Science & Technology

Injectable microbots created by scientist

Yahoo! News
Thu, 27 Aug 2020 22:38 UTC

Scientists have created an army of microscopic four-legged robots too small to see with the naked eye that walk when stimulated by a laser and could be injected into the body through hypodermic needles, a study said Wednesday.

Microscopic robotics are seen as having an array of potential uses, particularly in medicine, and US researchers said the new robots offer "the potential to explore biological environments".

One of the main challenges in the development of these cell-sized robots has been combining control circuitry and moving parts in such a small structure.

The robots described in the journal Nature are less than 0.1 millimetre wide -- around the width of a human hair -- and have four legs that are powered by on-board solar cells.

By shooting laser light into these solar cells, researchers were able to trigger the legs to move, causing the robot to walk around.

The study's co-author Marc Miskin, of the University of Pennsylvania, told AFP that a key innovation of the research was that the legs -- its actuators -- could be controlled using silicon electronics.

"Fifty years of shrinking down electronics has led to some remarkably tiny technologies: you can build sensors, computers, memory, all in very small spaces," he said. "But, if you want a robot, you need actuators, parts that move."

Do mystery odors in Japan predict an upcoming earthquake?

Lisa Conklin
The Taiwan Times
Mon, 24 Aug 2020 14:26 UTC

Image of Tokyo and Yokohama, Japan, after the September 1, 1923 earthquake

Kanagawa Prefecture, site of Japan's second largest city, Yokohama, and home to 9.2 million people has recently seen numerous reports of unexplained strange smells permeating the air in a coastal region sitting above the epicenter of the devastating 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake.

And worryingly, at least one prominent seismologist indicates this could be a precursor of another earthquake.

Most recently reported early Friday, the gas-like smell was reported to the local Yokosuka Fire Department multiple times over the course of an hour, although nobody was eventually taken sick because of the smell.

Just a month earlier, on July 17th the same thing happened with calls from the across the Miura peninsula to authorities complaining about the exact same thing, and six weeks prior to that the same again.

Yet no known cause has been detected.

However, Japanese seismologist Manabu Takahashi from Ritsumeikan University now fears that the smells could predate a quake in the area; something he has long studied according to reports from Japan.

The site the smells have been detected at sit near the meeting point of the Nankai, Sagami, and Suruga trough fault lines and too close to comfort to the 1923 quake epicenter that left around 140,000 dead across the wider Kanagawa and Kanto plains.

Fifty new planets confirmed in machine learning first

Science Daily
Tue, 25 Aug 2020 00:01 UTC

Fifty potential planets have had their existence confirmed by a new machine learning algorithm developed by University of Warwick scientists.

For the first time, astronomers have used a process based on machine learning, a form of artificial intelligence, to analyse a sample of potential planets and determine which ones are real and which are 'fakes', or false positives, calculating the probability of each candidate to be a true planet.

Their results are reported in a new study published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, where they also perform the first large scale comparison of such planet validation techniques. Their conclusions make the case for using multiple validation techniques, including their machine learning algorithm, when statistically confirming future exoplanet discoveries.

Comment: See also:

Russian scientists invent efficient method to synthesise superhard materials

Sputnik
Wed, 26 Aug 2020 08:43 UTC

Scientists at Tomsk Polytechnic University (TPU) have developed a unique method to produce tungsten carbide and other superhard materials without using a vacuum. According to the authors of the study, the method is much simpler and more reliable than its analogues, and also allows using waste containing similar materials as raw materials.

Tungsten carbide is a super hard material widely used to make drilling tools and other wear-resistant parts.

According to TPU scientists, the possibilities of using tungsten carbide as a catalyst to produce hydrogen from water have been actively studied in recent years.

Platinum, palladium and a number of other expensive metals are still considered the best catalysts, but, according to scientists, they can be replaced by relatively inexpensive tungsten carbide nanopowder.

TPU scientists have managed to create a new electric arc method to synthesise tungsten carbide nanopowder. According to the authors of the study, the method can significantly improve the production technology: the new system is simpler, cheaper and more compact, as well as more economical and more reliable than its analogues.

Inexplicable spiral nightglow spotted on Mars, Solar Minimum conditions in effect

SpaceWeather.com
Tue, 25 Aug 2020 12:00 UTC

Shown in false-color (green), UV light is spiraling around Mars' South Pole.

NASA's MAVEN spacecraft has discovered something unexpected on Mars--and researchers are struggling to explain it.

"There is a vast spiral of ultraviolet light over Mars' South Pole," says Nick Schneider of the University of Colorado's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics. "We understand the origin of the light, but its shape is a mystery."

The light is "nightglow." We have it here on Earth, too, where it's called "airglow." During the day, ultraviolet radiation from the sun breaks apart compounds in the upper atmosphere. At night, the atoms reassemble, glowing as they put themselves back together again. On Earth, airglow looks like the aurora borealis; people can actually see it. On Mars, the emission is ultraviolet, invisible to the human eye.

Comment: Could an explanation for the spiral be found in Electric Universe theory?

Earth seems to be traveling through the debris of ancient supernovae

Michelle Starr
Science Alert
Mon, 24 Aug 2020 09:19 UTC

Radioactive dust deep beneath the ocean waves suggest that Earth is moving through a massive cloud left behind by an exploded star.

Continuously, for the last 33,000 years, space has been seeding Earth with a rare isotope of iron forged in supernovae.

It's not the first time that the isotope, known as iron-60, has dusted our planet. But it does contribute to a growing body of evidence that such dusting is ongoing - that we are still moving through an interstellar cloud of dust that could have originated from a supernova millions of years ago.

Iron-60 has been the focus of several studies over the years. It has a half-life of 2.6 million years, which means it completely decays after 15 million years - so any samples found here on Earth must have been deposited from elsewhere, since there's no way any iron-60 could have survived from the formation of the planet 4.6 billion years ago.

And deposits have been found. Nuclear physicist Anton Wallner of the Australian National University previously dated seabed deposits back to 2.6 million and 6 million years ago, suggesting that debris from supernovae had rained down on our planet at these times.

But there's more recent evidence of this stardust - much more recent.

It's been found in the Antarctic snow; according to the evidence, it had to have fallen in the last 20 years.

Three near fly-by asteroids expected this week, only spotted this month - NASA

RT
Mon, 24 Aug 2020 13:58 UTC

The near-constant bombardment of space rocks buzzing our planet continues, with planetary defenses alerted to a trio of asteroids measuring over 25 meters in diameter en route to Earth's backyard this week.

To kick things off on Monday, not one but two space rocks over 25 meters (82 feet) in diameter will fly past, both of which were detected just this month, leaving little time and space for error in calculating their trajectories.

Asteroid 2020 PP3, 34 meters wide, will pass us by at a distance of 6.1 million kilometers (3.7 million miles), having only been spotted 13 days ago. It will be followed shortly afterwards by 2020 PJ6, 26 meters wide, at a distance of 5.3 million kilometers, which was spotted four days later on August 15.

Gut has a viral 'fingerprint' unique to each human

Emily Caldwell
The Ohio State University
Mon, 24 Aug 2020 18:52 UTC

Each person's gut virus composition is as unique as a fingerprint, according to the first study to assemble a comprehensive database of viral populations in the human digestive system.

An analysis of viruses in the guts of healthy Westerners also showed that dips and peaks in the diversity of virus types between childhood and old age mirror bacterial changes over the course of the lifespan.

The Gut Virome Database developed by Ohio State University scientists identifies 33,242 unique viral populations that are present in the human gut. (A collection of viruses like those in the human gut is called a virome.) This is not cause for alarm: Most viruses don't cause disease.

In fact, the more scientists learn about viruses, the more they see them as part of the human ecosystem - suggesting viruses have potential to represent a new class of drugs that could fight disease-causing bacteria, especially those resistant to antibiotics. Better knowledge of viruses in the gut environment could even improve understanding of the gastrointestinal symptoms experienced by some of the sickest COVID-19 patients.

The researchers plan to update the open-access database on a regular basis.

"We've established a robust starting point to see what the virome looks like in humans," said study co-author Olivier Zablocki, a postdoctoral researcher in microbiology at Ohio State. "If we can characterize the viruses that are keeping us healthy, we might be able to harness that information to design future therapeutics for pathogens that can't otherwise be treated with drugs."

The study is published today (Aug. 24) in the journal Cell Host & Microbe.

A mysterious radio burst that keeps repeating just woke up, right on schedule

Michelle Starr
Science Alert
Mon, 24 Aug 2020 00:00 UTC

Earlier this year, astronomers announced a dazzling discovery. A fast radio burst called FRB 121102 wasn't just repeating - it was repeating on a discernible cycle. For around 67 days, the source is silent. Then, for around 90 days, it wakes up again, spitting out repeated millisecond radio flares before falling silent, and the whole 157-day cycle repeats.

However, fast radio bursts are extremely mysterious, and there was no guarantee that the cycle would continue. So it's pretty exciting that the source has flared up again, right on cue - consistent with predictions of its activity cycle. This suggests that there's significant value in monitoring known fast radio burst sources - but also in continuing to watch FRB 121102 to try to understand what could be causing the phenomenon.

A quick refresher: fast radio bursts are, as the name suggests, bursts of radio waves that are very fast, just a few milliseconds long, coming from galaxies millions to billions of light-years away. But they're also extremely powerful; within those milliseconds, they can discharge as much power as hundreds of millions of Suns.

The siamese twins of Technocracy and Transhumanism

Patrick Wood
Technocracy News and Trends
Wed, 19 Aug 2020 00:00 UTC

Technocracy and Transhumanism have always been joined at the hip. Technocracy uses its "science of social engineering" to merge technology and society. Transhumanism uses its field of NBIC to merge technology directly into humans.

To put it another way, Technocracy is to society what Transhumanism is to the humans that live in it.

Transhumanism as a philosophy has been growing for centuries, but only in the metaphysical realm. Its ultimate goal is for humans to escape death and live forever in a state of immortality. With the advancement of science in the last 30 years, Transhumans naturally migrated from the metaphysical to the physical in order to convert their beliefs into reality.

Crackpot, you say? Be careful what you ridicule because both Technocracy and Transhumanism are in control of the course of human history at this very moment. As I have written extensively about both for many years, this has been brewing for a very long time.

Comment: Don't miss:

Quote of the Day

State power has its own limits defined by the fact that it is authority that reaches people from outside. State power cannot oversee and dictate the creative states of the soul and mind, the inner states of love, freedom and goodwill. The state cannot demand from its citizens faith, prayer, love, goodness and conviction. It cannot regulate scientific, religious and artistic creation. It should not intervene in moral, family and daily private life, and only when extremely necessary should it impinge on people's economic initiative and creativity.

- Ivan Ilyin

RT = CNN So this piece is likely agitprop. "The beatings will continue until morale improves." Please, just follow the $cience.

DeliciousTears

Whats a Lizzo? Is that like a Lesbo? Asking for a friend....

Bezel Bub

New York hospitals prepare for staffing crisis as vaccination mandate forces mass firings [Link]

Serig

I think we need to start a GoFundMe so we can air drop AK-47's into Australia....

Bezel Bub

slime biden exacts no consequences for murdering 10 afghans, but punishes cowboys for riding horses

smertzasmert

Science & Technology

Injectable microbots created by scientist

Do mystery odors in Japan predict an upcoming earthquake?

Fifty new planets confirmed in machine learning first

Russian scientists invent efficient method to synthesise superhard materials

Inexplicable spiral nightglow spotted on Mars, Solar Minimum conditions in effect

Earth seems to be traveling through the debris of ancient supernovae

Three near fly-by asteroids expected this week, only spotted this month - NASA

Gut has a viral 'fingerprint' unique to each human

A mysterious radio burst that keeps repeating just woke up, right on schedule

The siamese twins of Technocracy and Transhumanism

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