A journey of a billion miles and back begins with a launch.
OSIRIS-REx’s goal: Travel to asteroid Bennu, collect a sample, and return it home. But why Bennu? Meet the NASA Explorers looking for clues to our early solar system in a sample of asteroid rock.
Continue reading “NASA Explorers Season 6, Episode 1: Launch” »
Imagine a house that also turns into a robot 😀 Then you can just move it super easily anywhere: D.
When was the last time you sat down to watch a YouTube video by a real estate company? We’re going to assume never, because who even knew that real estate companies had YouTube accounts?
Japan’s Mitsui Real Estate Residential, however, not only has a YouTube account, but their recently posted video is becoming wildly popular. The company managed to combine their housing expertise with the fail-safe giant robot genre to create a short animated series about apartment buildings that transform into giant robots!
We spent 90 minutes with the pin and its founders at Humane’s SF offices.
A few hours after this morning’s big unveil, Humane opened its doors to a handful of press.
A few hours after this morning’s big unveil, Humane opened its doors to a handful of press. Located in a nondescript building in San Francisco’s SoMa neighborhood, the office is home to the startup’s hardware design teams.
Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky said that the digital home-share company will reap the benefits of artificial intelligence more than hotels, at least in the near term.
“The reason we know this is because AI is mostly changing… the digital world a lot faster than the physical world,” Chesky told reporters during a meeting in New York City on Tuesday. “Because we have more of a digital product, we can actually adapt and change faster.”
Chesky also said that hotels are not going to be different five years from now because of AI, but that Airbnb “will be transformed.”
Asteroid starships are built by hollowing out an asteroid and creating a habitat inside plus adding a propulsion system.
Image credit: David A. Hardy, Erik Wernquist, Roy Scarfo, Wikipedia.
#interstellar #asteroid #starship #spacecolonization #spacecraft #ProjectHyperion
A recent study published in AGU Advances examines how the conservation and protection of two Alaskan forests, Tongass and Chugach, are essential in fighting the effects of climate change due to their expanse for wildlife habitats, abundant carbon stocks, and landscape integrity. This study was led by researchers from Oregon State University and holds the potential to help scientists better understand the steps that need to be taken to mitigate the long-term effects of climate change by preserving the resources of today.
Tongass National Forest (Credit: Logan Berner)
“More thoroughly safeguarding those forests from industrial development would contribute significantly to climate change mitigation and species adaptation in the face of the severe ecological disruption that’s expected to occur over the next few decades as the climate rapidly gets warmer,” said Dr. Beverly Law, who is a Professor Emeritus of Global Change Biology & Terrestrial Systems Science at Oregon State University and lead author of the study.
ACAPULCO, Mexico (AP) — First came the devastation, then people’s desperation.
Hurricane Otis blasted the Mexican tourist port of Acapulco like no other storm before in the Eastern Pacific. As a monstrous Category 5 meteor, with its 165 mph (266 kph) winds, it destroyed what it found in its path: large residential buildings, houses, hotels, roads and stores.
Fallen trees and power line poles covered practically all the streets in this city of more than 1 million people. The walls and the roofs of buildings and houses were left partially or totally ripped off, while some cars were buried under debris.
Desert-dwelling bacteria that feed on sunlight, slurp up carbon dioxide, and emit oxygen could be incorporated into paint that supplements the air in a habitat on Mars.
It’s called Chroococcidiopsis cubana, and scientists have developed a biocoating that emits measurable amounts of oxygen on a daily basis while reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the air around it. This has implications, not just for space travel but here at home on Earth, too, according to a team led by microbiologist Simone Krings of the University of Surrey in the UK.
“With the increase in greenhouse gasses, particularly CO2, in the atmosphere and concerns about water shortages due to rising global temperatures, we need innovative, environmentally friendly, and sustainable materials,” says bacteriologist Suzie Hingley-Wilson of the University of Surrey.
How basic income works.
Over the course of a year, the Denver Basic Income Project gives participants cash payments of varying amounts. Many participants, some of whom were living on the streets a few months before enrolling in the program, reported feeling safer, happier, and less anxious with better living arrangements.
The Denver Basic Income Project began in 2021 and was granted a $2 million contribution from the city. Researchers at the University of Denver’s Center on Housing and Homelessness Research found most of those who received money from the program were significantly better off six months in.
Continue reading “Basic-income participants in Denver say it helped turn their lives around” »
In an ancient hot spring haunt of Incan rulers, researchers discovered a new species of tiny, shrimp-like scavengers known as amphipods thriving at record temperatures that can cook other crustaceans to death.
Although called freshwater shrimps, amphipods are not true shrimps. Typically, they dwell in cool aquatic and semi-aquatic habitats. So Japanese and Peruvian researchers were stunned when unidentified Hyalella species showed up during a hot spring biota survey of Baños del Inca (Baths of the Inca) near the ancient Inca city of Cajamarca.
“Though the amphipod is a taxon with a great diversity of habitats, the discovery of a new species from a previously unexpected high-temperature environment is most surprising,” said study corresponding author Ko Tomikawa, professor at Hiroshima University’s (HU) Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences.
