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Apr 30, 2022

Japanese rail company rolls out VR-piloted Gundam robot worker

Posted by in categories: robotics/AI, transportation, virtual reality

The West Japan Rail Company has released video of its new humanoid heavy equipment robot. Mounted on the end of a crane, this gundam-style robot torso mimics the arm and head motions of a human pilot, who sees through the robot’s eyes via VR goggles.

The key objectives here, according to the company, are “to improve productivity and safety,” enabling workers to lift and naturally manipulate heavy equipment around the rail system without exposing them to the risk of electric shocks or falling.

The robot’s large torso is mounted to a hydraulic crane arm, which rides around the rail system on a specially braced rail car, putting down stabilizing legs when it’s time to get to work.

Apr 30, 2022

Combining crops and solar panels is allowing Kenya to ‘harvest the sun twice’

Posted by in categories: food, robotics/AI, solar power, sustainability

Learn More.

World Economic Forum.

They’re autonomous, self-cleaning and powered entirely by solar energy.

Apr 30, 2022

Long-awaited accelerator ready to explore origins of elements

Posted by in categories: nuclear energy, physics

The Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) at Michigan State University (MSU) in East Lansing had a budget of $730 million, most of it funded by the US Department of Energy, with a $94.5 million contribution from the state of Michigan. MSU contributed an additional $212 million in various ways, including the land. It replaces an earlier National Science Foundation accelerator, called the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL), at the same site. Construction of FRIB started in 2014 and was completed late last year, “five months early and on budget”, says nuclear physicist Bradley Sherrill, who is FRIB’s science director.

For decades, nuclear physicists had been pushing for a facility of its power — one that could produce rare isotopes orders of magnitude faster than is possible with the NSCL and similar accelerators worldwide. The first proposals for such a machine came in the late 1980s, and consensus was reached in the 1990s. “The community was adamant that we need to get a tool like this,” says Witold Nazarewicz, a theoretical nuclear physicist and FRIB’s chief scientist.

Apr 30, 2022

A tiny research robot is living with an Antarctica penguin colony

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

ECHO, the robot, belongs to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and rolls around the tundra collecting data used to study marine ecosystems.

The small robot takes readings and collects data like a normal researcher, but his existence allows researchers to collect real-time information year round and minimize the impact their presence could have on the animals’ lives.

Researchers say the penguins seem to be getting along swimmingly with the robot.

Apr 30, 2022

Prostate cancer linked to bacteria, raising hope of new test and treatment

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, innovation

A UK study has discovered five types of bacteria linked to aggressive prostate cancer. The breakthrough could help doctors identify who needs urgent treatment.


Every year, around 12,000 men in the UK die from prostate cancer, but many more die with prostate cancer than from it. So knowing whether the disease is going to advance rapidly or not is important for knowing who to treat.

Our latest study, published in European Urology Oncology, sheds some light on understanding which cancers will progress rapidly and aggressively and which won’t. Part of the answer lies with five types of bacteria.

Continue reading “Prostate cancer linked to bacteria, raising hope of new test and treatment” »

Apr 30, 2022

Thermal imaging of cities shows how much of the energy we produce goes out the windows and doors of our buildings

Posted by in category: futurism

https://www.21stcentech.com/conservation-energy-front-centre…te-change/

Apr 30, 2022

NFTs Are Legally Problematic ft. Steve Mould & Coffeezilla

Posted by in categories: blockchains, education, law

Ah, NFT’S. I genuinely am not sure how I feel or think about them, though I DEFINITELY lean towards an annoyed 🤔MEH🙄.

What I DO know is that this is a great, brief look at the legal aspects of the issues surrounding it and the thing itself.

Continue reading “NFTs Are Legally Problematic ft. Steve Mould & Coffeezilla” »

Apr 30, 2022

SpaceX smashes Falcon 9 booster turnaround record

Posted by in categories: drones, internet, satellites

SpaceX has successfully launched and landed the same Falcon 9 booster twice in three weeks, smashing the current record for orbital-class rocket turnaround.

The existing record was also held by Falcon 9 and set in early 2021 when booster B1060 launched a Turkish communications satellite and a batch of Starlink spacecraft just 27 days and 4 hours apart. Now, just under 15 months later, a new Falcon 9 booster has decisively taken the crown.

At 5:27 pm EDT, Falcon 9 B1062 lifted off as planned from SpaceX’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) Launch Complex 40 pad. Flying for the sixth time, the reused booster carried an expendable Falcon upper stage, fairing, and a batch of 53 Starlink V1.5 satellites most of the way out of Earth’s atmosphere to a velocity of 2.2 kilometers per second (Mach ~6.5) before separating and landing on a SpaceX drone ship.

Apr 30, 2022

Elon Musk did something awesome that has nothing to do with Twitter

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, internet, space

Musk’s company SpaceX is supplying internet service to troops in Ukraine, and helping them beat the Russians.

Apr 30, 2022

Here’s Why Hibernation in Space May Not Be Possible For Humans After All

Posted by in categories: cosmology, space travel

Sending humans virtually anywhere in space beyond the Moon pushes logistics of health, food, and psychology to limits we’re only just beginning to grasp.

A staple solution to these problems in science fiction is to simply put the void-travelers to bed for a while. In a sleep-like state akin to hibernation or torpor, metabolism drops, and the mind is spared the boredom of waiting out endless empty hours.

Unlike faster-than-light travel and wormholes, the premise of putting astronauts into a form of hibernation feels like it’s within grasp. Enough so that even the European Space Agency is seriously looking into the science behind it.