“Designing miniaturized and versatile robots of a few micrometers or less would allow access throughout the whole human body, leading to new procedures down to the cellular level and offering localized diagnosis and treatment with greater precision and efficiency,” the authors write.
Where do I sign up to be experimented on? No, seriously.
It’s a disaster movie, an apocalypse movie, that’s not afraid of technology. Machines, computers, the work of human hands–they’re going to save us all.
This isn’t a story about robots turning on their creators. This is a story where the most intimate connection you can experience with another person, the Drift, exists because somebody built a machine to make it happen.
You get so many apocalypse movies that are a little bit afraid of technology, of robots, of science. Where the too-proud scientists went too far and called disaster down upon us, or humanity tried to play god and created a plague/a weapon/woke something bigger and greater than us.
This is an apocalypse movie where (besides one throwaway line about the atmosphere) the end of the world isn’t our fault. Where the things that humanity strives for, to gain more knowledge, to make us greater, don’t all backfire on us due to hubris, they actually make us greater.
And maybe previous generations are used to being told that the end of the world isn’t their fault, but for us? It’s all cell phones, iPods, computer games, bloggers, they’re ripping society apart at its seams. Movies give us zombie viruses and Skynet and Cylons and culture tells us convenience is bad, it’s greedy, it’s wrong even as we’re inundated with new technology on every side.
This is a movie where humanity didn’t accidentally destroy the world by wanting more. Where technology, the sort of thing our generation grew up loving and using and surrounding ourselves with, the sort of thing that older generations are still a little afraid of, isn’t evil.
We’re not evil, as humans, as people who are curious, who want to invent, who like gadgets and wires and talk to each other through machines. Curiosity-technology-innovation may be dangerous, drifting with a Kaiju may be dangerous, but it saves the world. Giant robots save the world.
Score one for the generation that grew up on the internet.
i liked it when the robot punched the monster really hard
Scientists invented fabric that makes
electricity from motion and sunlight.
To create the fabric, researchers at
Georgia Tech wove together solar
cell fibers with materials that generate
power from movement. It could be
used in “tents, curtains, or wearable
garments,” meaning we’d virtually
never be without power. Source
Y’all are fucking idiots. Clean energy will NEVER be enough to replace the energy we have now. We’d have to tear down DOZENS of forests just to fit enough windmills and solar panels to get even a QUARTER (probably less, tbh) of the energy we can produce now.
Yeah, sure, when they’ve already calculated that a few square miles of panels in the empty ass Arizona desert could power the whole nation. But ok, fracking and the diminishing petroleum supply is worlds better.
Nevermind that windmills are often most efficient off the coast. There they take up no land, impact no trees, don’t pollute the water, and are conveniently located where winds are often strongest anyway.
And solar panels can literally be built into roofs of buildings and in empty areas like deserts. The sun strikes the Earth with the same amount of energy in an hour that our civilization uses in a year.
But yeah, it would be impossible for us to ever have enough energy from clean sources.
Durr hurr technology is bad and I would rather light shit on fire than have clean energy
I can also testify to the Arizona desert being empty ass. And the California desert. And the Nevada desert.
Every year, we publish a round-up of 50 or so NASA innovations that can also be found in our daily lives here on Earth.
We call them spinoffs — technologies spun off from America’s space program — and this week the 2017 edition was published. Here are some of our favorite things we bet you didn’t know use space technology.
1.Crash Test Cameras
Parachutes are a key part of the landing system for many of our spacecraft, but before we send them into orbit — or beyond — we have to make sure that they’re going to work as designed. One important component of testing is a video that captures every millisecond as the chute opens, to see if it’s working and if not, what went wrong.
Integrated Design Tools built a camera for us that could do just that: rugged and compact, it can film up to 1,000 frames per second and back up all that data almost as fast. Now that same technology is being used to record crash tests, helping ensure that we’re all safer on the roads.
2.Archaeology
We often use laser-imaging technology, or lidar, on missions in outer space. Thanks to lidar,
snow was discovered on Mars, and the technology will soon help us collect a sample from an asteroid to bring home to Earth.
To do all that, we’ve helped make smaller, more rugged, and more powerful lidar devices, which have proven useful here on Earth in a lot of ways, including for archaeologists. Lidar scans can strip away the trees and bushes to show the bare earth—offering clues to help find bones, fossils, and human artifacts hidden beneath the surface.
3.Golf Clubs
A screw is a screw, right? Or is it?
When we were building the Space Shuttle, we needed a screw that wouldn’t loosen during the intense vibrations of launch. An advanced screw threading called Spiralock, invented by the Holmes Tool Company and extensively tested at Goddard Space Flight Center, was the answer.
Now it’s being used in golf clubs, too. Cobra Puma Golf built a new driver with a spaceport door (designed to model the International Space Station observatory) that allows the final weight to be precisely calibrated by inserting a tungsten weight before the door is screwed on.
And to ensure that spaceport door doesn’t pop off, Cobra Puma Golf turned to the high-tech threading that had served the Space Shuttle so well.
4.Brain Surgery
Neurosurgery tools need to be as precise as possible.
One important tool, bipolar forceps, uses electricity to cut and cauterize tissue. But electricity produces waste heat, and to avoid singeing healthy brain tissue, Thermacore Inc. used a technology we’ve been relying on since the early days of spaceflight: heat pipes. The company, which built its expertise in part through work it has done for us over more than 30 years, created a mini heat pipe for bipolar forceps.
The result means surgery is done more quickly, precisely — and most importantly, more safely.
5.Earthquake Protection
The Ares 1 rocket, originally designed to launch crewed missions to the moon and ultimately Mars, had a dangerous vibration problem, and the usual solutions were way too bulky to work on a launch vehicle.
Our engineers came up with a brand new technology that used the liquid fuel already in the rocket to get rid of the vibrations. And, it turns out, it works just as well with any liquid—and not just on rockets.
An adapted version is already installed on a building in Brooklyn and could soon be keeping skyscrapers and bridges from being destroyed during earthquakes.
6.Fertilizer
When excess fertilizer washes away into ground water it’s called nutrient runoff, and it’s a big problem for the environment. It’s also a problem for farmers, who are paying for fertilizer the plant never uses.
Ed Rosenthal, founder of a fertilizer company called Florikan, had an idea to fix both problems at once: coating the fertilizer in special polymers to control how quickly the nutrient dissolves in water, so the plant gets just the right amount at just the right time.
Our researchers helped him perfect the formula, and the award-winning fertilizer is now used around the world — and in space.
7. Cell Phone Cameras
The sensor that records your selfies was originally designed for something very different: space photography.
Eric Fossum, an engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, invented it in the 1990s, using technology called complementary metal-oxide semiconductors, or CMOS. The technology had been used for decades in computers, but Fossum was the first person to successfully adapt it for taking pictures.
As a bonus, he was able to integrate all the other electronics a camera needs onto the same computer chip, resulting in an ultra-compact, energy-efficient, and very reliable imager. Perfect for sending to Mars or, you know, snapping a pic of your meal.
Tilly was just 15 months old when she had to have her hand amputated after contracting meningitis septicaemia. Now, with a bionic arm from Open Bionics, Tilly can move all of her fingers and perform more complex movements. EMG sensors on her arm detect muscle movement, telling her bionic arm how quickly or firmly to squeeze its fingers.
Okay so this is one of the WEIRDEST FUCKING THINGS humanity has stumbled upon in science and it gives me a nerd boner that can be seen from Alpha Centauri.
As far as we can tell, this fucking thing generates reactionless thrust. Let that shit sink in: The EM Drive does not require fuel. Only electrical power.
Okay I know I said it already but AS FAR AS WE CAN TELL THIS IS A !!REACTIONLESS!! !!THRUST!! !!DEVICE!! you have no idea just how goddamn amazing that is
mark my words this fucking thing is going to REVOLUTIONIZEthe design of satellites and scientific probes
and just think of the potential it might have if its thrust increases proportionately to the power fed into it
THIS IS FUKCIN HUGE MY DUDES
Reblogging this just to restate how fucking huge this is.
Imagine you blow air into a balloon and tie it off. Then when you untie it, you let the balloon go and it flies all over the place. This is how propulsion works. This is what Newton’s Third Law is based on. That the air is coming out and pushing the balloon forward.
The EM drive is moving forward when the balloon is still tied off at the end.
I heard about this theorized not some time ago and thought it was amazing!
The fact that it’s been thoroughly peer-reviewed and still stands up is nothing short of absolutely astounding.
This device works, and no one is quite sure how or WHY it does. It defies our current understanding of why physics work the way the way they do. Which mean basically means that we need to re-evaluate and refine our laws of physics because we have discovered empirical evidence that we’ve got something wrong. And trying to fix our math to accurately describe the universe is going lead to new discoveries about the fundamental nature of reality. IT’S MIND BLOWING.
Not to mention this device itself, if we can elaborate and expand on it, will change how we do propulsion. This might the next stage of propulsion technology. To the people a few decades in the future, combustion engine propulsion technology will seem as silly, outdated, and quaint as steam propulsion or horse-drawn carriages seem to us.
THE FUTURE APPROACHES.
god I’m such a nerd
This is hugely important stuff.
A lot of reports on this thing talk about how it “breaks the laws of physics,” but this is an inaccurate oversimplification. The reality of it is much more profound. If this thing indeed works, and the results we’ve gotten thus far can’t be explained by some sort of experimental error, it will redefine our understanding of physics. In other words, the laws of physics aren’t being “broken,” we’ve just been wrong about physics the entire time.
so what you’re saying is maybe we get long distance space travel before we go extinct of our own stupidity
This is a huge step, not because they’re pretty solar panels (though that’s nice too and will lead to more people using them), but because they’re extremely durable solar panels. This could change everything.
Assuming the fossil fuel industry allows it in which they probably won’t.
This is incredible honestly
Cooler thing about this is tesla has their patents for this solar paneling open so other companies have access to them and can copy or improve on what they have already created legally.
I think I’d forgotten that bit because it seems so incredibly good and forward thinking and like something heroes in a sci-fi novel would do that it’s hard to comprehend a major American company doing it in real life.
Really? That’s so awesome! I can’t wait to see what other companies come up with on this score, too.
Me and my father argue about solar energy all the time. His favorite response is “where are we gonna put all these solar panels?” And I always counter with “rooftops.” He shoots back “who wants that on their roof?”
And now I’m so glad I can reply “anyone who wants their roofing to last three times as long”
I was worried about it not lasting in colder climates but they can be retrofitted with heating filaments, thus eliminating that problem. This is really cool!
Basically they got three robots, told them that two of them were given “dumbing pills”, and they asked one which pill it was given.
The robot of course wasn’t sure if it had or hadn’t yet and said “I don’t know”, but after it looked at the other silent robots (who were actually unable to speak from the start), it realized that its fully functional, and then was finally able to say “I know now.”
It can assess itself and its behavior in relation to other robots and people. It can make that differentiation between “me” and “I”, and understand that it is an individual.
People are shrugging this off, but this is a similar self-awareness test to how people put mirrors in front of animals to see if it treats the reflection like another animal or treat it like a reflection.
Im lowkey scared
Be their friends. We already go through enough trouble fighting among ourselves. Let’s set a good example for what is essentially a new form of life produced by technosocietal advancement.
Be kind to the robots and set a good example for them
Let’s help them be good people
And not absorb our worst qualities
We have two choices here we can either be Alfred Lanning or we can be Davros
At any time of day, no matter what happens between you and a police officer, Raheem wants to know about it. Raheem never sleeps. Raheem is
a Facebook Messenger chat bot that will gather and map out interactions
with police across the country; it just entered beta testing and is
looking for a few thousand helping hands. Raheem’s creator, Brandon
Anderson, eventually wants to use reports from thousands of users to
build a people’s map of police behavior. Using Raheem is super easy.
I was just watching star trek the motion picture for the first time ever (I liked it! it was slow but interesting! totally saw the ~~twist~~ coming from lightyears away but that was alright!), and you know how there’s this scene where they have the different enterprise evolutions drawings in the background:
And I noticed this one in particular:
This is the USS-Enterprise XCV-330, for those of you interested.
So I thought “huh, that looks familiar, actually”. And it is, because quite recently NASA unveiled concept art for their first ever warp-capable ship (once they figure out how to do warp safely), and it looks like this:
There's a Mirror on the Wall 