- Launch sends Rocket Lab to lead in global space competition
- Six satellites carried into low orbit from sheep farm launchCheap, quick access to space has officially arrived — and in some serious style.On a late Sunday afternoon in New Zealand, Rocket Lab successfully launched its third rocket. Dozens of employees gathered at the company’s headquarters in Auckland clad in Rocket Lab’s black-and-red colors and let out a series of primordial screams as the rocket took off, flew into space and dropped its satellite payload into orbit. Continue reading… “Rocket launch in New Zealand brings quick, cheap space access”
WA’s Fastbrick robot building home in three days a ‘world-first’
PERTH-based Fastbrick Robotics has achieved what it says is a world-first with the fully automated construction of a three-bedroom, two-bathroom house in less than three days.
The ASX-listed company says civil and structural engineers verified that the structure — completed on Monday in WA by a robotic arm from a 3D model — met relevant building standards, setting the stage for commercialisation of the product.
The company’s share price soared on the news after coming out of a trading halt, jumping more than 21 per cent, or 3.5¢, to 20¢ by 12.30pm.
Continue reading… “WA’s Fastbrick robot building home in three days a ‘world-first’”
World’s first full-body medical scanner generates astonishing 3D images
The new EXPLORER full-body scanner promises faster and more detailed medical imaging(Credit: UC Davis)
After over a decade of development, the world’s first full-body medical scanner has produced its first images. The groundbreaking imaging device is almost 40 times faster than current PET scans and can capture a 3D picture of the entire human body in one instant scan.
Called EXPLORER, the full-body scanner combines positron emission tomography (PET) and X-ray computed tomography (CT). Following years of research, a prototype, primate-sized scanner was revealed in 2016. After expansive testing, the first human-sized device was fabricated in early 2018.
Continue reading… “World’s first full-body medical scanner generates astonishing 3D images”
L’Oréal’s wearable sensor will track your UV exposure throughout the day
It even integrates with Apple’s HealthKit.
L’Oréal has announced a wearable device that measures your exposure to ultraviolet radiation that can seriously damage your skin and eyes and potentially cause skin cancer. The La Roche-Posay My Skin Track UV sensor is designed to clip onto your clothes or bag, and it relies on NFC rather than Bluetooth to transmit its data, meaning it doesn’t require a battery to function. L’Oreal previously introduced a similar sensor that attached to your fingernail.
Continue reading… “L’Oréal’s wearable sensor will track your UV exposure throughout the day”
Quantum ‘compass’ promises navigation without using GPS
It could keep society humming when satellites fail.
GPS is vital to modern navigation, but it’s extremely fragile. Never mind coverage — if a satellite fails or there’s a jamming attack, it quickly becomes useless. Scientists may have a much more robust answer, though. Scientists have demonstrated a “commercially viable” quantum accelerometer that could provide navigation without GPS or other satellite technology. The device uses lasers to cool atoms to extremely low temperatures, and then measures the quantum wave properties of those atoms as they respond to acceleration.
Continue reading… “Quantum ‘compass’ promises navigation without using GPS”
Reaction Pre-cooled Engines could deliver reusable hypersonic planes by 2025
Reaction Engines of the UK could be part of a winning group of bidders for open-ended hypersonic weapons development.
They have proven an innovative pre-cooling system which does not require the development of new materials to handle the heat of hypersonic flight speeds.
The US Air Force Research Labs are already working with them. They would need to partner with US companies like Lockheed or Boeing to get the big military contract.
The pre-coolers are made from thousands of thin-walled tubes to provide high surface area to low weight. Each tube is joined to an inlet and outlet manifold, which allows coolant to be injected and removed for the cooling process. We’re the only people in the world with the heat exchanger manufacturing experience to bond thousands of joints in a single operation, and achieve zero leakage. The joints in our pre-cooler modules are hermetically sealed, meaning that the gas which escapes can be measured by the molecule.
Continue reading… “Reaction Pre-cooled Engines could deliver reusable hypersonic planes by 2025”
Scientists have created programmable shape-shifting liquid metal
Researchers at the University of Sussex and Swansea University have applied electrical charges to manipulate liquid metal into 2D shapes such as letters and a heart. The team says the findings represent an “extremely promising” new class of materials that can be programmed to seamlessly change shape. This open up new possibilities in ‘soft robotics’ and shape-changing displays, the researcher say.
While the invention might bring to mind the film Terminator 2, in which the villain morphs out of a pool of liquid metal, the creation of 3D shapes is still some way off. More immediate applications could include reprogrammable circuit boards and conductive ink.
Continue reading… “Scientists have created programmable shape-shifting liquid metal”
Deepfakes: The dawn of the Post-truth era
For about 200,000 years, modern humans have relied on our eyes and ears to separate truth from lies and fact from fiction. Even if we ignore the rise of fake news (and how difficult it is to do anything about it), technology (like deep learning) is on the verge of making it impossible to know if what you are seeing and hearing is real or fake.
Continue reading… “Deepfakes: The dawn of the Post-truth era”
Same-sex mouse parents give birth via gene editing
Scientists delivered pups with genetic material from two moms and two dads. But only pups with two moms survived to have babies themselves.
BIRDS DO IT, bees do it—even laboratory mice do it. But with science in the mix, actually creating new life may not always require a male and a female.
Using gene editing and stem cells, researchers in China have helped mice of the same sex bear pups. While this feat has been accomplished before with mouse moms, the new study marks the first time that pups from pairs of male mice were also carried to full term.
The technology is far from ready for the leap to humans. Though mice pups born from two females appeared healthy and bore their own young, pups with two papas died soon after birth. Of the 12 born, just two survived more than 48 hours.
Continue reading… “Same-sex mouse parents give birth via gene editing”
Scientists forge ahead with electron microscopy to build quantum materials atom by atom
With a STEM microscope, ORNL’s Ondrej Dyck brought two, three and four silicon atoms together to build clusters and make them rotate within a layer of graphene, a two-dimensional layer of carbon atoms that exhibits unprecedented strength and high electrical conductivity. Credit: Ondrej Dyck/Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Dept. of Energy
A novel technique that nudges single atoms to switch places within an atomically thin material could bring scientists another step closer to realizing theoretical physicist Richard Feynman’s vision of building tiny machines from the atom up.
A significant push to develop materials that harness the quantum nature of atoms is driving the need for methods to build atomically precise electronics and sensors. Fabricating nanoscale devices atom by atom requires delicacy and precision, which has been demonstrated by a microscopy team at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Umbra Composit could scan the world in 3D to the detail of a single grain of sand
Umbra shows a scan of Helsinki.
Last year, Umbra unveiled a tool called The Composit that will let you upload a complex 3D model to the cloud and then view it on any device. Now, the Helsinki, Finland-based company is showing how it can create a huge web-based virtual model of a city that can put something like Google Maps to shame.
Umbra claims its tech could scan the whole world down to the detail of a single grain of sand. It could be done via a kind of crowdsourcing, using only people with smartphones who use their devices as scanners. That might sound outlandish, but the company is already well under way with that mission in its native Finland.
This water gun can cut through concrete
How do firefighters put out a blaze when they can’t reach the flames?
That’s the challenge firefighters confronted in 2008, when a B-2 Stealth Bomber crashed on the runway at an American airbase in Guam.
The crew successfully ejected, but the hugely expensive aircraft was completely destroyed by a fire that burned deep within its wreckage.
“The firefighters had difficulty getting through the composite layers of the aircraft skin to fight the fire,” U.S. Air Force Chief Master Sgt. Scott Knupp told CNNMoney.
The loss of the aircraft prompted the Air Force to search for a solution.
“We were looking for some type of technology out there that would help us penetrate through [to] hard-to-reach spaces to get water onto the fire,” said Knupp.
Air Force firefighters now use a system called PyroLance — a firefighting “gun” that can blast through steel, brick or concrete walls, and even bullet-resistant glass.
Continue reading… “This water gun can cut through concrete”
