2023 – Page 76 – Impact Lab

boston dynamics’ humanoid robot ‘atlas’ effortlessly helps on construction sites

January 26, 2023

BOSTON DYNAMICS ON ‘ATLAS’ INTERACTING WITH OBJECTS

Boston Dynamics’ handy helper and humanoid robot Atlas can maneuver obstacles, seamlessly join a choreographed dance party, or jog on its own in the park, and today, he can effortlessly work on construction sites. In the recently released video by the group, Atlas manipulates the world around it as the humanoid robot interacts with objects and modifies the course it is on.

Atlas tests its locomotion, sensing, and athleticism by delivering a bag of tools to a person waiting at the top of a multi-story scaffold and even pushing a cargo box from his position. Atlas grasps, carries, and tosses the tool bag, climbs stairs, jumps between levels, and tips over a large wooden block out of its way before dismounting with an inverted 540-degree flip that project engineers have dubbed the ‘Sick Trick.’

Atlas control lead Ben Stephens says that parkour and dancing were examples of what might be extreme locomotion, and now the team is trying to build upon that research to also do more robotics manipulation. ‘It’s important to us that the robot can perform these tasks with a certain amount of human speed. People are very good at these tasks, so that has required some pretty big upgrades to the control software,’ he says.

Batteries

Exploring the Outer Solar System Takes Power, Here’s a Way to Miniaturize Nuclear Batteries for Deep Space

January 25, 2023

As science and technology advance, we’re asking our space missions to deliver more and more results. NASA’s MSL Curiosity and Perseverance rovers illustrate this fact. Perseverance is an exceptionally exquisite assemblage of technologies. These cutting-edge rovers need a lot of power to fulfill their tasks, and that means bulky and expensive power sources.

Space exploration is an increasingly energy-hungry endeavour. Orbiters and fly-by missions can perform their tasks using solar power, at least as far out as Jupiter. And ion drives can take spacecraft to more distant regions. But to really understand distant worlds like the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, or even the more distant Pluto, we’ll need to eventually land a rover and/or lander on them just as we have on Mars.

Those missions require more power to operate, and that usually means MMRTGs (Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators.) But they’re bulky, heavy, and expensive, three undesirable traits for spacecraft. Each one costs over $100 million. Is there a better solution?

Stephen Polly thinks there is.

Polly is a research scientist at the NanoPower Research Laboratories at the Rochester Institute of Technology. His work focuses on something most of us have likely never heard of: the development, growth, characterization, and integration of III-V materials by metalorganic vapour phase epitaxy (MOVPE).

Alternative Transportation

URBAN V AIMS TO DEVELOP A CARIBBEAN FLYING TAXI NETWORK

January 25, 2023

Massimiliano Pane

By CHRIS STONOR

Italy-based Urban V, recently announced its intention to develop a flying taxi network for the Caribbean, reports sknvibes.com. The company is owned by Aeroporti di Roma, SAVE Group, Aeroporto di Bologna and Aeroports de la Côte d’Azur in France and has been set up for the development of global Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) infrastructure.

Urban V is presently in discussion with a Caribbean airline regarding a pilot project connecting a number of islands. The company also plans to establish stakeholder partnerships with local airports, cruise ship ports and major hotels and resorts.

Massimiliano Pane, Urban V’s Head of Business Development and Finance, commented, “We have the ambition to be among the first in the world to launch Advanced Air Mobility commercial networks. We plan to activate the first route by the end of 2024 in Rome.”

He continued, “Last October, UrbanV unveiled in Rome, Europe’s first test vertiport adjacent to one of Europe’s busiest airport hubs with crewed public trial flights.”

Space Flight

A nuclear-powered rocket could take astronauts to Mars in just 45 days

January 25, 2023

Image: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Chris Smith (KBRwyle)

By Joshua Hawkins

NASA’s manned mission to Mars would take seven months with the current technology we have for rockets. However, a nuclear-powered spacecraft could make that trek in just 45 days, according to news shared by the space agency. The design, which has been in the works in some fashion for the past few decades, uses a nuclear reactor to provide energy to the rocket.

Nuclear Thermal and Nuclear Electric Propulsion (NTP/NEP) is a top contender for the job, too. The original design is part of research completed by the NASA and Soviet space program, which happened during the Space Race all those years ago. A few years ago, NASA reignited the program for the explicit purpose of creating a bimodal nuclear propulsion device that would consist of NTP and NEP elements.

The idea is to create a nuclear-powered spacecraft capable of cutting down the transit time to Mars and other planets exponentially. NASA shared an updated page on the topic this month, detailing how the system would look and how it would take advantage of a wave rotor topping cycle. This new class of propulsion system would cut the Mars trip down by literal months.

3D Printer

Affordable-housing hopes are building around 3D printed homes

January 25, 2023

D printing can potentially be a faster and cheaper method of building homes. But it may require more than technology to take these dwellings mainstream.

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To make housing more affordable in the U.S., we need more of it. Millions of additional units, by most estimates.

This shortage of housing has a range of complex causes, but the high cost of construction — which rose even further thanks to pandemic-driven labor and supply constraints — is definitely not helping.

An idea from the tech world holds the potential to make the building process more efficient: 3D printing. Startups have been experimenting with the technology in large-scale construction, and now there’s a push to take it mainstream.

Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with journalist Rachel Monroe, who took a deep dive into the topic in this week’s issue of The New Yorker.

The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.

DNA

New nanocapsules deliver therapy brain-wide, edit Alzheimer’s gene in mice

January 25, 2023

Researchers at UW–Madison have engineered silica nanocapsules to cross the blood-brain barrier in mice to deliver brain-wide gene editing therapy for Alzheimer’s disease.

By Laura Red Eagle

Gene therapies have the potential to treat neurological disorders like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, but they face a common barrier — the blood-brain barrier. Now, researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have developed a way to move therapies across the brain’s protective membrane to deliver brain-wide therapy with a range of biological medications and treatments.

“There is no cure yet for many devastating brain disorders,” says Shaoqin “Sarah” Gong, UW–Madison professor of ophthalmology and visual sciences and biomedical engineering and researcher at the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery. “Innovative brain-targeted delivery strategies may change that by enabling noninvasive, safe and efficient delivery of CRISPR genome editors that could, in turn, lead to genome-editing therapies for these diseases.”

CRISPR is a molecular toolkit for editing genes (for example, to correct mutations that may cause disease), but the toolkit is only useful if it can get through security to the job site. The blood-brain barrier is a membrane that selectively controls access to the brain, screening out toxins and pathogens that may be present in the bloodstream. Unfortunately, the barrier bars some beneficial treatments, like certain vaccines and gene therapy packages, from reaching their targets because in lumps them in with hostile invaders.

VR

Medical students get ready to diagnose and treat patients with realistic 3D virtual simulation

January 25, 2023

Wolters Kluwer and Body Interact collaborate to build clinical reasoning skills and confidence of medical and PA students with realistic virtual patient simulations, in a safe-to-fail environment.

Wolters Kluwer, Health, a leading global provider of information and point of care solutions for the healthcare industry, has announced a new collaboration with Take the Wind, the company behind the leading digital simulation platform Body Interact, to help expand virtual training tools and resources for medical and physician assistant students. The offering allows students to interact with virtual patients in life-like scenarios, where they are encouraged to assess, order tests, and diagnose in a safe environment.

Robots

Robots Can Stop To Smell The Roses Now, Thanks To AI And A Biological Sensor

January 23, 2023

by Tim Sweezy

Researchers at the University of Tel Aviv have developed a robot that can “smell” using an innovative biological sensor. The sensor transfers electrical information in response to the presence of an odor, which the robot is capable of detecting and interpreting. However, the technology is still lags far behind what of millions of years of evolution has enabled.

The breakthrough out of the University of Tel Aviv has researchers hopeful that the new technology could be used in the future to identify explosives, drugs, diseases, and more. This is due to the fact that they were able to identify odors with a level of sensitivity 10,000 times higher than that of a commonly used electronic device that’s employed today.

“An example of this can be found at the airport where we go through a magnetometer that costs millions of dollars and can detect if we are carrying any metal devices. But when they want to check if a passenger is smuggling drugs, they bring in a dog to sniff him,” stated Dr. Ben Maoz of the Fleishman Faculty of Engineering and the Sagol School of Neuroscience.

Researchers provided the example of a mosquito, which can detect “a 0.01 percent difference in the level of carbon dioxide in the air.” Professor Amir Ayali of the School of Zoology and the Sagol Neuroscience added, “Today, we are far from producing sensors whose capabilities come close to those of insects.”Play

quantum computing

Quantum Manhattan Project: Qunnect’s Quantum Networking Testbed Expands to Manhattan

January 23, 2023

BY MATT SWAYNE

Qunnect announced the construction of a new fiber loop that expands its quantum networking testbed, GothamQ, from Brooklyn to Manhattan.
The loop, which will connect New York University to the Navy Yard, is another step toward unlocking quantum internet capabilities for customers in financial services, critical infrastructure, and telecom in the New York metropolitan area, the company reports.
Critical Quote: “We are building a creative collaboration whereby the educational and research environment can be used to develop a better understanding of quantum communication networks.” — Javad Shabani, NYU Arts & Science physicist.
Image: Entangling New York City: In partnership with New York University (NYU), Qunnect has begun experiments to prove the feasibility of distribution of commercially-usable entanglement on some of the world’s noisiest, traffic-heavy fiber networks. Source: Qunnect.

PRESS RELEASE — – Qunnect, an industry leader in quantum-secure networking technology designed for scalable deployment on existing telecom fiber infrastructure, announced the construction of a new fiber loop that expands its quantum networking testbed, GothamQ, from Brooklyn to Manhattan. Connecting New York University (NYU) to the Navy Yard, Qunnect is poised to unlock quantum internet capabilities for customers in financial services, critical infrastructure, and telecom in the New York metropolitan area.

Space

Africa will get a new $1 billion spaceport in Djibouti

January 23, 2023

The spaceport, expected to include seven satellite launch pads and three rocket testing pads, will be the first orbital spaceport on the continent.

Africa could soon get a new spaceport after Djibouti signed a partnership deal with Hong Kong Aerospace Technology to build a facility to launch satellites and rockets in the northern Obock region.

According to the preliminary deal, the Djibouti government will “provide the necessary land (minimum 10 sq km and with a term of not less than 35 years) and all the necessary assistance to build and operate the Djiboutian Spaceport.”ADVERTISEMENT

The $1 billion spaceport project will also involve the construction of a port facility, a power grid and a highway to ensure the reliable transportation of aerospace materials.

The deal’s signing was presided over by the president of Djibouti, Ismail Omar Guelleh, and the project is set to be completed in the next five years.

The spaceport is a massive milestone for Africa, making it the first orbital spaceport on African soil.

Green Friendly

A Swiss company says it has pulled CO2 out of the atmosphere and stored it underground

January 22, 2023

Collector containers at the “Orca” direct air capture and storage facility, operated by Climeworks AG, in Hellisheidi, Iceland.

By JUSTINE CALMA

Climeworks says a third-party auditor has verified its carbon removal for Microsoft, Stripe, and Shopify.

Microsoft, Stripe, and Shopify are officially the first companies in the world to pay to filter their carbon dioxide emissions out of the air, store those emissions underground, and have that service verified by a third party. Climate tech company Climeworks announced yesterday that it had completed the service, and its third-party verification of the carbon removal marks a first for the emerging industry.

In 2021, Climeworks opened up the world’s largest direct air capture (DAC) plant, called Orca, which essentially filters carbon dioxide out of the ambient air. That captured carbon is then supposed to be trapped in basalt rock formations permanently, keeping the greenhouse gas from lingering in our atmosphere and heating up the planet.

The tech sort of mimics what forests and trees do naturally when they take in and store carbon dioxide, a process companies have attempted to exploit for years as a way to “offset” their carbon dioxide emissions. But forest offsets have a track record of failing to result in any real-world reductions of greenhouse gas emissions. That quality control problem makes verifying carbon removal from new direct air capture facilities crucial.

That quality control problem makes verifying carbon removal from new direct air capture facilities crucial.

Robots

Boston Dynamics’ Atlas Robot Can Now Pick Up and Throw Things

January 22, 2023

A video demo shows how Atlas could help human construction workers at a building site (or possibly lead a robot uprising).

By Michael Kane

We’ve seen the Atlas robot from Boston Dynamics dance, do backflips, and even perform parkour. But now it’s received a new skill: the ability to pick up and throw objects.

In a new video, the Atlas robot is seen carrying a tool bag up some scaffolding and then throwing it to a human construction worker who’s standing on a simulated construction site. The demonstration requires Atlas to use its sensors and a large variety of capabilities to navigate the site while remaining balanced.

In the video, the Atlas robot first picks up and places a large wooden plank to act as a bridge over the construction site. The machine then proceeds to walk over the plank after picking up the tool bag with its two hands.