Starhopper awaits its first truly flightworthy Raptor as CEO Elon Musk says SpaceX may have solved the technical bug delaying hop tests. (NASASpaceflight — bocachicagal, SpaceX)
In a way, the connectome is also a foundation for understanding far more complex nervous systems like our own.
“If a worm can do so much with so few neurons, and we have orders of magnitude more neurons,” Paul Sternberg, a biology professor at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, told Scientific American, “then we’re amazing.”
New research into the experience of pain challenges previous beliefs about how quickly pain signals travel in humans compared with touch signals.
O.o…
Black holes are engines of destruction on a cosmic scale, but they may also be the bringers of life. New research on supermassive black holes suggests that the radiation they emit during feeding frenzies can create biomolecular building blocks and even power photosynthesis.
The upshot? Far more worlds roaming the Milky Way and beyond could be suitable to life, the researchers speculated.
Continue reading “Voracious Black Holes Could Feed Alien Life on Rogue Worlds” »
I used to think that we live in some sort of a “cosmic jungle”, so the Zoo Hypothesis (like Star Trek Prime Directive) should be the correct explanation to the Fermi Paradox, right? I wouldn’t completely rule out this hypothesis insofar as a theorist Michio Kaku allegorically compares our earthly civilization to an “anthill” next to the “ten-lane superhighway” of a galactic-type civilization. Over time, however, I’ve come to realize that the physics of information holds the key to the solution of the Fermi Paradox — indications are we most likely live in a “syntellect chrysalis” instead of a “cosmic jungle.”
Just like a tiny mustard seed in the soil, we’ll get to grow out of the soil, see “the light of the day” and network by roots and pollen with others, at the cosmic level of emergent complexity — as a civilizational superorganism endowed with its own advanced extradimensional consciousness. So, one day our Syntellect, might “wake up” as some kind of a newborn baby of the intergalactic family (or multiversal family, for that matter – that remains to be seen) within the newly perceived reality framework. Call it the Chrysalis Conjecture, if you’d like.*.
O.o.
How does the universe work? It appears that a new AI could help find the answer as it was able to work well beyond the parameters set by its developers.
According to the Kardashev Scale, a Type III Civilization should be able to harness the power of an entire galaxy… Humanity isn’t quite there yet, but what will our lives be like if we ever do become an advanced, Type III, intergalactic species? In this video, Unveiled looks far into the future, to see how far humankind could possibly go as we continue to explore and understand the universe around us…
This is Unveiled, giving you incredible answers to extraordinary questions!
Continue reading “What If Humanity Was A Type III Civilization? | Unveiled” »
Last week, the LightSail 2 officially made its first contact with Earth. The solar-powered spacecraft will be sailing around Earth’s orbit for the next year, all part of a mission to prove that solar sailing is a viable mode of space exploration.
If successful, the hope is that solar sailing could be used in other spacecraft going forward, something that could allow us to explore further in space at a lower cost than is currently possible.
DARPA’s Ground X-Vehicle Technologies (GXV-T) program aims to improve mobility, survivability, safety, and effectiveness of future combat vehicles without piling on armor. The demonstrations featured here show progress on technologies for traveling quickly over varied terrain and improving situational awareness and ease of operation.
These demonstrations feature technologies developed for DARPA by:
Continue reading “Demonstrations of DARPA’s Ground X-Vehicle Technologies” »
Down in the deep ocean, where the Sun’s rays don’t penetrate, there dwells a beast so perfectly efficient it has remained practically unchanged for 200 million years. It’s called the bluntnose sixgill shark (Hexanchus griseus), and, like many deep-sea creatures, its lifestyle remains something of a mystery.
Scientists have managed to bring them up to the surface to tag them for tracking in the past. But under normal circumstances, they prefer the darker waters of the meso- and bathypelagic zones (up to 2,500 metres or 8,200 feet deep), coming into shallower waters only under the cover of night to feed.
Since being brought up to the surface can disorient and discombobulate the sharks, the data collected afterwards may not be a true representation of their normal movements. So a team of scientists sought to do something that’s never been accomplished before: tag a sixgill shark in its natural habitat.
