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Oct 15, 2020

Google reveals Mineral crop-inspecting robots

Posted by in categories: food, robotics/AI

Robots will help farmers analyze crops to determine how to get better yields. Re-sharing from BBC.


The project will analyse every leaf on every crop, helping farmers tend the fields.

Oct 15, 2020

A spacecraft en route to Mercury just caught this fresh new look at Venus

Posted by in category: space

New images taken by BepiColombo come at a time when interest in the second planet from the sun is at an all time high.

Oct 15, 2020

The EA-18G Growler Has Its Own Topgun School For Electronic Attack Instead Of Dogfighting

Posted by in category: military

An inside look at how ‘Havoc’ turns U.S. Navy EA-18G crews into wizards of the invisible art of electronic warfare.

Oct 15, 2020

Mars Was so Close This Week That You Can See Its Surface From Your Backyard

Posted by in category: space

Mars won’t be this close to us again for another 15 years.

Oct 15, 2020

SpaceX Starship: Elon Musk responds to impressive render of future launch

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, space travel

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has weighed in on a new fan render that shows the upcoming Starship “SN8” taking off.

Oct 15, 2020

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk to Speak Virtually at 2020 Mars Society Convention

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, space travel

There’s no better way to kick-off Day 1 of the 2020 International Mars Society Convention than with a big announcement: SpaceX CEO and founder Elon Musk will be joining us virtually tomorrow (Friday, October 16th) at 3:00 pm PDT (6:00 pm EDT) [PLEASE NOTE NEW TIME] to provide our global audience with a special update about SpaceX and its plans for the Moon and Mars.

As a world leader in advocating for humanity to become a multi-planetary species, Mr. Musk founded Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) in 2002 with the goal of creating affordable (reusable) launch vehicles and spacecraft to help open up exploration and settlement of the solar system, including the planet Mars.

To date, SpaceX achievements include the first privately funded liquid propellant rocket to reach orbit (Falcon 1, 2008), the first private company to launch, orbit and recover a spacecraft (Dragon, 2010), the first private company to send a spacecraft to the ISS (Dragon, 2012), the first vertical take-off and vertical propulsive landing of an orbital rocket (Falcon 9, 2015) and the first private company to send astronauts to orbit and to the ISS (Crew Dragon Demo-2 Mission, 2020).

Oct 15, 2020

Cars Will Soon Be Able to Sense and React to Your Emotions

Posted by in categories: education, media & arts, robotics/AI, transportation

Except someone—or, rather, something— can hear: your car. Hearing your angry words, aggressive tone, and raised voice, and seeing your furrowed brow, the onboard computer goes into “soothe” mode, as it’s been programmed to do when it detects that you’re angry. It plays relaxing music at just the right volume, releases a puff of light lavender-scented essential oil, and maybe even says some meditative quotes to calm you down.

What do you think—creepy? Helpful? Awesome? Weird? Would you actually calm down, or get even more angry that a car is telling you what to do?

Continue reading “Cars Will Soon Be Able to Sense and React to Your Emotions” »

Oct 15, 2020

Germany drafting law to give people the legal right to work from home

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, business, law

The pandemic has seen the number of remote workers swell. Now Germany says it wants to make sure new business models work for everyone.

Oct 15, 2020

Solar power is now ‘lowest cost electricity ever seen’

Posted by in categories: solar power, sustainability

Oct 15, 2020

Turning Diamond Into Metal – For Improved Solar Cells, LEDs, and Power Electronics

Posted by in categories: quantum physics, solar power, sustainability

Normally an insulator, diamond becomes a metallic conductor when subjected to large strain in a new theoretical model.

Long known as the hardest of all natural materials, diamonds are also exceptional thermal conductors and electrical insulators. Now, researchers have discovered a way to tweak tiny needles of diamond in a controlled way to transform their electronic properties, dialing them from insulating, through semiconducting, all the way to highly conductive, or metallic. This can be induced dynamically and reversed at will, with no degradation of the diamond material.

The research, though still at an early proof-of-concept stage, may open up a wide array of potential applications, including new kinds of broadband solar cells, highly efficient LEDs and power electronics, and new optical devices or quantum sensors, the researchers say.