Tag: cornell university

News From Space: Hawkings’ U-Turn on Black Holes

blackholeA recent paper published by Hawking, in which he reversed himself on several of his previous theories about black holes, has created quite a stir. In fact, his new found opinions on the subject have been controversial to the point that Nature News declared that there is no such thing as black holes anymore. This, however, is not quite what Hawking has claimed.

But it is clear that Hawking, one of the founders of modern theories about black holes, now believes that he he may have been when he first proposed his ideas 40 years ago. Now, he believes that black holes may NOT be the the final graveyard for matter that gets sucked in by the gravitational pull caused by a collapsing star, or that they prevent light from escaping.

stephen_hawkingBasically, he was wrong in how he attempted to resolve the paradox of black holes, because apparently they don’t exist. It all comes down to what is known as the “firewall paradox” for black holes.  The central feature of a black hole is its event horizon, the point of no return when approaching a black hole.  In Einstein’s theory of general relativity, the event horizon is where space and time are so warped by gravity that you can never escape.

 

This one-way nature of an event horizon has long been a challenge to understanding gravitational physics.  For example, a black hole event horizon would seem to violate the laws of thermodynamics, which state that nothing should have a temperature of absolute zero.  Even very cold things radiate a little heat, but if a black hole traps light then it doesn’t give off any heat and would have a temperature of zero.

quantum_entanglementThen in 1974, Stephen Hawking demonstrated that black holes do radiate light due to quantum mechanics. In quantum theory, the exact energy of a system cannot be known exactly, which means it’s energy can fluctuate spontaneously so long as its average remains constant. What Hawking demonstrated is that near the event horizon, pairs of particles can appear where one becomes trapped while the others escape as radiation.

 

 

While Hawking radiation solved one problem with black holes, it created another problem – aka. the firewall paradox. When quantum particles appear in pairs, they are entangled; but if one particle is captured by the black hole, and the other escapes, then the entangled nature of the pair is broken. In quantum mechanics, the particle pair would be described as in a “pure state”, and the event horizon would seem to break that state.

blackhole_birthLast year it was shown that if Hawking radiation is in a pure state, then either it cannot radiate in the way required by thermodynamics, or it would create a firewall of high energy particles near the surface of the event horizon.  According to general relativity, if you happen to be near the event horizon of a black hole you shouldn’t notice anything unusual.

In his latest paper, Hawking proposed a solution to this paradox by proposing that black holes don’t have event horizons. Instead they have apparent horizons that don’t require a firewall to obey thermodynamics, hence the declaration of “no more black holes” in the popular press. However, all these declarations may be a bit premature, as the problem Hawking’s sought to address may not exist at all.

black-holeIn short, the firewall paradox only arises if Hawking radiation is in a pure state. And in a paper presented last month by Sabine Hossenfelder of Cornell University shows that instead of being due to a pair of entangled particles, Hawking radiation is due to two pairs of entangled particles. One entangled pair gets trapped by the black hole, while the other entangled pair escapes.

The process is similar to Hawking’s original proposal, but the Hawking particles are not in a pure state, which means there’s no paradox to be had.  Black holes can radiate in a way that agrees with thermodynamics, and the region near the event horizon doesn’t have a firewall, just as general relativity requires.  So basically, Hawking’s proposal is a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.

FTL_MEWith black holes, its always two step forwards, one step back. And this is hardly the only news in recent months when it comes to these mysterious and confounding phenomena. I imagine that the new theory from MIT, which states that wormholes may exist between black holes and be responsible for quantum entanglements (and resolve the problem of how gravity works) may also need revision next!

Too bad too. I was so looking forward to a universe where FTL wasn’t junk science…

Sources: universetoday.com, cbc.ca

Looking for Time Travelers… on Twitter!

DoctorWho_TardisIf time travelers were real, a la Doctor Who or Doc Emmett Brown style, how would they go about sharing their gift with the world? According to astrophysicist Robert Nemiroff and physics graduate student Teresa Wilson at Michigan Technological University, they would tweet about it. And so, the two began what has proven to be one of the most interesting searches on today’s social media.

To break it down succinctly, the pair began to search the backlogs of Facebook and Twitter for any indications of time travellers posting about the future. This they did by entering search terms for two major events – the appearance Comet ISON in September of 2012 and the election of Pope Francis in March 2013 – to see if there was any mention of them before they happened.

comet_ISONTheir theory, as presented in a paper published last month on Cornell University’s Library website, was that if there were any postings containing “Comet ISON,” “#cometison,” “Pope Francis” or “#popefrancis” from before those dates, they may very well be from a time traveler. Unfortunately, their searchers on Facebook turned up results which, in their own words, “were clearly not comprehensive.

Granted, a time-traveler would be quick to delete any status updates that appeared prescient, using Facebook’s new Graph Search privacy features. However, the the time-traveler hunting due had no better luck on Twitter, where a majority of people keep their tweets public. But of course, they went on to say in their paper that just because they didn’t see any time travelers doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

time-slipAs they argue it, it might not be possible for time travelers to leave any evidence of their journey behind.

…it may be physically impossible for us to find such information as that would violate some yet-unknown law of physics… time travelers may not want to be found, and may be good at covering their tracks.

Another thing to consider is that time travelers might actively try to erase any mention of their existence. For example, in the first season of the Doctor Who reboot, where the Doctor used a special virus to delete any digital trace of himself before leaving the present age. It’s academic stuff really, and the pair really shouldn’t have expected such careless errors to show up on the internet.

the_time_machine_croppedAnd as Donald Rumsfeld, another man who went searching for something and came up empty, said: “the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence”. Yes, I know, the comparison really doesn’t help, does it? And right now, I’m sure you might be wondering if all those tax dollars that fund research grants might be better used elsewhere.

And let’s face it, it’s something many of us would wonder, and possible check for ourselves, given half a chance…

Sources: universetoday.com, huffingtonpost.com

The Future of Computing: Brain-Like Computers

neuronsIt’s no secret that computer scientists and engineers are looking to the human brain as means of achieving the next great leap in computer evolution. Already, machines are being developed that rely on machine blood, can continue working despite being damaged, and recognize images and speech. And soon, a computer chip that is capable of learning from its mistakes will also be available.

The new computing approach, already in use by some large technology companies, is based on the biological nervous system – specifically on how neurons react to stimuli and connect with other neurons to interpret information. It allows computers to absorb new information while carrying out a task, and adjust what they do based on the changing signals.

brain_chip2The first commercial version of the new kind of computer chip is scheduled to be released in 2014, and was the result of a collaborative effort between I.B.M. and Qualcomm, as well as a Stanford research team. This “neuromorphic processor” can not only automate tasks that once required painstaking programming, but can also sidestep and even tolerate errors, potentially making the term “computer crash” obsolete.

In coming years, the approach will make possible a new generation of artificial intelligence systems that will perform some functions that humans do with ease: see, speak, listen, navigate, manipulate and control. That can hold enormous consequences for tasks like facial and speech recognition, navigation and planning, which are still in elementary stages and rely heavily on human programming.

googleneuralnetworkFor example, computer vision systems only “recognize” objects that can be identified by the statistics-oriented algorithms programmed into them. An algorithm is like a recipe, a set of step-by-step instructions to perform a calculation. But last year, Google researchers were able to get a machine-learning algorithm, known as a “Google Neural Network”, to perform an identification task (involving cats) without supervision.

And this past June, the company said it had used those neural network techniques to develop a new search service to help customers find specific photos more accurately. And this past November, researchers at Standford University came up with a new algorithm that could give computers the power to more reliably interpret language. It’s known as the Neural Analysis of Sentiment (NaSent).

deep_learning_laptopA similar concept known as Deep Leaning is also looking to endow software with a measure of common sense. Google is using this technique with their voice recognition technology to aid in performing searches. In addition, the social media giant Facebook is looking to use deep learning to help them improve Graph Search, an engine that allows users to search activity on their network.

Until now, the design of computers was dictated by ideas originated by the mathematician John von Neumann about 65 years ago. Microprocessors perform operations at lightning speed, following instructions programmed using long strings of binary code (0s and 1s). The information is stored separately in what is known as memory, either in the processor itself, in adjacent storage chips or in higher capacity magnetic disk drives.

neural-networksBy contrast, the new processors consist of electronic components that can be connected by wires that mimic biological synapses. Because they are based on large groups of neuron-like elements, they are known as neuromorphic processors, a term credited to the California Institute of Technology physicist Carver Mead, who pioneered the concept in the late 1980s.

These processors are not “programmed”, in the conventional sense. Instead, the connections between the circuits are “weighted” according to correlations in data that the processor has already “learned.” Those weights are then altered as data flows in to the chip, causing them to change their values and to “spike.” This, in turn, strengthens some connections and weakens others, reacting much the same way the human brain does.

Neuromorphic-chip-640x353In the words of Dharmendra Modha, an I.B.M. computer scientist who leads the company’s cognitive computing research effort:

Instead of bringing data to computation as we do today, we can now bring computation to data. Sensors become the computer, and it opens up a new way to use computer chips that can be everywhere.

One great advantage of the new approach is its ability to tolerate glitches, whereas traditional computers are cannot work around the failure of even a single transistor. With the biological designs, the algorithms are ever changing, allowing the system to continuously adapt and work around failures to complete tasks. Another benefit is energy efficiency, another inspiration drawn from the human brain.

IBM_stacked3dchipsThe new computers, which are still based on silicon chips, will not replace today’s computers, but augment them; at least for the foreseeable future. Many computer designers see them as coprocessors, meaning they can work in tandem with other circuits that can be embedded in smartphones and the centralized computers that run computing clouds.

However, the new approach is still limited, thanks to the fact that scientists still do not fully understand how the human brain functions. As Kwabena Boahen, a computer scientist who leads Stanford’s Brains in Silicon research program, put it:

We have no clue. I’m an engineer, and I build things. There are these highfalutin theories, but give me one that will let me build something.

calit2PhotoLuckily, there are efforts underway that are designed to remedy this, with the specific intention of directing that knowledge towards the creation of better computers and AIs. One such effort comes from the National Science Foundation financed the Center for Brains, Minds and Machines, a new research center based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with Harvard and Cornell.

Another is the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (aka. Calit2) – a center dedicated to innovation in nanotechnology, life sciences, information technology, and telecommunications. As
Larry Smarr, an astrophysicist and director of Institute, put it:

We’re moving from engineering computing systems to something that has many of the characteristics of biological computing.

Human-Brain-project-Alp-ICTAnd last, but certainly not least, is the Human Brain Project, an international group of 200 scientists from 80 different research institutions and based in Lausanne, Switzerland. Having secured the $1.6 billion they need to fund their efforts, these researchers will spend the next ten years conducting research that cuts across multiple disciplines.

This initiative, which has been compared to the Large Hadron Collider, will attempt to reconstruct the human brain piece-by-piece and gradually bring these cognitive components into an overarching supercomputer. The expected result of this research will be new platforms for “neuromorphic computing” and “neurorobotics,” allowing for the creation of computing and robotic architectures that mimic the functions of the human brain.

neuromorphic_revolutionWhen future generations look back on this decade, no doubt they will refer to it as the birth of the neuromophic computing revolution. Or maybe just Neuromorphic Revolution for short, but that sort of depends on the outcome. With so many technological revolutions well underway, it is difficult to imagine how the future will look back and characterize this time.

Perhaps, as Charles Stross suggest, it will simply be known as “the teens”, that time in pre-Singularity history where it was all starting to come together, but was yet to explode and violently change everything we know. I for one am looking forward to being around to witness it all!

Sources: nytimes.com, technologyreview.com, calit2.net, humanbrainproject.eu

News from Mars: Spirit Rover’s Tenth Anniversary

opportunityTwo days ago, another major milestone passed for one of NASA’s famed rovers. But this time around, it wasn’t the spotlight-hogging Curiosity or the die-hard Opportunity rover that was the subject of interest. It was the Spirit rover, the other half of NASA’s now legendary Mars Exploration Rovers (MER) that landed on the Red Planet over a decade ago.

Yes, January 3rd of this year marks the 10th anniversary since the safe landing of NASA’s renowned Spirit rover on the plains of Mars, making her the oldest rover in operation on the planet’s service. Opportunity, her twin sister, landed on the opposite side of the Mars three weeks later – on Jan. 24, 2004. The goal was to “follow the water” as a potential enabler for past Martian microbes if they ever existed.

mars_roverTogether, the long-lived, golf cart sized robots proved that early Mars was warm and wet, billions of years ago – a key finding in the search for habitats conducive to life beyond Earth. It was these findings that have since been followed up on by Curiosity rover in its ongoing search for water and organic particles in the soil, and MAVEN’s planned surveys of the Martian atmosphere.

And it was a decade ago that the famous robot survived the 6 minute plunge through the thin Martian atmosphere, which involved scorching atmospheric heating, and then bounced some two dozen times inside cushioning airbags before coming to a stop. It then gradually rolled to a stop inside 161 km (100 mile) wide Gusev Crater. This landing was known as the “6 minutes of Terror”.

spiritrover_landerThe three petaled landing pad then opened and Spirit was deployed in what was a milestone event. This deployment will be forever remembered in the annuls of history, mainly because of the groundbreaking scientific discoveries that ensued, not to mention the unbelievable longevity of the twins. And while Spirit did not make it past 2010 – effectively remaining in service for six years – she accomplished quite a bit in that time.

Before they were launched atop a series of Delta II rockets in the summer of 2003 from Cape Canaveral, the dynamic, solar powered robo duo were expected to last for only 90 Martian days (Sols). NASA engineers firmly believed that dust accumulation on the life-giving solar panels, an engineering issue or the extremely harsh Martian environment would terminate them before long.

SpiritAndOpportunity_ByTheNumbers1-580x423But in reality, both robots enormously exceeded expectations and accumulated a vast bonus time of exploration and discovery in numerous extended mission phases. In part, the harsh Martian winds occasionally cleaned their solar panels to give them both a new lease on life. And more importantly, the rovers’ components just kept working miraculously.

And she kept working faithfully for six years until communications officially ceased in 2010. Altogether, Spirit drove 7.73 kilometers (4.8 miles) across the Martian surface – about 12 times more than the original goal set for the mission – and transmitted over 128,000 images. And shortly after landing, Spirit scaled Husband Hill and found evidence for the flow of liquid water at the Hillary outcrop.

Columbia_Hills_from_MER-A_landing_site_PIA05200_br2This was especially impressive, seeing as how the rovers were not designed to climb hills. But eventually, she managed to scale the 30 degree inclines and collect a series of rock samples using her Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT). The samples were then inspected using her on-board spectrometers and a microscopic imager. Eventually she drove back down the hill and made even greater scientific discoveries.

These occurred in 2007 in an area known as “Home Plate”, where she unexpectedly got mired thanks to an ancient volcanic feature named ‘Home Plate’ that prevented the solar arrays from generating. In the process, her right front wheel churned up a trench of bright Martian soil that exposed a patch of nearly pure silica, which was formed in a watery hot spring or volcanic environment.

Spirit-Sol-2175c-_Ken-KremerThree years later, in February of 2010, Spirit once again got mired and took her last panorama (pictured above), which was stitched together from raw images by Marco Di Lorenzo and Ken Kremer. After several attempts to save her, NASA eventually declared Spirit dead in the water, her last resting place being the same as where she made her landing – the Gustev Crater in the Aeolis quadrangle.

At one time, many billions of years ago, the Ma’adim Vallis channel – a natural river-like depression running from the crater – probably carried liquid water and/or ice into Gutev. NASA scientists believe this has left sediments in the crater that could be up to 915 meters (3000 feet) thick. Spirit all but confirmed this when her tire turned up a patch of silica in 07, thus providing the first conclusive evidence of this theory.

Mosaic image taken on Jan. 4, 2004 after deployment
Mosaic image taken on Jan. 4, 2004 after deployment

The rovers’ principal investigator, Steve Squyres of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., described some of the key findings in a NASA statement, starting with what Spirit found after driving from the crater floor where it landed into the Columbia hills to the east:

In the Columbia Hills, we discovered compelling evidence of an ancient Mars that was a hot, wet, violent place, with volcanic explosions, hydrothermal activity, steam vents — nothing like Mars today.

At Opportunity’s landing site, we found evidence of an early Mars that had acidic groundwater that sometimes reached the surface and evaporated away, leaving salts behind. It was an environment with liquid water, but very different from the environment that Spirit told us about.

When Opportunity got to the rim of Endeavour Crater, we began a whole new mission. We found gypsum veins and a rich concentration of clay minerals. The clay minerals tell us about water chemistry that was neutral, instead of acidic — more favorable for microbial life, if any ever began on Mars.

Because of the rovers’ longevity, we essentially got four different landing sites for the price of two.

maven_orbitMeanwhile, NASA’s new Curiosity rover just celebrated 500 Sols on Mars and is speeding towards Mount Sharp from inside Gale Crater – which is about the same size as Gusev crater. And a pair of newly launched orbiters are streaking towards the Red Planet as we speak – NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) and India’s Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM).

In short, we are not finished with Mars yet. And the past, ongoing and future efforts of our many rovers, orbiters and (someday) astronauts are likely to keep providing us with a slew of new discoveries and revelations about our celestial neighbor.

Source: universetoday.com

A Menu for the Mars Mission

hi-seas1Throughout the summer, six people participated in an experiment designed to test how people will deal with the physical and psychological strangeness of a manned space journey. Known as the “Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation” (HI-SEAS) study, the research took place on a desolate slope of an abandoned quarry in Hawaii, 8,000 feet above sea level.

Here, the volunteers lived in a two-story geodesic dome and put on a full space suit to venture outside. Their communications were limited, their shower time rationed, and each spent much of their time conducting individual “space” experiments. But most importantly, they were eating food fit for a Mars astronaut. This was the main purpose of the experiment, testing the menu that manned missions to Mars will have to offer.

hi-seas2For years now, scientists have been trying to find ways to make astronaut food more palatable. In space, the food is either dehydrated and requires water and heat to process, or is rendered in liquid form that has to be drunk right out of the package. But on Mars, where there would be gravity, astronauts could actually cook their own food from “shelf-stable” ingredients.

The goal of the HI-SEAS study, run by investigators at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and Cornell University, has been to figure out the best strategies for nourishing Mars astronauts. On any long and isolated mission, especially on one as long as a hypothetical Mars mission. “menu fatigue” is a real danger. Astronauts need to consume a set amount of calories a day, otherwise they might lose body mass and bone density.

Lemon Dill Pasta Salad
Lemon Dill Pasta Salad

For the sake of testing the menu, the mission relied on a six-member crew of scientific-minded professionals who kept detailed logs of their food adventures. They filled out smell, taste, and appearance questionnaires for each meal; weighed each food item; tracked water consumption, cooking and cleanup time; and even monitored their sense of smell to see if food boredom had any physiological effects.

Another fun aspect was that they also tested crowdsourced recipes submitted by the public. Each recipe was limited to using the list of ingredients available. There was “Cajun Style Spam Jambalaya” and “Oatmeal Thickened Beef Stew” for dinner, “Blueberry Lemon Cornmeal Pancakes” for breakfast, and even a spicy veggie sushi as an appetizer.

"Dark Matter" cake
“Dark Matter” cake

Kate Greene, a science and technology journalist on the mission, had this to say about the menu:

I’ve enjoyed so many meals here, actually. A quinoa salad, breakfast tacos, borscht, beef tagine, and all the breads we make with our bread maker… We’ve also had cakes and puddings and pies, grilled cheese sandwiches and soups like seafood chowder.

With today’s technology, it could take as long as 300 days to even get there. But even with fully-stocked shelves, life on a Mars mission would still be a major challenge. In addition to fighting menu boredom, there was also the issue of regular boredom. Confined to their shelters and forced to wear space suits to go outside, the “astronauts” began to miss the everyday activities they used to take for granted.

hi-seas5As Greene indicated, she came to miss such things as walking about outside, biking, and swimming, and gained a new appreciation for her old life:

Something I realized about my day-to-day life on Earth is that it’s full of novelty. I see new people all the time and I go to different places. In the habitat, novelty has been a lot harder to come by, and it was subtle when I found it–a new recipe, a different way to arrange the furniture, or someone saying something completely out of character. When I noticed these slight changes, my joy and excitement was embarrassingly disproportionate.

On August 13th, Greene and her five colleagues emerged into the daylight without a spacesuit for the first time in months. After a media event and a debrief with the principal researchers on the NASA-funded project, they continued to sift through all of their research data, which ranged from scientific research, their food study, and even a record of their sleep cycles.

hi-seasmapAll of this information is likely to be very useful in coming years and decades. Back in August, on the one-year anniversary of the Curiosity Rover’s landing on Mars, NASA chief Charles Bolden said he believed that human footprints would follow in its path, and 2030 remains the projected date for putting those boots on the Red Planet.

Sources: fastcoexist.com, hi-seas.org

The 3D Printing Revolution

3D-printing1From the way people have been going on about 3D printing in the past few months, you’d think it was some kind of fad or something! But of course, there’s a reason for that. Far from being a simple prescriptive technology that requires us all to update our software or buy the latest version in order to “stay current”, 3D printing is ushering in a revolution that will literally change the world.

From design models and manufactured products, the range of possibilities is now venturing into printed food and even artificial organs. The potential for growth is undeniable, and the pace at which progress is happening is astounding. And on one of my usual jaunts through the tech journals and video-sharing websites, I found a few more examples of the latest applications.

ord_bot_2_2_display_mediumFirst up is this story from Mashable, a social media news source, that discusses NYU student Marko Manriquez’s new invention: the BurritoBot. Essentially a 3D food printer that uses tortillas, salsa, guacamole and other quintessential ingredients, Manriquez’s built this machine for his master’s thesis using open-source hardware – including the ORD bot, a 3D printing mechanical platform (pictured above).

The result is a food printer that an tailor-make Burritos and other Mexican delights, giving users the ability to specify which ingredients they want, in which proportion, and all through an app on their smartphone. No demos available online as of yet, but Mashable provides a pretty good breakdown on how it works, as well as Manrquez’s inspiration and intent behind its creation:


Next up, there’s Cornell University’s food printer that allows users to created desserts. In this CNN video, Chef David Arnold at the French Culinary Institute shows off the printer by creating a chocolate cake, layer by layer, dough and icing. A grad student from Cornell’s Computational Synthesis Lab was on hand to explain that their design is also open-source, with the blueprints and technical design made available online so anyone can build their own.

As Chef Arnold explained, his kitchen has been using the printer to work with ingredients ranging from cookie dough, to icing to masa – the corn meal tortillas are made from. It also allows for a degree of accuracy that many may not possess, while still offering plenty of opportunities to be creative. “The only real limitation now is that the product has to be able to go through a syringe,” he said. “Other than that, skies the limit.”


But even more exciting for some are the opportunities that are now being explored using metals. Using metal powder and an electron beam to form manufactured components, this type of “additive manufacturing” is capable of turning out parts that are amazingly complex, far more so than anything created through the machining-process.

In this next video, the crew from CNNMoney travel to the Oakridge National Lab in Tenessee to speak to the Automation, Manufacturing and Robotics Group. This government-funded lab specializes in making parts that are basically “structures within structures”, the kind of things that are used in advanced prosthetic limbs, machinery, and robots. As they claim, this sort of manufacturing is made possible thanks to the new generation of 3D ABS and metal printers.

Oakridge_natlabWhat’s more, this new process is far more efficient. Compared to old fashioned forms of machining, it consumes less energy and generates far less waste in terms of materials used. And the range of applications is extensive, embracing fields as divergent as robotics and construction to biomedical and aerospace. At present, the only real prohibition is the cost of the equipment itself, but that is expected to come down as 3D printing and additive manufacturers receive more market penetration.


But of course, all of this pales in comparison to the prospect of 3D printed buildings. As Behrokh Khoshnevis – a professor of Industrial & Systems Engineering at USC – explains in this last video from TEDxTalks, conventional construction methods are not only inefficient, labor intensive and dangerous, they may very well be hampering development efforts in the poorer parts of the world.

As anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of poverty and underdevelopment knows, slums and shanty-towns suffer disproportionately from the problems of crime, disease, illiteracy, and infant mortality. Unfortunately, government efforts to create housing in regions where these types of communities are common are restrained by budgets and resource shortages. With one billion people living in shanties and slum-like shelters, a new means of creating shelter needs to be found for the 21st century.

contour-craftingThe solution, according to Khoshnevis, lies in Contour Crafting and Automated Construction –  a process which can create a custom house in just 20 hours! As a proponent of Computer-Assisted Design and Computer-Assisted Manufacturing (CAD/CAM), he sees automated construction as a cost-effective and less labor resource-intensive means of creating homes for these and other people who are likely to live in unsafe, unsanitary conditions.

The technology is already in place, so any claims of that is of a “theoretical nature” are moot. What’s more, such processes are already being designed to construct settlements on the moon, incorporating robotics and 3D printing with advanced computer-assisted simulations. As such, Khoshnevis is hardly alone in advocating similar usages here on planet Earth.

The benefits, as he outlines them, are dignity, safety, and far more sanitary conditions for the inhabitants, as well as the social benefits of breaking the pathological cycle of underdevelopment. Be sure to check out his video below. It’s a bit long, but very enlightening!


Once in awhile, its good to take stock of the future and see that it’s not all creepy robots and questionable inventions. Much of the time, technological progress really does promise to make life better, and not just “more convenient”. It’s also especially good to see how it can be made to improve the lives of all people, rather than perpetuating the gap between the haves and the have nots.

Until next time, keep your heads high and your eyes to the horizon!

 

News From Space: Meteors Hits Saturns’ Rings

Saturn_with_aurorasFor some time, scientists have been aware of the fact that Earth, the Moon, and every body in our Solar System is subject to impacts by meteors, asteroids and comets. And sometimes, on rare occasions, we get to watch it happen, and its a pretty spectacular sight.  Now, for the first time ever, the Cassini spacecraft has provided direct evidence of small meteoroids crashing into Saturn’s rings.

In addition to being a pretty spellbinding site, studying the impact rate of meteoroids from outside the Saturnian system presents scientists with the opportunity to study how planets in our Solar System are formed. This is due to Saturn’s rings, which act a very effective detector of surrounding phenomena, including the interior structure of the planet and the orbits of its moons.

Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif, spoke on record about the observed impacts:

These new results imply the current-day impact rates for small particles at Saturn are about the same as those at Earth — two very different neighborhoods in our solar system — and this is exciting to see. It took Saturn’s rings acting like a giant meteoroid detector — 100 times the surface area of the Earth — and Cassini’s long-term tour of the Saturn system to address this question.

asteroid_belt1In the past, changes in the disposition of Saturn’s rings indicated that impacts were taking place. One such example came in 1983, when an extensive corrogation of 19,000 km (12,000 miles) across the innermost rings told of a very large meteoroid impact. And after the Saturnian equinox back in summer of 2009, astronomers were able to detect a great deal of debris left behind by several meteoroids striking the rings.

However, as Matt Tiscareno, a Cassini scientist at Cornell University explains, this was the first time the impacts were observed directly:

We knew these little impacts were constantly occurring, but we didn’t know how big or how frequent they might be, and we didn’t necessarily expect them to take the form of spectacular shearing clouds. The sunlight shining edge-on to the rings at the Saturnian equinox acted like an anti-cloaking device, so these usually invisible features became plain to see.

Comet1What’s more, Tiscareno and his colleagues were also to come up with some rather new and interesting theories about Saturn itself and how it came to be. Jeff Cuzzi, a Cassini interdisciplinary scientist specializing in planetary rings and dust at NASA’s Ames Research Center, explains:

Saturn’s rings are unusually bright and clean, leading some to suggest that the rings are actually much younger than Saturn. To assess this dramatic claim, we must know more about the rate at which outside material is bombarding the rings. This latest analysis helps fill in that story with detection of impactors of a size that we weren’t previously able to detect directly.

Meteoric impacts and asteroids have been taking place since the formation of our Solar System. In addition to having a serious impact (no pun) on the formation of the planets, they have also played a prominent role in the evolution of life here on planet Earth. And with the expansion in space exploration afforded to us by space probes, satellites, and planetary rovers, we can expect to witness more of these events firsthand.

Source: universetoday.com