Impact Lab – Page 405 – A Laboratory of the Future Human Experience

This Fingertip for Robots Uses Magnets to ‘Feel’ Things

March 21, 2021

By sensing the subtle changes in the finger’s own magnetic field, this new technology could one day make for ultra-sensitive prosthetic hands.

By MATT SIMON

IMAGINE, IF YOU will, the home robot of the future. It picks clutter off the floor, sweeps, and does the dishes. And it has to do so perfectly: If the robot has an error rate of just 1 percent, it will drop one dish out of a hundred. Totally unacceptable. In no time, your floor would be covered in shards and the robot would get stuck in a sad, vicious feedback loop, dropping dishes and sweeping them up and dropping more dishes, ad infinitum.

To avoid this domestic nightmare, engineers will have to give robots a keen sense of touch. And for that, the machines will need fingertips, perhaps like the one recently described in the journal Science Robotics. It feels in a decidedly nonhuman way, by sensing the subtle changes in the finger’s own magnetic field, and it could one day make for ultra-sensitive prosthetic hands and robots that don’t maim tableware (or people) because they can’t control their grasp.

You, a human, can feel pressures and textures with your fingertips, thanks to specialized sensory cells in the skin called mechanoreceptors. These, along with the nervous system at large, translate mechanical information from the environment into signals your brain can comprehend as the perception of “touch.” Combined with thermoreceptors (which sense temperature) and nociceptors (which sense pain), you’re able to manipulate the world around you without hurting yourself.

Energy, Science & Technology News

Toyota creates hydrogen fuel-cell module to power buses, trains, ships

March 21, 2021

By STEPHEN EDELSTEIN

In addition to selling hydrogen fuel-cell cars, Toyota hopes to become a supplier of fuel-cell tech to other companies. To that end, the automaker has developed a modular fuel-cell system for use in other types of vehicles, including buses, trains, and ships, as well as stationary generators.

The goal is to grow the use of fuel cells by making a plug-and-play solution available to companies for the widest-possible array of applications, a Toyota press release said.

The modules are based on components from the second-generation Toyota Mirai sedan. While they include some ancillaries, such as power control, air supply, cooling, and hydrogen lines, the modules don’t include hydrogen tanks, leaving it up to each third-party user to figure out packaging.

Toyota plans to offer vertical and horizontal configurations, each with an output of 60 kilowatts (80 horsepower) or 80 kw (107 hp). The vertical version weighs about 550 pounds, while the horizontal version weighs about 530 pounds, according to Toyota.

Employment, Science & Technology News

The Looming Long-Term Unemployment Crisis

March 20, 2021

A San Francisco restaurant. New data shows that nearly 80 percent of new jobless claims in California last month were from people cycling in and out of employment.

By Ben Casselman

Why Are Jobless Claims Still High? For Some, It’s the Multiple Layoffs.

Jobs are coming back. Businesses are reopening. But a year after the pandemic jolted the economy, applications for unemployment benefits remain stubbornly, shockingly high — higher on a weekly basis than at any point in any previous recession, by some measures.

And headway has stalled: Initial weekly claims under regular and emergency programs, combined, have been stuck at just above one million since last fall, and last week was no exception, the Labor Department reported Thursday.

“It goes up a little bit, it goes down, but really we haven’t seen much progress,” said AnnElizabeth Konkel, an economist for the career site Indeed. “A year into this, I’m starting to wonder, what is it going to take to fix the magnitude problem? How is this going to actually end?”

The continued high rate of unemployment applications has been something of a mystery for many economists. With the pandemic still suppressing activity in many sectors, it makes sense that joblessness would remain high. But businesses are reopening in much of the country, and trends on employment and spending are generally improving. So shouldn’t unemployment filings be falling?

New evidence from California may offer a partial explanation: According to a report released Thursday by the California Policy Lab, a research organization affiliated with the University of California, nearly 80 percent of the unemployment applications filed in the state last month were from people who had been laid off earlier in the pandemic, gotten back to work, and then been laid off again.

Science & Technology News, Space

HARVARD SCIENTISTS PROPOSE SUPER-TALL TOWERS TO POWER MOON BASE

March 20, 2021

WITH THE MOON’S LOW GRAVITY, YOU COULD BUILD INCREDIBLY TALL TOWERS.

by VICTOR TANGERMANN

Moon Tower

Scientists have come up with an ambitious new idea to provide bases on the Moon’s surface with solar power, New Scientist reports: massive, kilometer-high towers constructed from lunar concrete and almost entirely covered in solar panels.

The team, led by Sephora Ruppert from Harvard University, suggest in a yet-to-be-peer-reviewed paper that the towers could be constructed by mixing lunar soil and heating it to bind it together, not too dissimilar from regular concrete.

“We choose concrete as the capital cost of transporting large masses of iron or carbon fiber to the Moon is presently so expensive that profitable operation of a power plant is unlikely,” the researchers write in the paper. “Concrete instead can be manufactured in situ from the lunar regolith.”

Aviation, Science & Technology News

Rolls-Royce Gets Into the eVTOL Game, Will Power Vertical Aerospace Machines

March 20, 2021

By Daniel Patrascu

When the words Rolls-Royce come up, the mind immediately links them to the British maker of luxury automobiles for some reason. But the same name has been behind some of the aviation industry’s biggest advancements over the decades, and it will probably continue to do so in the years ahead. The same name, but not the same company, as Rolls-Royce keeps reminding people.

It is Rolls-Royce Holdings plc, an aerospace and defense company we’re here to talk about today. Together with Vertical Aerospace, also a British company, they’re on the verge of developing one of the world’s first certified passenger carrying eVTOLs.

eVTOL stands for electric vertical take-off and landing vehicle, and according to some people, this will be one of the main means of transportation in the near future. VA-4X is how Vertical’s upcoming flying machine is called, a flying contraption equipped with no less than eight propellers.

Vertical plans to take the VA-4X to the skies for the first time by the end of the year and targets the start of production in 2024. When ready, the machine will be capable of taking up to four people on 120-mile (193-km) journeys at speeds of up to 200 mph (322 kph).

App, Science & Technology News

Meet Blinkist, The App All The Intellectuals Are Using

March 19, 2021

The founders of Blinkist (from left): Niklas Jansen, Tobi Balling, and Holger Seim (Not pictured: Sebastian Klein)

by Tom Farrar | Mar 10 2021

Blinkist is an app used by top thinkers around the world –– it provides genuine value for people who love to learn.

As a young man, Abraham Lincoln would stay up for hours every night reading — it played a major role in him becoming a revolutionary, a top thinker, and one of America’s most important presidents. Nowadays, no longer do we need to burn the midnight oil to stay on top of our reading — thanks to the Blinkist app which allows us to get through books like never before. At Blinkist, we gather the key insights from nonfiction books into 15-minute reads and listens.

There are over 4500 titles across 27 unique categories, cementing our app as the go-to destination for big thinkers. Professor, intellectual and founder Sarah Schupp is a big fan of Blinkist. Here’s why she’s a huge advocate of the app: “I use Blinkist when I’m in between meetings and can’t get a giant task done, but at least I can be productive.” – Sarah Schupp, Professor & Founder of UniversityParent.com Even Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, recently stopped by the Blinkist office to get a glimpse of the hype, and to check out how the award-winning startup works.

At the beginning, the Blinkist co-founders all wanted a way to read more books and figured out a way to make that possible. Today, more than 17 million people are expanding their horizons with Blinkist, and the app was named a Global Leader in Learning and Education by The United Nations.

‘Blinkist encourages you to read more nonfiction books. The app contains cleverly written digests — called blinks — where books are broken down into their main arguments.’ – The New York Times More than 17 million people are expanding their horizons with Blinkist, with thousands of knowledge hunters downloading the app everyday. Although ‘intellectual’ is a term that used to just apply to an academic few, since the internet has made information readily available, it’s now come to mean anyone who’s curious about the world around them.

Blinkist makes it easy to access trustworthy ideas from bestselling nonfiction in minutes. So, what exactly is it that top thinkers like about Blinkist?

Brain, Science & Technology News

SCIENTISTS MAY HAVE FINALLY FIGURED OUT HOW TO REVERSE AGING IN THE BRAIN

March 19, 2021

BY RICHARD FARAGHER

Just one more piece of evidence that a bowl of fruit won’t do you any harm.

The aging global population is the greatest challenge faced by 21st-century healthcare systems. Even COVID-19 is, in a sense, a disease of aging.

The risk of death from the virus roughly doubles for every nine years of life, a pattern that is almost identical to a host of other illnesses. But why are old people vulnerable to so many different things?

It turns out that a major hallmark of the aging process in many mammals is inflammation. By that, I don’t mean intense local response we typically associate with an infected wound, but a low grade, grinding, inflammatory background noise that grows louder the longer we live. This “inflammaging” has been shown to contribute to the development of atherosclerosis (the buildup of fat in arteries), diabetes, high blood pressure , frailty, cancer and cognitive decline.

Now a new study published in Nature reveals that microglia — a type of white blood cells found in the brain — are extremely vulnerable to changes in the levels of a major inflammatory molecule called prostaglandin E2(PGE2). The team found that exposure to this molecule badly affected the ability of microglia and related cells to generate energy and carry out normal cellular processes.

Fortunately, the researchers found that these effects occurred only because of PGE2’s interaction with one specific receptor on the microglia. By disrupting it, they were able to normalize cellular energy production and reduce brain inflammation. The result was improved cognition in aged mice. This offers hope that the cognitive impairment associated with growing older is a transient state we can potentially fix, rather than the inevitable consequence of aging of the brain.

Science & Technology News, SpaceX

SpaceX reveals the grand extent of its starport plans in South Texas

March 19, 2021

An orbital view of SpaceX’s South Texas launch site, with SN10 on the pad, in early March. Maxar Technologies

By Eric Berger

THE COMPANY WILL HAVE TWO ORBITAL, AND TWO SUBORBITAL LAUNCH PADS.

As part of a federal review process for its plans in South Texas, details of SpaceX’s proposed spaceport have been made public. They were posted late last week in a public notice from the US Army Corps of engineers, which is soliciting public comments on the changes.

Most notably, the new documents include a detailed architectural drawing of the multi-acre site at the southern tip of Texas, along the Gulf of Mexico. The major hardware that exists or will be built includes:

Two orbital launch pads, one of which is already under constriction
Two suborbital launch pads, one of which already exists
Two landing pads, one of which already exists
Two structural test stands for Starship and the Super Heavy booster
A large “tank farm” to provide ground support equipment for orbital flights
A permanent position for the totemic “Starhopper” vehicle at the site’s entrance

Aviation, Science & Technology News

Dutch Students Just Unveiled the World’s First Hydrogen-Powered Aircraft

March 18, 2021

Courtesy AeroDelft

By DANIEL BACHMANN

“Phoenix PT,” scheduled to fly next summer, is a prototype of a full-scale, two-passenger aircraft that will make its first flight in 2022.

While hydrogen-powered aircraft have been viewed with skepticism by many mainstream aviation experts, a team of students in the Netherlands plans to fly the world’s first aircraft with liquid-hydrogen fuel cells in July. The students from Delft University of Technology, calling themselves the AeroDelft team, just revealed a prototype called Phoenix PT.

Delft University also achieved another milestone last September, successfully demonstrating a prototype of the Flying V, a blended-wing design that promises to be much more fuel-efficient than traditional commercial aircraft.

AeroDelft just announced that it recently completed the ground tests for the crew-less Phoenix PT, which weighs about 113 pounds. It will carry two pounds of liquid hydrogen for its maiden flight. AeroDelft calculates Phoenix PT will have a range of 311 miles and flight time of up to seven hours.

AI, Science & Technology News

Artificial Intelligence Is Guiding Human Return to the Moon

March 18, 2021

· By Daniel Patrascu

There is no doubt the only way forward for humanity is to enlist the help of artificial intelligence systems, such as they presently are. They are required, you see, because humans always had a habit of biting off more than they can chew, and engage in audacious projects that are far beyond the capabilities of their brains.

One such project is the Artemis lunar exploration program. Later this year, the first flight in a longer series is set to depart for the Moon with no crew on board to test performance, life support, and communication capabilities.

Then, in 2023, astronauts will head for the Earth satellite, without landing there, followed in 2024 by the Artemis III mission that will actually put human boots on the ground after decades of absence.

Crucial to the success of the missions is the Orion capsule. Cooked up in the Lockheed Martin laboratories, Orion is the actual spaceship that will ensure astronauts arrive at their destination alive and well, and then back to Earth.

3D Printer, Science & Technology News

High-Speed 3D Printing Method Takes Us One Step Closer to Printing Organs

March 18, 2021

The new method uses stereolithography and jelly-like materials known as hydrogels to speed up the process.

By Loukia Papadopoulos

3D printing technologies have evolved at an unbelievable pace resulting in everything from 3D printed meat, to 3D printed houses to even 3D printed guns.

Many 3D printers have boasted that they may be the future of printed organs but we haven’t gotten there just yet. Now, a new study out of the University of Buffalo may just be the key to 3D printed organs.

“The technology we’ve developed is 10-50 times faster than the industry standard, and it works with large sample sizes that have been very difficult to achieve previously,” said in a statement the study’s co-lead author Ruogang Zhao, Ph.D., associate professor of biomedical engineering.

cutting edge, Science & Technology News

This Futuristic, 200-Foot Hybrid Expedition Yacht Concept Can Go 6,000 Miles on a Single Tank

March 17, 2021

By Rachel Cormack

Renowned yacht designer Steve Kozloff has added yet another feather to his cap, and it comes in the form of a striking new expedition vessel.

The California-based engineer, who founded the Goliath polar-explorer series, designed the aptly named Arctic Owl for scientific research and global exploration. As such, the 200-footer will ferry seafarers to the farthest reaches while keeping them in the lap of luxury.

The vessel’s design has a retrofuturist aesthetic. The singular silhouette pairs sculpted curves with a dramatic sharp bow, giving the yacht the ocean-going equivalent of a ’60s-era spaceship. It sports a steel ice-class full displacement hull that can power through the most challenging waters of the Arctic, along with an aluminum superstructure.

“I was driven by the goal of having panoramic vistas and a fast hull,” Kozloff told Robb Report via email. “I wanted excellent visibility so that the owner can enjoy the spectacular scenery they will be sailing to. I also wanted the ship to be faster and use less fuel hence the narrow beam.”