Science & TechnologyS


Camcorder

Robot bird flies like a real one and could soon be conducting video surveillance for the army

The 'Robo Raven' is a lightweight advanced robot that can fly like a bird

It has been developed by searchers at the University of Maryland and received funding from the U.S. Army

Has the potential to be used as a drone for reconnaissance and surveillance


Researchers at the University of Maryland have developed a breakthrough in engineering technology that allows a robot to successfully achieve the complex aerobatic maneuvers of a bird.

The artificial bird is destined to have a military or surveillance purpose, the UMD Robotics Center, which sits within the University of Maryland, has received funding from the U.S. Army Research Laboratory.

The robot bird has the potential to become a more advanced type of drone, it includes a tiny video camera and could be used for reconnaissance and surveillance.

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The robot bird includes a tiny video camera and could be used for reconnaissance and surveillance by the army
'Robo Raven' is much quieter than the helicopter or propeller, so it could get much closer to an adversary without revealing its presence.

It is made out of carbon fiber, 3D-printed lightweight thermal-resistant plastic, Mylar foil and foam and weighs less than a can of soda.

The bird uses one motor to flap both wings together in simple motions.

Robot birds have been a labor of love for University of Maryland Professor S. K. Gupta for nearly a decade.


Along with fellow mechanical engineering professor Hugh Bruck and their graduate students, Gupta first successfully demonstrated a flapping-wing bird in 2007.

By 2010, the design had evolved through four successive models to the latest, which carries a tiny video camera.

'Nobody has flown anything with independent wing control,' before, Gupta told The Baltimore Sun.

It can also be launched from a ground robot that ARL researchers have created called the Lynchbot, which can fly in winds up to 10 mph.

From a distance, the 'Robo Raven' looks like a bird and it has even fooled a hawk, which has attacked the robot in mid-flight on more than one occasion.

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The 'Robo Raven' looks like a bird and has even fooled a hawk, which has attacked the robot in mid-flight on more than one occasion

Fish

Parallel universe of life exists deep beneath the ocean floor off the Pacific Northwest coast

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© Spencer et al./ScienceA sample of oceanic crust basalt (left) and a microscopic cross-section (right) denoting changes of concentration in sulfur, an element used by microbes there.
Deep beneath the ocean floor off the Pacific Northwest coast, scientists have described the existence of a potentially vast realm of life, one almost completely disconnected from the world above.

Persisting in microscopic cracks in the basalt rocks of Earth's oceanic crust is a complex microbial ecosystem fueled entirely by chemical reactions with rocks and seawater, rather than sunlight or the organic byproducts of light-harvesting terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.

Such modes of life, technically known as chemosynthetic, are not unprecedented, having also been found deep in mine shafts and around seafloor hydrothermal vents. Never before, though, have they been found on so vast a scale. In pure geographical area, these oceanic crust systems may contain the largest ecosystem on Earth.

"We know that Earth's oceanic crust accounts for 60 percent of Earth's surface, and on average is four miles thick," said geomicrobiologist Mark Lever of Denmark's Aarhuis University, part of a research team that describes the new systems March 14 in Science.

If what the researchers found resembles what's found elsewhere below Earth's oceans, continued Lever, "the largest ecosystem on Earth, by volume, is supported by chemosynthesis."

Fireball

Wishful thinking: Russian scientist wants 'Satan' missile shield to shoot down meteorites in wake of Urals strike

Claims Soviet-era missiles could destroy meteorites hurtling towards earth

A meteor burst over Russia's Ural Mountains earlier this year

Sonic boom left 1,200 injured and thousands of buildings damaged

Researcher claims missile could destroy similar rock before it hit earth


It sounds like a plot lifted from a sci-fi disaster movie.

A Russian scientist has said a Soviet-era ballistic missile system dubbed 'Satan' should be put back into use defending the earth from asteroids.

Senior rocket researcher Sabit Saitgarayev - who spoke out after a meteor burst over Russia's Ural Mountains earlier this year damaging thousands of buildings - said the old 1960s missiles were ideally suited to destroying any potential threats streaking towards the planet from space.

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Back in use? The scientist suggested the old Soviet-era SS9 ICBM missiles should be put back to work protecting the earth from meteorites
Mr Saitgarayev, from the State Rocket Design Center, highlighted the havoc caused when the meteor burst over the Urals on February 15, leaving around 1,200 people injured.

It created a sonic boom that shattered windows and damaged thousands of buildings around the city of Chelyabinsk.

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Threat: The researcher said the missiles - named Satan by NATO - were well suited to 'fighting suddenly discovered small [space] objects'

Nebula

Bacteria sent into space behave in mysterious ways

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© NASASamples of bacteria Pseudomonas aeruginosa were cultured for three days in space, and formed a column-and-canopy structure not previously observed on Earth.
Colonies of bacteria grown aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis behaved in ways never before observed on Earth, according to a new NASA-funded study from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York. Recent findings provide important evidence of spaceflight's effect on the behavior of bacterial communities, and represent a key step toward understanding and mitigating the risk these bacteria may pose to astronauts during long-term space missions.

The research team, led by Rensselaer faculty member Cynthia Collins, sent the experiment into orbit aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis missions STS-132 on May 16, 2010 and STS-135 on July 8, 2011. Samples of the bacteria Pseudomonas aeruginosa were cultured for three days in artificial urine. The space-grown communities of bacteria, called biofilms, formed a "column-and-canopy" structure not previously observed on Earth. Additionally, biofilms grown during spaceflight had a greater number of live cells, more biomass, and were thicker than control biofilms grown under normal gravity conditions.

Biofilms are complex, three-dimensional microbial communities commonly found in nature. Most biofilms, including those found in the human body, are harmless. Some biofilms, however, have shown to be associated with disease.

Fireball 2

Ten thousandth near-earth object unearthed in space

Asteroid 2013 MZ5
© PS-1/UHAsteroid 2013 MZ5 as seen by the University of Hawaii's PanSTARR-1 telescope. In this gif, the asteroid moves relative to a fixed background of stars. Asteroid 2013 MZ5 is in the right of the first image, towards the top, moving diagonally left/down.
Larger Animated Version
More than 10,000 asteroids and comets that can pass near Earth have now been discovered. The 10,000th near-Earth object, asteroid 2013 MZ5, was first detected on the night of June 18, 2013, by the Pan-STARRS-1 telescope, located on the 10,000-foot (convert) summit of the Haleakala crater on Maui. Managed by the University of Hawaii, the PanSTARRS survey receives NASA funding.

Ninety-eight percent of all near-Earth objects discovered were first detected by NASA-supported surveys.

"Finding 10,000 near-Earth objects is a significant milestone," said Lindley Johnson, program executive for NASA's Near-Earth Object Observations Program at NASA Headquarters, Washington.

"But there are at least 10 times that many more to be found before we can be assured we will have found any and all that could impact and do significant harm to the citizens of Earth." During Johnson's decade-long tenure, 76 percent of the NEO discoveries have been made.

Near-Earth objects (NEOs) are asteroids and comets that can approach the Earth's orbital distance to within about 28 million miles (45 million kilometers). They range in size from as small as a few feet to as large as 25 miles (41 kilometers) for the largest near-Earth asteroid, 1036 Ganymed.

Asteroid 2013 MZ5 is approximately 1,000 feet (300 meters) across. Its orbit is well understood and will not approach close enough to Earth to be considered potentially hazardous.

Boat

Snail genes reveal human migration to Ireland

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A common garden snail gives insight into human migration to Ireland
A genetic similarity between snail fossils found in Ireland and the Eastern Pyrenees suggests humans migrated from southern Europe to Ireland 8,000 years ago.

The slimy creatures in Ireland today are almost identical to snails in Southern France and Northern Spain.

Whether an accidental visitor on a ship or brought along as a snack, the boat they were carried on did not appear to stop in Britain.

The findings are published in PLOS One.

As Britain emerged from the end of the last Ice Age about 10,000 years ago, sea levels rose and landslides are thought to have triggered a great tsunami. Britain was transformed into an island, separated from mainland Europe and Ireland.

Land-dwelling animals were therefore no longer able to migrate from Europe over the seas without a little help.

It has long perplexed scientists that Ireland has plants and animals that are genetically different, and in some cases are even unique, to ones found in Britain.

Now scientists have found that a common garden snail, Cepaea nemoralis, is almost genetically identical to one found in the Eastern Pyrenees, but seems to have missed Britain on its journey over.

Better Earth

Ice Ages start and end so suddenly, "it's like a button was pressed," say scientists

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Dutch researchers drilling into the glaciers of Greenland have discovered that climate change occurs more rapidly than previously believed - indeed, the most recent ice age ended abruptly in just one year.

The NordGrip drilling project in Greenland has extracted ice cores from the ancient ice sheets there which reveal that the world's most recent ice age ended precisely 11,711 years ago. An ice core is a long cylinder drilled out of the ice, made up of layers of snow and ice that have fallen in the region for millennia. By examining the amount of snowfall buried in those layers, researchers at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen have determined the exact year the ice age halted and gave way to our current climate.

Comment: In fact, it can happen in a matter of months:

Last Ice Age took just SIX months to arrive


Moon

Supermoon 2013: Amazing pictures of the solar system's best lunar show this weekend

  • The moon will appear 14 percent larger than normal during this year's 'supermoon'
  • The moon will be about 222,000 miles from Earth
Prepare to howl.

The biggest and brightest full moon of the year graces the sky today as our celestial neighbor swings closer to Earth than usual.

The supermoon will appear 14 percent larger and 30 per cent brighter than normal - the outcome of a cosmic quirk as the moon orbits within about 222,000 miles (357,000 kilometers) of our planet.
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© The Associated PressThe supermoon sets over the Statue of Liberty, N.Y.
Some viewers may think the shining orb looks more dazzling, but it's actually an optical illusion.

The glowing disc is simply larger on the horizon next to trees and buildings.

But don't worry if you missed it. The supermoon's effect should still linger until at least Tuesday.
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© The Associated PressA full moon rises behind the Jefferson Memorial in Washington D.C.

Fireball 5

Delhi school students discover new asteroid

A new asteroid has been discovered by two students from a Delhi school and the find has been confirmed by the international space community, an NGO for popularising space said Saturday. Shourya Chambial and Gaurav Pati from Amity International school in south Delhi's Pushp Vihar made the discovery as part of the All India Asteroid Search Campaign.

"The discovery has been confirmed by the international scientific community and the asteroid has been provisionally named as 2013 LS28," said Science Popularization Association of Communicators and Educators (SPACE) who organized the campaign with International Astronomical Search Collaboration (IASC).

"We are waiting for it to be placed in the world's official minor body catalogue maintained by International Astronomical Union (Paris)," it added.

According to Space, which has been organizing such camps since 2012 and is providing training to students and amateur astronomers for asteroid hunting, the project was started with an aim to increase the love for science, astronomy and scientific research in Indian students.

"The project has provided opportunities to more than 500 students and amateurs in India to discover asteroids till now, 15 new asteroids discoveries have been discovered," said Space.

Sachin Bahmba, of Space said: "Indian students have beaten students all over the world in asteroid discoveries and India is now looked upon as a leader in bringing revolutionary changes in the field of astronomy and space science education and research."

Robot

Skynet rising: Google acquires 512-qubit quantum computer; NSA surveillance to be turned over to AI machines

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Most people don't know about the existence of quantum computers. Almost no one understands how they work, but theories include bizarre-sounding explanations like, "they reach into alternate universes to derive the correct answers to highly complex computational problems."

Quantum computers are not made of simple transistors and logic gates like the CPU on your PC. They don't even function in ways that seem rational to a typical computing engineer. Almost magically, quantum computers take logarithmic problems and transform them into "flat" computations whose answers seem to appear from an alternate dimension.

For example, a mathematical problem that might have 2 to the power of n possible solutions -- where n is a large number like 1024 -- might take a traditional computer longer than the age of the universe to solve. A quantum computer, on the other hand, might solve the same problem in mere minutes because it quite literally operates across multiple dimensions simultaneously.