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Blog – Page 4274

Year 2021 😁

Spacecrafts in dozens of sci-fi movies like Star Trek use antimatter propulsion systems to travel at unimaginably high speeds by warping spacetime. By using them, traveling to different planets and stars is significantly more efficient and quick. However, is it possible to make this sci-fi idea a reality? If so, how and when will we be able to use them? Let’s take a closer look.

Before we discuss what antimatter spacecraft are, let’s first take a look at what antimatter is. Antimatter is the opposite of normal matter. More specifically, the subatomic particles of antimatter have properties opposite to those of normal matter. The electrical charge of those particles is reversed. Meaning, once they collide with “regular” matter or the matter we know today, they react and cause an explosion in an instant. Due to this, antimatter is extremely rare since it gets obliterated with nearly everything made of matter.

Continue reading “Antimatter Spacecraft: The Future of Interstellar Travel” | >

The team replicated different patterns of materials and found arrangements that would let water through more easily.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been found to be useful in the creation of water filter materials and can quicken the process involved in making them, according to a study published today (Nov .30) in the journal ACS Central Science.

Creating a novel water purification system

From daily household faucet attachments to room-sized industrial systems, filter systems are used in a variety of items. However, it is difficult for current filtration membranes to filter water if the water is extremely dirty or has small, neutral molecules, such as boric acid, an insecticide used on crop plants.

Continue reading “Researchers improve water filter systems using AI” | >

The partnership aims at building infrastructures, such as landing pads, habitats, and roads on the lunar surface.

In a quest to find practical solutions to build sustainable structures on the moon, NASA has furthered its partnership with ICON, a construction technologies company based in Austin, Texas. The firm is known for building the first-ever habitable 3D-printed home in the United States in 2018.

The space agency has now awarded a $57.2 million contract to ICON to devise solutions that “could help build infrastructure such as landing pads, habitats, and roads on the lunar surface,” according to the press release.

Read more | >

The organization says the machines would only be used in extreme situations where lives are at stake.

Supervisors in San Francisco voted Tuesday to allow city police to use potentially lethal remote-controlled robots in emergency situations, according to a report by Mission Local.

A dystopian future?

Onfokus/iStock.

Continue reading “San Francisco police to soon deploy robots that can kill” | >

Artificial intelligence would be used to detect changes in the vocals of each patient after a laryngectomy.

Researchers from Kaunas University of Technology Faculty of Informatics (KTU IF) and Lithuanian University of Health Sciences (LSMU) in Lithuania have created a new substitute voice evaluation index that can detect pathologies in patients’ voices more quickly and efficiently. Voice pathologies include a variety of disorders such as growths on the vocal cords, spasms, swelling or paralysis in the vocal cords.

AI could be used to determine changes in voice after laryngectomy.

Laryngectomy is a surgery that requires the removal of the larynx.

Continue reading “Researchers use AI to assess patients’ vocals after surgery on the larynx” | >

It is the first ever commercial partnership between Google Health and the medical company iCAD.

Google recently announced that it licensed its AI research prototype to a medical company called iCAD. The AI research model can be used for breast cancer screening. iCAD is a company that creates innovative medical equipment for cancer detection.

ICAD made the announcement about the collaboration yesterday, Nov. 28, on its website.

It is the first time ever that Google Health has licensed this specific artificial intelligence technology in a commercial partnership for breast cancer screening and personalized risk assessment of the disease, to iCAD.

Continue reading “Google licenses its AI tool for breast cancer screening to a medical firm” | >

Interesting Engineering sighted ‘Spot the Dog’ with construction group Balfour Beatty. Naturally, we had a chat with one of their technicians.

‘Spot the dog,’ Balfour Beatty’s first robotic employee, was sighted by Interesting Engineering (IE) at the ‘Brooklands Science Summer School event’ yesterday (Nov. 29).

Spot delivers CAT designs for derelict buildings and nuclear power plants.

Continue reading “Spot the Dog: The robotic dog busy delivering data on dangerous construction sites for Balfour Beatty” | >

The solution to our carbon problem is floating in the oceans.

Phytoplankton are microscopic organisms (can be bacteria, algae, or plants) that perform photosynthesis in oceans and eliminate excess carbon dioxide from Earth’s atmosphere. They sequester about 40 percent of the total carbon produced every year globally and, therefore, also play a major role in mitigating global warming.

A team of researchers from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) has proposed that by feeding engineered nanoparticles (ENPs) as fertilizers to phytoplankton. Humans can increase the growth of these microorganisms in oceans and eventually fix more CO2 from Earth than ever.

Read more | >

It will take 1.5 years to reach its final destination far beyond the moon.

In a world first, Japan’s space agency announced it successfully used steam to propel a spacecraft toward the Moon. Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) water-powered CubeSat spacecraft, EQUilibriUm Lunar-Earth point 6U (EQUULEUS), was launched on its way by NASA’s Orion spacecraft, which recently broke a record for the farthest distance traveled by a human-rated spacecraft.

“This is the world’s first successful orbit control beyond low-Earth orbit using water propellant propulsion system,” JAXA said in a statement on Saturday.

JAXA / University of Tokyo.

Continue reading “‘World’s first’ steam-propelled spacecraft heads to the moon and beyond” | >