Menu

Blog

Page 9192

Jun 19, 2017

Researchers build first deployable, walking, soft robot

Posted by in categories: robotics/AI, space

(Phys.org)—Researchers have built the first robot made of soft, deployable materials that is capable of moving itself without the use of motors or any additional mechanical components. The robot “walks” when an electric current is applied to shape-memory alloy wires embedded in its frame: the current heats the wires, causing the robot’s flexible segments to contract and bend. Sequentially controlling the current to various segments in different ways results in different walking gaits.

The researchers expect that the ’s ability to be easily deployed, along with its low mass, low cost, load-bearing ability, compact size, and ability to be reconfigured into different forms may make it useful for applications such as space missions, seabed exploration, and household objects.

The scientists, Wei Wang et al., at Seoul National University and Sungkyunkwan University, have published a paper on the new robot and other types of deployable structures that can be built using the same method in a recent issue of Materials Horizons.

Read more

Jun 19, 2017

Los Angeles mayor sounds open to Elon Musk’s tunneling plan

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, transportation

Elon Musk’s concept of solving traffic congestion by digging networks of tunnels may have a fan in Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti.

Speaking about the city’s transit issues Sunday morning on ABC 7‘s “Eyewitness Newsmakers,” Garcetti mentioned the possibility of tunneling: “Like many other cities have, I’d love to see maybe even with the new tunneling technology that people like Elon Musk is looking at, whether we could have a quick and direct route from LAX to Union Station.”

There could be an #express train @unionstationla to @flyLAXairport –Here’s @MayorOfLA @ericgarcetti on #Newsmakers. #WATCH 11AM Sun @ABC7 pic.twitter.com/zJAFTge2VO — Adrienne Alpert (@abc7adrienne) June 17, 2017

Continue reading “Los Angeles mayor sounds open to Elon Musk’s tunneling plan” »

Jun 19, 2017

Magnetic space tug could target dead satellites

Posted by in categories: futurism, satellites

Derelict satellites could in future be grappled and removed from key orbits around Earth with a space tug using magnetic forces.

This same magnetic attraction or repulsion is also being considered as a safe method for multiple satellites to maintain close formations in space.

Such satellite swarms are being considered for future astronomy or Earth-observing missions – if their relative positions can stay stable they could act as a single giant telescope.

Continue reading “Magnetic space tug could target dead satellites” »

Jun 19, 2017

Why Interstellar Travel Will Be Possible Sooner Than You Think

Posted by in categories: computing, physics, space travel

The term “moonshot” is sometimes invoked to denote a project so outrageously ambitious that it can only be described by comparing it to the Apollo 11 mission to land the first human on the Moon. The Breakthrough Starshot Initiative transcends the moonshot descriptor because its purpose goes far beyond the Moon. The aptly-named project seeks to travel to the nearest stars.

The brainchild of Russian-born tech entrepreneur billionaire Yuri Milner, Breakthrough Starshot was announced in April 2016 at a press conference joined by renowned physicists including Stephen Hawking and Freeman Dyson. While still early, the current vision is that thousands of wafer-sized chips attached to large, silver lightsails will be placed into Earth orbit and accelerated by the pressure of an intense Earth-based laser hitting the lightsail.

Continue reading “Why Interstellar Travel Will Be Possible Sooner Than You Think” »

Jun 19, 2017

Video Friday: Valkyrie on Rough Terrain, Harvard Arthropods, and Flying Wheeled Robot

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your Automaton bloggers. We’ll also be posting a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next two months; here’s what we have so far (send us your events!):

Read more

Jun 19, 2017

Didier Coeurnelle – Life Extension and Existential Risks

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, cryonics, existential risks, government, life extension, transhumanism

Another LEAF interview from the International Longevity and Cryopreservation Summit in Madrid with Didier Coeurnelle of Heales.


LEAF director Elena Milova was recently at the International Longevity and Cryopreservation Summit in Madrid. During the conference she caught up with life extension advocate Didier Coeurnelle.

Continue reading “Didier Coeurnelle – Life Extension and Existential Risks” »

Jun 19, 2017

Self-Replicating 3D Printers Could Build Moon Bases, Fight Global Warming

Posted by in categories: 3D printing, engineering, satellites, sustainability

A 3D printer that could re-create itself from lunar material is in development at a university in Canada.

The technology could one day enable humans to 3D-print lunar bases, as well as conduct in-space manufacturing of satellites and solar shields on the moon that could help fight global warming, according to Alex Ellery, an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Carleton University in Ottawa, who is leading the project.

“I believe that self-replicating machines will be transformative for space exploration because it effectively bypasses launch costs,” Ellery told Space.com. [How Moon Bases and Lunar Colonies Work (Infographic)].

Continue reading “Self-Replicating 3D Printers Could Build Moon Bases, Fight Global Warming” »

Jun 18, 2017

Why Did an Enormous Chunk of West Antarctica Suddenly Start Melting?

Posted by in categories: climatology, futurism

The researchers think this unseasonably warm air was due primarily to the powerful 2015–2016 El Niño. As they write in their paper, the El Niño climate pattern, which starts with high sea surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific, tends to promote the advection of high pressure air masses over this part of Antarctica. But they’re not sure—after all, the comparably-strong 1997–98 El Niño event didn’t cause widespread melting in West Antarctica. And although the data points to a correlation between El Niño and melty ice in West Antarctica, that doesn’t necessarily imply causation.


300,000 square miles is nearly twice the area of California. It’s difficult to visualize a space that vast, but go ahead and give it a try. Now, imagine this California plus-sized chunk of land is covered in thousands of feet of ice. Then, all of a sudden, that frozen fortress becomes a wading pool.

In January 2016, over the course of just a few weeks, a 300,000 square mile chunk of the West Antarctic ice sheet started turning to slush, in one of the largest melt-outs ever recorded. Scientists with the ARM West Antarctic Radiation Experiment (AWARE), who reported the epic defrost in Nature Communications last week, believe it was related to the 2015–2016 El Niño. Troublingly, they think massive melts like this could be a harbinger of the future—but more research is needed before we can be sure.

Continue reading “Why Did an Enormous Chunk of West Antarctica Suddenly Start Melting?” »

Jun 18, 2017

Meet the Gömböc: The World’s Only Artificial Self-righting Shape

Posted by in category: futurism

It’s nearly impossible to knock it over.

Read more

Jun 18, 2017

China Shatters “Spooky Action at a Distance” Record, Preps for Quantum Internet

Posted by in categories: cybercrime/malcode, internet, quantum physics, space

Results from the Micius satellite test quantum entanglement, pointing the way toward hack-proof global communications—and a new space race.

Read more