drones

Delivery drone manufacturer Zipline initially started as a medical supply provider via autonomous aircraft, operating distributing centers in Rwanda and Ghana. Now the company launches its first commercial drone delivery service in the United States, with Northwest Arkansas being the first region on its list. 7 photos

In order to bring its drone delivery services to Arkansas, Zipline partnered up with Walmart. The two just launched an instant, on-demand delivery service in Pea Ridge, Arkansas, with customers being able to select from a wide range of health and wellness consumable items.

Robots

Alphabet is putting its prototype robots to work cleaning up around Google’s offices

November 29, 2021

Though the machines are still very much a work in progress

By James Vincent

What does Google’s parent company Alphabet want with robots? Well, it would like them to clean up around the office, for a start.

The company announced today that its Everyday Robots Project — a team within its experimental X labs dedicated to creating “a general-purpose learning robot” — has moved some of its prototype machines out of the lab and into Google’s Bay Area campuses to carry out some light custodial tasks.

“We are now operating a fleet of more than 100 robot prototypes that are autonomously performing a range of useful tasks around our offices,” said Everyday Robot’s chief robot officer Hans Peter Brøndmo in a blog post. “The same robot that sorts trash can now be equipped with a squeegee to wipe tables and use the same gripper that grasps cups can learn to open doors.”

These robots in question are essentially arms on wheels, with a multipurpose gripper on the end of a flexible arm attached to a central tower. There’s a “head” on top of the tower with cameras and sensors for machine vision and what looks like a spinning lidar unit on the side, presumably for navigation.

Alternative Transportation, Science & Technology News

Hyperloop Transportation Technologies offers look inside capsule that will one day travel at 700 mph

November 29, 2021

By: John Kosich

CLEVELAND — While we’ve talked about Hyperloop travel since plans were announced in 2018 to one day connect Cleveland to Chicago in 28 minutes or Cleveland to Pittsburgh in 19, the renderings have always been from the outside. Now for the first time, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, the group behind the Cleveland project, is giving us the inside look.

“This is the interior that we’re building for the first Hyperloop system so a version of this is what you’ll be able to ride for the first Hyperloop between Chicago and Cleveland,” said Robert Miller, HyperloopTT’s chief marketing officer.

Space

NASA’s DART Mission Could Help Cancel an Asteroid Apocalypse

November 27, 2021

Illustration of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission and its target, Dimorphos, a moonlet of the asteroid Didymos. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Steve Gribben

By Robin George Andrews

Our planet is vulnerable to thousands of “city-killer” space rocks. If—when—one is found on a collision course with Earth, will we be ready to deflect it?

Back when Andy Rivkin was in college, he had a few friends in medical school. “I was like, oh man, I don’t want do anything that has too much responsibility,” he says. Instead, he looked to the stars. “Astronomy seemed pretty safe.” And, for a while, it was. Rather than having to make decisions about someone’s root canal or abdominal surgery, he watched worlds flit about in the darkness.

But Rivkin, a planetary astronomer at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Baltimore, has found himself with more responsibility than he expected. Along with hundreds of others, he is part of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission, an ambitious effort led by NASA and the APL to slam an uncrewed spacecraft into an asteroid to change its orbit. This is a dry run for the real deal: one day, a technological descendant of DART could be used to deflect a planet-threatening space rock, saving millions—perhaps billions—of lives in the process.

On November 23, DART will launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base. Sometime next fall, it will smash into its target at 24,000 kilometers per hour. Ground-based astronomers like Rivkin will watch the rendezvous unfold with bated breath, hoping to see the telltale signs of success: a dust cloud, and an asteroid dancing to humanity’s tune for the very first time. Will it work?

Space Flight

Iodine-powered satellite successfully tested in space for first time

November 27, 2021

time

The iodine electric propulsion system firing in a vacuum chamber

By Chen Ly

Many satellites use xenon as a propellant to help them change orbit or avoid collisions, but the gas is expensive – now we know iodine provides a cheaper alternative.

A satellite has been successfully powered by iodine for the first time. Iodine performed better than the traditional propellant of choice, xenon – highlighting iodine’s potential utility for future space missions.

Spacecraft use propulsion systems to move around in space, helping them to change orbit or avoid collisions, for example. A key part of propulsion systems is the propellant – a substance expelled from the spacecraft to drive it forwards.

Currently, xenon is the main propellant used in electric propulsion systems, but the chemical is rare and expensive to produce. As a gas, xenon must also be stored at very high pressures, which requires specialised equipment.

Iodine has a similar atomic mass to xenon but is more abundant and much cheaper. It can also be stored as an unpressurised solid, meaning it has the potential to simplify satellite designs.

Driverless vehicles, Science & Technology News

China’s Baidu wants to launch its driverless robotaxi service in 100 cities by 2030

November 27, 2021

An Apollo Robotaxi runs at Shougang Park as Baidu launches China’s first driverless taxi service in the city on May 2, 2021 in Beijing, China.

By Arjun Kharpal

Baidu plans to launch its driverless taxi service in 100 cities by 2030 as the Chinese search giant looks to diversify its business beyond advertising.
The company wants to expand Apollo Go to 65 cities by 2025 and then 100 cities by 2030, Baidu CEO Robin Li said in an internal letter that was made public.
Baidu’s driverless car announcement comes after the company reported revenue of 31.92 billion yuan ($4.95 billion) for the third quarter, which was ahead of market expectations.

GUANGZHOU, China — Baidu plans to launch its driverless taxi service in 100 cities by 2030, as the Chinese search giant looks to diversify its business beyond advertising.

Currently, Baidu operates its Apollo Go robotaxi service in five Chinese cities. Users can hail an autonomous car via an app.

The company wants to expand Apollo Go to 65 cities by 2025 and then 100 cities by 2030, Baidu CEO Robin Li said in an internal letter that was made public.

Cancer

Experts develop a functional precision medicine approach to assign therapies to cancer patients

November 26, 2021

by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.

A functional precision medicine study conducted in Finland demonstrates that treatment selection based on results from drug sensitivity testing of patients’ cells can be clinically useful in patients with aggressive hematological cancers.

Clinicians, researchers and technology experts from the Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland FIMM at the University of Helsinki and Helsinki University Hospital Comprehensive Cancer Center have over the last 10 years developed and tested a functional precision medicine approach to assign therapies to individual cancer patients. Their latest results have just been published in Cancer Discovery, a top-tier journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

The group has focused on patients with hematological cancers, particularly acute myeloid leukemia (AML), since standard therapies for the advanced forms of these malignancies have a limited effect and the outcome is invariably poor.

Stem cells

Decades of research show common stem cells could fuel advances in regenerative medicine

November 26, 2021

Adult stem cells (indicated by the white arrows) show promise in treating a variety of conditions, according to research by Dr. Eckhard Alt of the School of Medicine. These cells were obtained from adult adipose, or fat tissue. Credit: Dr. Eckhard Alt

by Tulane University

Could naturally occurring stem cells throughout the body hold the key to unlocking the next generation of advances in regenerative medicine?

Absolutely, according to Tulane University Professor of Medicine Dr. Eckhard Alt, who recently published a perspective in the journal Cells that outlines how a type of adult stem cell holds tremendous promise to fuel advances in treating everything from knee joint restoration to helping paraplegics regain mobility after severe spinal cord injuries.

The article provides strong evidence supporting the existence of a small, vascular-associated, pluripotent stem cell type (vaPS cells) that is ubiquitously distributed throughout all organs of the adult body. Pluripotent stem cells can transform into any type of cell.

Cancer

Shapeshifting Microrobots that Fight Cancer on a Cellular Level

November 26, 2021

Researchers have developed fish-shaped microrobots that are guided with magnets to cancer cells.

No, it’s not from a science fiction movie or from an episode of a popular kid’s television show. It’s real life. Researchers, in a proof-of-concept study, have made fish-shaped microrobots that are guided with magnets to cancer cells, where a pH change triggers them to open their mouths and release their chemotherapy cargo.

Scientists have previously made microscale (smaller than 100 µm) robots that can manipulate tiny objects, but most can’t change their shapes to perform complex tasks, such as releasing drugs. Some groups have made 4D-printed objects (3D-printed devices that change shape in response to certain stimuli), but they typically perform only simple actions, and their motion can’t be controlled remotely.

new technology

Researchers Use Quantum Entanglement to Achieve “Ultrabroadband”

November 25, 2021

By Alex McFarland

Researchers at the University of Rochester have harnessed quantum entanglement to achieve incredibly large bandwidth. They did this by using a thin-film nanophotonic device.

This new approach could lead to enhanced sensitivity and resolution for experiments in metrology and sensing, as well as higher dimensional encoding of information in quantum networks for information processing and communications.

The research was published in Physical Review Letters.

NASA

NASA’s Laser Demonstrations Extend to Deep Space

November 25, 2021

By George Leopold

NASA plans to launch a pair of laser communications missions over the next nine months that would demonstrate high-bandwidth optical relays capable of someday transmitting streaming HD video and other data from planetary probes.

The launch of the Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD) scheduled for Dec. 4 will be followed as early as August 2022 by the launch of the Deep Space Optical Communications flight demonstration, program officials said this week. LCRD, testing laser communications from geosynchronous orbit, is managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is overseeing development of the deep space mission that will operate between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter as part of NASA mission to study a giant metal asteroid.

The LCRD payload consists of two optical terminals, each with bi-directional optical communications capability along with switching circuitry that enables one terminal to receive signals, switch data to the second terminal and relay it in real time to one of two ground stations in California and Hawaii.

Medical Breakthrough

Harnessing T-Cell Biology To Develop Living Drugs

November 25, 2021

Superresolution image of a group of killer T cells (green and red) surrounding a cancer cell (blue, center). Credit: Alex Ritter, Jennifer Lippincott Schwartz, Gillian Griffiths/ National Institutes of Health

MUSC Hollings Cancer Center researcher Leonardo Ferreira, Ph.D., well-regarded for his pioneering work with regulatory T-cells, published a paper in Frontiers in Immunology that describes his experience using chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) regulatory T-cells to address the challenge of transplant tolerance.

Ferreira, who joined the Medical University of South Carolina’s Department of Immunology on July 1, is changing the rules of the game by exploiting the unique biology of regulatory T-cells, or Tregs. His overall research goal is to understand Treg biology more thoroughly in order to use the cells to treat a range of autoimmune problems.