Lifeboat Foundation

Spacecraft outfitted with sails and propelled by the sun are no longer the stuff of science fiction or theoretical space missions. Now, a Rochester Institute of Technology researcher is taking solar sailing to the next level with advanced photonic materials.

Metamaterials—a new class of manmade structures with unconventional properties—could represent the next technological leap forward for solar sails, according to Grover Swartzlander, professor in RIT’s Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science. He proposes replacing reflective metallic sails with diffractive metafilm sails. The new materials could be used to steer reflected or transmitted photons for near-Earth, interplanetary and interstellar space travel.

“Diffractive films may also be designed to replace heavy and failure-prone mechanical systems with lighter electro-optic controls having no moving parts,” he said.

Sawtooth swings—up-and-down ripples found in everything from stock prices on Wall Street to ocean waves—occur periodically in the temperature and density of the plasma that fuels fusion reactions in doughnut-shaped facilities called tokamaks. These swings can sometimes combine with other instabilities in the plasma to produce a perfect storm that halts the reactions. However, some plasmas are free of sawtooth gyrations thanks to a mechanism that has long puzzled physicists.

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have recently produced complex simulations of the process that may show the physics behind this mechanism, which is called “magnetic flux pumping.” Unraveling the process could advance the development of fusion energy.

Co-founder of Google DeepMind and CEO of SpaceX amongst the 2,400 signatories of pledge to block lethal autonomous weapons.

Ian Sample Science editor.

Google researchers, in collaboration with the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology, have developed a neural network that maps neurons inside the brain more accurately than previous methods.

An artificial neural network that’s made entirely from DNA and mimics the way the brain works has been created by scientists in the lab.

The test tube artificial intelligence can solve a classic machine learning problem by correctly identifying handwritten numbers.

Continue reading “Scientists have created an AI inside a test tube using strands of DNA, and they hope it will soon start to form its own ‘memories’” »

“The DNA chaos that CRISPR unleashes has been ‘seriously underestimated,’” study author and geneticist Allan Bradley of U.K.’s Wellcome Sanger Center tells STAT. “This should be a wake-up call.”

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Don’t tell the Hatton Garden gang: scientists just unearthed an eye-watering hoard of diamonds, so valuable it would completely destroy the world’s economy.

The scientists reckon there’s a quadrillion tonnes of diamond buried in the ‘cratonic roots’ in continents.

There’s just one, tiny, catch: the treasure trove is buried 100 miles down, deeper than any drill has ever penetrated, according to MIT researchers.

Continue reading “Scientists just found £150,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 of diamonds on Earth” »

- Isaac Asimov

Imagine a natural disaster scenario, such as an earthquake, that inflicts widespread damage to buildings and structures, critical utilities and infrastructure, and threatens human safety. Having the ability to navigate the rubble and enter highly unstable areas could prove invaluable to saving lives or detecting additional hazards among the wreckage. Partnering rescue personnel with robots to evaluate high-risk scenarios and environments can help increase the likelihood of successful search and recovery efforts, or other critical tasks while minimizing the threat to human teams.

“Whether in a natural disaster scenario, a search and rescue mission, a hazardous environment, or other critical relief situation, robots have the potential to provide much needed aide and support,” said Dr. Ronald Polcawich, a DARPA program manager in the Microsystems Technology Office (MTO). “However, there are a number of environments that are inaccessible for larger robotic platforms. Smaller robotics systems could provide significant aide, but shrinking down these platforms requires significant advancement of the underlying technology.”

Technological advances in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), additive manufacturing, piezoelectric actuators, and low-power sensors have allowed researchers to expand into the realm of micro-to-milli robotics. However, due to the technical obstacles experienced as the technology shrinks, these platforms lack the power, navigation, and control to accomplish complex tasks proficiently.