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Sep 18, 2019

Watch: Paris tests ‘flying taxi’ as future of city transport

Posted by in categories: futurism, transportation

With pollution a major issue for Paris and the city’s public transport bursting at the seams, one start-up has a solution involving the River Seine.

The Bubble, a “flying taxi”, is powered by electricity and lifts out of the water on “wings” – and boasts green credentials such as being noise and pollution-free. It costs around €200,000 to build and can reach speeds of up to 18 knots (20.7mph). Test voyages in Paris are limited to a maximum speed of 18.6mph.

The service could launch as early as spring next year, according to a press release from the Paris mayor’s office. The Seabubbles start-up launched a four-day test run on the Seine on Monday.

Sep 18, 2019

Elon Musk’s SpaceX is developing giant Mars rockets in a sleepy town in southern Texas. Here’s what it’s like to visit

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, space travel

Boca Chica is home to a beach, a village, and SpaceX’s Texas launch site, where Elon Musk’s company is developing its Starship rocket for Mars.

Sep 18, 2019

Guppies teach us why evolution happens

Posted by in categories: evolution, genetics

Guppies, a perennial pet store favorite, have helped a UC Riverside scientist unlock a key question about evolution:

Do animals evolve in response to the risk of being eaten, or to the environment that they create in the absence of predators? Turns out, it’s the latter.

David Reznick, a professor of biology at UC Riverside, explained that in the wild, guppies can migrate over waterfalls and rapids to places where most predators can’t follow them. Once they arrive in safer terrain, Reznick’s previous research shows they evolve rapidly, becoming genetically distinct from their ancestors.

Sep 18, 2019

SpaceX may be a $120 billion company if its Starlink global internet service takes off, Morgan Stanley Research predicts

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, finance, internet, satellites

Financial analysts are looking at Elon Musk’s plans to surround Earth with thousands of high-speed internet satellites — and they see a lot of green.

Sep 18, 2019

How Close Are We to Downloading the Human Brain?

Posted by in categories: life extension, nuclear energy, robotics/AI

Downloading your brain may seem like science fiction, but some neuroscientists think it’s not only possible, but that we’ve already started down a path to one day make it a reality. So, how close are we to downloading a human brain?

How Close Are We to Fusion Energy? — https://youtu.be/ZW_YCWLyv6A

Continue reading “How Close Are We to Downloading the Human Brain?” »

Sep 17, 2019

Researchers discover massive neutron star that tests the limits of physics

Posted by in categories: cosmology, physics

Astronomers have detected the most massive neutron star ever, and it almost shouldn’t even exist.

Neutron stars are the smallest in the universe, with a diameter comparable to the size of a city like Chicago or Atlanta. They are the leftover remnants of supernovae. But they are incredibly dense, with masses bigger than that of our sun. So think of the sun, compressed into a major city.

In the case of the newly detected neutron star, dubbed J0740+6620, it’s 333,000 times the mass of the Earth and 2.17 times the mass of the sun. But the star is only about 15 miles across. It’s 4,600 light-years from Earth.

Sep 17, 2019

Driverless cars will lead to more sex in cars, study finds

Posted by in categories: robotics/AI, sex, transportation

Self-driving vehicles will lead to a rise in car sex, according to a new study.

People will be more likely to eat, sleep and engage in on-the-road hanky-panky when robot cars become the new normal, according to research published in the most recent issue of the journal Annals of Tourism Research.

“People will be sleeping in their vehicles, which has implications for roadside hotels. And people may be eating in vehicles that function as restaurant pods,” Scott Cohen, who led the study, told Fast Company magazine.

Sep 17, 2019

Russian billionaire plans to create floating ‘Noak’s Ark in SPACE’ with 15million Earthlings on board

Posted by in category: space

A RUSSIAN billionaire is bankrolling a bonkers project to build the world’s first country based entirely in space.

The nation of Asgardia plans to send millions of Earthlings up to live on giant orbiting space arks to escape the chaos as humanity “wipes itself out” in the coming decades.

The Sci-Fi community has its own flag and national anthem, and nearly 300,000 people have signed up to become citizens online.

Sep 17, 2019

Like wine in a glass

Posted by in category: cosmology

Like wine in a glass, huge clouds of hot gas are sloshing back and forth in a cluster of galaxies about 480 million light years from Earth! Sloshing motions, like those seen here in Abell 2052, redistribute elements forged in supernova explosions such as iron and oxygen!

Want to learn more? https://s.si.edu/2mkQuwt

Sep 17, 2019

SpaceX’s orbital Starship prototype construction progress detailed in new photos

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, space travel

SpaceX is making progress assembling its Starship orbital spacecraft prototype, as seen in new photos shared by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. This full-scale testing version of the Starship will take over for the StarHopper, which was a scaled-down version used to test the Raptor engine initially with low-altitude “hop” flights.

The Starship Mk I Prototype and Mk II prototypes, which are under construction simultaneously at SpaceX facilities in South Texas and Florida, will be used to test flights at higher altitudes and higher speeds, and will use as many as three to six Raptor engines simultaneously, versus the single engine used with the StarHopper.

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