astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

Despite the strange and aggressive threats from Russia's space agency "Roscosmos" head Dmitry Rogozin, who threatened to crash the ISS into the US, NASA has been very firm that a working relationship has been maintained between Russian cosmonauts and NASA astronauts that are currently aboard the ISS. Recently, NASA administrator Bill Nelson said that the "working relationship" is enduring despite "all the slaughter we're seeing daily".

Since Russia's invasion began, NASA and other prominent space agencies from around the world have separated themselves from Roscosmos, with NASA publicly stating it's maintaining a stance of diplomatic negotiations with Russia. Futurism reports that the recent comments from Nelson are the first time the NASA administrator has publicly condemned Russia's actions in Ukraine.

A potato-shaped solar eclipse has been captured by NASA's Perseverance rover, providing data to planetary scientists looking to understand the gravitation relationship between Mars' moons and its interior.

Perseverance's Mastcam-z camera was used to capture the solar eclipse on April 2, which lasted for just over 40 seconds. The new footage breaks records for being the most zoomed-in, highest frame-rate observation of a Phobos solar eclipse, according to NASA. Furthermore, the new observation will add to the 18-year-old pile of Phobos solar eclipses that were first recorded by NASA's Spirit and Opportunity rovers.

With this data, researchers are able to learn more about how the moon's tidal force impacts the interior of Mars, crust, and mantle. Notably, Phobos is a doomed moon as it's expected to eventually crash into the surface of Mars in around 10+ million years. NASA writes on its website that observations such as the one recently acquired by Perseverance allow NASA scientists to understand better Phobos' "death spiral", which will lead to a more accurate prediction of its doomed timeline.

A Twitter account with the handle @ArmedForcesUkr shared images of Russian military establishments taken from Google Maps on April 18th, 2022.

The account suggested that the publicly visible content meant that Google had sided with Ukraine against Russia, with a message translating to "now everyone can see a variety of Russian launchers, intercontinental ballistic missile mines, command posts and secret landfills with a resolution of about 0.5 meters per pixel." A spokesperson from Google told The Verge that the information had been in the public domain since before the conflict in Ukraine began. Google has already taken a stance concerning Russia by pausing ad sales in the country, cutting off Google Pay access, and banning Russian state media from advertising on YouTube.

Google blurs certain imagery in its Maps service, notably number plates and faces, to protect individual privacy. This blurring practice does extend to some military establishments, for example, the French Air Force base BA 705. However, the infamous Area 51 and other military bases are not blurred, as Google maintains its policy is to keep as much in the public domain as possible.

The humanoid species known as Homo floresiensis is believed by retired ethnobiologist Gregory Forth to be still alive.

Remains of the species were first found on the Indonesian island of Flores by the late anthropologist Mire Morwood in 2004. The bones found came from the Pleistocene era, the most recent geological epoch, which ended about 11,700 years ago and began about 2,580,000 years ago.

The species was believed to be extinct and at the time of its discovery was dubbed "the Hobbit" due to its diminutive stature. According to Forth, a local tribe called the Lio has encountered a small creature that he believes may be a member of the H. floresiensis species, which he describes in his upcoming book Between Ape and Human.

The Discovery space shuttle launched the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) into orbit on April 25th, 1990.

The image released by NASA to celebrate Hubble's 32nd birthday features The Hickson Compact Group 40, a collection of five closely gathered galaxies. Three of the galaxies are spiral-shaped, one is elliptical, and one is lenticular, meaning lens-like. They are close enough together to fit within a region of space that spans less than twice the diameter of the Milky Way's stellar disk.

Other close groupings of galaxies can be found deep within large galaxy clusters elsewhere in the universe, but The Hickson Compact Group 40 is one of the most densely clustered. It is also unusual because it is relatively isolated, in the direction of the largest modern constellation, called Hydra.

A group of NASA-led researchers have proposed beaming information on the Earth and the human race into space, in search of any extraterrestrial life that may respond.

The project is called "Beacon in the Galaxy" (BITG) and includes researchers operating the ETI Institute's Allen Telescope Array in California and China's Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST) to send out sensitive information regarding Earth's position in the solar system, images of humans, Earth's biology, information about DNA structure, physics and more.

The project has already been opposed by researchers from the United Kingdom's Oxford University, who warned that the dangers of sending out such a message are not yet fully understood, and that the downside of shooting up such a flare could be far larger than the upside. The warning from the Oxford researchers has now been echoed by famous theoretical physicist Michio Kau, who spoke on "Jesse Watters Primetime," where he said that it's a "horrible idea".

The US has committed to ending anti-satellite weapon testing in an effort to stop the spreading of space debris in low-Earth orbit.

The announcement came from Vice President Kamala Harris, that said the US is ending all practice of anti-satellite missile tests, which is a military demonstration that involves a missile being launched at a satellite. So far, four countries, US, China, Russia, and India, have conducted these tests on their own satellites, with the most recent being Russia in November 2021.

Russia's anti-satellite missile test created thousands of new space debris that caused astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) to prepare for shrapnel impact in shelter. Harris said that space debris could destroy satellites that support the weather forecast, GPS driving directions, and "even your favorite television station."

The new survey was published by the renowned US National Academies of Sciences Engineering and Medicine and details the most sought-after questions in science by top scientists in their respective fields.

The survey was published by the National Academies Press and details many scientific wishlist prospects that the researchers consider being a "top priority". One of them is the collection and retrieval of Mars rocks, and another is sending an interplanetary probe to Uranus to inspect the planet more closely and gather a deeper understanding of its history, current state, and future.

The scientists behind the survey have called upon NASA to take up the task and send a Uranus Orbiter and Probe. The orbiter would be similar to the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter that is designed to study the geology and climate of the Red Planet. The requested probe would plummet into the atmosphere of Uranus. The researchers expect that this level of a mission to Uranus should launch sometime in 2030 if engineers begin the development process in 2023.

In a recent interview, SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk discussed the dangers of living on Mars and the conditions humans will have to endure.

The SpaceX CEO sat down with TED conferences head Chris Anderson only hours after he offered to buy the second-largest social media platform in the world for $43 billion, Twitter. During the interview, Musk outlines his passion for wanting to have a "positive" outlook on the future, and to do that; you need to give people something to look forward to. Going to Mars is one of those monumental tasks that Musk has set out to achieve, but he warns the living conditions on Mars won't be for the faint of heart.

During the interview, Musk explains that the first humans to land on Mars and begin the colonization process won't be living in luxury, "It will be dangerous, cramped, difficult, hard work". Adding that participants "may not make it back". Musk has already taken steps towards getting humans on Mars with SpaceX's development of the 400-foot reusable Starship rocket that is prepared to carry 150 tons of cargo into orbit.

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) satellite orbiting Mars has captured another piece of NASA equipment on the surface of the Red Planet.

An image captured by the MRO's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) shows the InSight Mars Lander about three and half years after it first landed on the planet in November 2018. The right half portion of the above image shows InSight as it was on March 9th, 2022, compared with how it was after landing on the left.

In the image taken following the landing, you can see a dark blast zone created during the landing. In the ensuing years, especially since a recent storm in January 2022, InSight and its surrounding blast zone has been covered with Martian dust.

A study on the treatment titled "Impact of Histotripsy on Development of Intrahepatic Metastases in a Rodent Liver Tumor Model" has been published in the journal Cancers.

Researchers from the University of Michigan have developed a noninvasive sound technology capable of breaking down liver tumors in rats, killing cancer cells, and spurring the immune system to prevent the further spread of cancer. The treatment is called histotripsy and utilizes focused ultrasound waves to destroy target tissues with millimeter precision.