Reducing damaging “ultra-emission” methane leaks could soon become much easier–thanks to a new, open-source tool that combines machine learning and orbital data from multiple satellites, including one attached to the International Space Station.

Methane emissions originate anywhere food and plant matter decompose without oxygen, such as marshes, landfills, fossil fuel plants—and yes, cow farms. They are also infamous for their dramatic effect on air quality. Although capable of lingering in the atmosphere for just 7 to 12 years compared to CO2’s centuries-long lifespan, the gas is still an estimated 80 times more effective at retaining heat. Immediately reducing its production is integral to stave off climate collapse’s most dire short-term consequences—cutting emissions by 45 percent by 2030, for example, could shave off around 0.3 degrees Celsius from the planet’s rising temperature average over the next twenty years.

[Related: Turkmenistan’s gas fields emit loads of methane.]

Unfortunately, it’s often difficult for aerial imaging to precisely map real time concentrations of methane emissions. For one thing, plumes from so-called “ultra-emission” events like oil rig and natural gas pipeline malfunctions (see: Turkmenistan) are invisible to human eyes, as well as most satellites’ multispectral near-infrared wavelength sensors. And what aerial data is collected is often thrown off by spectral noise, requiring manual parsing to accurately locate the methane leaks.

A University of Oxford team working alongside Trillium Technologies’ NIO.space has developed a new, open-source tool powered by machine learning that can identify methane clouds using much narrower hyperspectral bands of satellite imaging data. These bands, while more specific, produce much more vast quantities of data—which is where artificial intelligence training comes in handy.

The project is detailed in new research published in Nature Scientific Reports by a team at the University of Oxford, alongside a recent university profile. To train their model, engineers fed it a total of 167,825 hyperspectral image tiles—each roughly 0.66 square miles—generated by NASA’s Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS) satellite while orbiting the Four Corners region of the US. The model was subsequently trained using additional orbital monitors, including NASA’s hyperspectral EMIT sensor currently aboard the International Space Station.

The team’s current model is roughly 21.5 percent more accurate at identifying methane plumes than the existing top tool, while simultaneously providing nearly 42 percent fewer false detection errors compared to the same industry standard. According to researchers, there’s no reason to believe those numbers won’t improve over time.

[Related: New satellites can pinpoint methane leaks to help us beat climate change.]

“What makes this research particularly exciting and relevant is the fact that many more hyperspectral satellites are due to be deployed in the coming years, including from ESA, NASA, and the private sector,” Vít Růžička, lead researcher and a University of Oxford doctoral candidate in the department of computer science, said during a recent university profile. As this satellite network expands, Růžička believes researchers and environmental watchdogs will soon gain an ability to automatically, accurately detect methane plume events anywhere in the world.

These new techniques could soon enable independent, globally-collaborated identification of greenhouse gas production and leakage issues—not just for methane, but many other major pollutants. The tool currently utilizes already collected geospatial data, and is not able to currently provide real-time analysis using orbital satellite sensors. In the University of Oxford’s recent announcement, however, research project supervisor Andrew Markham adds that the team’s long-term goal is to run their programs through satellites’ onboard computers, thus “making instant detection a reality.”

The post How AI could help scientists spot ‘ultra-emission’ methane plumes faster—from space appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

The end is nigh for many Google accounts. Beginning on December 1, “inactive” accounts that haven’t been logged into within the last two years will begin disappearing as part of a purge announced by the company back in May. This means any unused accounts’ emails, photos, videos, and documents spread across Google products like Gmail, Docs, Drive, Calendar, Meet, and Photos could disappear as soon as this weekend.

That said, the move shouldn’t come as a surprise. Since revealing its plans earlier this year, Google says it sent multiple notifications to applicable users, both to any account’s Gmail address, as well as any available associated recovery emails.

[Related: The US antitrust trial against Google is in full swing. Here’s what’s at stake.]

The reasoning behind trashing unused accounts is, simply put, security. According to Google, bad actors are as much as 10 times more likely to gain access to abandoned accounts than active accounts utilizing protective measures like 2-step-verification. Once compromised, the hijacked accounts can be then harnessed to send malware, spam, and even aid in identity theft.

Google won’t slash its list of inactive accounts in one fell swoop, however. First up will be any accounts that were never used after being created, followed by a phased approach to tackle the rest “slowly and carefully,” according to the May announcement.

To spare your rarely-if-ever used account from the culling, all users need to do is simply sign in at least once before December 1. That’s enough to reset Google’s activity threshold, and stave off an automatic deletion. Using Gmail, accessing Google Drive, watching YouTube videos while logged in, or even signing into a third-party app using your Google Account all count as activity, as well.

Currently, the purge only concerns personal Google accounts. School, work, and official organizational accounts are not in danger come December 1, as well as those accounts with linked, active subscription plans set up through news outlets or apps. Google also does not currently plan to delete any accounts hosting YouTube videos, either.

[Related: How to back up and protect all your precious data.]

If nothing else, the mass deletion campaign can serve as a helpful reminder to log into old accounts, update passwords, establish two-factor authentication protocols, and download backups of any old uploaded content or data. The easiest way is to head over to the Google Takeout page and follow its instructions for exporting data.

The post Log into your abandoned Google account now appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Etsy creators, Poshmark sellers, and side hustlers in general are receiving a Thanksgiving pardon from the IRS and its latest guidelines pertaining to digital sales and payment platforms. The new, drastically lowered $600 threshold to receive a tax reporting form from third-party settlement organizations such as Venmo and PayPal is delayed yet again.

First announced as part of the Biden administration’s 2021 American Rescue Plan, the regulation previously scheduled for the 2023 tax season substantially reduced the Form 1099-K benchmark for third party commerce service providers. Previously, those forms were only issued to people with more than 200 transactions or $20,000 in total profits. The new rules would drop the requirement down to just $600 in profit. The majority of such commerce is facilitated by services like the aforementioned Venmo and PayPal, as well as Square and Zelle. Ensuing backlash from lawmakers, tax filing companies, and the public eventually caused the IRS to issue its first delay in December 2022.

On Tuesday, the IRS conceded the estimated 44 million pending Form 1099-K’s could result in unnecessary “potential confusion” this year for “many taxpayers who wouldn’t expect one and may not have a tax obligation.”

“We spent many months gathering feedback from third party groups and others, and it became increasingly clear we need additional time to effectively implement the new reporting requirements,” IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said in Tuesday’s announcement. “It’s clear that an additional delay for tax year 2023 will avoid problems for taxpayers, tax professionals and others in this area.”

[Related: How to avoid tax season stress.]

The government’s newest pause comes alongside a more detailed, transitional plan before the $600 limit goes into effect in 2025. The 200 transaction, $20,000 profit margin will lower to $5,000 for tax year 2024, although the IRS did not specify the number of transactions in its November 21 statement. The originally intended $600 limit will finally move into place the following year. The IRS also revealed new plans to update and simplify the existing Form 1099-K “to make the reporting process easier.” Basically, you won’t receive an official tax form for upselling thrift store finds in your spare time until early 2026—and when you do, it should hypothetically be less of a headache.

Although all this really just boils down to delaying the inevitable, the US government is also forging ahead with ways to make tax filing both simpler, and potentially cheaper. The upcoming 2024 filing season will finally see the long-awaited IRS free federal direct tax filing pilot program for certain eligible citizens in 13 participating states. The no-cost option is intended to eventually become nationally available as an alternative to third-party filing services like Intuit TurboTax and H&R Block. Such companies have come under increasing regulatory scrutiny in recent years for allegedly predatory practices, deceptive advertising, and privacy concerns.

As for those of you with extremely lucrative side gigs—sorry, the $20,000 limit will remain in place for 2024. While third party services usually automatically generate forms for anyone exceeding the IRS 1099-K threshold, that’s not the case for everyone else. Meanwhile, the IRS also reminded the public that business income has always been taxable, and it’s still up to Americans to report such profits even if they don’t receive a Form 1099-K. Do with that information what you will.

The post The IRS delayed its controversial new policy regarding digital payment platforms appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Apart from their nasty stings, army ant colonies are often known for their stunning, intricate architectural feats using their own bodies. When worker ant hunting parties encounter obstacles such as fallen tree branches, gaps in foliage, or small streams, the tiny insects will join forces to create a bridge for the remaining ant brethren to traverse. It’s as impressive as it is somewhat disconcerting—these are living, crawling buildings, after all. But one research team isn’t studying the coordination between miniscule bugs to benefit future construction projects; they are looking into how army ant teamwork could be mimicked by robots.

“Army ants create structures using decentralized collective intelligence processes,” Isabella Muratore, a postdoctoral researcher at the New Jersey Institute of Technology specializing in army ant building techniques, explains to PopSci over email. “This means that each ant follows a set of rules about how to behave based on sensory input and this leads to the creation of architectural forms without the need for any prior planning or commands from a leader.”

[Related: These robots reached a team consensus like a swarm of bees.]

Along with engineers from NJIT and Northwestern University, Muratore and her entomologist colleagues developed a series of tests meant to gauge army ant workers’ reactions and logistical responses to environmental impediments. After placing obstacles in the ants’ forest paths, Muratore filmed and later analyzed the herds’ subsequent adaptations to continue along their routes. Utilizing prior modeling work, the team also tested whether the ant bridges could withstand sudden, small changes in obstacle length using an adjustable spacing device.

Muratore and others recently presented their findings at this year’s annual Entomological Society of America conference. According to their observations, army ants generally choose to construct bridges in the most efficient locations—places wide enough to necessitate a building project while simultaneously using the least number of ants possible. The number of bridges needed during a sojourn also influences the ants’ collective decisions on resource allocation.

David Hu, a Georgia Institute of Technology engineering professor focused on fire ant raft constructions during flooding, recently likened the insects to neurons in one big, creepy-crawly brain while speaking to NPR on the subject. Instead of individual ants determining bridge dimensions and locations, each ant contributes to the decisions in their own small way.

[Related: Robot jellyfish swarms could soon help clean the oceans of plastic.]

Muratore and her collaborators believe an army ant’s collaborative capabilities could soon help engineers program swarms of robots based on the insect’s behavior principles and brains. Ants vary across species, but they still can pack a surprising amount of information within their roughly 1.1 microliter volume brains.

Replicating that brainpower requires relatively low energy costs. Scaling it across a multitude of robots could remain comparatively cheap, while exponentially increasing their functionality. This could allow them to “flexibly adapt to a variety of challenges, such as linking together to form bridges over gaps of different lengths in the most efficient manner possible,” Muratore writes to PopSci.
Robotic teamwork is crucial to implement the machines across a number of industries and scenarios, from outer space exploration, to ocean cleanup projects, to search-and-rescue efforts in areas too dangerous for humans to access. In these instances, coordinating quickly and efficiently not only saves time and energy, it could save lives.

The post Army ants could teach robots a thing or two appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Sam Altman is CEO of OpenAI once again. The return of the influential AI startup’s co-founder caps a chaotic four-days that saw two replacement CEOs, Altman’s potential transition to Microsoft, and threats of mass resignation from nearly all of the company’s employees. Altman’s return to OpenAI will coincide with a shakeup within the company’s nonprofit arm board of directors.

Silicon Valley’s pre-Thanksgiving saga started on November 17, when OpenAI’s board suddenly announced Altman’s departure after alleging the 38-year-old entrepreneur “was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities.”

The move shocked not only shocked industry insiders and investors, but executive-level employees at the company, as well. OpenAI’s president Greg Brockman announced his resignation less than three hours after news broke, while the startup’s chief operating officer described his surprise in a November 18 internal memo.

“We can say definitively that the board’s decision was not made in response to malfeasance or anything related to our financial, business, safety, or security/privacy practices,” he wrote at the time.

A flurry of breathless headlines ensued, naming first one, then another CEO replacement as rumors began circulating that Altman would join Microsoft as the CEO of its new AI development team. Microsoft previously invested over $13 billion, and relies on the company’s tech to power its growing suite of AI-integrated products.

Just after midnight on November 22, however, Altman posted to X his intention to return to OpenAI alongside a reorganized board of directors that will include previous members such former White House adviser and Harvard University President Larry Summers, as well as former Quora CEO and early Facebook employee Adam D’Angelo. This is just what happened. Entrepreneur Tasha McCauley, OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, and director of strategy and foundational research grants at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology Helen Toner are no longer board members.

[Related: Big Tech’s latest AI doomsday warning might be more of the same hype.]

“[E]verything i’ve [sic] done over the past few days has been in service of keep this team and its mission together,” Altman wrote on the social media platform owned by former OpenAI executive Elon Musk. Altman added he looks forward to returning and “building on our strong partnership” with Microsoft.

Although concrete explanations behind the attempted corporate coup remain unconfirmed, it appears members of the previous board believed Altman was “pushing too far, too fast” in their overall goal to create a safe artificial general intelligence (AGI), a term referring to AI that is comparable to, or exceeds, human capacities. Many of AI’s biggest players believe it is their ethical duty to steer the technology towards a future that benefits humanity instead of ending it. Critics have voiced multiple, repeated concerns over Silicon Valley’s approach, ethos, and rationality.

The post Actually, never mind, Sam Altman is back as OpenAI’s CEO appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

After three years of construction and limited operations, the next-generation Hyundai Motor Group Innovation Center production facility in Singapore is officially online and fully functioning. Announced on November 20, the 935,380-square-foot, seven-floor facility relies on 200 robots to handle over 60 percent of all “repetitive and laborious” responsibilities, allowing human employees to focus on “more creative and productive duties,” according to the company.

In a key departure from traditional conveyor-belt factories, HMGIC centers on what the South Korean vehicle manufacturer calls a “cell-based production system” alongside a “digital twin Meta-Factory.” Instead of siloed responsibilities for automated machinery and human workers, the two often cooperate using technology such as virtual and augmented reality. As Hyundai explains, while employees simulate production tasks in a digital space using VR/AR, for example, robots will physically move, inspect, and assemble various vehicle components.

[Related: Everything we love about Hyundai’s newest EV.]

By combining robotics, AI, and the Internet of Things, Hyundai believes the HMGIC can offer a “human-centric manufacturing innovation system,” Alpesh Patel, VP and Head of the factory’s Technology Innovation Group, said in Monday’s announcement. 

Atop the HMGIC building is an over 2000-feet-long vehicle test track, as well as a robotically assisted “Smart Farm” capable of growing up to nine different crops. While a car factory vegetable garden may sound somewhat odd, it actually compliments the Singapore government’s ongoing “30 by 30” initiative.

Due to the region’s rocky geology, Singapore can only utilize about one percent of its land for agriculture—an estimated 90 percent of all food in the area must be imported. Announced in 2022, Singapore’s 30 by 30 program aims to boost local self-sufficiency by increasing domestic yields to 30 percent of all consumables by the decade’s end using a combination of sustainable urban growth methods. According to Hyundai’s announcement, the HMGICS Smart Farm is meant to showcase farm productivity within compact settings—while also offering visitors some of its harvested crops. The rest of the produce will be donated to local communities, as well as featured on the menu at a new Smart Farm-to-table restaurant scheduled to open at the HMGICS in spring 2024.

[Related: Controversial ‘robotaxi’ startup loses CEO.]

HMGICS is expected to produce up to 30,000 electric vehicles annually, and currently focuses on the IONIQ 5, as well as its autonomous robotaxi variant. Beginning in 2024, the facility will also produce Hyundai’s IONIQ 6. If all goes according to plan, the HMGICS will be just one of multiple cell-based production system centers.

The post Hyundai’s robot-heavy EV factory in Singapore is fully operational appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Rogue monster waves, once believed extremely rare, are now statistically confirmed to occur “all the time” thanks to researchers’ new, artificial intelligence-aided analysis. Using a combined hundreds of years’ worth of information gleaned from over 1 billion wave patterns, scientists collaborating between the University of Copenhagen and the University of Victoria have produced an algorithmic equation capable of predicting the “recipe” for extreme rogue waves. In doing so, the team appear to also upend beliefs about oceanic patterns dating back to the 1700’s.

Despite centuries of terrifying, unconfirmed rumors alongside landlubber skepticism, monstrous rogue waves were only scientifically documented for the first time in 1995. But since laser measuring equipment aboard the Norwegian oil platform Draupner captured unimpeachable evidence of an encounter with an 85-foot-high wall of water, researchers have worked to study the oceanic phenomenon’s physics, characteristics, and influences. Over the following decade, oceanographers came to define a rogue wave as being at least twice the height of a formation’s “significant wave height,” or the mean of the largest one-third of a wave pattern. They also began confidently citing “some reasons” behind the phenomena, but knew there was much more to learn.

[Related: New AI-based tsunami warning software could help save lives.]

Nearly two decades after Draupner, however, researchers’ new, AI-assisted approach offers unprecedented analysis through a study published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“Basically, it is just very bad luck when one of these giant waves hits,” Dion Häfner, a research engineer and the paper’s first author, said in a November 20 announcement. “They are caused by a combination of many factors that, until now, have not been combined into a single risk estimate.”

Using readings obtained from buoys spread across 158 locations near US coasts and overseas territories, the team first amassed information equivalent to 700 years’ worth of sea state information, wave heights, water depths, and bathymetric data. After mapping all the causal variables that influence rogue waves, Häfner and their colleagues used various AI methods to synthesize the data into a model capable of calculating rogue wave formation probabilities. (These included symbolic regression which generates an equation output rather than a single prediction.) Unfortunately, the results are unlikely to ease fears of anyone suffering from thalassophobia.

“Our analysis demonstrates that abnormal waves occur all the time,” Johannes Gemmrich, the study’s second author, said in this week’s announcement. According to Gemmrich, the team registered 100,000 dataset instances fitting the bill for rogue waves.

“This is equivalent to around 1 monster wave occurring every day at any random location in the ocean,” Gemmrich added, while noting they weren’t necessarily all “monster waves of extreme size.” A small comfort, perhaps.

Until the new study, many experts believed the majority of rogue waves formed when two waves combined into a single, massive mountain of water. Based on the new equation, however, it appears the biggest influence is owed to “linear superposition.” First documented in the 1700’s, such situations occur when two wave systems cross paths and reinforce one another, instead of combining. This increases the likelihood of forming massive waves’ high crests and deep troughs. Although understood to exist for hundreds of years, the new dataset offers concrete support for the phenomenon and its effects on wave patterns.

[Related: How Tonga’s volcanic eruption can help predict tsunamis.]

And while it’s probably disconcerting to imagine an eight-story-tall wave occurring somewhere in the world every single day, the new algorithmic equation can at least help you stay well away from locations where rogue waves are most likely to occur at any given time. This won’t often come in handy for the average person, but for the estimated 50,000 cargo ships daily sailing across the world, integrating the equation into their forecasting tools could save lives.

Knowing this, Häfner’s team has already made their algorithm, research, and amassed data available as open source information, so that weather services and public agencies can start identifying—and avoiding—any rogue wave-prone areas.

The post An equation co-written with AI reveals monster rogue waves form ‘all the time’ appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt announced his resignation from the controversial robotaxi startup on Sunday evening. The co-founder’s sudden departure arrives after months of public and political backlash relating to the autonomous vehicle fleet’s safety, and hints at future issues for the company purchased by General Motors in 2016 for over $1 billion.

Vogt’s resignation follows months of documented hazardous driving behaviors from Cruise’s autonomous vehicle fleet, including injuring pedestrians, delaying emergency responders, and failing to detect children. Cruise’s Golden State tenure itself lasted barely two months following a California Public Utilities Commission greenlight on 24/7 robotaxi services in August. Almost immediately, residents and city officials began documenting instances of apparent traffic pileups, blocked roadways, and seemingly reckless driving involving Cruise and Google-owned Waymo robotaxis. Meanwhile, Cruise representatives including Vogt aggressively campaigned against claims of an unsafe vehicle fleet.

[Related: San Francisco is pushing back against the rise of robotaxis.]

“Anything that we do differently than humans is being sensationalized,” Vogt told The Washington Post in September.

On October 2, a Cruise robotaxi failed to avoid hitting a woman pedestrian first struck by another car, subsequently dragging her 20 feet down the road. GM issued a San Francisco moratorium on Cruise operations three weeks later, followed by a nationwide expansion of the suspension on November 6.

But even with Cruise on an indefinite hiatus, competitors like Waymo and Zoox continue testing autonomous taxis across San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Austin, and elsewhere to varying degrees of success. As The New York Times reports, Waymo’s integration into Phoenix continues to progress smoothly. Meanwhile, Austin accidents became so concerning that city officials felt the need to establish an internal task force over the summer to help log and process autonomous vehicle incidents.

[Related: Self-driving taxis allegedly blocked an ambulance and the patient died.]

In a thread posted to X over the weekend, Vogt called his experience helming Cruise “amazing,” and expressed gratitude to the company and its employees while telling them to “remember why this work matters.”

“The status quo on our roads sucks, but together we’ve proven there is something far better around the corner,” wrote Vogt before announcing his plans to spend time with his family and explore new ideas.

“Thanks for the great ride!” Vogt concluded.

The post Controversial ‘robotaxi’ startup loses CEO appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

SpaceX’s second, unpiloted Starship test flight of the year ended in yet another fiery inferno on November 18. This time, the sudden end arrived roughly 8 minutes into its 90-minute scheduled mission. But although its Super Heavy first stage booster suffered a fatal “rapid unscheduled disassembly” in the Caribbean, the world’s most powerful rocket almost doubled its previous lifespan and passed multiple other crucial milestones.

Starship launched once again from its test site near Boca Chica, Texas, at 8:03am ET on Saturday, with all 39 of the Super Heavy booster’s Raptor engines remaining lit during the mission—a first for the spacecraft intended to eventually deliver humans to Mars. At two minutes and 41 seconds following liftoff, Starship’s hot-staging sequence—in which upper stage engines ignite and separate from the booster—also proceeded successfully, clearing yet another hurdle for SpaceX engineers. The reusable booster then performed its flip maneuver en route towards an intended safe return back to Earth, but exploded only a few seconds later. The booster’s fate wasn’t a huge surprise, however, as SpaceX mission control operators already suspected such a dramatic event could occur due to the immense “load on top of the booster.”

Meanwhile, the Starship upper stage continued to soar for another few minutes to roughly 92 miles above the Earth’s surface—well above the Kármán Line, an internationally recognized demarcation between the planet’s atmosphere and outer space. Moments before its scheduled Second Engine Cut Off, or SECO, the upper stage met its own explosive demise. Space X representatives cited a delay in Starship’s automated flight termination system, but do not yet know the exact cause for its malfunction. If successful, Starship would have circumnavigated Earth before performing a hard landing near Hawaii.

The results of April’s Starship test received considerable criticism from both Boca Chica locals and the Federal Aviation Administration for surrounding environmental damage sustained during launch. Starship’s Raptor engines burn approximately 40,000 pounds of fuel per second to reach 17 million pounds of thrust. Nearby Texan residents described the blowback as resembling a “mini earthquake” at the time, with at least one business owner’s store window shattering. The April 20 test flight blasted a 25-feet deep crater, ejecting clouds of dirt, dust, and debris into the air while smashing a bowling ball-sized fragment into a nearby NASA Spaceflight van. Much of the area near Starship’s launch site includes protected ecosystems, as well as land considered sacred by local Indigenous communities. The FAA soon issued 63 corrective actions needed before SpaceX could legally attempt another Starship test.

[Related: SpaceX’s Starship launch caused a ‘mini earthquake’ and left a giant mess.]

Unlike SpaceX’s outing, Starship’s upgraded launch mount reportedly better mitigated the resulting blowback—at least according to Elon Musk’s company assessment. The FAA, meanwhile, wasted no time in issuing its own statement on Saturday’s event.

“A mishap occurred during the [SpaceX] Starship OFT-2 launch from Boca Chica, Texas, on Saturday, Nov. 18,” the administration posted to X over the weekend. Although no injuries or public property damage was reported this time, the FAA promised to oversee the “SpaceX-led mishap investigation” to ensure the company will comply with “regulatory requirements.”

The post Another SpaceX Starship blew up appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Although NASA’s Psyche spacecraft is currently en route to its rendezvous with a unique, metal-heavy asteroid floating between Mars and Jupiter, it still has quite a while before it reaches its destination. But researchers aren’t waiting until the end of its 3.5 year, 280-million-mile journey to make the most of the project. Even after barely a month of spaceflight, Psyche is already achieving some impressive technological feats.

On November 16, NASA announced its Deep Space Optical Communications experiment aboard Psyche successfully achieved “first light” earlier this week, beaming a data-laden, near-infrared laser nearly 10 million miles back to Caltech’s Palomar Observatory. Additionally, DSOC operators were able to “close the link”—the vital process in which test data is simultaneously beamed through both uplink and downlink lasers. Although only the first of numerous test runs to come, it completes a necessary step within NASA’s ongoing plans to develop far more powerful communications tools for future space travel.

[Related: In its visit to Psyche, NASA hopes to glimpse the center of the Earth.]

Astronauts, ground crews, and private companies have all utilized radio wave frequencies for data transfers and communications since the late-1950’s, thanks to a global antenna array known as the Deep Space Network. As organizations like NASA aim to expand humanity’s presence beyond Earth in the coming decades, they’ll need to move away from radio systems to alternatives like infrared lasers. Not only are such lasers more cost efficient, but they are also capable of storing and transmitting far more information within their shorter wavelengths. Further along in DSOC’s development, for example, will hopefully accomplish data transmission rates between 10-to-100 times greater than today’s spacecraft radio systems.

“Achieving first light is one of many critical DSOC milestones in the coming months, paving the way toward higher-data-rate communications capable of sending scientific information, high-definition imagery, and streaming video in support of humanity’s next giant leap: sending humans to Mars,”  Trudy Kortes, NASA’s director of Technology Demonstrations, said in Thursday’s announcement.

NASA also noted that, while similar infrared communications has been successfully achieved in low Earth orbit as well as to-and-from the moon, this week’s DSOC milestone marks the first test through deep space. This is more difficult thanks to the comparatively vast, growing distance between Earth and Psyche. During the November 14 test, data took roughly 50 seconds to travel from the spacecraft to researchers in California. At its farthest distance from home, Psyche’s data-encoded photons will take around 20 minutes to relay. That’s more than enough time for both Earth and Psyche to drift further along their own respective cosmic paths, so laser arrays on the craft and at NASA will need to adjust for the changes. Future testing will ensure the terrestrial and deep space tech is up to the task.

[Related: NASA’s mission to a weird metal asteroid has blasted off.]

Once it becomes the new norm, Jason Mitchell, director of the Advanced Communications and Navigation Technologies Division within NASA’s Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) program, believes optical lasers will offer a “boon” for researchers’ space missions data collection, and will help enable future deep space exploration.
“More data means more discoveries,” Mitchell said in NASA’s announcement.

The post NASA’s Psyche wins first deep space laser relay appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

A litany of issues has plagued Formula One’s highly anticipated (and derided) Las Vegas Grand Prix race for months, but the event’s most recent issues are perhaps its most ridiculous yet—the cars on-average 212 mph speeds are too fast for the Vegas Strip.

F1 racers can’t bolt down any standard roadway—they require specialized, carefully laid pavement. America’s other two F1 venues in Austin, Texas, and Miami, Florida, were both built specifically for the high-speed races, but the Las Vegas Grand Prix circuit presents a wholly different challenge, as it is located within the city itself. To prepare for this weekend’s competition, workers first removed the route’s top 5-to-10 inches of asphalt before replacing it with 60,000 tons of a base layer followed by another 43,000 tons of intermediate and top layer pavement.

Speaking to The Washington Post on Thursday, Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority chief executive Steve Hill estimated the new circuit pavement would last 6-10 years, and only need piecemeal maintenance without requiring extensive road closures.

But according to event organizers on November 16, F1 drivers’ first, late evening practice run barely lasted eight minutes before abruptly being forced to end. Near the track’s final corner, racer Carlos Sainz suddenly stopped, reporting apparent damage to his Ferrari’s flooring. A quick investigation of the track revealed that the race car’s speed and accompanying force put too much stress on a drain cover’s concrete framing, causing it to protrude and significantly damage the Ferrari’s chassis—the main frame to which its engine and suspension are attached. If that weren’t enough, racer Esteban Ocon’s car received a similar blow from the dislodged debris shortly after Sainz.

[Related: How the Formula races plan to power their cars with more sustainable fuel.]

This isn’t the first time grates proved to be an F1 car’s Achilles heel—another vehicle suffered a similar fate at a practice during the 2019 Azerbaijan Grand Prix. In that instance, however, F1 organizers welded shut the track’s coverings—a solution unavailable to last night’s crew members since it’s illegal to do so under Nevada law. Instead, repairers raced (so to speak) down the Las Vegas track, applying quick-setting concrete to the remaining 20-to-30 coverings.

It was 2:30am local time before racers could return for a second practice run. By this point, they raced past attendee stands devoid of any fans. Labor laws prevented security workers from continuing to staff the event. Those who attempted to stick it out to see the racers return were forced to leave for the night around 1:3gett0am. The competitors completed their trial runs without further incident.

Both drivers and their team members haven’t minced words since the evening’s debacle. Belgian and Dutch racer Max Verstappen described the Vegas Grand Prix as “99 percent show and 1 percent sport,” while Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur called the incident “unacceptable.”

“The situation is we damaged completely the monocoque, the engine, the batteries. I’m not sure this is the topic for me today,” Vasseur told reporters at the time. “We had a very tough [first practice], it cost us a fortune, we fucked up the session for Carlos.”

Mercedes chief Toto Wolff, however, defended the race and described the issue as a “black eye,” but nothing else. “This is nothing… they’re going to seal the drain covers and nobody’s going to talk about that tomorrow morning anymore,” Wolff continued.

The post Formula One race car cracks a drain cover during Las Vegas Grand Prix practice run appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Hindsight is not quite 20/20 for NASA’s historic Apollo missions. For instance, the Apollo 12 lander successfully touched down on the moon at exactly 6:35:25 UTC on November 19, 1969. What happened to the lunar environment as astronauts touched down, however, wasn’t recorded—and exact details on the reactions between nearby rocks, debris, and lunar regolith to lander engines’ supersonic bursts of gas aren’t documented. And physically replicating Apollo 12’s historic moment on Earth isn’t possible, given stark differences in lunar gravity and geology, not to mention the moon’s complete lack of atmosphere.

This is particularly a problem for NASA as it continues to plan for astronauts’ potential 2025 return to Earth’s satellite during the Artemis program. The landing craft delivering humans onto the lunar surface will be much more powerful than its Apollo predecessors, so planning for the literal and figurative impact is an absolute necessity. To do so, NASA researchers at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, are relying on the agency’s Pleiades supercomputer to help simulate previous lunar landings—specifically, the unaccounted information from Apollo 12.

As detailed by NASA earlier this week, a team of computer engineers and fluid dynamics experts recently designed a program capable of accurately recreating Apollo 12’s plume-surface interactions (PSI), the interplay between landing jets and lunar topography. According to the agency, the Pleiades supercomputer generated terabytes of data over the course of several weeks’ worth of simulations that will help predict PSI scenarios for NASA’s Human Landing System, Commercial Lunar Payload Services, and even future potential Mars landers.

[Related: Meet the first 4 astronauts of the ‘Artemis Generation’]

NASA recently showed off one of these simulations—the Apollo 12 landing—during its appearance at SC23, an annual international supercomputing conference in Denver, Colorado. For the roughly half-minute simulation clip, the team relied on a simulation tool called the Gas Granular Flow Solver (GGFS). The program is both capable of modeling interactions to predict regolith cratering, as well as dust clouds kicked up around the lander’s immediate surroundings.

According to the project’s conference description, GGFS utilizing its highest fidelities can “model microscopic regolith particle interactions with a particle size/shape distribution that statistically replicates actual regolith.” To run most effectively on “today’s computing resources,” however, the simulation considers just one-to-three potential particle sizes and shapes.

[Related: Moon-bound Artemis III spacesuits have some functional luxury sewn in.]

The approximation of the final half-minute of descent before engine cut-off notably includes depictions of shear stress, or the lateral forces affecting a surface area’s erosion levels. In the clip, low shear stress is represented by a dark purple hue, while the higher shear stress areas are shown in yellow.

Going forward, the team intends to optimize the tool’s source code, alongside integrating increased computational resources. Such upgrades will allow for better, higher fidelity simulations to fine-tune Artemis landing procedures, as well as potentially plan for landing missions far beyond the lunar surface.

The post Watch NASA’s supercomputer simulation of the Apollo 12 lunar landing appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

The common stethoscope’s recognizable design has remained largely unchanged for decades for good reason—there’s really not much to improve at this point. When it comes to listening in on a patient’s internal soundtrack, the standard, adjustable bell connected via short rubber tubing to binaural earpieces is perfectly suited for helping assess respiratory and cardiac health.

Of course, a stethoscope can only relay vitals in person based on its specific placements; long term monitoring often requires extended clinical stays alongside bulky, wired devices. To solve these problems, a team of medical experts, researchers, and engineers at Northwestern University set out to design a new wearable capable of providing highly detailed, continuous, real-time information regardless of a patient’s environment. After painlessly adhering to specific areas of the chest, the resulting soft devices not only accomplish these goals, but already show immense promise for both adults, as well as premature babies often dealing with gastrointestinal complications and apneas.

[Related: Pill cuts lung cancer deaths in half, study says.]

“Currently, there are no existing methods for continuously monitoring and spatially mapping body sounds at home or in hospital settings,” John Rogers, a bioelectronics expert who oversaw the new tool’s design and development, said in a recent Northwestern University profile.

As detailed in a new study published in Nature Medicine, Rogers and fellow researchers placed a miniature battery, electronics, Bluetooth relay, flash memory drive, and two microphones within a 40mm long, 20mm wide, and 8 mm thick soft silicone casing—roughly the size of a stick of gum. Each microphone is positioned in opposing directions, into and outside the patient, to filter exterior ambient noises from a wearer’s bodily sounds. The team notes this is particularly helpful in situations such as lung monitoring, since the organ is simply too quiet when compared to noisy hospital surroundings.

Ankit Bharat, a thoracic surgeon who oversaw adult subject clinical device trials, describes it pretty succinctly in Northwestern’s November 16 announcement:

“Simply put, it’s like up to 13 highly trained doctors listening to different regions of the lungs simultaneously with their stethoscopes, and their minds are synced to create a continuous and a dynamic assessment of the lung health that is translated into a movie on a real-life computer screen.”

[Related: Almost everyone in the world breathes unhealthy air.]

Aside from adult lung and gastrointestinal health monitoring, the tiny wearables show incredible promise for infants—particularly those born with potential medical issues. Babies’ respiratory systems only fully mature during the third trimester of pregnancy, meaning many apnea and breathing disorders often accompany premature deliveries. Given these infants’ physical size, traditional stethoscopes are both impractical and too large to provide accurate, prolonged monitoring. And even for healthy delivered children, breathing and gastrointestinal issues are major concerns during their first five years. The team’s new wearables, however, account for these issues by providing a new, size-appropriate tool.

Every human body is host to a wide array of acoustic and tonal signatures. Once the particular sounds are documented, the team hopes their wearable will make it much easier to pick out irregularities stemming from serious, overlooked health issues. If detected early enough, such discoveries could potentially save countless lives.

The post This tiny wireless wearable continuously monitors your body’s internal soundtrack appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

To call soft robotic hands “complex” is a bit of an understatement. These designs consider a number of engineering factors, including the elasticity and durability of materials. This usually entails separate 3D-printing processes for each component, often with multiple plastics and polymers. Now, however, engineers working together from ETH Zurich and the MIT spin-off company, Inkbit, can create extremely intricate products with a 3D-printer utilizing a laser scanner and feedback learning. The researchers’ impressive results already include a six-legged gripper robot, an artificial “heart” pump, sturdy metamaterials, as well as an articulating soft robotic hand complete with artificial tendons, ligaments, and bones.

[Related: Watch a robot hand only use its ‘skin’ to feel and grab objects.]

Traditional 3D-printers use fast-curing polyacrylate plastics. In this process, UV lamps quickly harden a malleable plastic gel as it is layered via the printer nozzle, while a scraping tool removes surface imperfections along the way. While effective, the rapid solidification can limit a product’s form, function, and flexibility. But trying to swap out the fast-curing plastic for slow-curing polymers like epoxies and thiolenes mucks up the machinery, meaning many soft robotic components require separate manufacturing methods.

Knowing this, designers wondered if adding scanning technology alongside rapid printing adjustments could solve the slow-curing hurdle. As detailed in their new paper published in Nature, their new system not only offers a solution, but demonstrates 3D-printed, slow-curing polymers’ potential across a number of designs.

Instead of scraping away imperfections layer-by-layer, three-dimensional scanning offers near-instantaneous information on surface irregularities. This data is sent to the printer’s feedback mechanism, which then adjusts the necessary material amount “in real time and with pinpoint accuracy,” Wojciech Matusik, an electrical engineering and computer science professor at MIT and study co-author, said in a recent project profile from ETH Zurich.

To demonstrate their new method’s potential, researchers created a quartet of diverse 3D-printed projects using soft-curing polymers—a resilient metamaterial cube, a heart-like fluid pump capable of transporting “liquids” through its system, a six-legged robot topped with a sensor-informed two-pronged gripper, as well an articulating hand capable of grasping objects using embedded sensor pads.
While refinements to production methods, polymers’ chemical compositions, and lifespan are still needed, the team believes the comparatively fast and adaptable 3D-printing method could one day lead to a host of novel industrial, architectural, and robotic designs. Soft robots, for example, offer less risk of injury when working alongside humans, and can handle fragile goods better than their standard, metal robot counterparts. Already, however, the existing advances have produced designs once impossible for 3D printers.

The post This 3D-printed soft robotic hand has ‘bones,’ ‘ligaments,’ and ‘tendons’ appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

As technology evolves, AI-generated images of human faces are becoming increasingly indistinguishable from real photos. But our ability to separate the real from the artificial may come down to personal biases—both our own, as well as that of AI’s underlying algorithms.

According to a new study recently published in the journal Psychological Science, certain humans may misidentify AI-generated white faces as real more often than they can accurately identify actual photos of caucasians. More specifically, it’s white people who can’t distinguish between real and AI-generated white faces. 

[Related: Tom Hanks says his deepfake is hawking dental insurance.]

In a series of trials conducted by researchers collaborating across universities in Australia, the Netherlands, and the UK, 124 white adults were tasked with classifying a series of faces as artificial or real, then rating their confidence for each decision on a 100-point scale. The team decided to match white participants with caucasian image examples in an attempt to mitigate potential own-race recognition bias—the tendency for racial and cultural populations to more poorly remember unfamiliar faces from different demographics.

“Remarkably, white AI faces can convincingly pass as more real than human faces—and people do not realize they are being fooled,” researchers write in their paper.

This was by no slim margin, either. Participants mistakenly classified a full 66 percent of AI images as photographed humans, versus barely half as many of the real photos. Meanwhile, the same white participants’ ability to discern real from artificial people of color was roughly 50-50. In a second experiment, 610 participants rated the same images using 14 attributes contributing to what made them look human, without knowing some photos were fake. Of those attributes, the faces’ proportionality, familiarity, memorability, and the perception of lifelike eyes ranked highest for test subjects.

The team dubbed this newly identified tendency to overly misattribute artificially generated faces—specifically, white faces—as “AI hyperrealism.” The stark statistical differences are believed to stem from well-documented algorithmic biases within AI development. AI systems are trained on far more white subjects than POC, leading to a greater ability to both generate convincing white faces, as well as accurately identify them using facial recognition techniques.

This disparity’s ramifications can ripple through countless scientific, social, and psychological situations—from identity theft, to racial profiling, to basic privacy concerns.

[Related: AI plagiarism detectors falsely flag non-native English speakers.]

“Our results explain why AI hyperrealism occurs and show that not all AI faces appear equally realistic, with implications for proliferating social bias and for public misidentification of AI,” the team writes in their paper, adding that the AI hyperrealism phenomenon “implies there must be some visual differences between AI and human faces, which people misinterpret.”

It’s worth noting the new study’s test pool was both small and extremely limited, so more research is undoubtedly necessary to further understand the extent and effects of such biases. But it remains true that very little is still known about what AI hyperrealism might mean for populations, as well as how they affect judgment in day-to-day lives. In the meantime, humans may receive some help in discernment from an extremely ironic source: During trials, the research team also built a machine learning program tasked with separating real from fake human faces—which it proceeded to accurately accomplish 94 percent of the time.

The post Some people think white AI-generated faces look more real than photographs appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

No one can entirely predict where the artificial intelligence industry is taking everyone, but at least the AI is poised to reliably tell you what the weather will be like when you get there. (Relatively.) According to a paper published on November 14 in Science, a new, AI-powered 10-day climate forecasting program called GraphCast is already outperforming existing prediction tools nearly every time. The open-source technology is even showing promise for identifying and charting potentially dangerous weather events—all while using a fraction of the “gold standard” system’s computing power.

“Weather prediction is one of the oldest and most challenging–scientific endeavors,” GraphCast team member Remi Lam said in a statement on Tuesday. “Medium range predictions are important to support key decision-making across sectors, from renewable energy to event logistics, but are difficult to do accurately and efficiently.”

[Related: Listen to ‘Now and Then’ by The Beatles, a ‘new’ song recorded using AI.]

Developed by Lam and colleagues at Google DeepMind, the tech company’s AI research division, GraphCast is trained on decades of historic weather information alongside roughly 40 years of satellite, weather station, and radar reanalysis. This stands in sharp contrast to what are known as numerical weather prediction (NWP) models, which traditionally utilize massive amounts of data concerning thermodynamics, fluid dynamics, and other atmospheric sciences. All that data requires intense computing power, which itself requires intense, costly energy to crunch all those numbers. On top of all that, NWPs are slow—taking hours for hundreds of machines within a supercomputer to produce their 10-day forecasts.

GraphCast, meanwhile, offers highly accurate, medium range climatic predictions in less than a minute, all through just one of Google’s AI-powered machine learning tensor processing unit (TPU) machines.

During a comprehensive performance evaluation against the industry-standard NWP system—the High-Resolution Forecast (HRES)—GraphCast proved more accurate in over 90 percent of tests. When limiting the scope to only the Earth’s troposphere, the lowest portion of the atmosphere home to most noticeable weather events, GraphCast beat HRES in an astounding 99.7 percent of test variables. The Google DeepMind team was particularly impressed by the new program’s ability to spot dangerous weather events without receiving any training to look for them. By uploading a hurricane tracking algorithm and implementing it within GraphCast’s existing parameters, the AI-powered program was immediately able to more accurately identify and predict the storms’ path.

In September, GraphCast made its public debut through the organization behind HRES, the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). During that time, GraphCast accurately predicted Hurricane Lee’s trajectory nine days ahead of its Nova Scotia landfall. Existing forecast programs proved not only less accurate, but also only determined Lee’s Nova Scotia destination six days in advance.

[Related: Atlantic hurricanes are getting stronger faster than they did 40 years ago.]

“Pioneering the use of AI in weather forecasting will benefit billions of people in their everyday lives,” Lam wrote on Tuesday, who notes GraphCast’s potential vital importance amid increasingly devastating events stemming from climate collapse.

“[P]redicting extreme temperatures is of growing importance in our warming world,” Lam continued. “GraphCast can characterize when the heat is set to rise above the historical top temperatures for any given location on Earth. This is particularly useful in anticipating heat waves, disruptive and dangerous events that are becoming increasingly common.”

Google DeepMind’s GraphCast is already available via its open-source coding, and ECMWF plans to continue experimenting with integrating the AI-powered system into its future forecasting efforts.

The post Google DeepMind’s AI forecasting is outperforming the ‘gold standard’ model appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

There are millions of pieces of space junk orbiting Earth these days, so what’s one more bit of detritus amidst the trash cloud?

According to NASA’s recent spacewalk debriefing, International Space Station denizens Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O’Hara spent nearly seven hours conducting various repairs on a sun-tracking solar panel array. During their shift, however, one of their “crew lock bags” (astronaut-speak for a toolkit) accidentally got loose, and drifted away before either astronaut could catch it. While not a major issue in and of itself, this certainly highlights (yet again) the growing problem floating above humanity’s heads.

[Related: The FCC just dished out their first space junk fine.]

Thankfully, the lock bag didn’t contain anything of major importance. In a separate press conference last week, ISS deputy program manager Dana Weigel stated the bag’s contents included “some tethers and things like tool sockets” similar to the everyday household varieties, calling them “fairly common items” that aren’t a “huge impact” for the crew. Most importantly, Mission Control observed the bag’s current orbital trajectory and determined it presents a low risk of “recontacting” with the ISS, with “no action required.”

Meganne Christian, a European Space Agency 2022 astronaut class member, shared a clip on social media taken from Moghbeli’s helmet camera showing the toolbag’s escape into the cosmic abyss.

Since the toolbag isn’t in a stable orbit, experts estimate it will decay into Earth’s atmosphere sometime during March 2024. Given its size, the lost equipment will burn up completely during the descent, so there’s no need to stress or keep an eye to the sky—unless that’s your thing, of course.

The US Space Force already cataloged the new orbital debris as 58229/1998-067WC, and will track its movements over the course of its lifespan. Per The Register, the toolbag’s brightness is measured at a stellar magnitude +6, meaning you could hypothetically witness its atmospheric reentry with the naked eye during perfect weather conditions. That said, binoculars will probably increase the odds of seeing its fiery end.

[Related: Some space junk just got smacked by more space junk, complicating cleanup.]

But one toolbag’s atmospheric cremation does very little to solve the ongoing issue of space junk. After years of orbital industry expansion, the planet is surrounded by discarded rocket debris, satellites, and all manner of space travel detritus. It’s getting so bad that a recent project space junk cleanup project was suddenly complicated by its target colliding with another bit of trash.

Thankfully, governmental regulators are taking notice—earlier this year, the FCC issued its first ever space pollution fine to the satellite television provider, Dish Network, for failing to properly decommission one of its satellites last year. No penalties are expected for ISS astronauts Moghbeli and O’Hara; after all, they aren’t the first astronauts to drop the bag, so to speak. In 2008, two ISS astronauts accidentally lost a kit containing “two grease guns, scrapers, several wipes and tethers and some tool caddies.”

Update 11/17/2023 12:20PM : The Virtual Telescope Project has released this image, taken on November 15, 2023. The tool bag is still zooming around the Earth at roughly 17,500 mph until its projected March 2024 deorbit.

The post This tool bag is floating in space appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Collectors are apparently only interested in very specific pieces of Apple history. While a first generation 8GB iPhone in original packaging sold on November 8 for nearly $20,500, an Apple rainbow logo sign which once hung atop the company’s Cupertino Corporate Headquarters failed to reach its minimum $30,000 auction bid on Wednesday.

[Related: A first generation iPhone just sold for 317 times its original sticker price.]

Although technically not Apple’s first logo—a detailed, vintage illustration of Isaac Newton seated underneath a tree—the six-hued fruit image designed by graphic designer Rob Janoff in 1977 quickly grew as instantly recognizable as the Nike “Swoop” and McDonald’s “Arch.” According to Bonhams auction house lot description, Steve Jobs reportedly enjoyed Janoff’s minimalist design, particularly the bite mark included to ensure consumers wouldn’t potentially mistake it for a tomato. Jobs was also firm about the multicolor scheme, believing it would “humanize” the company. Apple’s CEO apparently had a change of heart by 1998, when the company updated to the monochromatic logo largely still seen today.

But even shelling out tens of thousands of dollars for the roughly 46-by-50 inch signage wouldn’t have meant its new owner received the logo in mint condition, however. The lot description notes “slight peeling” near the color stripes’ edges, along with “craquelure” in certain areas and “general outdoor wear,” which is probably to be predictable after years hanging atop a building near California’s Highway 280.

Meanwhile, people appeared much more interested in a 8GB first generation iPhone within its original packaging. Finally sold for $20,450, the lot is in much better shape—and has Drew Carey to partially thank for it. Roger Dobkowitz, a longtime producer on The Price Is Right, received the then-revolutionary smartphone as a gift from Carey shortly after the comedian became the game show’s new host in 2007.

[Related: Here’s a look at Apple’s first augmented reality headset.]

“Everyone was quite ecstatic… it had been released just three weeks earlier and it was a big thing in the news,” Dobkowitz said in a statement for Bonhams. Despite all the hype, however, Dobkowitz never bothered to use his at-the-time $499 gift, let alone open it.

“I did not like cell phones, and had no intention of using it,” he explained, adding that he tossed the iPhone in a desk drawer, and never thought about it again “until years later.” By that point, Apple’s iPhone was firmly established as a cultural touchstone product even a cell phone naysayer like Dobkowitz could recognize. The television producer eventually fished out his workplace gift from the drawer, and transferred the likely (already price-inflated) iPhone into a safe, where it remained until very recently.

Dobkowitz’ iPhone is far from the first to hit the auction block. This year alone, another first generation model sold for over $63,000 in February, while a mint condition, factory sealed, first generation 4GB iPhone formerly belonging to an Apple engineering team member auctioned at nearly $200,000 in July.

Maybe in a few years’ time, the Apple logo will finally find a new home. Perhaps its current owners can call Drew Carey for some advice.

The post No one bought Apple’s iconic HQ logo sign appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

After over half a century of loyal service, the world’s last remaining Super Guppy aircraft continues to dutifully transport NASA’s gigantic rocket parts in its cavernous, hinged cargo bay. On Tuesday, the Huntsville International Airport posted a video and accompanying images to social media of the rotund plane arriving from Kennedy Space Center. Perhaps somewhat unsurprisingly, it sounds like a prop plane of that size can make a huge, rich racket on the tarmac.

[Related: Artemis II lunar mission goals, explained.]

Aboard the over 50-ton (when empty), turboprop plane this time around was the heat shield that protected last year’s Artemis I Orion spacecraft. The vital rocketry component capable of withstanding 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit resided in the Super Guppy’s 25-foot tall, 25-foot wide, 111-foot long interior during a nearly 690-mile journey to the Alabama airport, after which it was transported a few miles down the road to the Marshall Space Flight Center. From there, a team of technicians will employ a specialized milling tool to remove the heat shield’s protective Avcoat outer layer for routine post-flight analysis, according to NASA.

The Super Guppy is actually the third Guppy iteration to lumber through the clouds. Based on a converted Boeing Stratotanker refueling tanker and designed by the now defunct Aero Spacelines during the 1960s, an original craft called the Pregnant Guppy was supplanted by its larger Super Guppy heir just a few years later. This updated plane included an expanded cargo bay, alongside an incredibly unique side hinge that allows its forward section to open like a pocket watch. A final Super Guppy Turbine debuted in 1970, and remained in use by NASA for over 25 years. In 1997, the agency purchased one of two newer Super Guppy Turbines built by Airbus. This Guppy is the current and only such hefty boy gracing the skies. With its bulky profile, the Super Guppy’s travel specs are pretty impressive—it’s capable of flying as high as 25,000 feet at speeds as fast as 250 nautical miles per hour.

[Related: NASA’s weird giant airplane carried the future of Mars in its belly.]

Last PopSci checked in on the Super Guppy’s journeys was back in 2016, when it transported an Orion crew capsule potentially destined for a much further trip than the Artemis missions’ upcoming lunar sojourns—Mars. According to Digital Trends, the Super Guppy’s next flight could occur sometime next year ahead of NASA’s Artemis II human-piloted lunar flyby.

“Although much of the glory of America’s space program may be behind it, the Super Guppy continues to be one of the only practical options for oversized cargo and stands ready to encompass a bigger role in the future,” reads a portion of NASA’s official description.

Until then, feel free to peruse the official, 74-page Super Guppy Transport User’s Guide.

The post Watch NASA’s bizarre and bulbous Super Guppy cargo plane touch down in Alabama appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

To put it very simply: the Rimac Nevera electric hypercar is very, very fast. With 1,194-horsepower, a top speed of 256 MPH, and the ability to accelerate faster than an F1 racer, it’s not just one of the most powerful EVs in the world—it’s one of the most powerful cars, period. The $2.1 million Nevera has dashed past so many world records at this point that its makers are now forced to get creative in setting new ones. And they certainly have, judging from a new video released on November 7.

In addition to all its other feats, the Rimac Nevera is apparently now also the Guinness World Record holder for the “fastest speed in reverse.” How fast did it take to earn yet another laurel? 171.34 MPH—certainly an intense speed in any direction.

[Related: Behind the wheel of the bruisingly quick Rimac Nevera hypercar.]

On Tuesday, Nevera chief program engineer Matija Renić revealed that the new stunt actually began as a joke during the hypercar’s development stage.

“We kind of laughed it off,” Renić said via the company’s announcement. Renić noted its cooling and stability systems, not to mention aerodynamics, simply weren’t engineered for putting the pedal to the floor while in reverse. “But then, we started to talk about how fun it would be to give it a shot.”

Simulations indicated a Nevera likely would top 150 MPH while driven backwards, but there was no way to be sure just how stable it would remain while blazing down the road. “We were entering uncharted territory,” Renić added—an understatement if there ever was one.

But as these multiple videos attest, the Nevera is certainly up to the task should it ever improbably become necessary. According to the company’s record-setting test driver, pulling off the stunt “definitely took some getting used to.”

“You’re facing straight out backwards watching the scenery flash away from you faster and faster, feeling your neck pulled forwards in almost the same sensation you would normally get under heavy braking,” Goran Drndak said via Rimac’s November 7 announcement. “You’re moving the steering wheel so gently, careful not to upset the balance, watching for your course and your braking point out the rear-view mirror, all the while keeping an eye on the speed.” Although being “almost completely unnatural” to the car’s design, Drndak said the Nevera “breezed” through the stress test.

It’s hard to imagine what’s left for the Nevera to achieve, but if the latest record is any indication, chances are Rimac designers will think of something.

The post Rimac’s electric speed demon tore through a world record in reverse appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Bees are extremely adept at communicating, even though their brains weigh just two milligrams. They’re so efficient at reaching a consensus, in fact, that researchers created a mini-robot team inspired by their ‘conversations.’

In the search for a new nesting spot, scout bees are known to conduct tiny “waggle dances” to indicate their preferred hive location—slowly winning over swarmmates to join in the process. The moves are tiny but complex, involving moving in figure-eight patterns while shaking their bodies at rapid speed. The bees with the most popular dance part earn final say on where to build. While the three centimeter-wide “kilobots” under the watch of a team at Spain’s University of Barcelona can’t shimmy and shake just yet, they do signal to one another much like bees.

[Related: Bee brains could teach robots to make split-second decisions.]

As detailed in their preprint paper submitted in late October, the team first attached a colored LED light alongside an infrared-light receiver and emitter atop each of a total of 35 kilobots. They then programmed the bots using a modified version of a previously designed mathematical model based on scout bee behavior. From there, the team placed varying numbers of kilobots within an enclosure and let them jitter through their new environment on their trio of toothpick-like legs. During over 70 tests, researchers ordered certain bot clusters to advertise their preferred nesting location “opinion” via signaling between their LED lights’ red, blue, and green hues.

Every kilobot team achieved a group consensus within roughly 30 minutes, no matter the team size or environmental density. Such reliable decision making—even in machines capable of transmitting just 9 bytes of information at a time—could one day prove invaluable across a number of industries.

[Related: Bat-like echolocation could help these robots find lost people.]

“We believe that in the near future there are going to be simple robots that will do jobs that we don’t want to do, and it will be very important that they make decisions in a decentralized, autonomous manner,” Carmen Miguel, one of the study’s co-authors, explained to New Scientist on November 7.

During invasive medical procedures, for instance, tiny robots could maneuver within a patient’s body, communicating with one another without the need for complex electronics. Similarly, cheap bots could coordinate with one another while deployed during search-and-rescue missions. In such scenarios, the environmental dangers often prevent the use of expensive robots due to risk of damage or destruction.

Above it all, however, the University of Barcelona team believes their work draws attention to often underappreciated aspects of everyday existence. The team’s paper abstract concludes: “By shedding light on this crucial layer of complexity… we emphasize the significance of factors typically overlooked but essential to living systems and life itself.”

The post These robots reached a team consensus like a swarm of bees appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

A billionaire-backed Silicon Valley company says it now owns enough land to move forward with the next phases in creating a high-tech, utopian “city of yesterday.” In a recent email to PopSci, California Forever CEO Jan Sramek says he hopes “residents [will] keep an open mind [and] hear what we have to say,” while promising “we’ll do the same in kind.”

The news marked a turning point in the secretive, years-long campaign costing over $800 million, alongside a recently dropped $510 million lawsuit against local landowners. According to the project’s website, the group intends to build a new, green smart municipality from scratch atop its 53,000 acres. But despite promising “novel methods of design, construction and governance,” the project’s details remain vague.

[Related: Silicon Valley’s wealthiest want to build their own city outside of San Francisco.]

Founded by Sramek, a 36-year-old former Goldman Sachs trader, California Forever has quietly bought up tens of thousands of acres northeast of San Francisco since at least 2018. Investors include prominent venture capitalists, LinkedIn’s co-founder, as well as Lauren Powell Jobs, billionaire philanthropist and wife of the late Steve Jobs.

After years spent flying under-the-radar, Flannery Associate’s parent company finally launched a public-facing website in September featuring conceptual renderings and CGI walkthroughs of an idyllic townscape. The official site’s FAQ section argues the stealth campaign was “the only way to avoid creating a rush of reckless short-term land speculation.”

In a separate statement provided to PopSci on Monday, a Flannery spokesperson relayed the company “does not anticipate making any additional purchases” once it finalizes the “few remaining properties” under contract in the coming weeks. It is unclear if the final properties under contract differ from those recently purchased from local Solano County farmers following the contentious legal battle. Flannery filed its $510 million lawsuit in May 2023 against a group of local landowners, citing antitrust violations.

Speaking with PopSci last week via email, Flannery’s spokesperson contended this “small group” of residents engaged in a “targeted campaign” of slander, but denied that the company was suing local farmers for simply refusing to sell. The spokesperson cited an alleged incident from July 2022, when a farmer offered his property to Flannery for $32,000 per acre—nearly 10 times “fair market value” at the time, claims Flannery. After company representatives refused to buy at that price point, the farmer allegedly engaged in a “secret conspiracy” alongside fellow landowners to agree upon a standard selling price “so [Flannery] cannot play owners against owners,” the spokesperson said.

“Flannery has been reasonable when settling the case with many of the defendants, and has been willing to negotiate generous settlements with the remaining defendants,” the spokesperson concluded last week. On November 3, Bloomberg Business revealed the lawsuit’s defendants have since agreed to sell their remaining land to Flannery Associates for $18,000 per acre.

Critics, however, continue to voice concerns over the project’s logistical, legal, and governmental vagaries. Earlier this year, Rep. John Garamendi (D-CA) argued to a local California news outlet that the area’s proximity to Travis Air Force Base meant “[foreign] spy operations or any other nefarious activity could take place” there. Rep. Garamendi added such issues “could detrimentally impact the [base’s] ability…  to operate in a moment of national emergency,” and criticized Flannery’s then-ongoing lawsuit against locals. PopSci has reached out to Rep. Garamendi’s office for comment, but did not receive a response at the time of writing.

“Travis Air Force Base is critical to both our national security and to Solano County. We fully support its mission and always will,” reads a portion of California Forever’s FAQ page.

[Related: Why the tech billionaires can’t save themselves.]

In August, Solano County residents began receiving text and email opinion polls regarding a potential future ballot initiative. The messages at the time described an urban project including “a new city with tens of thousands of new homes, a large solar energy farm, orchards with over a million new trees, and over 10,000 acres of new parks and open space.” In an interview with local Bay Area news outlet ABC 7 in September, Sramek also said he envisions it to be “one of the most walkable places in California, probably in America” while possessing a “very traditional feeling to it.”

“The idea of building a new community and economic opportunity in eastern Solano seemed impossible on the surface,” Sramek wrote to PopSci last week. “But after spending a lot of time learning about the community, which I now call home, I became convinced that with thoughtful design, the right long-term patient investors, and strong partnerships… we can create a new community,” Sramek said at the time.

The post Billionaire-backed company has bought all the land it needs for its ‘city of yesterday’ appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

A tiny glimmer spotted amid seagrass by a diver off the Italian coast has yielded one of the largest historical treasure troves in over a decade. According to a November 4 announcement by Italy’s culture ministry, an archeological recovery team has recovered somewhere between 30,000 and 50,000 near-pristine ancient coins from the Mediterranean Sea dating back to the fourth century Roman empire. 

[Related: These ‘fake’ ancient Roman coins might actually be real.]

Authorities described the large, bronze coins (known as follis) found near the town of Arzachena “in an exceptional and rare state of conservation,” with only four appearing slightly damaged. Upon further inspection, experts determined the currency originated across the Roman empire between 324 and 340 CE—roughly during Constantine the Great’s reign—with nearly every active mint known from the time, apart from Antioch, Alexandria, and Carthage.

Roman follis coinage entered circulation circa 294 CE during monetary reforms instituted by the emperor Diocletian. Even without a final official coin count, the Arzachena find is already confirmed to be larger than the last major follis discovery made a decade ago in the UK. In 2013, a local metal detector enthusiast uncovered 22,888 follis near Seaton Down a few hundred feet away from the site of a Roman military fort and villa circa the second-to-third centuries.

“The treasure found in the waters of Arzachena represents one of the most important discoveries of numismatic finds in recent years and highlights once again the richness and importance of the archaeological heritage that the depths of our seas… still guards and conserves,” Luigi La Rocca, regional director general of archaeology, fine arts and landscape, said via the Italian government’s recent announcement. La Rocca went on to describe such artifacts as “an extraordinary but also very fragile heritage” that is now constantly threatened by climate change and other human ecological impacts.

[Related: AI revealed the colorful first word of an ancient scroll torched by Mount Vesuvius.]

The tens of thousands of coins may not be the end of discoveries off the Sardianian coast, either. While recovering the follis, divers also found fragments of tall, two-handled, narrow neck jugs known as amphorae. Combined with the coins’ location across “two macro-areas of dispersion” in a large, sandy area between the beach and seabed, experts believe the region could hide the remains of a yet-to-be-uncovered shipwreck. Conservationists are now moving forward with follis restoration efforts.

The post Divers recovered a treasure trove of more than 30,000 ancient, bronze coins off the Italian coast appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Unauthorized harvesting of Americans’ personal online data isn’t just a privacy issue—it’s also a matter of national security, according to new findings. As highlighted in a recent study from Duke University researchers, bad actors can purchase current and former US military personnel’s sensitive information for as little as 12 cents a person.

At any given time, third-party brokers are collecting and selling millions of people’s personal data, often without their knowledge or consent. Much of this information is legally collected through public records, via embedded codes within websites and apps, or by purchasing other companies’ customer data. This is particularly an issue in the US, where federal laws governing the online data brokerage industry remain relatively permissible—creating huge revenue streams for companies like Meta, Google, and Amazon. Depending on whose hands the data troves fall into, the information can be used for everything from targeted advertising, to surveillance, to financial fraud.

[Related: How data brokers threaten your privacy.]

Disturbingly, researchers at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy found US service members’ non-public, individually-identifying information such as credit scores, health data, marital status, children’s names, and religious practices—reportedly offered for sale through over 500 websites.

To test just how straightforward it can be to obtain the information, researchers first scraped hundreds of data broker sites for terms like “military” and “veteran.” They then contacted a number of these companies—some of which used .org and .asia domain names—via email, phone, Google Voice, and Zoom. The study authors eventually were able to purchase the personal data of almost 50,000 service members, and data about veterans, for barely $10,000. The team also noted that, in some instances, individuals’ current location data was available to purchase, although the authors did not do that.

Many brokers required little-to-no verification or proof of identity information before selling their sensitive data caches. In one instance, a company told researchers they needed to confirm their identity before purchasing military data via a credit card, unless the Duke University team opted to pay through a wire transfer—which they then did.

[Related: Your car could be capturing data on your sex life.]

This “highly unregulated” ecosystem is ripe for exploitation, write the study authors, and could be used by “foreign and malicious actors to target active-duty military personnel, veterans, and their families and acquaintances for profiling, blackmail, targeting with information campaigns, and more.” As NBC News also notes, foreign actors could use such data to identify and approach individuals for access to state secrets via blackmail, coercion, or bribery.

Like many tech industry critics, privacy advocates, and bipartisan politicians before them, the study’s authors stressed the need for comprehensive US data privacy oversight featuring “strong controls on the data brokerage ecosystem.” A handful of states, including California and Massachusetts, have passed or are considering individual data regulatory legislation, but a US federal law remains elusive. Researchers reference the American Data Privacy and Protection Act as a potential roadmap; Congress proposed the bill in 2022, but has yet to reintroduce it this session.

The study also cites the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) as another example of a strenuous, comprehensive approach to protecting online privacy. Passed in 2016 and enforced in 2018, the GDPR guards against many of the digital security problems faced by US residents.

Harvesting American data isn’t just a third-party broker issue, however. According to a partially declassified 2022 report released earlier this year by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, agencies including the CIA, FBI, and NSA consistently purchase citizens’ commercially available information from data brokers with little regulation or oversight.

The post Data brokers selling military members’ personal data is a national security risk appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Tired of paying increasingly hefty monthly subscription fees for your streaming services, only to scroll nearly as long as a movie’s runtime just to find something to watch? Well, your choices are only going to expand thanks to NASA’s new streaming channel. But at least when NASA+ launches on November 8, it won’t come with any fees or commercials.

The commercial free on-demand platform will be available via the NASA App on iOS and Android devices, web browsers, as well as through Roku, Apple TV, and Fire TV. The ever-expanding catalog will include live coverage of launch events and missions, original videos, and multiple new series.

[Related: NASA’s first asteroid-return sample is a goldmine of life-sustaining materials.]

“We’re putting space on demand and at your fingertips with NASA’s new streaming platform,” Marc Etkind, NASA Headquarters’ Office of Communications associate administrator, said earlier this year. “Transforming our digital presence will help us better tell the stories of how NASA explores the unknown in air and space, inspires through discovery, and innovates for the benefit of humanity.”

Check out trailers for some of the first series to hit NASA+ this month:

NASA Explorers will offer viewers a multi-episode look at the agency’s recently concluded, seven-year OSIRIS-REx mission. Completed in September, OSIRIS-REx successfully returned samples collected in space from Bennu, a 4.5 billion-year-old asteroid traveling across the cosmos since the dawn of the solar system.

Other Worlds will focus on the latest updates and news from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) program. Launched in 2021 following a 17-year-long development on Earth followed by a six-month orbital tune up, the JWST provides researchers with some of the most spectacular glimpses of space ever achieved. Over the course of its decade-long lifespan, the JWST aims to capture information and imagery from over 13.5 billion years ago—when some of the universe’s earliest galaxies and stars began to form.

And for those looking to just bask in cosmic majesty, Space Out will allow viewers to do just that alongside “relaxing music and ultra-high-definition visuals of the cosmos, from the surface of Mars to a Uranian sunset.”

[Related: Moon-bound Artemis III spacesuits have some functional luxury sewn in.]

“From exoplanet research to better understanding Earth’s climate and the influence of the Sun on our planet along with exploration of the solar system, our new science and flagship websites, as well as forthcoming NASA+ videos, showcases our discovery programs in an interdisciplinary and crosscutting way, ultimately building stronger connections with our visitors and viewers,” Nicky Fox, associate administrator of NASA Headquarters’ Science Mission Directorate, said over the summer.

NASA+ comes as the space agency nears a scheduled 2025 return to the lunar surface as part of its ongoing Artemis program. When humans touch down on the moon for the first time in over 50 years, they apparently will do so in style, with both Prada-designed spacesuits and high-tech lunar cameras.

The post NASA’s free streaming platform launches this week. Here’s what to watch. appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

There’s an aviation term called the “death spiral”—when pilots’ skewed sensory perceptions contradict the accurate readings on their instruments, causing confusion and leading to bad course corrections. As the name implies, this often leads to tragic consequences—many experts believe such an issue contributed to John F. Kennedy, Jr.’s fatal crash in 1999, as well as the 1959 tragedy that killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper. Disorientation was also one of the causes in the 2021 helicopter crash that claimed Kobe Bryant’s life.

[Related: How pilots end up in a ‘death spiral’ ]

Such a scenario is terrifying enough on its own—but imagine a similar situation while floating in the vacuum of space. With no gravitational pull and few, if any, points of reference, working in such an environment could quickly become disorienting and potentially dangerous as astronauts lose their sense of direction.

Although NASA astronauts receive copious training to guard against spatial disorientation, the issue is still a huge concern, especially as private companies increasingly expand their own projects with both space tourism and governmental contracts. Thanks to a team of researchers, however, wearable sensors enhanced by vibrotactile feedback might one day help keep astronauts feeling grounded.

[Related: This US astronaut will have spent an entire year in orbit.]

“Long duration spaceflight will cause many physiological and psychological stressors which will make astronauts very susceptible to spatial disorientation,” Vivekanand P. Vimal, a research scientist at Brandeis University’s Ashton Graybiel Spatial Orientation Lab, explained in a recent profile. “When disoriented, an astronaut will no longer be able to rely on their own internal sensors which they have depended on for their whole lives.”

To explore these issues, Vimal and their colleagues conducted a series of trials involving 30 participants. The team taught 10 of them to treat their vestibular senses (which pick up onwhere they are in space and where they are going) with skepticism. Another 10 volunteers received the same training alongside the addition of vibrotactors—devices attached to their skin that buzz depending on their geospatial positioning. The final 10 participants only received the vibrotactors with no training whatsoever. Subjects then wore blindfolds and earplugs while white noise played in the background, and took their place inside an intentionally disorienting “multi-axis rotation device” (dubbed MARS).

Similar to an inverted pendulum, MARS first rotated upright subjects from side-to-side around a central axis to act as an analog to everyday gravitational cues on Earth. Subjects then used two joysticks to attempt to remain stabilized without swinging into either side’s crash boundary. A second phase involved the same parameters, but with the cockpit shifted on a horizontal angle (with the participants facing the ceiling) to better approximate a space environment without Earth’s gravitational reference points. Throughout each subject’s 40 trials, vibrotactors on 20 of the 30 participants buzzed if they shifted too far from a central balancing point, thus potentially queuing them to correct their position with their joysticks.

Vimal, alongside co-authors Alexander Sacha Panic, James R. Lackner, and Paul DiZio, published the results in a new study published on November 3 with Frontiers in Physiology. According to the team’s findings, all participants first felt disoriented during the analog tests due to conflicting input from their vestibular systems and vibrotactors. Those with prior training with their sensors performed best during the space phase, while training-only participants without the wearables “crashed” more often. This third group also accidentally destabilized themselves more frequently than the other two. However, the subjects performed far better while situated in the Earth analog position, with or without the vibrotactors’ aid—Vimal’s team suspects the devices may have been too weak, or participants needed more time to adjust to the devices. 

[Related: ISS astronauts are building objects not possible on Earth.]

With further testing and refinement, Vimal’s team believes engineers could integrate similar wearables into astronauts’ suits to provide orientation aid, both inside spacecraft and outside space stations. They may be small additions, but they are some that could save explorers from some very serious, scary, and possibly even fatal circumstances.

The post These wearables might protect astronauts from space ‘death spirals’ appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

The Beatles have released their first song in over 50 years, produced in part using artificial intelligence. Based on a demo cassette tape recorded by John Lennon at his New York City home in 1978, “Now and Then” will be the last track to ever feature original contributions from all four members of the band. Check it out below:

The Beatles dominated pop culture throughout the 60’s before parting ways in 1970 following their final full-length album, Let It Be. Following John Lennon’s assassination in 1980, two additional lost songs, “Real Love” and “Free as a Bird” were recorded and released in 1995 using old demos of Lennon’s vocals. Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr are the two surviving members after George Harrison’s death from lung cancer in 2001. 

Beatles fans have anticipated the release of the seminal band’s “final” song with a mix of excitement and caution ever since Sir Paul McCartney revealed the news back in June. Unlike other groups’ “lost” tracks or recording sessions, the new single featured John Lennon’s vocals “extracted” and enhanced using an AI program. In this case, a neural network designed to isolate individual voices identified Lennon’s voice, then set about “re-synthesizing them in a realistic way that matched trained samples of those instruments or voices in isolation,” explained Ars Technica earlier this year.

[Related: New Beatles song to bring John Lennon’s voice back, with a little help from AI.]

By combining the isolated tape audio alongside existing vocal samples, the AI ostensibly layers over weaker recording segments with synthesized approximations of the voice. “It’s not quite Lennon, but it’s about as close as you can get,” PopSci explained at the time.

The Beatles’ surviving members, McCartney and Ringo Starr, first learned of the AI software during the production of Peter Jackson’s 2021 documentary project, The Beatles: Get Back. Dubbed MAL, the program conducted similar vocal isolations of whispered or otherwise muddied conversions between band members, producers, and friends within hours of footage captured during Get Back’s recording sessions. 

[Related: Scientists made a Pink Floyd cover from brain scans]

Attempts to record “Now and Then” date as far back as the 1990s. In a past interview, McCartney explained that George Harrison refused to contribute to the project at the time, due to Lennon’s vocal recordings sounding like, well, “fucking rubbish.” His words.

And listening to the track, it’s somewhat easy to understand Harrison’s point of view. While compositionally fine, “Now and Then” feels like more of a b-side than a beloved new single from The Beatles. Even with AI’s help, Lennon’s “vocals” contrast strongly against the modern instrumentation, and occasionally still sounds warbly and low-quality. Still, if nothing else, it is certainly an interesting usage of rapidly proliferating AI technology—and certainly a sign of divisive creative projects to come.

The post Listen to ‘Now and Then’ by The Beatles, a ‘new’ song recorded using AI appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

The government’s ongoing campaign to investigate and destigmatize unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs) sightings entered its latest stage this week. A new, easy-to-use online reporting tool is available to file incidents occurring as far back as 1945—but only for those already affiliated with the US government. For now.

Announced on October 31 by the Department of Defense, the system will be overseen by the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), and is specifically equipped to securely handle sightings involving national security information and military intelligence. The form is only intended for “current and former military members, federal employees and contractors” with “direct knowledge” of alleged US programs related to UAPs.

[Related: NASA wants to use AI to study unidentified aerial phenomena.]

The submission portal includes specific instructions for filing, and specifically prohibits including classified information in an initial report. That said, the AARO is cleared to handle sensitive material, which can be conveyed in potential follow-up interviews.

“The information you submit in the form will be protected,” AARO director Sean Kirkpatrick said via this week’s DoD announcement, adding that any information provided in subsequent follow-up interviews will also be safeguarded according to its proper classification. Any reports must also be firsthand accounts.

Established in July 2022, AARO formed following the dissolution of the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force. Per its official description, it is charged with “minimiz[ing] technical and intelligence surprise by synchronizing scientific, intelligence, and operational detection identification, attribution, and mitigation of unidentified anomalous phenomena in the vicinity of national security areas.” AARO released its second annual UAP report earlier this year, which dramatically increased the number of documented sightings from 144 to 510 incidents—including 247 from the previous year alone.

AARO’s latest announcement also importantly notes that, although part of its congressional mandate required collecting information regarding “any potential UAP-related programs overseen by the U.S. government in the past,” it has yet to do so.

“We do have a requirement by law to bring those [witnesses] who think that it does exist, and they may have information that pertains to that,” Kirkpatrick said, while also making clear they “do not have any of that evidence right now.”

[Related: Is the truth out there? Decoding the Pentagon’s latest UFO report.]

As AARO currently concerns itself predominantly with classified reports, NASA is continuing its own parallel investigations into declassified and public UAP sightings. In September 2023, the 16-member panel released a new independent study report, which recommended harnessing public trust of the agency alongside artificial intelligence programs to help sift through decades’ worth of UAP incidents.

But if you’re a plainclothes civilian still needing to get that one weird sighting off your chest, take heart: AARO is also planning to launch a similar public portal sometime in the near future.

“We want to hear from you,” said Kirkpatrick.

The post Want to report a UAP sighting? US government workers can now use this website. appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

The wind energy company Ørsted has officially shuttered plans for two New Jersey offshore wind farms, citing rising inflation, interest rates, and supply chain problems. The blow to US green energy infrastructure arrives less than two weeks after the Danish wind industry giant promised to pay the Garden State a $100 million penalty if its Ocean Wind I turbines weren’t online by the end of 2025. But although the company’s plans off the coast of Atlantic City are canceled, similar projects are still underway across the US as the country transitions towards a sustainable energy infrastructure.

“We are extremely disappointed to have to take this decision, particularly because New Jersey is poised to be a US and global hub for offshore wind energy,” David Hardy, Ørsted Group EVP and CEO Americas, said in an October 31 statement. “I want to thank Governor Murphy and NJ state and local leaders who helped support these projects and continue to lead the region in developing American renewable energy and jobs.”

[Related: Atlantic City’s massive offshore wind farm project highlights the industry’s growing pains.]

According to the Associated Press on Tuesday, however, NJ Gov. Phil Murphy had strong words for the company, citing Ørsted’s recent statements “regarding the viability and progress of the Ocean Wind I project.”

“Today’s decision by Ørsted to abandon its commitments to New Jersey is outrageous and calls into question the company’s credibility and competence,” added Gov. Murphy per the AP. He also hinted at impending plans to pursue an additional $200 million Ørsted reportedly pledged for the state’s offshore wind industry. In the meantime, Gov. Murphy reiterated New Jersey’s commitment to offshore wind infrastructure, and said the state will solicit a new round of project proposals in the near future.

Both Ocean Wind endeavors had faced intense scrutiny and pushback from both Republican state legislators and locals, who criticized the farms’ alleged ecological impacts, ocean horizon views, as well as the millions of dollars in subsidies granted to Ørsted. Earlier this month, Ørsted received a lawsuit filed on behalf of an environmental group called Clean Ocean Action alongside multiple seafood and fishing organizations. In May 2023, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management released an over 2,300 page Final Environmental Impact Statement on Ocean Wind 1, which deemed it responsibly designed and safe for the region’s ecological health.

If completed, Ocean Wind I would have included nearly 100 giant turbines roughly 15 miles off the southeast coast of Atlantic City, New Jersey. Once online, the farm would have annually generated 1.1 gigawatts of energy—enough to power over 500,000 homes. Ocean Wind II was slated for construction next to its sibling wind farm, and would have offered similar energy outputs.

[Related: Watch a heavy-lifting drone land a perfect delivery on an offshore wind turbine.]

While the Danish company’s plans in New Jersey are dashed, America’s wind farm buildup is still progressing elsewhere—and Ørsted remains a part of that trajectory. The same day as its Ocean Wind announcement, the company confirmed it is moving forward with a $4 billion project, Revolution Wind, off the coast of Rhode Island. If completed, the offshore wind farm will supply clean energy for residents in both Rhode Island and Connecticut.

Meanwhile, a utility company called Dominion Energy received crucial federal approval on Tuesday for plans to construct 176 turbines over 20 miles off the coast of Virginia. Dominion claims the project is the largest offshore project in the US, and will generate enough energy for nearly 660,000 homes upon its estimated late-2026 completion date. According to a 2015 report from the US Department of Energy, wind farms could supply over a third of US electricity by 2050.

The post A Danish company just scrapped its ambitious plan for a New Jersey offshore wind farm appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

European users can soon enjoy an ad-free Facebook and Instagram experience—for a price. On October 30, the platforms’ parent company, Meta, announced that residents of the EU, European Economic Area (EEA), and Switzerland will be able to opt into the new, premium service beginning in November.

The cost for zero advertisements while accessing sites on a web browser will run 18-and-up users €9.99 (roughly $10.55) per month, while streamlined iOS and Android app options will cost €12.99 (about $13.72) per month. When enrolled, Facebook and Instagram users won’t see ads, nor will their data and online activities be used to customize any future advertising. Starting March 1, 2024, additional fees of €6 per month for the web and €8 per month for iOS and Android will also go into effect for every additional account listed in a user’s Account Center.

[Related: Meta fined record $1.3 billion for not meeting EU data privacy standards.]

According to The Wall Street Journal, Meta is also temporarily pausing all advertising for minors’ accounts on both platforms beginning on November 6, presumably while working on a separate premium tier option for those accounts. But even when anticipating potentially millions of dollars in additional monthly revenue, Meta made clear in its Monday blog post that it certainly hopes many users will stick to their current ad-heavy, free access.

“We believe in an ad-supported internet, which gives people access to personalized products and services regardless of their economic status,” reads a portion of the announcement, before arguing such an ecosystem “also allows small businesses to reach potential customers, grow their business and create new markets, driving growth in the European economy.”

The strategic shift arrives as the tech giant attempts to adhere with the EU’s comprehensive General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Digital Markets Act (DMA) laws. Passed in 2018, the GDPR is designed to protect EU consumers’ private digital information against an often invasive, highly profitable data industry. In particular, it grants European citizens the right to easily and clearly choose whether or not companies can track their online information such as geolocation, search preferences, social media activity, and spending habits. 

Meanwhile, the 2022 DMA establishes criteria for designation of large online platforms—i.e. Facebook and Instagram—as so-called “gatekeepers” beholden to greater consumer legal responsibilities. These include making sure third-parties’ interoperability within gatekeepers’ services, as well as allow smaller companies to fairly conduct business within and without a gatekeeper’s platform. Ostensibly, the DMA attempts to prevent monopolies from forming, thus avoiding thorny antitrust lawsuits such as the ongoing battle between the US government and Google. By offering the new (paid) opt-out, Meta likely believes it will hopefully reduce its chances of earning costly fines—such as a record $1.3 billion fine levied earlier this year.

[ Related: The Opt Out: The case against editing your ad settings ]

But if you’re expecting to see a similar premium subscription service announced for US users—don’t hold your breath. Although a number of states including Massachusetts, California, Virginia, and Colorado have begun passing piecemeal data protections, federal bipartisan legislation remains stalled. Companies like Meta therefore feel little pressure to offer Americans easy opt-out paths, even in the form of a monthly tithing.

For a truly ad-free experience, of course, there’s always the option of deleting your account.

The post Meta will offer premium ad-free Facebook and Instagram options—just not in the US appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

An autonomous drone with the wingspan of an albatross is now trialing cargo restocks for a giant offshore wind farm in the North Sea. Overseen by the Danish wind power company Ørsted, the 128-pound unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)—roughly the weight of “a large baby giraffe”—is meant to cut down on time and costs, while also improving overall operational safety, and is billed as the first of its kind in the world.

“Drones mean less work disturbance as turbines don’t have to be shut down when cargo is delivered,” Ørsted’s October 30 announcement states. “They avoid risk, making it safer for personnel working on the wind farm and minimize the need for multiple journeys by ship, reducing carbon emissions and climate change impacts.”

In a video posted to the social media platform, X, the hefty drone is shown launching from a cargo ship’s deck while towing a large orange bag suspended by a cable beneath the UAV. From there, the transport soars over a few hundred feet of North Sea waters to hover above one of Hornsea 1’s 7-megawatt wind turbines. Once in place, the drone carefully lands its cargo on the platform before releasing its tether to return to its crew transfer vessel, where human pilots have overseen the entire process.

While Ørsted didn’t name its drone partner in the project announcement, additional promotional materials provided by the company confirm it is a Skylift, a UK-based business focusing on offshore wind farm deliveries.

[Related: Atlantic City’s massive offshore wind farm project highlights the industry’s growing pains.]

“[W]e want to use our industry leading position to help push forward innovations that reduce costs and maximize efficiency and safety in the offshore wind sector,” Mikkel Haugaard Windolf, head of Ørsted’s offshore logistics project, said via the company’s October 30 reveal, adding that, “Drone cargo delivery is an important step in that direction.”

Ørsted’s Hornsea 1 wind farm consists of 174 turbines installed across over 157-square-miles in the North Sea. Generating roughly 1.7Gw of power, the farm’s electricity is enough to sustainably power over 1 million homes in the UK.

Despite the company’s multiple Hornsea wind farm successes, Ørsted has encountered significant setbacks during attempts to expand into the US market. Earlier this month, local officials in Cape May County, NJ, filed a lawsuit attempting to block construction of a 1.1 gigawatt project involving nearly 100 turbines off the coast of Atlantic City, citing regulatory sidesteps and environmental concerns. In an email to PopSci at the time, the American Clean Power Association’s Director of Eastern Region State Affairs described the lawsuit as “meritless,” and reiterated that offshore wind energy production remains “one of the most rigorously regulated industries in the nation.”

According to a 2015 report from the US Department of Energy, wind farms could supply over a third of the country’s sustainable electricity by 2050.

The post Watch a heavy-lifting drone land a perfect delivery on an offshore wind turbine appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Today, President Joe Biden signed a new, sweeping executive order outlining plans on governmental oversight and corporate regulation of artificial intelligence. Released on October 30, the legislation is aimed at addressing widespread issues such as privacy concerns, bias, and misinformation enabled by a multibillion dollar industry increasingly entrenching itself within modern society. Though the solutions so far remain largely conceptual, the White House’s Executive Order Fact Sheet makes clear US regulating bodies intend to both attempt to regulate and benefit from the wide range of emerging and re-branded “artificial intelligence” technologies.

[Related: Zoom could be using your ‘content’ to train its AI.]

In particular, the administration’s executive order seeks to establish new standards for AI safety and security. Harnessing the Defense Production Act, the order instructs companies to make their safety test results and other critical information available to US regulators whenever designing AI that could pose “serious risk” to national economic, public, and military security, though it is not immediately clear who would be assessing such risks and on what scale. However, safety standards soon to be set by the National Institute of Standards and Technology must be met before public release of any such AI programs.

Drawing the map along the way 

“I think in many respects AI policy is like running a decathlon, where we don’t get to pick and choose which events we do,” Ben Buchanan, the White House Senior Advisor for AI, told PopSci via phone call. “We have to do safety and security, we have to do civil rights and equity, we have to do worker protections, consumer protections, the international dimension, government use of AI, [while] making sure we have a competitive ecosystem here.”

“Probably some of [order’s] most significant actions are [setting] standards for AI safety, security, and trust. And then require that companies notify us of large-scale AI development, and that they share the tests of those systems in accordance with those standards,” says Buchanan. “Before it goes out to the public, it needs to be safe, secure, and trustworthy.”

Too little, too late?

Longtime critics of the still-largely unregulated AI tech industry, however, claim the Biden administration’s executive order is too little, too late.

“A lot of the AI tools on the market are already illegal,” Albert Fox Cahn, executive director for the tech privacy advocacy nonprofit, Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, said in a press release. Cahn contended the “worst forms of AI,” such as facial recognition, deserve bans instead of regulation.

“[M]any of these proposals are simply regulatory theater, allowing abusive AI to stay on the market,” he continued, adding that, “the White House is continuing the mistake of over-relying on AI auditing techniques that can be easily gamed by companies and agencies.”

Buchanan tells PopSci the White House already has a “good dialogue” with companies such as OpenAI, Meta, and Google, although they are “certainly expecting” them to “hold up their end of the bargain on the voluntary commitments that they made” earlier this year.

A long road ahead

In Monday’s announcement, President Biden also urged Congress to pass bipartisan data privacy legislation “to protect all Americans, especially kids,” from the risks of AI technology. Although some states including Massachusetts, California, Virginia, and Colorado have proposed or passed legislation, the US currently lacks comprehensive legal safeguards akin to the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Passed in 2018, the GDPR heavily restricts companies’ access to consumers’ private data, and can issue large fines if businesses are found to violate the law.

[Related: Your car could be capturing data on your sex life.]

The White House’s newest calls for data privacy legislation, however, “are unlikely to be answered,” Sarah Kreps, a professor of government and director of the Tech Policy Institute at Cornell University, tells PopSci via email. “… [B]oth parties agree that there should be action but can’t agree on what it should look like.”

A federal hiring push is now underway to help staff the numerous announced projects alongside additional funding opportunities, all of which can be found via the new governmental website portal, AI.gov.

The post Here’s what to know about President Biden’s sweeping AI executive order appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Virtual and augmented reality headsets are currently focused on visual experiences, but for a truly immersive environment, designers will need to integrate additional sensory inputs such as touch. Companies like Meta and HaptX are already testing iterations of VR/AR devices with haptic feedback support, but they currently remain clunky, heavy, and tethered to external power sources. There’s also the issue of price points: Meta’s Haptic Glove is estimated to cost around $15,000, while HaptX’s G1 sets owners back $6,000 alongside a $500 per month support fee.

But what if VR/AR systems could include a lightweight, form-fitting haptic glove that only requires lightweight batteries, all costing roughly two months’ of a G1 subscription? Fluid Reality is trying to make just such a device, well, a reality.

[Related: What’s the difference between VR and AR?]

The startup—spun out of the Future Interfaces Group at Carnegie Mellon University—unveiled their new device today, and hopes to offer a completely new approach to providing realistic haptic sensations for AR/VR environments. While many existing gloves rely on pneumatic designs to simulate touch, Fluid Reality’s wearable instead utilizes low-profile, self-contained motion-generating actuators that clip onto a user’s fingertips, all without the need for tubing or wiring connected to an external device. The entire array of components including a wireless controller, drive electronics, and rechargeable battery pack are strapped to the user’s hand and wrist, thus eliminating the need for a wired power source.

To simulate tactile sensations, the finger pads use liquid-like “pixels” powered by tiny electroosmotic valves—pumps controlled via the electric stimulation of fluid pressure and flow. The device is a solid state design, thus containing no moving components apart from the valve “pixels” themselves. Because each actuator is just 5mm thick, the pads are incredibly slim and far less bulky than existing haptic glove options.

In demonstration videos, wearers are shown manipulating 3D-simulated objects like a basketball, various shaped blocks, a water bottle, and a rock alongside the haptic finger clips’ responses. Depending on angle, pressure, and speed of movement, the electroosmotic-powered pixels can be seen inflating and deflating in realtime to approximate the real-life sensations.

Even with such seemingly precise responses, Fluid Reality’s prototype gloves are considerably smaller than options like the Meta Haptic Glove, both in terms of overall physical dimensions and pricing. According to the team, a Fluid Reality glove weighs less than half-a-pound, and could cost less than $1,000 per unit. In the designers’ research paper, the team concedes additional refinement is needed before the gloves can arrive on the market. Going forward, they hope to increase the density of haptic arrays on each finger pad, while also miniaturizing their drive electronics. Given humans’ entire hands are often employed in manipulating objects, Fluid Reality also wants future versions of the glove to include sensational abilities for regions such as the palms.

The post This new haptic glove uses tiny valve ‘pixels’ to simulate pressure appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

When humans finally return to the moon as part of NASA’s Artemis program, they’ll arrive with a bevy of high-tech equipment to capture new, awe-inspiring glimpses of Earth’s satellite. But cameras have come a long way since the Apollo missions. In 2023, some incredibly advanced options are already almost moon-ready right off the shelf.

According to a recent update from the European Space Agency, engineers collaborating with NASA are finalizing a Handheld Universal Lunar Camera (HULC) with real-world testing in the rocky, lunar-esque vistas of Lanzarote, Spain. While resilient enough to travel to the moon, HULC’s underpinning tech derives from commercially available professional cameras featuring high light sensitivities and cutting-edge lenses. To strengthen the lunar documentation device, researchers needed to add a blanket casing that is durable enough to protect against ultra-fine moon dust, as well as the moon’s extreme temperature swings ranging between -208 and 250 degrees Fahrenheit. At the same time, the covering can’t impede usage, so designers also created a suite of ergonomic buttons compatible with astronaut spacesuits’ thick gloves.

[Related: Check out this Prada-designed Artemis III spacesuits.]

So far, HULC has snapped shots in near pitch-black volcanic caves, as well as in broad daylight to approximate the lunar surface’s vast spectrum of lighting possibilities. According to the ESA, HULC will also be the first mirrorless handheld camera used in space—such a design reportedly offers quality images in low light scenarios.

Even with the numerous alterations and adjustments, the HULC is still not quite ready for the Artemis III mission, currently scheduled for 2025. The ESA reports that at least one version of the camera will soon travel to the International Space Station for additional testing.

“We will continue modifying the camera as we move towards the Artemis III lunar landing,” Jeremy Myers, NASA lead on the HULC camera project, told the ESA on October 24. “I am positive that we will end up with the best product–a camera that will capture Moon pictures for humankind, used by crews from many countries and for many years to come.”

Images of Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong striding across the lunar surface during the Apollo 11 moonwalk instantly became iconic photographs in 1969, but they were only a preview of many more to come. Over the next three years, 10 more astronauts documented their visits to the moon using an array of video and photographic cameras. When humans finally return as part of the Artemis program, HULC will be in tow to capture new, awe-inspiring glimpses of Earth’s satellite.

The post A sneak peek at the lunar camera destined for the Artemis missions appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Have you ever left the house without a jacket on a balmy day, only to regret overestimating your chilly weather tolerance? Instead of dashing back home for your coat, there may come a time in the near future when you simply use an app to control your clothing’s level of insulation.

Created by researchers at MIT, FibeRobo is a cheap, programmable, shape-changing smart fiber reliant on a liquid crystal elastomer (LCE). Among their many uses, garments imbued with their new LCE fiber could adjust their structure to become more insulated in colder temperatures, and vice versa for warmer weather. With an additional ability to combine with electrically conductive threads, a wearer could directly control their FibeRobo clothing or medical wearables like compression garments via wireless inputs from a controller or smartphone.

[Related: The US wants to dress military in smart surveillance apparel.]

As detailed in a recent institute profile, LCEs are composed of molecules possessing liquid-like properties that can also arrange into periodic crystal formations once cool and inert. Importantly, the team’s new synthetic LCE can morph between its phases at safe, comfortable temperature levels—an industry first.

The result is a fiber capable of contracting when exposed to heat, and self-reversing as temperatures drop without any external sensors or interwoven components. What’s more, FibeRobo is flexible and strong enough to use within traditional manufacturing methods like embroidery, weaving looms, and knitting machines.

To make the new threads, engineers first designed a glue gun-like machine that slowly excretes heated LCE resin through a nozzle. The fiber is then cured for the first time using UV lights, submerged in oil, then cured once again using even stronger UV rays. After its manufacturing is complete, the LCE thread is spooled and dipped in a powder to make it easier to install textile production machines. According to MIT, the team can produce roughly a kilometer of usable fiber within a single day.

As proof of concepts, the MIT team used an industrial knitting machine to weave a Bluetooth-controlled compression dog jacket to help with anxiety, then tested the vest on one of the researchers’ pets. Another prototype served as an adaptive sports bra, with FibeRobo embroidery that tightened the fabric as its user began to exercise.

Going forward, the team wants to fine-tune their LCE’s composition to make it either biodegradable or recyclable, as well as simply the overall design.

“At the end of the day, you don’t want a diva fiber,”  Jack Forman, an MIT graduate student and paper lead author, said in a statement. “You want a fiber that, when you are working with it, falls into the ensemble of materials—one that you can work with just like any other fiber material, but then it has a lot of exciting new capabilities.”

While many current smart textile projects are trying to reinvent how a person can interact with their clothing–from interwoven sensors that interpret health data to “SMART ePANTS” that aid in surveillance and security–these apparel ventures perhaps may one day expand the number of garments in your closet. Meanwhile, this newest iteration may actually downsize your wardrobe.

The post This liquid crystal fabric is ‘smart’ enough to adapt to the weather appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

If the existence of a cheap, easy-to-use “Invisible Mask” device that generates a three-foot radius of protection against COVID-19 sounds too good to be true—well, that’s because it is. And the Federal Trade Commission is making sure nobody will continue to profit from this ruse.

Bogus science

According to an October 24 announcement, the FTC recently sued four defendants behind KW Tech, the company hawking the “1 Virus Buster Invisible Mask.” After “attach[ing] a small pouch of [unspecified] ingredients and hang[ing] the badge around the neck,” the Invisible Mask makers claimed it protected wearers against “99.9 percent of all viruses and bacteria,” including multiple variants of COVID-19. The Invisible Mask was marketed as effective in public spaces and crowded areas, as well as on public transit like buses and subways. After 30 days of use, KW Tech advised Invisible Mask owners to discard their device and purchase a new one.

[Related: How to avoid getting COVID again.]

Claiming to employ “a unique combination of compounds” from a design utilizing “IBM’s Quantum Computer,” the Virus Buster Invisible Mask was described as generating an invisible, three-foot “protective gaseous barrier” using something called “ion exchange science.”

“When certain ions collide with other ions, a reaction takes place. This reaction omits [sic] an invisible gas, the point of collision,” KW Tech’s website falsely claimed, as cited in the FTC complaint. “Lighter than air, this gas collects in a tight area close to your face and neck. When this thin layer of gas gets in contact with floating elements like common germs, viruses, and pathogens, it kills them before they are able to get into the nose, mouth, and eye.”

Though this may sound entirely like a word salad, a real technique called “ion exchange” exists, often used to extract mineral impurities from drinking water. However, it requires a physical filter, such as a resin, to collect impurities, and isn’t used against germs. A gas that is lighter than air would diffuse, rise, and not hang out near someone’s mouth.

They’ve been warned before

For $29.99, customers received their Invisible Mask alongside a fake “Certificate of Registration” featuring an image of the FDA logo. Perhaps unsurprisingly, KW Tech never received any approvals from the regulatory body, according to the FTC. Despite “no reliable scientific evidence” supporting their claims, makers of the Invisible Mask continued to deceptively peddle their product, even though they vowed to stop after receiving an FTC warning letter in July 2020—amassing “at least” $100,000 in gross revenue from sales in the process since the FTC’s initial admonishment.

Three of the four defendants have already agreed to settle the complaint, which entails a ban on “advertising, promoting, or selling any product claiming to prevent or treat COVID-19, unless the claims are true and supported by scientific evidence.” The order also bars them from misrepresenting government approval claims for products, alongside a $150,000 penalty.

“The defendants’ claims that their products can stand in for approved COVID-19 vaccines are bogus,” Samuel Levine, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said via the October 24 announcement. “The FTC will use every tool it has at its disposal to stop false and unsubstantiated health claims that endanger consumers.”

Experts continue to agree that proper masking, social distance guidelines, vaccines, and boosters remain the best preventative measures against the contraction and spread of COVID-19.

The post FTC smacks down makers of bogus ‘invisible mask’ against COVID-19 appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

If you’ve ever spent time on a beach in the Gulf of Mexico or the Caribbean, there is a solid chance you stumbled across a slimy mass of stinky, sulfurous-smelling seaweed. The specific marine plant in question during those gross encounters is likely sargassum—while helpful for absorbing CO2, sargassum is also incredibly invasive, and can wreak havoc on both shoreline and ocean ecosystems. Cleanup efforts can cost tens of thousands of dollars while disrupting both tourist and fishing industries, but a recent aquatic robot project is showing immense promise in alleviating sargassum stress. In fact, AlgaRay’s recent successes have even earned it a spot on Time’s Best Inventions of 2023.

Co-designed by Seaweed Generation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to utilizing the versatile plant to help mitigate and remove carbon emissions, an AlgaRay prototype is currently patrolling off the coasts of Antigua. There, the roughly 9-foot-wide robot scoops up clumps of sargassum until its storage capacity is filled, at which point the autonomous bot dives 200m below the surface.

[Related: Rocks may be able to release carbon dioxide as well as store it.]

At this depth, the air pockets that make sargassum leaves so buoyant are so compressed by the water pressure that it simply can’t float anymore. Once released by AlgaRay, the seaweed then sinks to the ocean floor. According to a new writeup by Seaweed Generation’s partners at the University of Exeter, the robot can repeat this process between four and six times every hour. And thanks to a combination of solar panels, lithium batteries, and navigational tools connected to Starlink’s satellite internet constellation, AlgaRay will “ultimately be able to work almost non-stop,” reports the University of Exeter.

Of course, ocean ecosystems are complex and delicate balancing acts at any depth. AlgaRay’s designers are well aware of this, and assure its potential additional ocean floor CO2 deposits won’t be carried out recklessly. Additionally, they note sargassum blooms—exacerbated by human ecological disruption—are already causing major issues across the world.

“Sargassum inundations… cause environmental, social and economic disruption across the Caribbean, Central US and West African regions,” Seaweed Generation CEO Paddy Estridge and Chief of Staff Blythe Taylor, explain on the organization’s website. “Massive influxes of seaweed wash ashore and rot, releasing not just the absorbed CO2 but hydrogen sulfide gasses, decimating fragile coastal ecosystems including mangroves and seagrass meadows and killing countless marine animals.”

[Related: The US is investing more than $1 billion in carbon capture, but big oil is still involved.]

Estridge and Taylor write that humans “need to tread carefully” when it comes to depositing biomass within the deep ocean to ensure there are no “negative impacts or implications on the surrounding environment and organisms.” At the same time, researchers already know sargassum naturally dies and sinks to the bottom of the ocean.

Still, “we can’t assume either a positive or negative impact to sinking sargassum, so a cautious pathway and detailed monitoring has been built into our approach,” Estridge and Taylor write. “The scale of our operations are such that we can measure any change to the ocean environment on the surface, mid or deep ocean. Right now, and for the next few years our operations are literally a drop in the ocean (or a teaspoon of Sargassum per m2).”

As the name might imply, the AlgaRay is inspired by manta rays, which glide through ocean waters while using their mouths to filter and eat algae. In time, future iterations of the robot could even rival manta rays’ massive sizes. A nearly 33-foot-wide version is in the works to collect upwards of 16 metric tons of seaweed at a time—equal to around two metric tons of CO2. With careful monitoring of deep sea repositories, fleets of AlgaRay robots could soon offer an efficient, creative means to remove CO2 from the atmosphere.

“The [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change]  has been very clear that we need to be able to remove (not offset, remove) 10 billion [metric tons] of carbon a year from the atmosphere by 2050 to have a hope of avoiding utter catastrophe for all people and all earth life,” write Estridge and Taylor. Knowing this, AlgaRay bots may be a key ally for helping meet that goal. If nothing else, perhaps some beaches will be a little less overrun with rotting seaweed every year. 

The post This seafaring robot ‘eats’ stinky seaweed and dumps it in deep water appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Chicken feathers, much like human hair and fingernails, are composed mostly of a tough protein called keratin. And like with your own hair and nails, the birds produce a lot of feathers over the course of their lives. Generally speaking, this isn’t a big issue—but it’s another matter for the food industry. Each year, approximately 40 million metric tons of chicken feathers are incinerated during the poultry production process, releasing harmful fumes like carbon and sulfur dioxide.

Finding a new use for all those feathers could dramatically cut down on food waste and pollution, and a team of researchers may have figured out what to do with them: turn feathers into a vital component of green hydrogen fuel cells.

[Related: Why you should build a swing for your chickens.]

As detailed in a new paper published via ACS Applied Materials & Sciences, scientists from ETH Zurich and Nanyang Technological University Singapore (NTU) have developed a method to extract feathers’ keratin and spin it into thin fibers called amyloid fibrils. From there, these fibrils can be installed as a hydrogen fuel cell’s vital semipermeable membrane. Traditionally composed of highly poisonous “forever chemicals,” these membranes allow protons to pass through while excluding electrons. The blocked electrons are then forced to travel via an external circuit from negative anodes to positive cathode, thus creating electricity.

“Our latest development closes a cycle: [we took] a substance that releases CO2 and toxic gasses when burned, and used it in a different setting,” Raffaele Mezzenga, a professor of food and soft materials at ETH Zurich, said in a recent university profile. “With our new technology, it not only replaces toxic substances, but also prevents the release of CO2, decreasing the overall carbon footprint cycle.”

According to researchers, the keratin-derived membranes are already cheaper to produce in a lab setting than existing synthetic hydrogen fuel cell membranes, and hope similar savings will translate to mass production. The team has applied for a joint patent, and is now looking for partners and investors to make the product publicly available. Still, a number of hurdles remain for the fuel cells to become truly viable renewable energy sources. While hydrogen cells’ only emissions are heat and water, the power that actually helps generate their electricity still largely stems from natural gas sources like methane. Such a reliance arguably undercuts hydrogen fuel cells’ promise of green energy.

But even there, chicken feathers could once again come to the rescue. The keratin membranes reportedly also show promise in the electrolysis portion of hydrogen energy production, when direct current travels through water to split the molecules into oxygen and hydrogen.

The post Chicken feather fibers could help make less toxic hydrogen fuel cells appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Against all odds and expectations, both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are still going strong after nearly half a century of hurtling through—and far past—the solar system. To help boost the potential for the probes’ continued operations, engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory have beamed out two software updates across the billions of miles separating them from the historic spacecraft. If successful, the pair of interstellar travelers could gain at least another five years’ worth of life, if not more.

On October 20, NASA announced plans to transmit a software patch to protect Voyager 1 and 2 against a glitch that occurred within the former’s system last year. In May 2022, NASA started noticing inaccurate readings coming from Voyager 1’s attitude articulation and control system (AACS). A few months later, engineers determined the AACS was accidentally writing commands into memory instead of actually performing them.

Although engineers successfully resolved an original data issue within Voyager 1 in 2022, the new patch will hopefully ensure such a problem won’t arise again in either probe. Receiving the patch will take over 18 hours to reach transmitters; Voyager 2 will get the patch first to serve as a “testbed for its twin” in case of unintended consequences like accidentally overwriting essential code. Given Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are respectively 15 billion and 12 billion miles from Earth, engineers consider the farther craft’s data more valuable, as it still remains the farthest traveling human-made object. The NASA-JPL team will issue a command on October 28 to test the patch’s efficacy.

[Related: The secret to Voyagers’ spectacular space odyssey.]

The second planned tune-up for Voyager 1 and 2 involves the small thrusters responsible for controlling the probes’ communication antennas. According to NASA, spacecraft can generally rotate in three directions—left and right, up and down, as well as wheellike around a central axis. During these movements, propellant automatically flows through incredibly narrow “inlet tubes” to maintain the antennas’ contact with Earth.

But each time the propellant is used, miniscule residue can stick within the inlet tubings—while not much at first, that buildup is becoming problematic after the Voyager probes’ (many) decades’ of life. To slow the speed of buildup, engineers have edited the probes’ operational commands to allow both craft the ability to rotate nearly 1 degree farther in each available direction. This will reduce how often their thrusters need to fire. When engineers do need to enable thrusters, they now plan to fire them for longer periods of time, thus reducing the overall number of usages. 

[Related: How is Voyager’s vintage technology still flying?]

“This far into the mission, the engineering team is being faced with a lot of challenges for which we just don’t have a playbook,” Linda Spilker, Voyager mission project scientist, said via NASA’s update. “But they continue to come up with creative solutions.”

Experts estimate both the fuel lines and software adjustments could extend the Voyager program’s lifespan by another five years. According to NASA, however, “additional steps in the coming years to extend the lifetime of the thrusters even more.”

The post Voyager probes get virtual tune-up to keep decades-long missions going and going appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Tech support scams are some of the most common methods of fraud, particularly targeting older demographics. Usually imitating a legitimate company’s customer service or IT department, tech support scammers trick victims into granting access to their computers, which they then use to extract payments. Last year, over 32,000 victims reported a cumulative loss of nearly $806.5 million stemming from just such fraud schemes. At least some reprieve may be coming for consumers, thanks to a collaborative effort by Microsoft, Amazon, and the Indian government.

On October 19, India’s Central Bureau Investigation (CBI) announced the completion of Operation Chakra-II, which involved 76 raids targeting illegal call centers located within several states across the country. According to an official CBI post on X, cyber criminals impersonated both Amazon and Microsoft customer support representatives, impacting over 2,000 customers—mostly in the US, but also in Australia, Canada, Germany, Spain, and the UK.

[Related: Fakes, rumors, and scams: PopSci’s fall issue is unreal.]

The scammers in question used a combination of cold calls and pop-up ads claiming to detect technical issues on a the victims’ computers and instructing them to call a toll-free number. After a variable amount of cajoling, scammers were then sometimes granted remote access to an individual’s computer. Then, they convinced some users to pay hundreds of dollars for unnecessary services under the “pretense of non-existing problems,” per the CBI.

In a blog post last week, Amazon confirmed Operation Chakra-II marked the first time the company collaborated with Microsoft to combat tech support fraud. “We are pleased to join forces with Microsoft, and we believe actionable partnerships like these are critical in helping protect consumers from impersonation scams,” Kathy Sheehan, vice president and associate general counsel of Amazon’s Business Conduct & Ethics, said via the announcement. Sheehan went on to stress “we cannot win this fight alone,” and encouraged other Big Tech industry heavyweights to “join us as a united front against criminal activity.”

“We firmly believe that partnerships like these are not only necessary but pivotal in creating a safer online ecosystem and in extending our protective reach to a larger number of individuals,” Amy Hogan-Burney, Microsoft’s Associate General Counsel for Microsoft Cybersecurity Policy & Protection, echoed in a separate statement.

Microsoft currently hosts a site reviewing the most popular versions of tech support scams, along with providing users with means to report and combat bad actors. According to a tutorial video from the Microsoft Security team, Microsoft reiterates that no reputable tech company will ever contact users via phone, email, or text message claiming to detect issues with a device. 

As Microsoft’s video also explains, scammers often also rely on scare tactics to pressure victims into falling prey to their schemes. Once access is granted to a device, the con artists can plant malware or even steal users’ personal information. Both regularly checking for devices’ software updates, as well as reporting fraud attempts can help deter and combat scammers.

In addition to tried-and-true scamming techniques, fraud rings are increasingly turning to more sophisticated methods while targeting victims. Earlier this year, a mother in Arizona reported scammers utilized AI voice-cloning technology to mimic her daughter’s voice while attempting to extract a fake kidnapping ransom.

The post Scammers busted in India for impersonating Amazon and Microsoft tech support appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Researchers are training robots to perform an ever-growing number of tasks through trial-and-error reinforcement learning, which is often laborious and time-consuming. To help out, humans are now enlisting large language model AI to speed up the training process. In a recent experiment, this resulted in some incredibly dexterous albeit simulated robots.

A team at NVIDIA Research directed an AI protocol powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4 to teach a simulation of a robotic hand nearly 30 complex tasks, including tossing a ball, pushing blocks, pressing switches, and some seriously impressive pen-twirling abilities.

[Related: These AI-powered robot arms are delicate enough to pick up Pringles chips.]

NVIDIA’s new Eureka “AI agent” utilizes GPT-4 by asking the large language model (LLM) to write its own reward-based reinforcement learning software code. According to the company, Eureka doesn’t need intricate prompting or even pre-written templates; instead, it simply begins honing a program, then adheres to any subsequent external human feedback.

In the company’s announcement, Linxi “Jim” Fan, a senior research scientist at NVIDIA, described Eureka as a “unique combination” of LLMs and GPU-accelerated simulation programming. “We believe that Eureka will enable dexterous robot control and provide a new way to produce physically realistic animations for artists,” Fan added.

Judging from NVIDIA’s demonstration video, a Eureka-trained robotic hand can pull off pen spinning tricks to rival, if not beat, extremely dextrous humans. 

After testing its training protocol within an advanced simulation program, Eureka then analyzes its collected data and directs the LLM to further improve upon its design. The end result is a virtually self-iterative AI protocol capable of successfully encoding a variety of robotic hand designs to manipulate scissors, twirl pens, and open cabinets within a physics-accurate simulated environment.

Eureka’s alternatives to human-written trial-and-error learning programs aren’t just effective—in most cases, they’re actually better than those authored by humans. In the team’s open-source research paper findings, Eureka-designed reward programs outperformed humans’ code in over 80 percent of the tasks—amounting to an average performance improvement of over 50 percent in the robotic simulations.

[Related: How researchers trained a budget robot dog to do tricks.]

“Reinforcement learning has enabled impressive wins over the last decade, yet many challenges still exist, such as reward design, which remains a trial-and-error process,” Anima Anandkumar, senior director of AI research at NVIDIA’s senior director of AI research and one of the Eureka paper’s co-authors, said in the company’s announcement. “Eureka is a first step toward developing new algorithms that integrate generative and reinforcement learning methods to solve hard tasks.”

The post Watch what happens when AI teaches a robot ‘hand’ to twirl a pen appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

First officially unveiled back in 2019, Tesla’s electric Cybertruck impressed and amused the public with its angular, “Blade Runner-inspired” design and purported features including reinforced glass, stainless steel body, and a lack of door handles. Although originally slated to arrive in reservation holders’ driveways in 2021, the EV release faced numerous delays exacerbated by COVID-19 pandemic supply chain issues. This week, however, Elon Musk said Tesla’s long-delayed Cybertruck will finally roll off the company’s Giga Texas lot on November 30, when Tesla is now scheduled to begin delivery. However, the company’s CEO cautioned investors against early celebrations.

During the company’s Q3 earnings call on October 18, Musk stressed that both customers and shareholders should “temper expectations,” particularly for the Cybertruck’s initial profitability. Tesla faced various challenges with scaling and ramping up production. Musk went as far as to say, “we dug our own grave with Cybertruck” during the vehicle’s multi-year hype campaign.

[Related: Tesla’s Cybertruck is the latest lofty promise in the world of electric pickups.]

“Cybertruck is one of those special products that comes along only once in a long while. And special products that come along once in a long while are just incredibly difficult to bring to market to reach volume, to be prosperous,” Musk opined, as reported by The Verge on Wednesday.

The Cybertruck base model was initially estimated at $39,900 in 2019, but Tesla is expected to announce updated pricings during its November 30 release event. No price ranges are currently available on Tesla’s website, but customers can still put down a refundable $100 deposit for a Cybertruck with the promise to “complete your configuration as production nears.”

In the meantime, multiple companies have released their own electric truck options, including the Ford F-150 Lightning and Rivian’s R1T. During this week’s Tesla earnings call, the company stated that it had the capacity to produce more than 125,000 Cybertrucks annually. Musk said he saw a potential for Tesla to produce 250,000 Cybertrucks in 2025. Musk said that more than one million people have reserved the Cybertruck so far.

[Related: Here is what a Tesla Cybertruck cop car could look like.]

The product may not be ready, but the concept keeps iterating itself. In September, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison teased concept art for a Cybertruck cop car including EV’s recognizable design beneath red and blue emergency lights, a bull bar, and multiple Oracle logos. “Our next generation police car is coming out very soon,” Ellison, a “close friend” of Musk, said during his presentation at the data service giant’s CloudWork conference to audible murmurs in the crowd. “It’s my favorite police car. It’s my favorite car, actually. It’s Elon’s favorite car.”

Musk’s desire to release an electric pickup truck dates as far back as 2012, when he tweeted he “would love make a Tesla supertruck with crazy torque, dynamic air suspension and corners [sic] like its on rails.”

“That’d be sweet…,” he added at the time.

The post Elon Musk says ‘we dug our own grave with Cybertruck’ ahead of its November release appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Back in 2015, the US Department of Energy estimated wind farms could supply over a third of the nation’s electricity by 2050. Since then, numerous wind turbine projects have been green-lit offshore and across the country. However, when it comes to building, it can get tricky, like in the case of a planned wind farm 15 miles off the southeast coast of Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Danish wind farm company Ørsted recently promised to cut New Jersey a $100 million check if the company’s massive Ocean Wind 1 offshore turbines weren’t up and running by the end of 2025. Less than a week after the wager, however, officials in the state’s southernmost county have filed a US District Court lawsuit to nix the 1.1 gigawatt project involving nearly 100 turbines, alleging regulatory sidesteps and ecological concerns.

[Related: The NY Bight could write the book on how we build offshore wind farms.]

According to the Associated Press, Cape May County government’s October 16 lawsuit also names the Clean Ocean Action environmental group alongside multiple seafood and fishing organizations as plaintiffs. The filing against both the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management claims that the Ocean Wind 1 project sidestepped a dozen federal legal requirements, as well as failed to adequately investigate offshore wind farms’ potential environmental and ecological harms. However, earlier this year, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management released its over 2,300 page Final Environmental Impact Statement on Ocean Wind 1, which concluded the project is responsibly designed and adequately protects the region’s ecological health.

An Ørsted spokesperson declined to comment on the lawsuit for PopSci, but related the company “remains committed to collaboration with local communities, and will continue working to support New Jersey’s clean energy targets and economic development goals by bringing good-paying jobs and local investment to the Garden State.”

[Related: A wind turbine just smashed a global energy record—and it’s recyclable.]

Wind turbine farm companies, Ørsted included, have faced numerous issues in recent years thanks to supply chain bottleneck issues, soaring construction costs, and legal challenges such as the latest from Cape May County. Earlier this year, Ørsted announced its US-based projects are now worth less than half of their initial economic estimates.

Other clean energy advocates reiterated their support for the New Jersey wind farm. In an email to PopSci, Moira Cyphers, Director of Eastern Region State Affairs for the American Clean Power Association, described the lawsuit as “meritless.”

“Offshore wind is one of the most rigorously regulated industries in the nation and is critical for meeting New Jersey’s clean energy and environmental goals,” Cyphers continued. “Shore towns can’t wait for years and years for these projects to be constructed. The time to move forward is now.”

The post Atlantic City’s massive offshore wind farm project highlights the industry’s growing pains appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Airborne lead levels in the US have declined an impressive 99 percent since 1980 thanks to Environmental Protection Agency regulations, but leaded gas isn’t gone completely. While large jet aircraft do not use leaded fuel, according to the Federal Aviation Administration, over 220,000 smaller, piston-engine aircraft capable of carrying between two and 10 people still run on leaded aviation gasoline, or “avgas.” 

Today, the EPA took its first step towards attempting to finally phase out air transportation’s lingering lead holdouts with a new endangerment finding announcement highlighting the adverse effects of even minuscule levels of airborne lead. With the new findings, the EPA argues that leaded avgas endangers public health and welfare under the Clean Air Act—and because of this, the US could finally see its first-ever avgas lead limitations.

“The science is clear: Exposure to lead can cause irreversible and life-long health effects in children,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan via the agency’s October 18 announcement. “Aircraft that use leaded fuel are the dominant source of lead emissions in our air.”

[Related: The US can’t get away from lead’s toxic legacy.]

The federal level determination earned support from legislators including House Science, Space, and Technology Committee Ranking Member Zoe Lofgren (D-CA). “[The] EPA’s conclusion confirms what constituents in my district and Americans across the country know all too well—emissions from leaded aviation fuel contribute to dangerous lead air pollution,” Lofgren said via the announcement. She also cited the disproportionate exposure to leaded avgas in many poorer and minority communities near general aviation airports.

Lead’s neurotoxic effects have long been understood, especially its dangers to younger children, as it  negatively affects cognitive abilities and slows physical growth. In 2022, the Centers for Disease Control announced a redefinition of “lead poisoning,” lowering the threshold for toxic exposure from 5 micrograms per deciliter of a child’s blood down to just 3.5 mgs per deciliter. Even with the added stringency, however, the EPA reiterated in its October 18 announcement that there is no evidence of any threshold to fully reduce lead exposure’s harmful effects.

[Related: Leaded gas may have lowered the IQ of 170 million US adults.]

The new avgas endangerment finding does not carry any regulatory or legal weight itself. Instead, it opens the door to a future phaseout of avgas for small aircraft. Last year, the FAA and industry leaders announced their “Eliminate Aviation Gasoline Lead Emissions” (EAGLE) program aiming to “achieve a lead-free aviation system” by 2030. The FAA has already approved usage of a 100 octane unleaded fuel capable of being used by piston-engine aircraft, although the EPA notes it is not yet commercially available. A lower octane fuel is also available at an estimated 35 US airports, with plans to “expand and streamline the process for eligible aircraft to use this fuel.”

As The Washington Post notes, however, the EPA’s and FAA’s attempts to phase out avgas come as Congress considers a long-term reauthorization of the FAA that would all but require smaller airports to continue offering leaded avgas.

“While today’s announcement is a step forward, we cannot be complacent,” Lofgren added on Wednesday. “We must finish the job and protect our nation’s children from all sources of lead.”

The post Small planes are still spewing toxic lead across the US, EPA says appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

After years of hints and false starts, the Internal Revenue Service will be finally testing a free federal direct tax filing pilot program for select citizens in 13 participating states in 2024. The move marks a major moment in a years’ long path towards offering Americans a no-cost federal filing alternative to third-party services such as Intuit TurboTax and H&R Block—an $11 billion industry that has come under increased Federal Trade Commission scrutiny over allegedly predatory practices, deceptive advertising, and privacy concerns.

[Related: How to avoid tax season stress]

In an October 17 announcement, IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel called the pilot stage a “critical step forward” in testing the “feasibility of providing taxpayers a new option to file their returns for free directly with the IRS.” Warfel added that information and data gathered during the 2024 pilot program will help direct future iterations of the Direct File program, as well as help the IRS assess benefits, costs, and operational challenges.

Residents of Arizona, California, Massachusetts and New York are already confirmed to integrate Direct File into their systems for the 2024 tax season, which begins in December. Meanwhile, Alaska, Florida, New Hampshire, Nevada, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming “may be eligible to participate” due to their lack of state income taxes. Atop the state-based restrictions, only certain filers will be eligible to participate based on specific types of income, as well as limited credits and adjustments.

[Related: Calling TurboTax ‘free’ is ‘deceptive advertising,’ says FTC]

In September, the FTC ruled Intuit must stop labeling its products as free unless a stringent set of conditions are “clearly and conspicuously” displayed to consumers. But even without proper labeling, security and privacy concerns have long surrounded the private tax filing industry. In 2022, a major investigation uncovered companies including H&R Block, TaxSlayer, and TaxAct all routinely shared customers’ sensitive financial information with third-party advertisers via the Meta Pixel.

The free code, made available via Facebook’s parent company, marks a tiny pixel on participating websites to subsequently track information regarding people’s digital activity. Roughly one-third of the 80,000 most popular websites online utilize Meta Pixel (PopSci included); the tracking cookie ecosystem provides the majority of many online companies’ revenue streams. Many of the companies profiled by the investigation have since ceased using Meta Pixel for such purposes.

But even using a federal e-file program potential requires supplying personal identification information. In 2022, the IRS announced a new policy requiring US citizens to submit a selfie via the popular, controversial third-party verification service, ID.me, to access their tax information. The IRS walked back the policy plan following an outpouring of public criticism. It is unclear if ID.me will be a mandatory component of the forthcoming Direct File program. The IRS did not respond to PopSci regarding the issue at the time of writing.

The post The IRS’ free online tax filing program will be super exclusive in 2024 appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Despite decades of innovation, solar powered cars remain comparatively expensive and difficult to mass produce—but that doesn’t mean they aren’t starting to pack a serious punch. At least one prototype reportedly handled an off-road sojourn across the world’s largest non-polar desert at speeds as fast as 90 mph.

Designed by a team of 21-to-25-year-old  college students at the Netherland’s Eindhoven University of Technology, their Stella Terra recently completed a 620 mile (1,000 km) test drive that began in Morocco before speeding through portions of Tangier and the Sahara. While miles ahead of what is currently available to consumers, the army green two-seater could be a preview of rides to come.

[Related: Sweden is testing a semi-truck trailer covered in 100 square meters of solar panels.]

As highlighted by The Guardian on Monday, the aerodynamic, comparatively lightweight (1,200 kg) Stella Terra can travel at least 440 miles on a clear, sunny day without recharging. This is thanks to the car’s solar converter designed in-house by the students, which turns 97 percent of its absorbed sunlight into an electrical charge. For cloudier situations, however, the vehicle also includes a lithium-ion battery capable of powering shorter excursions. For comparison, the most efficient panels available today only sustain roughly 45 percent efficiency, while the vast majority measure somewhere between 15 and 20 percent. According to The Guardian’s rundown, Stella Terra’s panels actually proved a third more efficient than designers expected.

In a September project update, Wisse Bos, Solar Team Eindhoven’s team manager, estimated Stella Terra’s designs are between 5 and 10 years ahead of anything available on the current market. But Bos also stressed their ride is meant to inspire similar experimentation and creativity within the automotive industry.

[Related: Swiss students just slashed the world record for EV acceleration.]

“With Stella Terra, we want to demonstrate that the transition to a sustainable future offers reasons for optimism and encourages individuals and companies to accelerate the energy transition,” Bos said at the time.

While the innovative, army green off-roadster is unlikely to hit American highways anytime soon, the students believe larger auto manufacturers’ could look to Stella Terra to help guide their own plans for more sustainable transportation options. Speaking with CNN on Monday, the team’s event manager, Thieme Bosman, hopes companies such as Ford and Chrysler will take notice of such a vehicle’s feasibility. “It’s up to the market now, who have the resources and the power to make this change and the switch to more sustainable vehicles,” Bosman said.

And if off-roading isn’t your thing, don’t worry: Solar Team Eindhoven’s previous teams have also designed luxury vehicles, self-driving cars, and even mobile tiny homes powered by the sun.

The post This off-roading, solar-powered vehicle just sped across the Sahara appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Niobium can be found in steel, particle accelerators, MRI machines, and rockets, but sourcing it is largely limited to a handful of countries including Brazil and Canada. Earlier this month, however, Chinese news outlets announced the discovery of a never-before-seen type of ore deposit in Inner Mongolia containing potentially vast amounts of the superconductive rare earth element. According to Antonio Castro Neto, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the National University of Singapore speaking with the South China Morning Post, the new resource trove could even be so large that it would make China self-sufficient in its own niobium needs.

The ore found in Inner Mongolia—dubbed niobobaotite—also contains large quantities of barium, titanium, iron, and chlorine, according to a statement from China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) earlier this month.

Discovered in 1801, niobium is named after Tantalus’ daughter Niobe in Greek mythology due to its chemical relationship to tantalum. Almost 85-to-90 percent of all mined niobium in the world goes towards iron and steel processing production. Adding just 0.03-0.05 percent to steel, for example, can boost its strength by as much as 30 percent while adding virtually no extra weight. That prized performance enhancement is comparatively difficult to obtain, however. The element only occurs within the Earth’s crust at a proportion of roughly 20-parts-per-million.

[Related: New factory retrofit could reduce a steel plant’s carbon emissions by 90 percent.]

In addition to its many current uses, niobium is of particular interest to researchers hoping to further the development of niobium-graphene and niobium-lithium batteries. Lithium-ion batteries are currently the most widespread rechargeable power sources, but remain restricted in terms of charge times and lifespans, as well as safety concerns. Earlier this year, researchers working on improving niobium-graphene batteries estimated future iterations of the alternative could fully charge in less than 10 minutes alongside a 30 year lifespan—approximately 10 times longer than current lithium-ion options.

As promising as the discovery may be for China, labor concerns will almost undoubtedly be an issue for outside observers. The nation has a long and troubling history of exploitation within the mining industry. Rare earth mineral mining also generates a wide array of pollution issues.

Brazil is by far the world’s largest exporter of niobium, with Canada trailing far behind in second place. China currently needs to import about 95 percent of its niobium supplies, but the newfound deposits could dramatically shift their sourcing to almost complete independence. Meanwhile, the US is currently working towards opening the Elk Creek Critical Minerals Project in southern Nebraska, which when opened will be the country’s first niobium mining and processing facility.

The post China says it discovered potentially vast amounts of a rare superconducting material appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE is one of the most dramatic natural disasters in recorded history, yet so many of the actual records from that moment in time are inaccessible. Papyrus scrolls located in nearby Pompeii and Herculaneum, for example, were almost instantly scorched by the volcanic blast, then promptly buried under pumice and ash. In 1752, excavators uncovered around 800 such carbonized scrolls, but researchers have since largely been unable to read any of them due to their fragile conditions.

On October 12, however, organizers behind the Vesuvius Challenge—an ongoing machine learning project to decode the physically inaccessible library—offered a major announcement: an AI program uncovered the first word in one of the relics after analyzing and identifying its incredibly tiny residual ink elements. That word? Πορφύραc, or porphyras… or “purple,” for those who can’t speak Greek.

[Related: A fresco discovered in Pompeii looks like ancient pizza—but it’s likely focaccia.]

Identifying the word for an everyday color may not sound groundbreaking, but the uncovery of “purple” already has experts intrigued. Speaking to The Guardian on Thursday, University of Kentucky computer scientist and Vesuvius Challenge co-founder Brent Seales explained that the particular word isn’t terribly common to find in such documents.

“This word is our first dive into an unopened ancient book, evocative of royalty, wealth, and even mockery,” said Seales. “Pliny the Elder explores ‘purple’ in his ‘natural history’ as a production process for Tyrian purple from shellfish. The Gospel of Mark describes how Jesus was mocked as he was clothed in purple robes before crucifixion. What this particular scroll is discussing is still unknown, but I believe it will soon be revealed. An old, new story that starts for us with ‘purple’ is an incredible place to be.”

The visualization of porphyras is thanks in large part to a 21-year-old computer student named Luke Farritor, who subsequently won $40,000 as part of the Vesuvius Challenge after identifying an additional 10 letters on the same scroll. Meanwhile, Seales believes that the entire scroll should be recoverable, even though scans indicate certain areas may be missing words due to its nearly 2,000 year interment.

As The New York Times notes, the AI-assisted analysis could also soon be applied to the hundreds of remaining carbonized scrolls. Given that these scrolls appear to have been part of a larger library amassed by Philodemus, an Epicurean philosopher, it stands to reason that a wealth of new information may emerge alongside long-lost titles, such as the poems of Sappho.

“Recovering such a library would transform our knowledge of the ancient world in ways we can hardly imagine,” one papyrus expert told The New York Times. “The impact could be as great as the rediscovery of manuscripts during the Renaissance.”

The post AI revealed the colorful first word of an ancient scroll torched by Mount Vesuvius appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Sam Kreigman and his colleagues made headlines a few years back with their “xenobots”— synthetic robots designed by AI and built from biological tissue samples. While experts continue to debate how to best classify such a creation, Kriegman’s team at Northwestern University has been hard at work on a similarly mind-bending project meshing artificial intelligence, evolutionary design, and robotics.

[Related: Meet xenobots, tiny machines made out of living parts.]

As detailed in a new paper published earlier this month in the Proceedings of the National Journal of Science, researchers recently tasked an AI model with a seemingly straightforward prompt: Design a robot capable of walking across a flat surface. Although the program delivered original, working examples within literal seconds, the new robots “[look] nothing like any animal that has ever walked the earth,” Kriegman said in Northwestern’s October 3 writeup.

And judging from video footage of the purple multi-“legged” blob-bots, it’s hard to disagree:

After offering their prompt to the AI program, the researchers simply watched it analyze and iterate upon a total of nine designs. Within just 26 seconds, the artificial intelligence managed to fast forward past billions of years of natural evolutionary biology to determine legged movement as the most effective method of mobility. From there, Kriegman’s team imported the final schematics into a 3D printer, which then molded a jiggly, soap bar-sized block of silicon imbued with pneumatically actuated musculature and three “legs.” Repeatedly pumping air in and out of the musculature caused the robots’ limbs to expand and contract, causing movement. During testing, the robot could walk half its body length per second—roughly half as fast as the average human stride.

“It’s interesting because we didn’t tell the AI that a robot should have legs,” Kriegman said. “It rediscovered that legs are a good way to move around on land. Legged locomotion is, in fact, the most efficient form of terrestrial movement.”

[Related: Disney’s new bipedal robot could have waddled out of a cartoon.]

If all this weren’t impressive enough, the process—dubbed “instant evolution” by Kriegman and colleagues—all took place on a “lightweight personal computer,” not a massive, energy-intensive supercomputer requiring huge datasets. According to Kreigman, previous AI-generated evolutionary bot designs could take weeks of trial and error using high-powered computing systems. 

“If combined with automated fabrication and scaled up to more challenging tasks, this advance promises near-instantaneous design, manufacture, and deployment of unique and useful machines for medical, environmental, vehicular, and space-based tasks,” Kriegman and co-authors wrote in their abstract.

“When people look at this robot, they might see a useless gadget,” Kriegman said. “I see the birth of a brand-new organism.”

The post AI design for a ‘walking’ robot is a squishy purple glob appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

One e-toy for every person on Earth—that’s the staggering amount of electric trains, drones, talking dolls, R/C cars, and other children’s gadgets tossed into landfills every year. Some of what most consumers consider to be e-waste—like electronics such as computers, smartphones, TVs, and speaker systems—are usual suspects. Others, like power tools, vapes, LED accessories, USB cables, anything involving rechargeable lithium batteries and countless other similar, “nontraditional” e-waste materials, are less obviously in need of special disposal. In all, people across the world throw out roughly 9 billion kilograms (19.8 billion pounds) of e-waste commonly not recognized as such by consumers.

This “invisible e-waste” is the focal point of the sixth annual International E-Waste Day on October 14, organized by Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Forum. In anticipation of the event, the organization recently commissioned the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) to delve into just how much unconventional e-waste is discarded every year—and global population numbers are just some of the ways to visualize the issue.

[Related: People will throw away about 5.3 billion phones this year.]

According to UNITAR’s findings, for example, the total weight of all e-cig vapes thrown away every year roughly equals 6 Eiffel Towers. Meanwhile, the total weight of all invisible e-waste tallies up to “almost half a million 40 [metric ton] trucks,” enough to create a bumper-to-bumper traffic jam stretching approximately 3,504 miles–the distance between Rome and Nairobi. From a purely economic standpoint, nearly $10 billion in essential raw materials is literally thrown into the garbage every year.

“People tend to recognise household electrical products as those they plug in and use regularly. But many people are confused about the waste category into which ancillary, peripheral, specialist, hobby, and leisure products fit and how to have them recycled,” Pascal Leroy, Director-General of the WEEE Forum, said in a statement ahead of International E-Waste Day. The WEEE Forum asks that instead of trashing the e-waste, consumers bring it to “the appropriate municipal collection facility” in their area.

Leroy’s organization states e-waste is the world’s fastest-growing waste stream, and to deal with it properly, many more people need to recognize these “invisible” examples.

“A significant amount of electronic waste is hidden in plain sight,” says WEEE Forum member, Magdalena Charytanowicz, via the announcement. “Sadly, invisible e-waste often falls under the recycling radar of those disposing of them because they are not seen as e-waste. We need to change that and raising awareness is a large part of the answer.”

Charytanowicz cites past informational campaigns that successfully raised awareness about the many issues surrounding plastic pollution, and points to the UN’s treaty on plastics due next year. “We hope the same will occur in the e-waste field,” she adds.

The post People send 20 billion pounds of ‘invisible’ e-waste to landfills each year appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Artificial intelligence programs’ impressive (albeit often problematic) abilities come at a cost—all that computing power requires, well, power. And as the world races to adopt sustainable energy practices, the rapid rise of AI integration into everyday lives could complicate matters. New expert analysis now offers estimates of just how energy hungry the AI industry could become in the near future, and the numbers are potentially concerning.

According to a commentary published October 10 in Joule, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Business and Economics PhD candidate Alex de Vries argues that global AI-related electricity consumption could top 134 TWh annually by 2027. That’s roughly comparable to the annual consumption of nations like Argentina, the Netherlands, and Sweden.

[Related: NASA wants to use AI to study unidentified aerial phenomenon.]

Although de Vries notes data center electricity usage between 2010-2018 (excluding resource-guzzling cryptocurrency mining) has only increased by roughly 6 percent, “[t]here is increasing apprehension that the computation resources necessary to develop and maintain AI models and applications could cause a surge in data centers’ contribution to global electricity consumption.” Given countless industries’ embrace of AI over the last year, it’s not hard to imagine such a hypothetical surge becoming reality. For example, if Google—already a major AI adopter—integrated technology akin to ChatGPT into its 9 billion-per-day Google searches, the company could annually burn through 29.2 TWh of power, or as much electricity as all of Ireland.

de Vries, who also founded the digital trend watchdog research company Digiconomist, believes such an extreme scenario is somewhat unlikely, mainly due to AI server costs alongside supply chain bottlenecks. But the AI industry’s energy needs will undoubtedly continue to grow as the technologies become more prevalent, and that alone necessitates a careful review of where and when to use such products.

This year, for example, NVIDIA is expected to deliver 100,000 AI servers to customers. Operating at full capacity, the servers’ combined power demand would measure between 650 and 1,020 MW, annually amounting to 5.7-8.9 TWh of electricity consumption. Compared to annual consumption rates of data centers, this is “almost negligible.” 

By 2027, however, NVIDIA could be (and currently is) on track to ship 1.5 million AI servers per year. Estimates using similar electricity consumption rates put their combined demand between 85-134 TWh annually. “At this stage, these servers could represent a significant contribution to worldwide data center electricity consumption,” writes de Vries.

As de Vries’ own site argues, AI is not a “miracle cure for everything,” still must deal with privacy concerns, discriminatory biases, and hallucinations. “Environmental sustainability now represents another addition to this list of concerns.”

The post AI could consume as much energy as Argentina annually by 2027 appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Adjusting to prosthetic limbs isn’t as simple as merely finding one that fits your particular body type and needs. Physical control and accuracy are major issues despite proper attachment, and sometimes patients’ bodies reject even the most high-end options available. Such was repeatedly the case for a Swedish patient after losing her right arm in a farming accident over two decades ago. For years, the woman suffered from severe pain and stress issues, likening the sensation to “constantly [having] my hand in a meat grinder.”

Phantom pain is an unfortunately common affliction for amputees, and is believed to originate from nervous system signal confusions between the spinal cord and brain. Although a body part is amputated, the peripheral nerve endings remain connected to the brain, and can thus misread that information as pain.

[Related: We’re surprisingly good at surviving amputations.]

With a new, major breakthrough in prosthetics, however, her severe phantom pains are dramatically alleviated thanks to an artificial arm built on titanium-fused bone tissue alongside rearranged nerves and muscles. As detailed in a new study published via Science Robotics, the remarkable advancements could provide a potential blueprint for many other amputees to adopt such technology in the coming years.

The patient’s procedure started in 2018 when she volunteered to test a new kind of bionic arm designed by a multidisciplinary team of engineers and surgeons led by Max Ortiz Catalan, head of neural prosthetics research at Australia’s Bionics Institute and founder of the Center for Bionics and Pain Research. Using osseointegration, a process infusing titanium into bone tissue to provide a strong mechanical connection, the team was able to attach their prototype to the remaining portion of her right limb.

Accomplishing even this step proved especially difficult because of the need to precisely align the volunteer’s radius and ulna. The team also needed to account for the small amount of space available to house the system’s components. Meanwhile, the limb’s nerves and muscles needed rearrangement to better direct the patient’s neurological motor control information into the prosthetic attachment.

“By combining osseointegration with reconstructive surgery, implanted electrodes, and AI, we can restore human function in an unprecedented way,” Rickard Brånemark, an MIT research affiliate and associate professor at Gothenburg University who oversaw the surgery, said via an update from the Bionics Institute. “The below elbow amputation level has particular challenges, and the level of functionality achieved marks an important milestone for the field of advanced extremity reconstructions as a whole.”

The patient said her breakthrough prosthetic can be comfortably worn all day, is highly integrated with her body, and has even relieved her chronic pain. According to Catalan, this reduction can be attributed to the team’s “integrated surgical and engineering approach” that allows [her] to use “somewhat the same neural resources” as she once did for her biological hand.

“I have better control over my prosthesis, but above all, my pain has decreased,” the patient explained. “Today, I need much less medication.” 

The post Titanium-fused bone tissue connects this bionic hand directly to a patient’s nerves appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

The 2018 winner of PopSci’s annual Best of What’s New continues to impress. NASA’s Parker Solar Probe is still edging closer to the sun than any other spacecraft has ever achieved, and it’s setting new speed records in the process. According to a recent status update from the space agency, the Parker Solar Probe has broken its own record (again) for the fastest thing ever made by human hands—at an astounding clip of 394,736 mph.

The newest milestone comes thanks to a previous gravity-assist flyby from Venus, and occurred on September 27 at the midway point of the probe’s 17th “solar encounter” that lasted until October 3. As ScienceAlert also noted on October 9, the Parker Solar Probe’s speed would hypothetically allow an airplane to circumnavigate Earth about 15 times per hour, or skip between New York City and Los Angeles in barely 20 seconds. Not that any passengers could survive such a journey, but it remains impressive.

[Related: The fastest human-made object vaporizes space dust on contact.]

The latest pass-by also set its newest record for proximity, at just 4.51 million miles from the sun’s plasma “surface.” In order not to vaporize from temperatures as high as nearly 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit, the Parker Solar Probe is outfitted with a 4.5-inch-thick carbon-composite shield to protect its sensitive instruments. These tools are measuring and imaging the sun’s surface to further researchers’ understanding of solar winds’ origins and evolution, as well as helping to forecast environmental changes in space that could affect life back on Earth. Last month, for example, the probe raced through one of the most intense coronal mass ejections (CMEs) ever observed. In doing so, the craft helped prove a two-decade-old theory that CMEs interact with interplanetary dust, which will improve experts’ abilities in space weather forecasting.

Despite its punishing journey, NASA reports the Parker Solar Probe remains in good health with “all systems operating normally.” Despite its numerous records, the probe is far from finished with its mission; there are still seven more solar pass-bys scheduled through 2024. At that point (well within Mercury’s orbit), the Parker Solar Probe will finally succumb to the sun’s extreme effects and vaporize into the solar winds— “sort of a poetic ending,” as one mission researcher told PopSci in 2021.

The post The fastest ever human-made object keeps breaking its own speed record appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Officials from the US Coast Guard confirmed on Tuesday that a salvage mission successfully recovered the remaining debris from the OceanGate Titan submersible. The 22-foot-long vessel suffered an implosion en route to the Titanic almost four months ago. Five passengers died during the privately funded, $250,000-per-seat voyage intended to glimpse the historic tragedy’s remains, including OceanGate’s CEO and Titan pilot, Stockton Rush.

According to the Coast Guard’s October 10 press release, salvage efforts were underway via an agreement with the US Navy Supervisor of Salvage & Diving following initial recovery missions approximately 1,600-feet away from the Titanic wreckage. Searchers discovered and raised the remaining debris on October 4, then transferred them to an unnamed US port for further analysis and cataloging. The US Coast Guard also confirmed “additional presumed human remains” were “carefully recovered” from inside the debris, and have been sent for medical professional analysis.

[Related: OceanGate confirms missing Titan submersible passengers ‘have sadly been lost’.]

OceanGate’s surface vessel lost contact with the Titan submersible approximately 105 minutes into its nearly 2.5 mile descent to the Titanic on June 18. Frantic, internationally coordinated search and rescue efforts scoured over 10,000 square surface miles of the Atlantic Ocean as well as the North Atlantic ocean floor. On June 22, OceanGate and US Coast Guard representatives confirmed its teams located remains indicative of a “catastrophic implosion” not far from the voyage’s intended destination.

Submersible experts had warned of such “catastrophic” issues within Titan’s design for years, and repeatedly raised concerns about OceanGate’s disregard of standard certification processes. In a March 2018 open letter to the company obtained by The New York Times, over three dozen industry experts, oceanographers, and explorers “expressed unanimous concern” about the submersible’s “experimental” approach they believed “could result in negative outcomes (from minor to catastrophic) that would have serious consequences for everyone in the industry.”

“Your [safety standard] representation is, at minimum, misleading to the public and breaches an industry-wide professional code of conduct we all endeavor to uphold,” reads a portion of the 2018 letter.

Although salvage efforts have concluded, the Coast Guard’s Marine Board of Investigation (MBI) plans to continue conducting evidence analysis alongside witness interviews “ahead of a public hearing regarding this tragedy.” A date for the hearing has not yet been announced, although as The Washington Post notes, the Coast Guard could recommend new deep-sea submersible regulations, as well as criminal charges to pursue.

OceanGate announced it suspended “all commercial and expedition operations” on July 6.

The post What the US Coast Guard found on their last OceanGate Titan salvage mission appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

“Are you drinking enough water?”

The question is so ubiquitous that it’s become meme canon in recent years. But what may be an annoying reminder to one person is often a logistical challenge for people dealing with mobility issues like cerebral palsy (CP). After learning about the potential physical hurdles involved in staying hydrated, two undergraduate engineering students at Rice University set out to design a robotic tool to help disabled users easily access their drinks as needed. The result, appropriately dubbed “RoboCup,” is not only a simple, relatively easy-to-construct device—it’s one whose plans are already available to anyone online for free.

According to a recent university profile, Thomas Kutcher and Rafe Neathery began work on their invention after being approached by Gary Lynn, a local Houstonian living with CP who oversees a nonprofit dedicated to raising awareness for the condition. According to Kutcher, a bioengineering major, their RoboCup will hopefully remove the need for additional caregiver aid and thus “grant users greater freedom.”

[Related: How much water should you drink in a day?]

RoboCup was by no means perfect from the outset, and the undergraduates reportedly went through numerous iterations before settling on their current design. In order to optimize their tool to help as many people as possible, Kutcher and Rafe spoke to numerous caregiving and research professionals about how to best improve their schematics.

“They really liked our project and confirmed its potential, but they also pointed out that in order to reach as many people as possible, we needed to incorporate more options for building the device, such as different types of sensors, valves and mechanisms for mounting the device on different wheelchair types,” Kutcher said in their October 6 profile.

The biggest challenge, according to the duo, was balancing simplification alongside functionality and durability. In the end, the pair swapped out an early camelback version for a mounted cup-and-straw design, which reportedly is both aesthetically more pleasing to users, as well as less intrusive.

In a demonstration video, Lynn is shown activating a small sensor near his left hand, which automatically pivots an adjustable straw towards his mouth. He can then drink as much as he wants, then alert the sensor again to swivel the straw back to a neutral position.

Lynn, who tested the various versions of RoboCup, endorsed the RoboCup’s ability to offer disabled users more independence in their daily lives, and believes that “getting to do this little task by themselves will enhance the confidence of the person using the device.”

Initially intended to just be a single semester project, Kutcher and Neathery now intend to continue refining their RoboCup, including investigating ways it could be adapted to people dealing with other forms of mobility issues. In the meantime, the RoboCup is entered in World Cerebral Palsy Day’s “Remarkable Designa-thon,” which promotes new products and services meant to help those with CP. And, as it just so happens, voting is open to the public from October 6-13.

The post College students invented an easy device for cerebral palsy patients to drink on their own appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Four-legged robots can pull off a lot of complex tasks, but there’s a reason you don’t often see them navigating “busy” environments like forests or vine-laden overgrowth. Despite all their abilities, most on-board AI systems remain pretty bad at responding to all those physical variables in real-time. It might feel like second nature to us, but it only takes the slightest misstep in such situations to send a quadrupedal robot tumbling.

After subjecting their own dog bot to a barrage of obstacle course runs, however, a team at Carnegie Mellon University’s College of Engineering is now offering a solid step forward, so to speak, for robots deployed in the wild. According to researchers, teaching a quadrupedal robot to reactively retract its legs while walking provides the best gait for both navigating and untangling out of obstacles in its way.

[Related: How researchers trained a budget robot dog to do tricks.]

“Real-world obstacles might be stiff like a rock or soft like a vine, and we want robots to have strategies that prevent tripping on either,” Justin Yim, a University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign engineering professor and project collaborator, said in CMU’s recent highlight.

The engineers compared multiple stride strategies on a quadrupedal robot while it tried to walk across a short distance interrupted by multiple, low-hanging ropes. The robot quickly entangled itself while high-stepping, or walking with its knees angled forward, but retracting its limbs immediately after detecting an obstacle allowed it to smoothly cross the stretch of floor.

“When you take robots outdoors, the entire problem of interacting with the environment becomes exponentially more difficult because you have to be more deliberate in everything that you do,” David Ologan, a mechanical engineering master’s student, told CMU. “Your system has to be robust enough to handle any unforeseen circumstances or obstructions that you might encounter. It’s interesting to tackle that problem that hasn’t necessarily been solved yet.”

[Related: This robot dog learned a new trick—balancing like a cat.]

Although wheeled robots may still prove more suited for urban environments, where the ground is generally flatter and infrastructures such as ramps are more common, walking bots could hypothetically prove much more useful in outdoor settings. Researchers believe integrating their reactive retraction response into existing AI navigation systems could help robots during outdoor search-and-rescue missions. The newly designed daintiness might also help quadrupedal robots conduct environmental surveying without damaging their surroundings.

“The potential for legged robots in outdoor, vegetation-based environments is interesting to see,” said Ologan. “If you live in a city, a wheeled platform is probably a better option… There is a trade-off between being able to do more complex actions and being efficient with your movements.”

The post Watch robot dogs train on obstacle courses to avoid tripping appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

NASA’s Artemis III astronauts are apparently going to look incredibly fashionable walking the lunar surface. On October 4, the commercial aerospace company Axiom Space announced a new collaboration with luxury fashion house Prada to design spacesuits for the upcoming moon mission currently scheduled for 2025.

According to Wednesday’s reveal, Prada’s engineers will assist Axiom’s systems team in finalizing its Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit (AxEMU) spacesuit while “developing solutions for materials and design features to protect against the unique challenge of space and the lunar environment.” Axiom CEO Michael Suffredini cited Prada’s expertise in manufacturing techniques, innovative design, and raw materials will ensure “not only the comfort of astronauts on the lunar surface, but also the much-needed human factors considerations absent from legacy spacesuits.”

[Related: Meet the first 4 astronauts of the ‘Artemis Generation’.]

NASA first unveiled an early prototype of the AxEMU spacesuit back in March, and drew particular attention to the fit accommodating “at least 90 percent of the US male and female population.” Given the Artemis mission has long promised to land the first woman on the lunar surface, such considerations are vital for astronauts’ safety and comfort.

In Wednesday’s announcement, Lorenzo Bertelli, Prada’s Group Marketing Director, cited the company’s decades of technological design and engineering experience. Although most well known for luxury fashion, Prada is also behind the cutting-edge Luna Rossa racing yacht fleet.

“We are honored to be a part of this historic mission with Axiom Space,” they said. “It is a true celebration of the power of human creativity and innovation to advance civilization.”

Despite Prada’s association with high fashion, the final AxEMU design will undoubtedly emphasize safety and function over runway appeal. After all, astronauts will need protection against both solar radiation and the near-vacuum of the lunar surface, as well as ample oxygen resources and space for HD cameras meant to transmit live feeds back to Earth. According to the BBC earlier this year, each suit will also incorporate both 3D-printing and laser cutters to ensure precise measurements tailored to each astronaut.

Although NASA’s first images of the AxEMU in March showcased a largely black-and-gray color palette with blue and orange accents, Axiom Space’s newest teases hint at an off-white cover layer more reminiscent of the classic Apollo moon mission suits. It might not be much now, but you can expect more detailed looks at the spacesuits in the coming months as the Artemis Program continues its journey back to the moon.

The post Moon-bound Artemis III spacesuits have some functional luxury sewn in appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Wearable sensors can already monitor a variety of important health characteristics. But they are still far short when it comes to detecting hormonal levels, particularly for women. A new device designed by researchers at Caltech, however, is specifically tailored to measure one of women’s most vital and influential hormones. According to the team’s study, recently published in Nature Nanotechnology, their new wearable sensor can detect and assess users’ estradiol levels by just analyzing sweat droplets.

Estradiol, the most potent form of estrogen, is a crucial component in women’s health. Not only is it necessary in regulating reproductive cycles and ovulation, but this hormone’s levels are directly correlated to issues ranging from depression, to osteoporosis, to even heart disease. Currently, estradiol monitoring requires blood or urine samples collected either in-clinic or at-home. In contrast, Caltech’s new sensor, created by assistant professor of medical engineering Wei Gao, only needs miniscule amounts of sweat collected via extremely small automatic valves within its microfluidic system.

[Related: This organ-failure detector is thinner than a human hair.]

The sensor’s reliance on sweat to measure estradiol isn’t only impressive due to its non-invasive nature; according to Caltech’s announcement, the hormone is about 50 times less concentrated in sweat than in blood.

The wearable’s monitoring system utilizes aptamers—short, single-strand DNA capable of binding to target molecules like artificial antibodies. Gao’s team first attached aptamers to a surface imbued with inkjet-printed gold nanoparticles. The aptamers then could bind with targeted molecules—in this case, estradiol. Once connected, the molecule gets recaptured by other titanium carbide-coated gold nanoparticles known as “MXenes.” The resultant electrical signal can be wirelessly measured and correlated to estradiol levels via a simple-to-use smartphone app.

To actually collect the sweat samples, the sensor uses tiny channels controlled by automatic valves to allow only fixed amounts of fluid into the sensor. To take patients’ sweat composition differences into consideration, the device also consistently calibrates via information collected on salt levels, skin temperature, and sweat pH.

This isn’t Gao’s first sweat sensor, either—previous variants also could detect the stress hormone cortisol, COVID-19, as well as a biomarker that indicates inflammation.

“People often ask[ed] me if I could make the same kind of sweat sensor for female hormones, because we know how much those hormones impact women’s health,” Gao said via Caltech’s announcement. With further optimization, the new estradiol sensor could help users attempting to naturally or in vitro conceive children, as well as aid those necessitating hormone replacement therapies. According to Gao, the team also intends to expand the range of female hormones they can detect, including another ovulation-related variant, progesterone.

The post A new noninvasive patch could monitor a vital hormone appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

It took eight years and the collaborative efforts of over 600 interdisciplinary undergraduate students, but Estonia’s second satellite is finally on track to launch later this week. Once in orbit thanks to a lift aboard one of the European Space Agency’s Vega VV23 rockets, the tiny  8.5 lb ESTCube-2 will test an elegant method to potentially help clear the skies’ increasingly worrisome space junk issue using a novel “plasma brake.”

Designed by Finnish Meteorological Institute physicist Pekka Janhunen, the electric sail (E-sail) technology harnesses the physics underlying Earth’s ionosphere—the atmosphere’s electrically charged outer layer. Once in orbit, Estonia’s ESTCube-2 will deploy a nearly 165-foot-long tether composed of hair-thin aluminum wires that, once charged via solar power, will repel the almost motionless plasma within the ionosphere.

[Related: The FCC just dished out their first space junk fine.]

“​​Historically, tethers have been prone to snap in space due to micrometeorites or other hazards,” Janhunen explained in an October 3 statement ahead of the mission launch. “So ESTCube-2’s net-like microtether design brings added redundancy with two parallel and two zig-zagging bonded wires.”

If successful, the drag should slow down the tiny cubesat enough to shorten its orbital decay time to just a two-year lifespan. Not only that, but it would do so without any physical propellant source, thus offering a lightweight, low-cost alternative to existing satellite decommissioning options.

“It is exciting to see if the plasma break is going to work as planned… and if the tether itself is as robust as it needs to be,” Carolin Frueh, an associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics at Purdue University, tells PopSci via email. “The longer a dead or decommissioned satellite is out there, the higher the risk that it runs into other objects, which leads to fragmentation and the creation of even more debris objects.”

According to Frueh, although drag sails have been explored to help with Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites’ end-of-life maneuvers in the past, “the plasma brake technology has the potential to be more robust and more easily deployable at the end of life compared to a classical large solar sail.”

After just seven decades’ worth of space travel, junk is already a huge issue for ongoing private- and government-funded missions. Literally millions of tiny trash pieces now orbit the Earth as fast as 17,500 mph, each one a potential mission-ender. Such debris could also prove fatal to unfortunate astronauts in their path. 

Although multiple international efforts are underway to help mitigate the amount of space junk, even the process of planning such operations can be difficult. Earlier this year, for example, an ESA space debris cleanup pilot project grew more complicated after its orbital trash target reportedly unexpectedly collided with other debris. On October 2, the Federal Communications Commission issued its first-ever orbital littering fine after satellite television provider Dish Network failed to properly deorbit a decommissioned, direct broadcast EchoStar-7 satellite last year.

“As satellite operations become more prevalent and the space economy accelerates, we must be certain that operators comply with their commitments,” Enforcement Bureau Chief Loyaan A. Egal said at the time.

Estonia’s second-ever satellite is scheduled to launch on October 7 from the ESA’s spaceport in French Guiana.

The post A new satellite’s ‘plasma brake’ uses Earth’s atmosphere to avoid becoming space junk appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

AI programs can already respond to sensory stimulations like touch, sight, smell, and sound—so why not taste? Engineering researchers at Penn State hope to one day accomplish just that, in the process designing an “electronic tongue” capable of detecting gas and chemical molecules with components that are only a few atoms thick. Although not capable of “craving” a late-night snack just yet, the team is hopeful their new design could one day pair with robots to help create AI-influenced diets, curate restaurant menus, and even train people to broaden their own palates.

Unfortunately, human eating habits aren’t based solely on what we nutritionally require; they are also determined by flavor preferences. This comes in handy when our taste buds tell our brains to avoid foul-tasting, potentially poisonous foods, but it also is the reason you sometimes can’t stop yourself from grabbing that extra donut or slice of cake. This push-and-pull requires a certain amount of psychological cognition and development—something robots currently lack.

[Related: A new artificial skin could be more sensitive than the real thing]

“Human behavior is easy to observe but difficult to measure. and that makes it difficult to replicate in a robot and make it emotionally intelligent. There is no real way right now to do that,” 

Saptarshi Das, an associate professor of engineering science and mechanics, said in an October 4 statement. Das is a corresponding author of the team’s findings, which were published last month in the journal Nature Communications, and helped design the robotic system capable of “tasting” molecules.

To create their flat, square “electronic gustatory complex,” the team combined chemitransistors—graphene-based sensors that detect gas and chemical molecules—with molybdenum disulfide memtransistors capable of simulating neurons. The two components worked in tandem, capitalizing on their respective strengths to simulate the ability to “taste” molecular inputs.

“Graphene is an excellent chemical sensor, [but] it is not great for circuitry and logic, which is needed to mimic the brain circuit,” said Andrew Pannone, an engineering science and mechanics grad student and study co-author, in a press release this week. “For that reason, we used molybdenum disulfide… By combining these nanomaterials, we have taken the strengths from each of them to create the circuit that mimics the gustatory system.”

When analyzing salt, for example, the electronic tongue detected the presence of sodium ions, thereby “tasting” the sodium chloride input. The design is reportedly flexible enough to apply to all five major taste profiles: salty, sour, bitter, sweet, and umami. Hypothetically, researchers could arrange similar graphene device arrays that mirror the approximately 10,000 different taste receptors located on a human tongue.

[Related: How to enhance your senses of smell and taste]

“The example I think of is people who train their tongue and become a wine taster. Perhaps in the future we can have an AI system that you can train to be an even better wine taster,” Das said in the statement.

The post An ‘electronic tongue’ could help robots taste food like humans appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

New quadrupedal robots, based on years of research alongside some amphibian inspiration, could one day crawl and shimmy their way into search-and-rescue operations. As detailed in a new paper recently published in Nature Communications, the robotic trio developed by a team at Colorado State University can swim, walk, and crawl depending on their environments’ obstacles—thanks in large part to lightweight artificial muscles that don’t require heavy onboard power sources.

[Related: Four-legged dog robots could one day explore the moon.]

The new systems, which have been in development since 2017, were designed by a team led by CSU Department of Mechanical Engineering professor Jianguo Zhao, and rely on materials that change rigidity depending on temperature.

“Our embedded morphing scheme uses a lightweight artificial muscle similar to a human muscle, and it contracts when electricity is applied,” Zhao explained in the project’s October 2 announcement. “By embedding these artificial muscles in the spine of the robot or in its skin, we can achieve a variety of shape-types. Altogether, this approach offers a promising path towards developing robots that can navigate and work in difficult environments.”

Aside from the electrical properties, the robots owe their movements in large part to frogs—or, rather, frogs’ multiple life stages. “They start as tadpoles with tails for swimming before developing legs that let them jump, crawl or swim,” Zhao continued. “We take inspiration from those transformations, but achieving animal-like embedded shape morphing in robots remains challenging and is something we hope this work will continue to address.”

Judging from the video montage, it’s easy to see the frog analogy. Depending on its surroundings and terrain, the robots can curve their limbs to “swim,” then adjust them accordingly to scale a rocky hurdle that mimics a shoreline. On dry land, Zhao’s robots can “hop” along by repeatedly rotating their limbs 360 degrees to push forward. A third version of the robot can flatten itself to skitter through small openings, as well as hang onto a ledge to help transition across gaps.

For now, however, the robots require remote control, but future iterations could rely on sensor- and camera-based analysis of their environments for navigation, and even morph as needed to handle their surroundings.

The post This robot trio mimics the life cycle of a frog appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Stories about solar-powered robotic wolves first surfaced back in 2017 after Japanese researchers began testing prototypes to combat wild boars’ devastating encroachment into farmlands. Since then, a company called Wolf Kamuy expanded sales of its sentry products featuring menacing fangs, fur, flashing red LED “eyes,” and a head capable of shaking side-to-side while emitting a 90 decibel howl. But boars aren’t the only problem plaguing rural Japanese communities. According to recent reports, Wolf Kamuy is now offering many of its faux-wolves as bear deterrence.

[Related: How to watch Alaska’s fat bears.]

It turns out the “Super Monster Wolf” isn’t just effective at protecting farmers’ crops—it’s also pretty good at protecting the farmers themselves. As reported October 1 via the BBC, bears are an increasingly difficult, sometimes even deadly nuisance in many areas of Japan thanks to a combination of serious factors, including climate change, deforestation,and urban expansion. What’s more, bear populations in regions such as Hokkaido appear to be actually increasing as Japan faces an aging population and declining birth rates. According to the BBC, some researchers estimate a total of over 22,000 bears located around Hokkaido. Because of all this, the region recorded at least 150 bear attacks over the past six decades—with four fatalities in 2021 alone. Meanwhile, bears continue to wander into more crowded towns and cities bordering wildlife areas.

Enter: the Super Monster Wolf. By installing the guard bots in urban locales, experts hope to deter bears from wandering into populated areas to potentially harm both humans and themselves. Researchers previously estimated that a robo-wolf’s howls effectively deterred bears from encroaching within approximately 1-square-km (about 0.38 square mi) of its installation—arguably better than many electric fence perimeters. With strategic placement, Super Monster Wolves could help elderly communities, and protect the bears.

Of course, humanity cannot solely rely on an army of robot wolves to protect us from bear attacks. Bears (not to mention countless other species) face immense existential threats in the face of ongoing climate change calamities, and it’s not the bears’ fault they are increasingly desperate to find food sources. The best remedy, therefore, is to continue focusing on climate solutions like conservation, renewable energy, and sustainable urban planning, rather than stopgaps like the (admittedly rad) Super Monster Wolf.

The post Robotic ‘Super Monster Wolves’ are guarding Japanese towns against bears appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

The Federal Communications Commission is officially doling out fines for space polluters, and the popular satellite television provider Dish Network earned the dubious honor of receiving the first ticket. On October 2, the FCC announced it slapped the telecommunications company with a $150,000 penalty after failing to properly deorbit its decommissioned, direct broadcast EchoStar-7 satellite last year. According to the FCC, the fine comes with an admission of liability, as well as an agreement to follow a “compliance plan” to help make way for the thousands of orbital projects in the works around the world.

[Related: FCC slaps voter suppression robocall scammers with a record-breaking fine.]

Space junk is already a huge concern for any industry requiring operations high above the planet, with literal millions of trash bits orbiting Earth at any given moment. In July, NASA director Bill Nelson told the BBC space junk poses a “major problem,” explaining that even something like a small paint chip striking an astronaut during a spacewalk at orbital speed (17,500 mph) “can be fatal.” Experts also worry about humans accidentally initiating a “Kessler cascade” or “Kessler syndrome.” In such situations, orbital space becomes so polluted that debris collisions are impossible to avoid, thus producing an exponentially increasing cycle of more collisions that create more debris. Were this to occur, the future of space exploration and travel could remain stymied until governments and companies begin complicated, costly cleanup efforts. 

Dish Network’s EchoStar-7 satellite launched and achieved geostationary orbit in 2002, and received FCC approval for an eventual orbital mitigation plan in 2012. According to the agreement, the telecoms company committed to eventually boost the satellite roughly 300 km above its operational arc. In February 2022, however, Dish Network revealed the satellite did not have enough remaining propellant to adhere to the original agreement’s altitude. In the end, the EchoStar-7 satellite only retired about 122 km above its geostationary arc—far lower than planned. Last year, the FCC also announced plans to finally begin tighter restrictions on satellites’ lifespans and decommissioning protocols.

[Related: Some space junk just got smacked by more space junk, complicating cleanup.]

“As satellite operations become more prevalent and the space economy accelerates, we must be certain that operators comply with their commitments,” Enforcement Bureau Chief Loyaan A. Egal said via Monday’s announcement. “This is a breakthrough settlement, making very clear the FCC has strong enforcement authority and capability to enforce its vitally important space debris rules.”

In August, a space debris cleanup pilot project overseen by the European Space Agency quickly turned into a logistical headache after its orbital trash target appeared to collide with another piece of debris. Luckily, the ESA and its partners at Swiss startup ClearSpace-1 stated at the time that their project appears able to progress as planned.

The post The FCC just dished out their first space junk fine appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Back in July, Chipotle revealed the “Autocado”—an AI-guided avocado-pitting robot prototype meant to help handle America’s insatiable guacamole habit while simultaneously reducing food waste. Today, the fast casual chain announced its next automated endeavor—a prep station capable of assembling entrees on its own.

[Related: Chipotle is testing an avocado-pitting, -cutting, and -scooping robot.]

According to the company’s official reveal this morning, its newest robotic prototype—a collaboration with the food service automation startup, Hyphen—creates virtually any combination of available base ingredients for Chipotle’s burrito bowls and salads underneath human employees’ workspace. Meanwhile, staff are reportedly allowed to focus on making other, presumably more structurally complex and involved dishes such as burritos, quesadillas, tacos, and kid’s meals. Watch the robot prototype plop food into little piles in the bowl under the workspace here: 

As orders arrive via Chipotle’s website, app, or another third-party service like UberEats, burrito bowls and salads are automatically routed within the makeline, where an assembly system passes dishes beneath the various ingredient containers. Precise portions are then doled out accordingly, after which the customer’s order surfaces via a small elevator system on the machine’s left side. Chipotle employees can then add any additional chips, salsas, and guacamole, as well as an entree lid before sending off the orders for delivery.

[Related: What robots can and can’t do for a restaurant.]

Chipotle estimates around 65 percent of all its digital orders are salads and burrito bowls, so their so-called “cobot” (“collaborative” plus “robot”) could hypothetically handle a huge portion of existing kitchen prep. The automated process may also potentially offer more accurate orders, the company states. 

Advocates frequently voice concern about automation and its effect on human jobs. And Chipotle isn’t the only chain in question—companies like Wendy’s and Panera continue to experiment with their own automation plans. Curt Garner, Chipotle’s Chief Customer and Technology Officer described the company’s long-term goal of having the automated digital makeline “be the centerpiece of all our restaurants’ digital kitchens.”

For now, however, the new burrito bowl bot can only be found at the Chipotle Cultivate Center in Irvine, California—presumably alongside the Autocado.

The post Watch Chipotle’s latest robot prototype plunk ingredients into a burrito bowl appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Take it from Tom Hanks—he is not interested in peddling dental plans.

“BEWARE!! [sic] There’s a video out there promoting some dental plan with an AI version of me. I have nothing to do with it,” the actor wrote via an Instagram post to his account over the weekend.

Hanks’ warning was superimposed over a screenshot of the deepfaked dental imposter in question, and subsequently highlighted by Variety on Sunday afternoon. According to Gizmodo, the simulated celebrity appears to be based on an image owned by the Los Angeles Times from at least 2014.

The latest example of generative AI’s continued foray into uncharted legal and ethical territories seems to confirm the Oscar-winning actor’s fears first voiced barely five months ago. During an interview while on The Adam Buxton Podcast, Hanks explained his concerns about AI tech’s implications for actors, especially after their deaths.

[Related: This fictitious news show is entirely produced by AI and deepfakes.]

“Anybody can now recreate themselves at any age they are by way of AI or deepfake technology. I could be hit by a bus tomorrow and that’s it, but performances can go on and on and on and on,” Hanks said in May. “Outside the understanding of AI and deepfake, there’ll be nothing to tell you that it’s not me and me alone. And it’s going to have some degree of lifelike quality. That’s certainly an artistic challenge, but it’s also a legal one.”

Hanks’ warnings come as certain corners of the global entertainment industry are already openly embracing the technology, with or without performers’ consent. In China, for example, AI companies are now offering deepfake services to clone popular online influencers to hawk products ostensibly 24/7 using their own “livestreams.”

According to a report last month from MIT Technology Review, Chinese startups only require a few minutes’ worth of source video alongside roughly $1,000 to replicate human influencers for as long as a client wants. Those fees alongside an AI clone’s complexity and abilities, but often are significantly cheaper than employing human livestream labor. A report from Chinese analytics firm iiMedia Research, for example, estimates companies could cut costs by as much as 70 percent by switching to AI talking heads. Combined with other economic and labor challenges, earnings for human livestream hosts in the country have dropped as much as 20 percent since 2022.

[Related: Deepfake videos may be convincing enough to create false memories.]

Apart from the financial concerns, deepfaking celebrities poses ethical issues, especially for the families of deceased entertainers. Also posting to Instagram over the weekend, Zelda Williams—daughter of the late Robin Williams—offered her thoughts after encountering deepfaked audio of her father’s voice.

“I’ve already heard AI used to get his ‘voice’ to say whatever people want and while I find it personally disturbing, the ramifications go far beyond my own feelings,” wrote Williams, as reported via Rolling Stone on October 2. “These recreations are, at their very best, a poor facsimile of greater people, but at their worst, a horrendous Frankensteinian monster, cobbled together from the worst bits of everything this industry is, instead of what it should stand for.”

AI is currently a major focal point for ongoing labor negotiations within Hollywood. Last week, the Writers Guild of America reached an agreement with industry executives following a five-month strike, settling on a contract that offers specific guidelines protecting writers’ livelihoods and art against AI outsourcing. Meanwhile, members of the Screen Actors Guild remain on strike while seeking their own guarantees against AI in situations such as background actor generation and posthumous usages of their likeness.

The post Tom Hanks says his deepfake is hawking dental insurance appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Five mech suits capable of morphing between robotic and vehicular modes are now available for pre-order from a Japanese startup overseen by 25-year-old inventor Ryo Yoshida. At nearly 15-feet-tall and weighing in around 3.5 tons, one of Tsubame Industries’  “Archax” joyrides can be all yours—if you happen to have an extra $3 million burning a hole in your pocket.

News of the production update came courtesy of Reuters on Monday, who spoke with Yoshida about their thought process behind constructing the futuristic colossus, which gets its name from the famous winged dinosaur archaeopteryx. 

[Related: Robotic exoskeletons are storming out of sci-fi and onto your squishy human body.]

“Japan is very good at animation, games, robots and automobiles so I thought it would be great if I could create a product that compressed all these elements into one,” he said at the time. “I wanted to create something that says, ‘This is Japan.’”

To pilot the steel and iron-framed Archax, individuals must first climb a small ladder and enter a cockpit situated within the robot’s chest. Once sealed inside, a system of nine cameras connected to four view screens allows riders to see the world around them alongside information such as battery life, speed, tilt angle, and positioning. Depending on a user’s desire, Archax can travel upwards of 6 mph from one of two setups—a four-wheeled upright robotic mode, and a more streamlined vehicle mode in which the cockpit reclines 17 degrees as the chair remains upright. Meanwhile, a set of joysticks alongside two floor pedals control the mech suit’s movement, as well as its controllable arms and hands

Unlike countless other robotic creations on the market, however, Archax currently isn’t designed for rigorous real world encounters. It’s currently meant to be, per the company’s own description, “cool.” 

But that doesn’t mean Yoshida and his team at Tsubame aren’t hopeful to build future Archax models better equipped for real world uses. According to the inventor, he hopes such pilotable robotic suits could find applications within search-and-rescue operations, disaster relief, and even the space industry. For now, however, Tsubame sounds perfectly satisfied with its luxury toy status.

“Arcax is not just a big robot that you can ride inside. A person can climb into the cockpit and control the vehicle at will. Each part moves with sufficient speed, rigidity, and power,” reads the product’s description.

“And it’s cool,” Tsubame Industries reiterates.

The post This gigantic mech suit can be yours for $3 million appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

The Environmental Protection Agency is releasing guidelines to more clearly define what is considered a truly “zero-emission” building. Unveiled on September 28 at the Greenbuild International Conference and Expo, the nation’s largest annual gathering for sustainable architecture, the EPA’s new outline is reportedly based on a “three pillar” approach. These pillars include no on-site emissions, the use of 100 percent renewable energy, and adherence to strict energy efficiency guidelines.

The news, first revealed via White House National Climate Adviser Ali Zaidi speaking to The Washington Post on Thursday morning, arrives as the Biden administration attempts to standardize concepts for an industry that generates nearly a third of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions every year.

“Getting to zero emissions does not need to be a premium product. We know how to do this,” Ali Zaidi said during the interview. “It just has to get to scale, which I think a common definition will facilitate.”

[Related: Power plants may face emission limits for the first time if EPA rules pass.]

A truly “zero-emission” building is actually harder to define than it may first appear. Currently, the global green standard is generally considered Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification. Developed by the US Green Building Council, an environmental nonprofit, and currently in its fifth iteration, LEED certification provides a comprehensive, tiered rating system for neighborhood developments, homes, and cities. However, it lacks the authority that could be granted by a major US federal department such as the EPA.

Lacking concise federal regulations, the US currently includes countless state and local benchmarks to meet their own ideas of eco-friendly urban planning—from California’s “zero net energy” standard for all new constructions by 2030, to reduced emission targets for 2030 and 2050 in New York. For California, a zero net energy project is defined as an “energy-efficient building where, on a source energy basis, the actual annual consumed energy is less than or equal to the on-site renewable generated energy.” Meanwhile, New York’s Local 97 law from 2019 sets carbon emission caps based on building sizes, along with multiple avenues to offset such emissions.

Although the EPA’s new definitional framework is not legally binding, the standardization could still prove incredibly attractive for real estate developers involved in projects across multiple states seeking a streamlined process.

“​​A workable, usable federal definition of zero-emission buildings can bring some desperately needed uniformity and consistency to a chaotic regulatory landscape,” Duane Desiderio, senior vice president and counsel for the Real Estate Roundtable, explained via WaPo’s rundown of the reveal.

Multiple projects in recent years have attempted to improve upon sustainable building practices in order to meet climate change’s steepest challenges. One such promising avenue is creatively incorporating recycled materials, such as diaper materials, to actually strengthen concrete mixtures for low-cost housing alternatives.

Meanwhile, termite mounds—the world’s tallest biological structures—are beginning to inspire eco-friendly cooling and heating systems, while fungi growth is providing the architectural underpinnings for a new generation of durable and sustainable building materials.

The post The EPA wants to tighten up their ‘zero-emission’ building definition appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Solar sails that leverage the sun’s photonic rays for “wind” are no longer the stuff of science fiction—in fact, the Planetary Society’s LightSail 2 practical demonstration was deemed a Grand Award Winner for PopSci’s Best of What’s New in 2019. And while countless projects continue to explore what solar sails could hold for the future of space travel, a new study demonstrates just how promising the technology could be for excursions to Earth’s nearest planetary neighbor, and beyond.

According to a paper recently submitted to the journal Acta Astronautica, detailed computer simulations show tiny, incredibly lightweight solar sails made with aerographite could travel to Mars in just 26 days—compare that to conventional rocketry time estimates of between 7-to-9 months. Meanwhile, a journey to the heliopause (the demarcation line for interstellar space where the sun’s magnetic forces cease to influence objects) could take between 4.2 and 5.3 years. For comparison, the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 space probes took a respective 35 and 41 years to reach the same boundary.

[Related: This novel solar sail could make it easier for NASA to stare into the sun.]

The key to such speedy trips is the 1 kg solar sails’ 720g of aerographite—an ultra-lightweight material with four times less density than most solar sail designs’ Mylar components. The major caveat to these simulations is that they involved an extremely miniscule payload weight, something that will most often not be the case for major interplanetary and interstellar journeys.

“Solar sail propulsion has the potential for rapid delivery of small payloads (sub-kilogram) throughout the solar system,” René Heller, an astrophysicist at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research and study co-author, explained to Universe Today earlier this month. “Compared to conventional chemical propulsion, which can bring hundreds of tons of payload to low-Earth orbit and deliver a large fraction of that to the Moon, Mars, and beyond, this sounds ridiculously small. But the key value of solar sail technology is speed.”

Another issue still that still needs addressing is deceleration methods needed upon actually reaching a destination. Although aerocapture—using a planet’s atmosphere to reduce velocity—is a possible option, researchers concede more investigation will be needed to determine the best, most efficient way to actually stop at a solar sail-equipped spacecraft’s intended endpoint. Regardless, the study only adds even more wind in the sails (so to speak) for the impressive interstellar travel method.

The post How tiny spacecraft could ‘sail’ to Mars surprisingly quickly appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

The dark side of the moon, despite its name, is a perfect vantage point for observing the universe. On Earth, radio signals from the furthest depths of space are obscured by the atmosphere, alongside humanity’s own electronic chatter, but the lunar far side has none of these issues. Because of this, establishing an observation point there could allow for unimpeded views of some of cosmic history’s earliest moments—particularly a 400 million year stretch known as the universe’s Dark Ages when early plasma cooled enough to begin forming the  protons and electrons that eventually made hydrogen.

After years of development and testing, just such an observation station could come online as soon as 2026, in part thanks to researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California.

[Related: Watch a rocket engine ignite in ultra-slow motion.]

The team is currently working alongside NASA, the US Department of Energy, and the University of Minnesota on a pathfinder project called the Lunar Surface Electromagnetics Experiment-Night (LuSEE-Night). The radio telescope is on track to launch atop Blue Ghost, private space company Firefly Aerospace’s lunar lander, as part of the company’s second moon excursion. Once in position, Blue Ghost will detach from Firefly’s Elytra space vehicle, then travel down to the furthest site ever reached on the moon’s dark side. 

“If you’re on the far side of the moon, you have a pristine, radio-quiet environment from which you can try to detect this signal from the Dark Ages,” Kaja Rotermund, a postdoctoral researcher at Berkeley Lab, said in a September 26 project update. “LuSEE-Night is a mission showing whether we can make these kinds of observations from a location that we’ve never been in, and also for a frequency range that we’ve never been able to observe.”

More specifically, LuSEE-Night will be equipped with specialized antennae designed by the Berkeley Lab team to listen between 0.5 and 50 megahertz. To accomplish this, both the antennae and its Blue Ghost transport will need to be able to withstand the extreme temperatures experienced on the moon’s far side, which can span between -280 and 250 degrees Fahrenheit. Because of its shielded lunar location, however, LuSEE-Night will also need to beam its findings up to an orbiting satellite that will then transfer the information back to Earth.

“The engineering to land a scientific instrument on the far side of the moon alone is a huge accomplishment,” explained Berkeley Lab’s antenna project lead, Aritoki Suzuki, in the recent update. “If we can demonstrate that this is possible—that we can get there, deploy, and survive the night—that can open up the field for the community and future experiments.”

If successful, LuSEE-Night could provide data from the little known Dark Ages, which breaks up other observable eras such as some of the universe’s earliest moments, as well as more recent moments after stars began to form.

According to Berkeley Lab, the team recently completed a successful technical review, and is currently working on constructing the flight model meant for the moon. Once landed, LuSEE-Night will peer out into the Dark Age vastness for about 18 months beginning in 2026. 

The post Why astronomers want to put a telescope on the dark side of the moon appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

The Central Intelligence Agency confirmed it is building a ChatGPT-style AI for use across the US intelligence community. Speaking with Bloomberg on Tuesday, Randy Nixon, director of the CIA’s Open-Source Enterprise, described the project as a logical technological step forward for a vast 18-agency network that includes the CIA, NSA, FBI, and various military offices. The large language model (LLM) chatbot will reportedly provide summations of open-source materials alongside citations, as well as chat with users, according to Bloomberg. 

“Then you can take it to the next level and start chatting and asking questions of the machines to give you answers, also sourced. Our collection can just continue to grow and grow with no limitations other than how much things cost,” Nixon said.

“We’ve gone from newspapers and radio, to newspapers and television, to newspapers and cable television, to basic internet, to big data, and it just keeps going,” Nixon continued, adding, “We have to find the needles in the needle field.”

[Related: ChatGPT can now see, hear, and talk to some users.]

The announcement comes as China’s make their ambitions to become the global leader in AI technology by the decade’s end known. In August, new Chinese government regulations went into effect requiring makers of publicly available AI services submit regular security assessments. As Reuters noted in July, the oversight will likely restrict at least some technological advancements in favor of ongoing national security crackdowns. The laws are also far more stringent than those currently within the US, as regulators struggle to adapt to the industry’s rapid advancements and societal consequences.

Nixon has yet to discuss  the overall scope and capabilities of the proposed system, and would not confirm what AI model forms the basis of its LLM assistant. For years, however, US intelligence communities have explored how to best leverage AI’s vast data analysis capabilities alongside private partnerships. The CIA even hosted a “Spies Supercharged” panel during this year’s SXSW in the hopes of recruiting tech workers across sectors such as quantum computing, biotech, and AI. During the event, CIA deputy director David Cohen reiterated concerns regarding AI’s unpredictable effects for the intelligence community.

“To defeat that ubiquitous technology, if you have any good ideas, we’d be happy to hear about them afterwards,” Cohen said at the time.

[Related: The CIA hit up SXSW this year—to recruit tech workers.]

Similar criticisms arrived barely two weeks ago via the CIA’s first-ever chief technology officer, Nand Mulchandani. Speaking at the Billington Cybersecurity Summit, Mulchandani contended that while some AI-based systems are “absolutely fantastic” for tasks such as vast data trove pattern analysis, “in areas where it requires precision, we’re going to be incredibly challenged.” 

Mulchandani also conceded that AI’s often seemingly “hallucinatory” offerings could still be helpful to users.

“AI can give you something so far outside of your range, that it really then opens up the vista in terms of where you’re going to go,” he said at the time. “[It’s] what I call the ‘crazy drunk friend.’” 

The post The CIA is building its version of ChatGPT appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Bill Gates is a staunch advocate for nuclear energy, and although he no longer oversees day-to-day operations at Microsoft, its business strategy still mirrors the sentiment. According to a new job listing first spotted on Tuesday by The Verge, the tech company is currently seeking a “principal program manager” for nuclear technology tasked with “maturing and implementing a global Small Modular Reactor (SMR) and microreactor energy strategy.” Once established, the nuclear energy infrastructure overseen by the new hire will help power Microsoft’s expansive plans for both cloud computing and artificial intelligence.

Among the many, many, (many) concerns behind AI technology’s rapid proliferation is the amount of energy required to power such costly endeavors—a worry exacerbated by ongoing fears pertaining to climate collapse. Microsoft believes nuclear power is key to curtailing the massive amounts of greenhouse emissions generated by fossil fuel industries, and has made that belief extremely known in recent months.

[Related: Microsoft thinks this startup can deliver on nuclear fusion by 2028.]

Unlike traditional nuclear reactor designs, an SMR is meant to be far more cost-effective, easier to construct, and smaller, all the while still capable of generating massive amounts of energy. Earlier this year, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved a first-of-its-kind SMR; judging from Microsoft’s job listing, it anticipates many more are to come. Among the position’s many responsibilities is the expectation that the principal program manager will “[l]aise with engineering and design teams to ensure technical feasibility and optimal integration of SMR and microreactor systems.”

But as The Verge explains, making those nuclear ambitions a reality faces a host of challenges. First off, SMRs demand HALEU, a more highly enriched uranium than traditional reactors need. For years, the world’s largest HALEU supplier has been Russia, whose ongoing invasion of Ukraine is straining the supply chain. Meanwhile, nuclear waste storage is a perpetual concern for the industry, as well as the specter of disastrous, unintended consequences.

Microsoft is obviously well aware of such issues—which could factor into why it is also investing in moonshot energy solutions such as nuclear fusion. Not to be confused with current reactors’ fission capabilities, nuclear fusion involves forcing atoms together at extremely high temperatures, thus producing a new, smaller atom alongside massive amounts of energy. Back in May, Microsoft announced an energy purchasing partnership with the nuclear fusion startup called Helion, which touts an extremely ambitious goal of bringing its first generator online in 2028.

Fission or fusion, Microsoft’s nuclear aims require at least one new job position—one with a starting salary of $133,600.

The post Microsoft wants small nuclear reactors to power its AI and cloud computing services appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

A new high-tech surveillance drone developed by a California-based startup Skydio will include infrared sensors, cameras capable of reading license plates as far as 800 feet away, and the ability to reach top speeds of 45 mph. Skydio hopes “intelligent flying machines”–like its new drone X10–will become part of the “basic infrastructure” supporting law enforcement, government organizations, and private businesses. Such an infrastructure is already developing across the country. Meanwhile, critics are renewing their privacy and civil liberties concerns about what they believe remains a dangerously unregulated industry.

Skydio first unveiled its new X10 on September 20, which Wired detailed in a new rundown on Tuesday. The company’s latest model is part of a push to “get drones everywhere they can be useful in public safety,” according to CEO Adam Bry during last week’s launch event. Prior to the X10’s release, Skydio has reportedly sold over 40,000 other “intelligent flying machines” to more than 1,500 clients over the past decade, including the US Army Rangers and the UK’s Ministry of Defense. Skydio execs, however, openly express their desire to continue expanding drone adoption even further via a self-explanatory concept deemed “drone as first responder” (DFR).

[Related: The Army skips off-the-shelf drones for a new custom quadcopter.]

In such scenarios, drones like the X10 can be deployed in less than 40 seconds by on-the-scene patrol officers from within a backpack or car trunk. From there, however, the drones can be piloted via onboard 5G connectivity by operators at remote facilities and command centers. Skydio believes drones like its X10 are equipped with enough cutting edge tools to potentially even aid in stopping high-speed car chases.

To allow for this kind of support, however, drone operators are increasingly required to obtain clearance from the FAA for what’s known as beyond the visual line of sight (BVLOS) flights. Such a greenlight allows drone pilots to control fleets from centralized locations instead of needing to remain onsite. BVLOS clearances are currently major goals for retail companies like Walmart and Amazon, as well as shipping giants like UPS, who will need such certifications to deliver to customers at logistically necessary distances. According to Skydio, the company has already supported customers in “getting over 20 waivers” for BVLOS flight, although its X10 announcement does not provide specifics as to how. 

Drone usage continues to rise across countless industries, both commercial and law enforcement related. As the ACLU explains, drones’ usages in scientific research, mapping, and search-and-rescue missions are undeniable, “but deployed without proper regulation, drones [can be] capable of monitoring personal conversations would cause unprecedented invasions of our privacy rights.”

Meanwhile, civil rights advocates continue to warn that there is very little in the way of such oversight for the usage of drones among the public during events such as political demonstrations, protests, as well as even simply large gatherings and music festivals.

“Any adoption of drones, regardless of the time of day or visibility conditions when deployed, should include robust policies, consideration of community privacy rights, auditable paper trails recording the reasons for deployment and the information captured, and transparency around the other equipment being deployed as part of the drone,” Beryl Lipton, an investigative researcher for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, tells PopSci.

“The addition of night vision capabilities to drones can enable multiple kinds of 24-hour police surveillance,” Lipton adds.

Despite Skydio’s stated goals, critics continue to push back against claims that such technology benefits the public, and instead violates privacy rights while disproportionately targeting marginalized communities. Organizations such as the New York Civil Liberties Union cites police drones deployed at protests across 15 cities in the wake of the 2020 murder of George Floyd.

[ Related: Here is what a Tesla Cybertruck cop car could look like ]

Skydio has stated in the past it does not support weaponized drones, although as Wired reports, the company maintains an active partnership with Axon, makers of police tech like Tasers. Currently, Skydio is only integrating its drone fleets with Axon software sold to law enforcement for evidence management and incident responses.

Last year, Axon announced plans to develop a line of Taser-armed drones shortly after the Uvalde school shooting massacre. The news prompted near immediate backlash, causing Axon to backtrack less than a week later—but not before the majority of the company’s AI Ethics board resigned in protest.

Update 09/26/23 1:25pm: This article has been updated to include a response from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The post A new drone might help cops stop high-speed car chases appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

YOU ARE NEVER going to beat the world’s best chess programs. After decades of training and studying, you might manage a checkmate or two against Stockfish, Komodo, or another formidable online foe. But if you tally up every match you ever play against an artificial intelligence, the final score will land firmly on the side of the machine.

Don’t feel bad. The same goes for the entire human race. Computer vs. chess master has been a losing prospect since 1997, when IBM’s Deep Blue beat legendary grandmaster Garry Kasparov in a historic tournament. The game is now firmly in artificial intelligence’s domain—but these chess overlords can also improve your game by serving as digital coaches.

That’s where Learn Chess with Dr. Wolf comes into play. Released in 2020, the AI program from Chess.com is a remarkably effective tutor, able to adapt to your skill level, offer tips and hints, and help you review past mistakes as you learn new strategies, gambits, and defenses. It’s by no means the only chess platform designed to teach—Lichess, Shredder Chess, and Board Game Arena are all solid options. Magnus Carlsen, a five-time World Chess Championship winner, even has his own tutoring app, Magnus Trainer.

Dr. Wolf, however, approaches the game a bit differently. “The wish that we address is to have not just an [AI] opponent, but a coach who will praise your good moves and explain what they’re doing while they’re doing it,” says David Joerg, Chess.com’s head of special projects and the developer behind Dr. Wolf.

The program is similar to the language-learning app Duolingo in some ways—it makes knowledge accessible and rewards nuances. Players pull up the interface and begin a game against the AI, which offers real-time text analysis of both sides’ strategies and movements.

If you make a blunder, the bot points out the error, maybe offers up a pointer or two, and asks if you want to give it another shot. “Are you certain?” Dr. Wolf politely asks after my rookie mistake of opening up my undefended pawn on e4 for capture. From there, I can choose either to play on or to take back my move. A corrected do-over results in a digital pat on the back from the esteemed doctor, while repeated errors may push it to course-correct.

“The best teachers in a sport already do [actively train you], and AI makes it possible for everyone to experience that,” Joerg says. He adds that Dr. Wolf’s users have something in common with professional chess players too—they use AI opponents in their daily training regimens. Experts often rely on the ChessBase platform, which runs its ever-growing algorithms off powerful computers, feeding them massive historical match archives. Dr. Wolf, however, isn’t coded for grandmasters like Carlsen or Hikaru Nakamura; rather, it’s designed to remove amateur players’ hesitancy about diving into a complex game that’s become even more imposing thanks to AI dominance.

“I see it not as a playing-field leveler as much as an on-ramp,” says Joerg. “It makes it possible for people to get in and get comfortable without the social pressure.” While machines may have a permanent upper hand in chess, Dr. Wolf shows us, as any good challenger would, that it all comes down to how you see the board in front of you.

Read more about life in the age of AI: 

• Will we ever be able to trust health advice from an AI?
• Why AI could be a big problem for the 2024 presidential election
• The logic behind AI chatbots is surprisingly basic
• The first AI started a 70-year debate

Or check out all of our PopSci+ stories.

The post This AI program could teach you to be better at chess appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Lego is abandoning an attempt to make its colorful, iconic building pieces from recycled plastic bottles just two years after first announcing one of the central facets of its ongoing sustainability push. Despite the setback, the Denmark-based company reiterated its commitment to reduce its overall environmental impact, and per the Associated Press, still aims to make Legos from sustainable materials by 2032.

Speaking with CNN on Monday, a Lego spokesperson claimed the company’s extensive testing had revealed that replacement requires additional production steps and investment into new equipment would actually produce more pollution than Lego’s current operations. The PET alternative also reportedly proved not as durable or safe as existing acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) blocks, and didn’t properly match Lego blocks’ trademark “clutch power.”

[Related: ​​Super Glue could make it easier to recycle plastic.]

The popular toymaker first announced a new block prototype based on a recycled plastic bottle compound called polyethylene terephthalate (PET) in 2021—part of a project to transition away from oil-based plastics which began in 2018. Even in the prototype’s reveal, however, the company cautioned it would be “some time” before builders could expect a more eco-friendly recycled brick to appear on store shelves. The formula reportedly required further testing and development before moving into a “pilot production phase” expected to take “at least a year.”

Unfortunately, this pilot phase appears to not only take longer than expected, but ultimately fail to produce a viable replacement for the oil-based bricks. According to AP News, Lego states it is “currently testing and developing Lego bricks made from a range of alternative sustainable materials, including other recycled plastics and plastics made from alternative sources such as e-methanol.” Made from hydrogen and captured carbon dioxide, e-methanol (aka green methanol) employs renewable energy to split water molecules during its energy production.

“We believe that in the long-term this will encourage increased production of more sustainable raw materials, such as recycled oils, and help support our transition to sustainable materials,” the company said via AP.

The backtracking comes barely a week after Lego CEO Niels B. Christiansen issued a statement ahead of the UN General Assembly reaffirming their company’s commitment to climate sustainability. The pledge included an aim to make the company carbon neutral by 2050 alongside a $1.4 billion investment in “sustainability-related activities.” The funding is reportedly earmarked for projects such as carbon neutral buildings, increasing renewable energy production and capacity across Lego stores, offices, and factories, as well as partnering with suppliers to “collectively reduce environmental impact.”

But while Lego’s PET project appears to have hit a significant hurdle, the company confirmed that a sustainable, sugarcane-derived version of polyethylene called bio-polypropylene made from sugarcane will still be used for certain parts of Lego sets, mainly accessory items such as trees and leaves.

The post Lego’s plan for eco-friendly bricks has fallen apart appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

ChatGPT has a voice—or, rather, five voices. On Monday, OpenAI announced its buzzworthy, controversial large language model (LLM) can now verbally converse with users, as well as parse uploaded photos and images.

In video demonstrations, ChatGPT is shown offering an extemporaneous children’s bedtime story based on the guided prompt, “Tell us a story about a super-duper sunflower hedgehog named Larry.” ChatGPT then describes its hedgehog protagonist, and offers details about its home and friends. In another example, the photo of a bicycle is uploaded via ChatGPT’s smartphone app alongside the request “Help me lower my bike seat.” ChatGPT then offers a step-by-step process alongside tool recommendations via a combination of user-uploaded photos and user text inputs. The company also describes situations such as ChatGPT helping craft dinner recipes based on ingredients identified within photographs of a user’s fridge and pantry, conversing about landmarks seen in pictures, and helping with math homework—although numbers aren’t necessarily its strong suit.

[Related: School district uses ChatGPT to help remove library books.]

According to OpenAI, the initial five audio voices are based on a new text-to-speech model that can create lifelike audio from only input text and a “few seconds” of sample speech. The current voice options were designed after collaborating with professional voice actors.

Unlike the LLM’s previous under-the-hood developments, OpenAI’s newest advancements are particularly focused on users’ direct experiences with the program as the company seeks to expand ChatGPT’s scope and utility to eventually make it a more complete virtual assistant. The audio and visual add-ons are also extremely helpful in terms of accessibility for disabled users.

“This approach has been informed directly by our work with Be My Eyes, a free mobile app for blind and low-vision people, to understand uses and limitations,” OpenAI explains in its September 25 announcement. “Users have told us they find it valuable to have general conversations about images that happen to contain people in the background, like if someone appears on TV while you’re trying to figure out your remote control settings.”

For years, popular voice AI assistants such as Siri and Alexa have offered particular abilities and services based on programmable databases of specific commands. As The New York Times notes, while updating and altering those databases often proves time-consuming, LLM alternatives can be much speedier, flexible, and nuanced. As such, companies like Amazon and Apple are investing in retooling their AI assistants to utilize LLMs of their own. 

OpenAI is threading a very narrow needle to ensure its visual identification ability is as helpful as possible, while also respecting third-parties’ privacy and safety. The company first demonstrated its visual ID function earlier this year, but said it would not release any version of it to the public before a more comprehensive understanding of how it could be misused. OpenAI states its developers took “technical measures to significantly limit ChatGPT’s ability to analyze and make direct statements about people” given the program’s well-documented issues involving accuracy and privacy. Additionally, the current model is only “proficient” with tasks in English—its capabilities significantly degrade with other languages, particularly those employing non-roman scripts.

OpenAI plans on rolling out ChatGPT’s new audio and visual upgrades over the next two weeks, but only for premium subscribers to its Plus and Enterprise plans. That said, the capabilities will become available to more users and developers “soon after.”

The post ChatGPT can now see, hear, and talk to some users appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Tesla’s Cybertruck isn’t even available to the public yet, but concept art for a Cybertruck cop-car made its appearance in Las Vegas on Wednesday. During a presentation by Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison at the data service giant’s CloudWork conference, a massive screen showed off the EV’s recognizable, angular design beneath red and blue emergency lights, as well as a bull bar and multiple Oracle logos.

But as Inside EVs noted on September 21, the rendering features misplaced bumper lights and rear wheels, while also missing the vehicle’s single, massive windshield wiper. Although this could indicate the project is early on in its development, Ellison promised its imminent debut.

“Our next generation police car is coming out very soon,” Ellison said to audible audience murmurs. “It’s my favorite police car. It’s my favorite car, actually. It’s Elon’s favorite car.” 

[Related: What TikTok’s deal with Oracle could mean for user security.]

“Among other things, it’s very safe, very fast, it’s got a stainless steel body, and we don’t have to add a screen or cameras to it because we can actually use their existing cameras and existing screen to put our application on it,” Ellison continued.

Both Oracle and Tesla already work alongside law enforcement, providing cloud support software and electric vehicles, respectively, for forces in Wisconsin, California, and elsewhere. Ellison has also called Musk a “close friend” in the past, and previously sat on Tesla’s board of directors. According to Ellison’s presentation, the first Oracle-integrated police cars already include voice-activated, retrofitted third-party “Tesla-like” screens, but the company plans to leverage the Cybertruck’s existing camera systems and monitors. 

First unveiled in 2019 and promised to arrive in 2021, Tesla has since delayed the Cybertruck multiple times while also increasing its estimated price tag. At last check, production and delivery were slated to begin by the end of 2023, although that deadline now appears dubious. During the EV’s debut event, Tesla vehicle designer Franz von Holzhausen threw metal balls at a prototype Cybertruck to demonstrate its “Armor Glass” windows, causing the driver side windows to shatter.

“The ball didn’t make it through,” Musk joked at the time.

The post Here is what a Tesla Cybertruck cop car could look like appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

At first glance, everything seems solid. Then, a small rip begins to spread across the middle of the structure as its siding expands. The module suddenly bursts apart, spraying debris in every direction as engineers cheer on from the safety of their control room. The sudden destruction—and the fifth such explosion—of a module intended for the International Space Station’s successor may not sound like the desired outcome, but, scientists say, it’s all part of the plan.

In Sierra Space’s September 20 progress update, the Colorado-based company released video of the explosion. The company aims to supply habitat spaces for Orbital Reef, Blue Origin’s NASA-backed space station project. During a recent Ultimate Burst Pressure (UPB) test, the engineering team essentially amped up the pressure within a one-third-scale LIFE module prototype until it popped. Said “pop” is certainly a sight to behold:

Unlike ISS construction materials, the LIFE modules are largely composed of “softgoods” such as Vectran, an incredibly strong and durable synthetic fiber spun from liquid-crystal polymers. When inflated, the LIFE module’s softgood design becomes rigid enough to withstand the low-earth orbit’s extreme environmental stresses. According to Sierra Space, the latest results offered a 33 percent margin over a full-scale LIFE module’s certification standard, nearly 20 percent better than the previous test design.

What makes the most recent UPB test especially impressive is that it was the first module prototype to include a steel “blanking plate” that acted as a cheaper stand-in for essential design features like windows.

[Related: NASA is spending big on commercial space destinations.]

“Inclusion of the blanking plate hard structure was a game-changer because this was the first time that we infused metallics into our softgoods pressure shell technology prior to conducting a UBP test,” Shawn Buckley, Sierra Space’s Senior Director Engineering and Product Evolution, said in the company’s announcement. “With this added component, once again, we successfully demonstrated that LIFE’s current architecture at one-third scale meets the minimum 4x safety factor required for softgoods inflatables structures.”

As Space.com notes, this marks the third UPB test for the module prototypes. Sierra Space has also overseen two “creep tests” in December 2022 and February 2023, during which the LIFE designs were subjected to higher-than-usual pressures for extended periods of time. With the latest success, Sierra Space says it’s now ready to move onto the next development phase—testing on full-scale LIFE module prototypes. If all goes as planned (a big “if,” given such endeavors’ complexities), future LIFE module iterations will be some of Orbital Reef’s central structures. Orbital Reef is currently intended to start construction in 2030.

The post Watch a space station habitat prototype pop like water balloon appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

On Tuesday, Elon Musk’s controversial brain-computer interface startup Neuralink announced it received an independent review board’s approval to begin a six-year-long human clinical trial. Neuralink’s application for quadriplegic volunteers, particularly those suffering from spinal column injuries and ALS, is now open. Less than a day later, however, a Wired investigation revealed grisly details surrounding the deaths of the monkeys used in Neuralink’s experiments–deaths that Elon Musk has denied were directly caused by the implants. 

Almost simultaneously a medical ethics organization focused on animal rights filed a complaint with the Securities and Exchange Commission urging SEC to investigate Neuralink for alleged “efforts to mislead investors about the development history and safety of the device.” In Thursday’s email to PopSci, the committee urged potential Neuralink volunteers to reconsider their applications.

[Related: Neuralink is searching for its first human test subjects]

“Patients should have serious concerns about the safety of Neuralink’s device,” wrote Ryan Merkley, director of research advocacy for the committee, which was founded in 1985 and has over 17,000 doctor members. “There are well-documented reports of company employees conducting rushed, sloppy experiments in monkeys and other animals.”

According to Merkley and Wired’s September 20 report, Neuralink experiments on as many as 12 macaque monkeys resulted in chronic infections, paralysis, brain swelling, and other adverse side effects, eventually requiring euthanasia. The FDA previously denied Neuralink’s requests to begin human clinical trials, citing concerns regarding the implant’s electrodes migrating within the brain, as well as perceived complications in removing the device without causing brain damage. FDA approval was granted in May of 2023.

[Related: Neuralink human brain-computer implant trials finally get FDA approval]

Elon Musk first acknowledged some Neuralink test monkeys died during clinical trials on September 10, but denied their deaths were due to the experimental brain-computer interface implants. He did not offer causes of death, but instead claimed all monkeys chosen for testing were “close to death already.”

Wired’s investigation—based on public records, as well as interviews with former Neuralink employees and others—offers darker and often horrific accounts of the complications allegedly suffered by a dozen rhesus macaque test subjects between 2017 and 2020. In addition to neurological, psychological, and physical issues stemming from the test implants, some implants reportedly malfunctioned purely due to the mechanical installation of titanium plates and bone screws. In these instances, the cranial openings allegedly often grew infected and were immensely painful to the animals, and some implants became so loose they could be easily dislodged.

In his email to PopSci, Merkley reiterated the FDA’s past concerns regarding the Neuralink prototypes’ potential electrode migrations and removal procedures, and urged Musk’s company to “shift to developing a noninvasive brain-computer interface, where other researchers have already made progress.”

As Wired also notes, if the SEC takes action, it would be at least the third federal investigation into Neuralink’s animal testing procedures. Reuters detailed “internal staff complaints” regarding “hack job” operations on the test pigs in December 2022; last February, the US Department of Transportation opened its own Neuralink investigation regarding allegations of the company unsafely transporting antibiotic-resistant pathogens via “unsafe packaging and movement of implants removed from the brains of monkeys.”

During a Neuralink presentation last year, Musk claimed the company’s animal testing was never “exploratory,” and only focused on fully informed decisions. Musk repeatedly emphasized test animals’ safety, stressing that Neuralink is “not cavalier about putting devices into animals.” At one point, he contended that a monkey shown in a video operating a computer keyboard via Neuralink implant “actually likes doing the demo, and is not strapped to the chair or anything.”

“We are extremely careful,” he reassured his investors and audience at the time.

The post Neuralink’s human trials volunteers ‘should have serious concerns,’ say medical experts appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Researchers have coaxed common silkworms to spin a more durable, eco-friendlier spider silk—all it took was a few genetic modifications and hundreds of thousands of silkworm egg microinjections.

Synthetic commercial fabrics like nylon are notoriously harmful to the environment because of the carbon footprint from their production processes, as well as their tendency to shed microplastics during wash cycles. Although natural alternatives such as spider silk are incredibly attractive, farming spiders at an industrial scale is difficult given their comparatively low production rates, as well as their tendency to eat one another.

But what if another creature could produce ostensibly the same material in bulk, without all the cannibalism? Junpeng Mi’s team at Donghua University in Chinadid are moving towards that outcome using a combination of CRISPR gene editing and guided egg alterations, creating silkworms that spin silk identical to arachnids. As detailed in their paper recently published in Matter, the team’s breakthroughs have produced fibers which scientists claim are already six times tougher than bulletproof Kevlar.

[Related: A new kind of Kevlar aims to stop bullets with less material.]

In recent years, researchers have improved upon traditional silk’s durability, as well as created artificial spider silk. Even so, the latter’s manufacturing procedures weren’t great at applying a vital surface layer of lipids and glycoproteins to help the silk hold up to sunlight and humidity.

Mi’s team is the first to create silkworms whose excretions are ostensibly identical to spiders’ web material.

“Spider silk stands as a strategic resource in urgent need of exploration,” Mi said in a September 20 statement. “The exceptionally high mechanical performance of the fibers produced in this study holds significant promise in this field. This type of fiber can be utilized as surgical sutures, addressing a global demand exceeding 300 million procedures annually.”

[Related: Silkworm-inspired weaving techniques can produce better nanofibers.]

To create their silkworm-spider fibers, Mi and their fellow researchers first implanted spider silk protein genes from Araneus ventricosus, an East Asian orb-weaving spider, into silkworm DNA. From there, the team further modified the genetic makeup to ensure the transplanted proteins cooperated with silkworm glands to produce properly spun fibers.

The results went above and beyond the team’s hopes, offering a mix of high tensile strength and toughness alongside far more flexibility than anticipated. According to Mi’s team, the new silk manufacturing methods could boost advancements in biomedical engineering, aerospace technology, military capabilities, and other smart materials.

“This concept of ‘localization,’ introduced in this thesis, along with the proposed minimal structural model, represents a significant departure from previous research,” Mi said in their statement. “We are confident that large-scale commercialization is on the horizon.”

The post Spider silk stronger than Kevlar spun by an unlikely source appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Neuralink, Elon Musk’s brain-computer interface startup, is seeking human volunteers to participate in its first clinical trial. In a September 19 announcement, the company says its Precise Robotically Implanted Brain-Computer Interface (PRIME) Study will test a “groundbreaking investigational medical device” in test subjects already suffering from quadriplegia due to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) or cervical spinal cord injuries.

Once implanted via surgical robot using ultra-fine, flexible wiring, the preliminary BCI device reportedly will wirelessly transmit data to an external computer to decode patients’ movement intentions. Neuralink’s ultimate goal for the (PRIME) Study is to grant its volunteers the ability to wirelessly control a computer mouse or keyboard with their brains.

The company faced numerous setbacks leading up to the study’s final approval by an independent institutional review board and its first hospital site. Despite promises from Musk as far back as 2019 regarding the technology’s imminent arrival, Neuralink reportedly only first sought the FDA’s approval for human clinical testing approval in 2022. The regulatory body denied Neuralink’s request at the time, citing concerns over potential brain injuries resulting from BCI devices’ faulty wiring and overheating, as well as complications regarding its removability. In May, the FDA finally granted Neuralink an investigatory device exemption (IDE).

[Related: Neuralink’s request for human trials of brain implants was reportedly rejected by the FDA.]

But even before its applications to begin human clinical trials, Neuralink repeatedly drew ire from critics and watchdogs concerning its treatment of test animals. In a December 2022 Reuters exposé, “internal staff complaints” concerning animal welfare issues described “hack job” procedures resulting in over 1,500 dead test subjects since 2018. The report also revealed the employees’ accounts prompted the US Department of Agriculture’s Inspector General to launch a probe into the matter. Since then, the USDA’s investigation received its own share of criticism over bias and conflicts of interest.

Neuralink has so far demonstrated successful BCI integration with rats, as well as shared footage of a macaque monkey playing Pong via a wired prototype brain implant. Meanwhile, similar BCI devices have been in various development stages for years—some of which already achieve and surpass the goals for Neuralink’s PRIME Study. Earlier this year, researchers at Stanford University demonstrated devices that successfully translated an ALS patient’s thoughts to words to aid in communication. Meanwhile, another company backed by Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates announced in February 2023 that its researchers successfully implanted a “neuroprosthesis” device in four human subjects.

During a public Neuralink presentation in December 2022, Musk expressed hopes that human trials would begin within six months’ time.

The post Neuralink is searching for its first human test subjects appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

The International Criminal Court revealed malicious actors illegally accessed its computer systems late last week, posing potentially dangerous ramifications for the world’s only permanent war crimes tribunal. 

“The International Criminal Court’s services detected anomalous activity affecting its information systems,” the ICC said Monday in a statement posted to X, formerly Twitter. “Immediate measures were adopted to respond to this cybersecurity incident and to mitigate its impact.” These measures are reportedly ongoing, and include assistance from authorities in the Netherlands, where the ICC is based.

As Reuters notes, “highly sensitive documents” under the ICC’s purview could potentially include protected witnesses’ identities, and detailed criminal evidence of war crimes. The ICC has not offered detail on what system areas and information may be potentially compromised.

[Related: Hackers prove it doesn’t take much to hijack a dead satellite.]

Established in 2002 in The Hague to hold world leaders and countries accountable for war crimes and crimes against humanity, the ICC is currently investigating multiple allegations across Afghanistan, the Philippines, Uganda, Venezuela, and Ukraine. In March, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin on charges of illegally deporting Ukrainian children. Although neither Ukraine nor Russia are ICC members, Kyiv granted the ICC the right to prosecute crimes committed within the territory. At the time, Russian authorities declared the arrest warrant “null and void.”

In an August article for the quarterly publication, Foreign Policy Analytics, ICC lead prosecutor Karim Khan announced in August the court would commit to investigating cybercrimes potentially violating the Rome Statute. First adopted in 1998, the legal treaty grants the ICC authority to prosecute war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity. As of 2019, 123 nations are party to the agreement.

[Related: Why government agencies keep getting hacked.]

“Cyber warfare does not play out in the abstract. Rather, it can have a profound impact on people’s lives,” Khan wrote in August. “Attempts to impact critical infrastructure such as medical facilities or control systems for power generation may result in immediate consequences for many, particularly the most vulnerable. Consequently, as part of its investigations, my Office will collect and review evidence of such conduct.”

This isn’t the first time the ICC’s cybersecurity has been compromised. In 2011, a controversial Kenyan journalist was accused and arrested by the ICC for allegedly leaking protected witnesses’ identities online. He was later released.

PopSci has reached out to the ICC for comment, and will provide updates to this story as they become available.

The post The International Criminal Court was hit with a cyberattack appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

A massive industrial plant in Belgium using 2,240 parabolic mirrors to harvest sunlight to create green heat is officially open. At 5,540 square meters (roughly 18,175 square feet), the site’s Concentrated Solar Thermal (CST) platform and six-module thermal storage unit is the largest of its kind in Europe, according to manufacturing company Avery Dennison.

In basic terms, the facility takes sunlight, reflects it into heat-absorbing oil, and then utilizes the oil to help supply the plant’s thermal energy needs.

Over half of the entire world’s energy consumption stems directly from manufacturing industries—meaning that these companies must adopt sustainable infrastructures to avert climate change’s worst outcomes. The European Union, in an attempt to spur such reforms, passed legislation in 2021 which set net-zero emissions targets across all its industries by 2050. As such, Avery Dennison’s new attempt at progressing towards that goal leverages direct sunlight as a substitute for fossil fuel heating systems.

The installation generates the same thermal power that can be achieved using 2.3 GWh of gas consumption, but is expected to reduce the facility’s overall emissions by an estimated 9 percent annually. During the warmer summer months when less heat is needed, however, the new system is expected to offer 100 percent of any necessary demand.

[Related: Could aquifers store renewable thermal energy?]

To convert solar rays into heating fuel, the CST platform’s curved mirrors first reflect light towards a collector tube filled with an absorption liquid such as thermal oil. This heated oil is then stored within a specialized installation similar to a giant thermos, whose heat is distributed as needed and on demand like a battery. Scaling up to six “battery” modules totalling 5 MWh of thermal power storage ensures the system can emit high temperature heat whenever required.

Among other products, Avery Dennison manufactures adhesive tapes and labels for uses across the automotive, medical device, personal care, and construction industries. According to the company, most of the vast array’s generated heat will be directed into drying ovens used during the coating process of pressure-sensitive adhesive products.

“We have big ambitions to tackle climate change and achieve net zero by 2050,” Mariana Rodriguez, general manager of Avery Dennison Performance Tapes Europe, said via the company’s announcement. “To meet these goals we will look across our industrial processes and identify opportunities to implement new technologies that decarbonize and reduce our reliance on fossil fuels.”

Thermal power storage is showing increasing promise as a cheap, sustainable way to meet industries’ heating needs. In recent years, new research indicates methods such as utilizing silica sand and even underwater aquifer water could offer effective means for housing thermal energy.

The post This Belgian factory’s massive mirror array turns sunlight into thermal energy appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

One of the world’s most powerful lasers can soon begin peering deeper into the atomic world thanks to recent, cutting-edge X-ray upgrades. Stanford’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory has announced improvements to the X-ray free-electron laser (XFEL) component of the Linac Coherent Light Source-II (LCLS-II) allowing “unparalleled capabilities” for examining quantum materials—a milestone over 13 years in the making.

“This achievement marks the culmination of over a decade of work,” said LCLS-II Project Director Greg Hays via the September 18 statement. “It shows that all the different elements of LCLS-II are working in harmony to produce X-ray laser light in an entirely new mode of operation.”

[Related: How to make an X-ray laser that’s colder than space.]

Despite its “laser” classification, LCLS-II can be thought of more as a massive microscope than a device generating bright pinpoints of light. When powered up, an XFEL creates extremely bright X-ray light pulses so quickly they can capture behavioral details of electrons, atoms, and molecules on their natural timescales. SLAC built the world’s first physical XFEL, which began operating in 2009 by firing electrons via a particle accelerator through a room temperature copper pipe at 120 pulses per second.

LCLS-II’s XFEL, however, offers as many as a million X-ray pulses per second—roughly 8,000 times more often, as well as 10,000 times brighter, than its progenitor. LCLS-II’s record-shattering abilities hinge upon a state-of-the-art superconducting accelerator that uses 37 cryogenic modules to cool its environment down to an astonishing -456 F; that’s even colder than the vacuum of outer space, and only a few degrees’ shy of absolute zero.

Scientists intend to use the LCLS-II upgrades to study quantum materials’ interactions, as well, something pivotal to accurately examine their “unusual and often counter-intuitive properties,” according to SLAC’s announcement. A better understanding of these attributes could lead to ultrafast data processing, more energy efficient devices, quantum computers, as well as a host of other technological breakthroughs. “From the intricate dance of proteins to the machinery of photosynthesis, LCLS-II will shed light on biological systems in never-before-seen detail,” reads SLAC’s rundown.

[Related: Physicists take first-ever X-rays of single atoms.]

PopSci has followed the progress of LCLS-II’s underlying superconductor tech for decades now. “Far down on the temperature scale near absolute zero (−459°F) lies a strange world of ‘electrical perpetual motion’—or ­superconductivity—where electric currents, once set in motion, flow forever,” PopSci first described in 1967. “With new developments in materials and the methods for cooling them, truly fantastic devices are taking shape in laboratories across the country.”

The post This record-breaking X-ray laser is ready to unlock quantum secrets appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

UPDATE: Sept. 18, 2023, 6:50 p.m. ET: On Monday night, the Joint Base Charleston released a statement on X, formerly Twitter, stating: “Personnel from Joint Base Charleston and @MCASBeaufortSC, in close coordination with local authorities, have located a debris field in Williamsburg County. The debris was discovered two hours northeast of JB Charleston. We would like to thank all of our mission partners, as well as local, county, and state authorities, for their dedication and support throughout the search and as we transition to the recovery phase.”

The US military is asking you to help them find their very expensive, very missing jet. According to Joint Base Charleston’s public statement posted on September 17 to Facebook, officials are still searching for an F-35B Lightning II stealth fighter jet after a “mishap” resulted in its pilot safely ejecting somewhere near South Carolina’s Lake Moutrie. Talking with The Washington Post, Joint Base Charleston spokesperson Jeremy Huggins explained the jet’s transponder, usually employed to find aircraft in such situations, has malfunctioned “for some reason that we haven’t yet determined… that’s why we put out the public request for help.”

[Related: Air Force declares F-35 ready for combat.]

Although it is certainly possible one of the military’s most expensive and high tech jets has crashed, Huggins confirmed to NBC News that the pilot (who is in “stable condition”) left their plane in autopilot mode before ejecting—meaning it could actually still be airborne.

“How in the hell do you lose an F-35?” Rep. Nancy Mace posted to X, formerly Twitter Sunday night.

Although the missing plane’s exact cost isn’t confirmed, estimates put a single F-35B Lightning’s worth at somewhere around $78 to $81 million. (The F-35 also comes in an A variant for the Air Force and a C variant for the Navy.) The F-35B is first-and-foremost a stealth craft, featuring different “coatings and designs” that make it much more difficult to detect than standard planes,” according to Huggins. An F-35B can also take off and land vertically, thus requiring much shorter runways than those aboard aircraft carriers. According to Lockheed-Martin’s official description, an F-35B equipped with a full weapons load capacity of 15,000 lb clocks in at Mach 1.6 (around 1,200 mph) while also pulling upwards of 7 G’s during flight. It is currently used within the US Marine Corps, as well as the UK and Italian Air Forces.

The USMC finally declared the F-35B “operational” in 2015 after a decades’ long funding and development saga. At the time, a squadron of 10 jets were estimated to cost somewhere between $1.04 billion and $1.34 billion.

“The public is asked to cooperate with military and civilian authorities as the effort continues,” Joint Base Charleston’s Facebook post explains, adding that any information that could help them be relayed to the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing Public Affairs Office at 252-466-3827.

The post The US military could use your help finding a missing F-35 stealth jet appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Rocket ignitions are always impressive, but they’re not the easiest to look at with the naked eye for pretty obvious reasons—you can’t be anywhere near their incinerating temperatures, and their brightness is generally blinding. Thanks to popular YouTubers’ high-speed video capabilities, however, curious minds can take a look at a recent test firing to see the complex, beautiful, and perhaps terrifying ignition in action.

The new footage comes courtesy of The Slow Mo Guys, a team of videographers specializing in… well, you can connect the dots. The YouTubers were given a front row seat at a test ignition for one of Firefly Aerospace’s Reaver engines, but unlike previous excursions, this project required quite a bit of preplanning. First off, The Slow Mo Guys only had one chance to nab the shot, since rockets traditionally use up huge amounts of fuel and resources—a single SpaceX Falcon9 rocket, for example, uses tens of thousands of gallons of kerosene and liquid oxygen. 

That single attempt also needed to be positioned, rigged, and timed to begin filming at enough of a distance that wouldn’t injure anything, or anyone. According to Slow Mo Guy Gav Free, a special enclosure capable of withstanding the intense heat and vibrations needed to house their slow-motion camera, while also calibrating the equipment to handle the explosion’s brightness. In the end, Free and his companions settled on exposing their film well over 40 percent darker than usual to account for the luminosity.

All that prep work definitely paid off, judging from the footage. At 2,000 frames-per-second (80 times slower than real time), viewers may be surprised to see an initial, bright green flame. This is produced as a rocket fuel mixture called triethylaluminium-triethylborane (TEA-TEB) combusts upon coming into contact with oxygen and air. After the initial green burst comes the yellow and orange flames—but with such a slow framerate, you can actually see those flames responding to the shockwaves generated by the engine thrust. According to Free, a rocket engine can generate upwards of 45,000 lbs of thrust in a vacuum at temperatures as high as 5,500 F.

The post Watch a rocket engine ignite in ultra-slow motion appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Electrical power and battery arrays remain go-to routes for juicing up robots, but sometimes old school explosives can still do the trick. A team at Cornell University recently demonstrated just that idea via a new tiny robot that relies on small-scale actuators ostensibly fueled by miniature internal-combustion engines. Even at minuscule levels, the bug-sized quadrupedal bot’s design allows it to launch to heights nearly as high as many leaping insects, while also carrying and walking with a load 22 times its own weight.

As detailed in a paper published on September 14 in Science, researchers created a propulsion unit via assembling a 3D-printed combustion chamber with an inflatable elastomeric membrane, electrodes, as well as teeny fuel injection tubing. When the electrodes introduce a small spark, the membrane balloons in just half a millisecond with 9.5 newtons of force. The process can then be repeated as quickly as 100 times per second.

“The high frequencies, speeds, and strengths allow [the] actuators to provide microrobots with locomotion capabilities that were previously available only to much larger robots,” writes Northwestern University Assistant Professor of Materials Science and Engineering Ryan Truby in a related essay within Science.

[Related: This small, squishy robot is cuter than its cockroach inspiration.]

But as IEEE Spectrum explains, even the smallest explosions can wear down or damage materials over time. Knowing this, the engineering team designed the elastic membrane using flame-resistant material alongside an integrated flame arrestor to control the timing and size of each little kaboom. The results are an extremely durable propulsion unit that the team estimates can continuously operate for over 750,000 cycles (roughly 8.5 hours for the robot) before any noticeable performance degradation. In video demonstrations, the team showcased their 29 mm long, 1.5 g robot vertically leaping 59 centimeters, even while carrying comparably massive amounts of weight. To “walk,” the robot fires its actuators at breakneck speed, and turns via selectively engaging the same engines.

Moving forward (so to speak), the team wants to hone their bot’s ability to actually slow its actuators to allow for more precise movement, as well as the ability to “run.” The robot is also currently tethered via power cables, so creating wireless iterations would be integral to deploying the device in a real-world scenario, such as a disaster zone or other hard-to-reach environments.

“One idea we want to explore in the future is using aggregates of these small and powerful actuators as large, variable recruitment musculature in large robots,” Robert F. Shepherd, head of Cornell’s Organic Robotics Lab and study co-author, told IEEE Spectrum. “Putting thousands of these actuators in bundles over a rigid endoskeleton could allow for dexterous and fast land-based hybrid robots.”

Explosive robot muscles—what could go wrong?

The post Mini explosions give this little robot a big bounce appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

The jury may still be out on plant-based meat alternatives’ economic and environmental viability, but experts largely agree that the seafood industry in its current form is untenable. Overfishing presents countless ecological problems, including plastic pollution and the potential for a wholesale collapse of marine biodiversity. Researchers have been experimenting with seafood alternatives for years, but one company is finally ready to bring its offering to market—and it represents a major moment within the industry.

Austrian-based food-tech startup Revo Foods announced this week that its 3D-printed vegan fish filet “inspired by salmon” is heading to European grocery store shelves—a first for 3D-printed food. According to the company’s September 12 press release, the arrival of “The Filet” represents a pivotal moment in sustainable food, with 3D-printed consumables ready to scale at industrial volumes. Revo Foods’ Filet is likely to be just the first of many other such 3D-printed edible products to soon hit the market.

[Related: Scientists cooked up a 3D printed cheesecake.]

“Despite dramatic losses of coral reefs and increasing levels of toxins and micro plastic contaminating fish, consumer demand for seafood has paradoxically skyrocketed in recent decades,” the company announcement explains. “One promising solution to provide consumers with sustainable alternatives that do not contribute to overfishing is vegan seafood. The key to success of these products lies in recreating an authentic taste that appeals to [consumers].”

The Filet relies on mycoprotein made from nutrition-heavy filamentous fungi, and naturally offers a meat-like texture. Only another 12 ingredients compose Revo’s Filet, such as pea proteins, plant oils, and algae extracts. With its high protein and Omega-3 contents, eating a Revo Filet is still very much like eating regular salmon—of course, without all the standard industrial issues. And thanks to its plant-based ingredients, the Filet also boasts a three-week shelf life, a sizable boost from regular salmon products.

“With the milestone of industrial-scale 3D food printing, we are entering a creative food revolution, an era where food is being crafted exactly according to the customer’s needs,” Revo Foods CEO Robin Simsa said via this week’s announcement.

While Revo’s products are currently only available for European markets, the company says it is actively working to expand its availability “across the globe,” with Simsa telling PopSci the company hopes to enter US markets around 2025. Until then, hungry stateside diners will have to settle for the Revo Salmon dancehall theme song… yes, it’s a real thing.

The post The world’s first 3D-printed salmon is hitting store shelves, and it looks kind of good appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

A tiny racing car completely designed and driven by university students has set a new Guinness World Record for fastest acceleration in an electric vehicle. Earlier this month, the miniscule speedster rocketed from 0 to 100 km/h (roughly 62 mph) in just 0.956 seconds, traveling a total distance of 12.3 meters (40.35 feet). The new benchmark time is over a third faster than the previous record set almost exactly a year ago in September 2022 by a team of student designers at Germany’s University of Stuttgart.

Months of design work and testing took place thanks to the members of Academic Motorsports Club Zurich (AMZ), a student organization that has built a new race car every year since its founding in 2006. After three vehicles running on internal-combustion engines, AMZ switched over to completely electric designs in 2010. They’ve adhered to the eco-friendly alternative ever since.

“Working on the project in addition to my studies was very intense. But even so, it was a lot of fun working with other students to continually produce new solutions and put into practice what we learned in class,” Yann Bernard, AMZ’s head of motor, said in the team’s announcement on September 12. “And, of course, it is an absolutely unique experience to be involved in a world record.”

[Related: How Formula E race cars are guiding Jaguar’s EV future.]

The AMZ team’s newest iteration, dubbed mythen [sic], were entirely designed and optimized by the university students. Among its many impressive attributes, mythen boasts a carbon and aluminum frame that keeps the vehicle’s entire weight at just under 309 pounds. Specialized four-wheel hub motors alongside a novel powertrain combined to boost the race car via around 326 hp.

From an aerodynamic standpoint, mythen is so fast and lightweight that it even needed some backup additions to keep it on the race track. Two wings—one in both the front and rear—helped push the car towards the ground. Students meanwhile also designed and installed a “kind of vacuum cleaner” to help hold the vehicle on the road via suction, according to the team’s announcement.

“[P]ower isn’t the only thing that matters when it comes to setting an acceleration record,” said Dario Messerli, AMZ’s head of aerodynamics in a statement, “Effectively transferring that power to the ground is also key.”

Before this month, AMZ set the world acceleration record for electric cars twice already—once in 2014, and two years’ later in 2016. Given how quickly these cars seem to run, as well as how frequently they are redesigned and tested, it stands to reason that the team will probably be fending off competitors in the very near future.

The post Swiss students just slashed the world record for EV acceleration appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

The Department of Justice’s antitrust case against Google is finally underway, and its results could reshape how consumers access the internet. In particular, the D.C. District Court judge’s verdict may particularly affect how users search the web on a daily basis.

To understand what’s at stake in what may be the biggest tech monopoly trial since the DOJ went after Microsoft over two decades ago, it’s important to focus specifically on what prosecutors are alleging. During Tuesday’s opening remarks, DOJ lead lawyer Kenneth Dintzer argued the tech giant violated anti-monopoly law through multiple, years’ long exclusive agreements with browser and phone makers. Via contracts with companies such as Apple, Google’s search engine became the default for programs like Safari browser, while similar contracts with phone makers ensured products came preinstalled with various Google apps. In doing so, the DOJ argues Google left little-to-no market room for rival search engine makers, aka created an illegal monopoly.

Google’s legal team’s defense is that, ostensibly, it’s a testament to the company’s popularity that businesses and consumers utilize products like Chrome more than any other option to peruse the web. Additionally, everyone is still free to use alternatives if they want.

[Related: DOJ accuses Google of buying its position as a default search engine.]

As The Verge reports, Dintzer at one point went so far as to allege Google has illegally maintained its monopoly since around 2010—implying the monopoly in question existed well before that date. When pressed by the judge, Dintzer also estimated that as much as 50 percent of all Google searches originate via one of the company’s paid-for defaults.

The big question, of course, is what happens if federal judge Amit Mehta sides with the DOJ. If Mehta rules against Google, the government could set a new precedent on how it approaches the most powerful tech businesses regarding antitrust and industry monopoly violations. Specifically for Google, however, this could entail new restrictions on its business practices, and potentially break up certain parts of its overall empire. This would hypothetically clear the way for new companies’ innovative products that would otherwise face difficulty attempting to gain any kind of foothold in a digital ecosystem ostensibly overseen and guided by Google. A loss for Google would also set a precedent for the DOJ to pursue similar cases against companies like Meta and Amazon.

If the court dismisses the DOJ’s claims, however, Google leaders could feel emboldened to reaffirm their place atop the industry. But as NBC News notes, such a loss could be spun into evidence for Congress to pursue modernized antitrust laws aimed squarely at tech giants.

The post The US antitrust trial against Google is in full swing. Here’s what’s at stake. appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

This post has been updated.

A new NASA-commissioned independent study report recommends leveraging NASA’s expertise and public trust alongside artificial intelligence to investigate unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) on Earth. As such, today NASA Director Bill Nelson announced the appointment of a NASA Director of UAP Research to develop and oversee implementation of investigation efforts.

“The director of UAP Research is a pivotal addition to NASA’s team and will provide leadership, guidance and operational coordination for the agency and the federal government to use as a pipeline to help identify the seemingly unidentifiable,” Nicola Fox, associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA, said in a release.

Although NASA officials repeated multiple times that the study found no evidence of extraterrestrial origin, they conceded they still “do not know” the explanation behind at least some of the documented UAP sightings. Nelson stressed the agency’s aim to begin minimizing public stigma surrounding UAP events, and begin shifting the subject “from sensationalism to science.” In keeping with this strategy, the panel report relied solely on unclassified and open source UAP data to ensure all findings could be shared openly and freely with the public.

[Related: Is the truth out there? Decoding the Pentagon’s latest UFO report.]

“We don’t know what these UAP are, but we’re going to find out,” Nelson said at one point. “You bet your boots.”

According to today’s public announcement, the study team additionally recommends NASA utilize its “open-source resources, extensive technological expertise, data analysis techniques, federal and commercial partnerships, and Earth-observing assets to curate a better and robust dataset for understanding future UAP.”

Composed of 16 community experts across various disciplines, the UAP study team was first announced in June of last year, and began work on their study in October. In May 2023, representatives from the study team expressed frustration with the fragmentary nature of available UAP data.

“The current data collection efforts regarding UAPs are unsystematic and fragmented across various agencies, often using instruments uncalibrated for scientific data collection,” study chair David Spergel, an astrophysicist and president of the nonprofit science organization the Simons Foundation, said at the time. “Existing data and eyewitness reports alone are insufficient to provide conclusive evidence about the nature and origin of every UAP event.”

Today’s report notes that although AI and machine learning tools have become “essential tools” in identifying rare occurrences and outliers within vast datasets, “UAP analysis is more limited by the quality of data than by the availability of techniques.” After reviewing neural network usages in astronomy, particle physics, and other sciences, the panel determined that the same techniques could be adapted to UAP research—but only if datasets’ quality is both improved and codified. Encouraging the development of rigorous data collection standards and methodologies will be crucial to ensuring reliable, evidence-based UAP analysis.

[Related: You didn’t see a UFO. It was probably one of these things.]

Although no evidence suggests extraterrestrial intelligence is behind documented UAP sightings, “Do I believe there is life in the universe?” Nelson asked during NASA’s press conference. “My personal opinion is, yes.”

The post NASA wants to use AI to study unidentified aerial phenomenon appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Origami has inspired yet another robot—in this case, one that dynamically changes its shape after dropping from drones in order to glide through the air while collecting environmental data. As detailed via a new study published in Science Robotics, researchers at the University of Washington relied on the traditional Miura-ori folding method (itself inspired by leaves’ geometric patterns) to underpin their new “microfliers.”

According to study co-senior author Vikram Iyer, an UW assistant professor of computer science and engineering, the microfliers first fall “chaotically” from drones in an unfolded, flat state, much akin to an elm leaf’s descent. Using tiny onboard pressure sensors to measure altitude, alongside timers and Bluetooth signals, the robots then morph midair to change airflow’s effects on its new structure. This allows it a more stable descent such as those seen within maple leaves.

[Related: Foldable robots with intricate transistors can squeeze into extreme situations.]

“Using origami opens up a new design space for microfliers,” Iyer said in the University of Washington’s announcement. “This highly energy efficient method allows us to have battery-free control over microflier descent, which was not possible before.”

Because of the microfliers’ light weight—about 400 milligrams, or roughly half as heavy as a nail—the robots can already span the length of a football field when dropped from just 40 meters (131 feet) in the air. Battery-free, solar-fueled actuators kick into gear at customizable times to control how and when their shapes interact with surrounding air, thus controlling directional descents. Researchers believe unfurling the bots at different times will allow for greater areas of distribution, and at just 25 milliseconds to initiate folding, the timing can be extremely precise. Although the current robots only transition in a single direction, researchers hope future versions will do so in both directions, allowing for more precise landings during turbulent weather.

The team believes such microfliers could be easily deployed as useful sensors during environmental and atmospheric surveying. The current models can transmit air temperature and pressure data via Bluetooth signals as far as 60 meters (196 feet) away, but researchers think both their reach and capabilities could be expanded in the future.

Origami is increasingly inspiring new, creative robots.  Earlier this year, researchers at UCLA developed flexible “mechanobots” that can squeeze their way into incredibly narrow environments. Meanwhile, the folding art’s principles are showing immense potential within engineering and building advancements, such as MIT’s recent developments in origami-inspired plate lattice designs for cars, planes, and spacecraft.

The post Microflier robots use the science of origami to fall like leaves appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Despite ample evidence to the contrary, heat pumps are still considered by some to be inferior to traditional gas and fossil fuel installations. A new study published on September 11 in Joule, however, offers even more credence to adopting the eco-friendly alternative, while also debunking some of the more persistent myths surrounding heat pumps. Even in extreme cold environments, heat pumps perform as much as three times better than fossil fuel options, the latest study found.

To understand how heat pumps work, imagine the opposite of a refrigerator—instead of a fridge sucking up its ambient interior heat and pumping that outside the container via its compressor, a home’s heat pump sucks in warmth for later use. Heat pumps’ sources generally either come from ambient outside air, or underground, such as via geothermal heat. The principle is largely the same as AC units, which operate on the same principles but in reverse. Either way, a team of Oxford University researchers working alongside the independent think tank, Regulatory Assistance Project, have ample evidence that pumps are much more preferable to pollutant-heavy standards.

[Related: Energy-efficient heat pumps will be required for all new homes in Washington.]

As The Guardian explains, the study aggregated data from seven field studies across the US, Canada, China, Germany, Switzerland, the UK. After analyzing the numbers, the team found that heat pumps operated two-to-three times more efficiently than gas and oil heaters at below zero temperatures. According to the findings, this makes heat pumps perfectly suited—if not superior—for homes across the globe, including in Europe and the UK.

Speaking with Canary Media, Duncan Gibb, study co-author and a senior advisor at the Regulatory Assistance Project, argued that the study supports their belief that “there are very few—if any—technical conditions where a heat pump is not suitable based on the climate,” at least in Europe.

That’s not to say that consumers wouldn’t benefit from switching to heat pumps in the US—far from it, actually. According to the team’s field studies, even some of the nation’s coldest regions in Alaska and Maine still offered more efficient heat pump performance than fossil fuel counterparts. Extrapolate that to the country’s generally warmer areas, and heat pumps generate even more bang for their buck.

The new information presents a stark counter to recent dismissals of the technology, which are often financed by those with vested interests in the fossil fuel industry. “Even though heat pump efficiency declines during the extreme cold and back-up heating may be required, air-source heat pumps can still provide significant energy system efficiency benefits on an instantaneous and annual basis compared with alternatives,” the study’s authors argue in the paper’s introduction. And from their new data, they have the numbers to prove it.

The post Heat pumps still get the job done in extreme cold appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Apple’s latest event included a ton of new products and features for iPhones, Apple Watches, and… whatever this thing was. Here’s the PopSci rundown of the latest and most interesting takeaways—yes, including the much anticipated USB-C port switch. 

iPhone 15, 15 Plus, 15 Pro, and 15 Pro Max

Apple is finally completing the USB-C transition with the new iPhone 15 line after over 10 years of Lightning cables (and all their associated dongles). During the company’s September 12 “Wonderlust” event, Apple confirmed the long-rumored shift, thus likely simplifying daily gadgetry for new iPhone purchasers while simultaneously inducing headaches (yet again) for owners of older generation products.

Apple first adopted some USB-C functionality via its 2015 MacBook, followed by the next year’s MacBook Pro upgrade. But apart from its laptops, the company has stayed quiet on plans to roll out similar changes for iPhones. That day has finally come, however, thanks in no small part to the European Union. Last year, EU legislators passed regulation ordering electronics manufacturers to adopt the USB-C charger as a universal port in the majority of their products by the end of 2024. Apple clearly is getting a headstart on the phaseout with its new iPhone 15 offerings.

iPhone 15 models are also getting a Dynamic Island bar at the top of screens boasting Super Retina XDR using OLED Super Retina tech with Dolby Vision support. Screens also include 2,000 nits of outdoor brightness across the 6.1- and 6.7-inch displays. Not much is changing within the smartphones’ actual physical designs, however, which come in pink, yellow, green, blue, and black with a textured matte back finish and ceramic shield screens.

[Related: The iPhone has a new (old) charging port—here are the best accessories.]

Meanwhile, Apple’s newest high-end iPhone models, 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max, are powered by an A17 silicon chip, and encased in Grade 5 titanium (as seen on the Mars Perseverance rover) at the same sizes as 15 and 15 Plus. An Action Button is replacing the longstanding silence switch located on iPhone’s left side, and can be customized for a variety of actions including voice memo, live speech, shortcuts, photo and video. Being their most advanced models available, the 15 Pro and Pro Max are tailored more for professional videographers and photographers, thanks to souped-up multi-camera systems led by a 48 megapixel main camera.

The iPhone 15 and 15 Plus are open for preorder on September 15, and will be available online and in-store on September 22 at a starting price of $799 and $899.

Apple Watch

Apple Watch Series 9 also got its official announcement, and will rely on an S9 SiP (System in Package) featuring 5.6 billion transistors alongside a 30 percent faster GPU and two times’ faster neural engine. Siri requests will remain on device, reportedly allowing for faster and more secure interactions such as accessing users’ health data. Meanwhile, dictation is up to 25 percent more accurate, and WatchOS 10 (coming September 18) can employ Name Drop and more precise haptic and audible feedback while finding their iPhones. At 2000 nits, Series 9 boasts double the brightness as its predecessor model, while also being able to dim as low as 1 nit.

Series 9 is also rolling out a new hand gesture for users’ watch hands—a double tap using the thumb and index fingers to answer and end calls, start and stop timers, control music and AppleTV, silence alarms, as well as open Apple Watch while also scrolling through widgets. The new hand gesture will be available on Apple Watches next month. Series 9 will be available in aluminum, scarlet, silver, midnight, and Product Red, as well as premium gold, silver, and graphite aluminum cases.

Apple Watch Series Ultra 2, its new outdoor-oriented model, will make the most of the watchface, including automatic night mode. The smartwatch includes an expanded altitude resilience of -500 to 9,000 meters, and Bluetooth-enabled accessory capabilities for activities such as cycling. Even with the boosted performance, Series 2 Ultra still maintains a standard 36-hour battery life alongside a 72-hour timeframe in low power mode. The frame is made from 95 percent recycled titanium, and users can choose from an expanded line of trail, alpine, and diving watch bands.

Apple Watch Series 2 is open for preorder on September 15, and will be available online and in-store on September 22 at a starting price of $399. The Apple Watch Ultra 2 is available for preorder and in-store on the same dates for $799.

The post Apple’s newest gadgets include titanium iPhones with USB-C ports appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Multiple companies around the world now offer robotic security guards for property and event surveillance, but Ascento appears to be only one, at least currently, to sell mechanical patrollers boasting eyebrows. On September 12, the Swiss-based startup announced the launch of its latest autonomous outdoor security robot, the Ascento Guard, which puts a cartoon-esque spin on security enforcement.

[Related: Meet Garmi, a robot nurse and companion for Germany’s elderly population.]

The robot’s central chassis includes a pair of circular “eye” stand-ins that blink, along with rectangular, orange hazard lights positioned as eyebrows. When charging, for example, an Ascento Guard’s eyes are “closed” to mimic sleeping, but open as they engage in patrol responsibilities. But perhaps the most unique design choice is its agile “wheel-leg” setup that seemingly allows for more precise movements across a variety of terrains. Showcase footage accompanying the announcement highlights the robot’s various features for patrolling “large, outdoor, private properties.” Per the company’s announcement, it already counts manufacturing facilities, data centers, pharmaceutical production centers, and warehouses as clients.

According to Ascento co-founder and CEO, Alessandro Morra, the global security industry currently faces a staff turnover rate as high as 47 percent each year. “Labor shortages mean a lack of qualified personnel available to do the work which involves long shifts, during anti-social hours or in bad weather,” Morra said via the company’s September 12 announcement. “The traditional approach is to use either people or fixed installed cameras… The Ascento Guard provides the best of both worlds.”

Each Ascento Guard reportedly only requires a few hours’ worth of setup time before becoming virtually autonomous via programmable patrol schedules. During its working hours, the all-weather robots are equipped to survey perimeters at a walking speed of approximately 2.8 mph, as well as monitor for fires or break-ins via thermal and infrared cameras. On-board speakers and microphones also allow for end-to-end encrypted two-way communications, while its video cameras can “control parking lots,” per Ascento’s announcement—video footage shows an Ascento Guard scanning car license plates, for example.

While robot security guards are nothing new by now, the Ascento Guard’s decidedly anthropomorphic design typically saved for elderly care and assistance, is certainly a new way to combat potential public skepticism, not to mention labor and privacy concerns espoused by experts for similar automation creations. Ascento’s reveal follows a new funding round backed by a host of industry heavyweights including the European Space Agency incubator, ESA BIC, and Tim Kentley-Klay, founder of the autonomous taxi company, Zoox.

The post The Ascento Guard patrol robot puts a cartoonish spin on security enforcement appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Space tourism is already becoming so commonplace that Virgin Galactic’s second private astronaut flight on September 8 went off without much fanfare. And although a brief press announcement only announced the names of its three-man passenger list after the trip, the recap didn’t mention Galactic 03’s historic “first” cargo—fossilized bones from two of humanity’s closest ancestors.

According to Tim Nash’s Virgin Galactic biography, the “entrepreneur, adventurer, conservationist and member of the Hubbard Council of The National Geographic Society,” carried with him the clavicle of a nearly 2-million-year-old Australopithecus sediba, as well as a roughly 250,000-year-old thumb bone from Homo naledi. Both hominid remains were previously discovered within the Cradle of Humankind UNESCO World Heritage Site outside Johannesburg, South Africa—sebedi is considered one of the potential candidates that presaged humanity’s Homo genus.

The initiative’s organizers, including researchers at the University of Witwatersrand, Johnnesburg, intended the gesture to represent “humankind’s appreciation of the contribution of all of humanity’s ancestors and our ancient relatives,” said Lee Berger, a National Geographic Explorer in Residence, Carnegie Fellow and Director of the Centre for the Exploration of the Deep Human Journey. “Without their invention of technologies such as fire and tools, and their contribution to the evolution of the contemporary human mind, such extraordinary endeavors as spaceflight would not have happened.”

[Related: Virgin Galactic’s second commercial flight sent three tourists to space’s edge.]

Berger’s son, Matthew, discovered the sebida clavicle in 2008 when he was 9 years old during an expedition alongside his father within the Cradle of Humankind heritage site. Matthew Berger traveled last week to Virgin Galactic’s Spaceport America in New Mexico to hand deliver the bones to Nash, a conservationist involved with human origins research. Caretakers stored both bone fragments within a carbon fiber container prior to their suborbital excursion.

“These fossils represent individuals who lived and died hundreds of thousands of years ago, yet were individuals who likely gazed up at the stars in wonder, much as we do,” Berger said in a September 8 statement via the University of Witwatersrand.

“The magnitude of being among the first civilians going into space, and carrying these precious fossils, has taken a while to sink in, during all of the preparations for the flight,” Nash said via the University of Witwatersrand statement, “But I am humbled and honored to represent South Africa and all of humankind, as I carry these precious representations of our collective ancestors, on this first journey of our ancient relatives into space.”

Nash, alongside Las Vegas real estate entrepreneur Ken Baxter and British engineer and racecar company founder Adrian Reynald, purchased their Virgin Galactic seats as far back as 2004 from company founder and multibillionaire Richard Branson. Tickets for the few minutes’ worth of suborbital weightlessness alongside views of the Earth’s curvature reportedly cost between $250,000 and $450,000.

“We sincerely hope it brings further awareness of the importance of our country and the African continent to understanding the journey of humankind that has led to this historic moment where commercial spaceflight is possible,” says Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site CEO Matthew Sathekge said via University of Witwatersrand’s announcement.

The post Virgin Galactic’s latest cargo? Ancient human bones appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

If all goes according to plan, a tennis ball-sized robot modeled after a children’s toy will soon briefly explore the moon’s surface as part of Japan’s first soft lunar landing. As recently highlighted by Space.com, the Japanese space agency, JAXA, is currently overseeing its Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) probe mission, which launched on September 6 alongside the country’s XRISM X-ray satellite payload. Unlike more powerful launches, it will take less than 9-foot-wide SLIM between three and four months to reach lunar orbit, after which it will survey the roughly 1000-foot-wide Shioli Crater landing site from afar for about another month.

Afterwards, however, the lander will descend towards the moon, and deploy the Lunar Excursion Vehicle 2 (LEV-2) once it reaches around six-feet above the surface. The probe’s sphere-shaped casing will then divide into two halves on either side of a small camera system. From there, LEV-2 will begin hobbling atop the SLIM landing site and surrounding area for around two hours, until its battery reserve is depleted.

[Related: India’s successful moon landing makes lunar history.]

Per JAXA’s description, LEV-2 was developed by its Space Exploration Innovation Hub Center associate senior researcher Hirano Daichi. Daichi collaborated with a team from Doshisha University as well as the toy manufacturer TOMY to create the tiny space explorer. Meanwhile, Sony provided the two cameras that will survey the moon. According to Daichi, the team turned to children’s toys for their “robust and safe design… which reduced the number of components used in the vehicle as much as possible and increased its reliability.”

“This robot was developed successfully within the limited size and mass using the downsizing and weight reduction technologies and the shape changing mechanism developed for toys by TOMY,” continued Daichi.

If successful, JAXA engineers hope the soft lunar landing method can be adapted to larger craft in the future, including those piloted by human astronauts. “By creating the SLIM lander humans will make a qualitative shift towards being able to land where we want and not just where it is easy to land, as had been the case before,” reads JAXA’s project description. “By achieving this, it will become possible to land on planets even more resource scarce than the moon.”

Beyond just this project, it’s been an active time for lunar exploration. In August, India completed the first successful lunar landing at the moon’s south pole via its Chandrayaan-3 probe. Last year, NASA’s Artemis-1 rocket also kickstarted the space agency’s long standing goal towards establishing a permanent moon base.

The post The newest moon-bound robot will roll around like a tennis ball appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Intuit’s TurboTax services are anything but “free,” even though its allegedly deceptive ad campaigns claimed otherwise for years. According to a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) judge’s ruling, the popular tax filing service must stop labeling any of its products as no-cost unless a rigorous set of conditions are “clearly and conspicuously” displayed to users, per the FTC’s announcement on September 8.

Consumers are bombarded with third-party service advertisements every year during tax season, many of which tout supposedly free options to most users. Regulatory scrutiny in recent years, however, has made it clear that a large portion of these claims are inaccurate at best, or otherwise intentionally misleading. Last week’s initial decision from the FTC’s Administrative Law Judge D. Michael Chappell, although subject to an automatic full commission review, makes it clear that regulators aim to clamp down on the predatory bait-and-switches.

[Related: Major tax-filing sites routinely shared users’ financial info with Facebook.]

“[T]he evidence proves that Intuit engaged in deceptive advertising in violation of Section 5 of the FTC Act,” reads a portion of Chappell’s 242-page ruling. “[Intuit] advertised to consumers that they could file their taxes online for free using TurboTax, when in truth, for approximately two-thirds of taxpayers, the advertised claim was false.”

The immediate halt to advertising “free” TurboTax filing options can only lift if Intuit adheres to a detailed set of FTC guidelines. Any solely visual or audio communication (i.e. radio ads), for example, must include disclosures in the same medium as the ad is presented. Television ads, meanwhile, must include disclosures in both audio and visual methods. Online advertisements, face-to-face communications, and product labels also include comparably stringent disclosure requirements if Intuit wishes to boost “free” services.

As Ars Technica reported last week, Intuit announced in its own response statement that it plans to appeal the “groundless and seemingly predetermined decision,” and the company “and is confident that when the matter ultimately returns to a neutral body Intuit will prevail, as it has previously in this matter.” Intuit representatives are possibly referring to an April 2022 federal court decision denying an FTC motion for a preliminary injunction regarding TurboTax “free” filing ads. The following month, Intuit agreed to a $141 million restitution penalty for nearly 4.4 million filers misled by TurboTax’s Free Edition claims between 2016 and 2018.

[Related: A free IRS e-filing tax service could start rolling out next year.]

The latest regulatory pressure comes as the federal government and IRS are reportedly moving towards testing a free e-filing system for taxpayers beginning in January 2024. According to anonymous sources speaking with The Washington Post at the time, the IRS is developing the program with help from the White House’s technology consulting agency, the US Digital Service. If launched publicly, the universal free filing portal would add the US alongside nations providing similar services, including Australia, Chile, and Estonia.

The post Calling TurboTax ‘free’ is ‘deceptive advertising,’ says FTC appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Once considered prohibitively expensive and inefficient, hydrogen fuel-powered planes are finally beginning to literally and figuratively take off around the world. Last week, the Germany-based startup H2FLY achieved a major industry milestone—completing the world’s first piloted electric aircraft flights fueled entirely by liquid hydrogen.

“This achievement marks a watershed moment in the use of hydrogen to power aircraft. Together with our partners, we have demonstrated the viability of liquid hydrogen to support medium and long-range emissions-free flight,” H2FLY co-founder Josef Kallo said in a statement on September 7.

According to the company’s official announcement, H2FLY completed a total of four flights using liquid hydrogen, one of which boasted over three hours of airtime. Unlike past tests, however, the company’s HY4 prototype aircraft this time around utilized liquified, cryogenically stored hydrogen (LH2) instead of pressurized gaseous hydrogen (GH2). The fuel source alteration reportedly allows for significantly lower fuel tank volumes and weights, thus boosting the aircraft’s range, as well as the amount of space that can be dedicated for payloads.

[Related: Hydrogen-powered flight is closer to takeoff than ever.]

Even with only four test flights completed, LH2 fuel shows incredible promise in powering more-sustainable planes. Thanks to the strategic fuel shift, the company’s HY4 aircraft can hypothetically double its maximum range from 750 km to 1,500 km (466 to 932 miles), making it much more viable for medium- and long-haul commercial, carbon-emissions free flights. For comparison, a flight from New York City to Columbus, Ohio, is around 765 km; a flight from NYC to Tallahassee, Florida, is about 1,470 km.

As Electrek notes, H2FLY engineers boast a string of achievements over the years when compared to similar zero-emission aviation companies. The HY4 aircraft completed its maiden flight in 2016, and set new records when it achieved an altitude of over 7,000 during a 77-mile test run in 2022.

Atop the impressive test results, H2FLY explains its latest HY4 flights “marks the culmination” of Project HEAVEN, “a European-government-supported consortium assembled to demonstrate the feasibility of using liquid, cryogenic hydrogen in aircraft.” Apart from various business consortium partners, the project included funding from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, the German Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport, and the University of Ulm.

Moving forward, H2FLY aims to begin work on commercialization of its aircraft and fuel technologies. This will include the development of new fuel cell systems capable of providing full power ranges for emissionless flights achieving altitudes as high as 27,000 feet. Next year, the company also plans to open a Hydrogen Aviation Center at Germany’s Stuttgart Airport.

The post This liquid hydrogen-powered plane successfully completed its first test flights appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Decontaminating water is as vital an endeavor as ever as pollution issues continue to flood the planet. Knowing this, researchers at the University of California San Diego just created the latest mind-bending tool to aid in future clean-up projects: a 3D-printed “engineered living material” made of seaweed polymers and genetically altered bacteria that breaks down organic pollutants in water.

As detailed via a new paper published in Nature Communications, the remarkable creation comes courtesy of a team working within the University of California San Diego’s Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC). According to the project announcement, the team first hydrated a seaweed-derived polymer known as alginate. Meanwhile, the researchers genetically engineered a waterborne, photosynthetic bacteria called cyanobacteria to produce laccase, an enzyme capable of neutralizing organic pollutants like antibiotics, dyes, pharmaceutical drugs, and BPAs. The ingredients were then combined and passed through a 3D printer to produce a grid-like design whose surface area-to-volume ratio allowed the bacteria optimal access to light, gasses, and nutrients.

[Related: The US might finally regulate toxic ‘forever chemicals’ in drinking water.]

“This collaboration allowed us to apply our knowledge of the genetics and physiology of cyanobacteria to create a living material,” School of Biological Sciences faculty member Susan Golden said in a statement. “Now we can think creatively about engineering novel functions into cyanobacteria to make more useful products.”

To test their creation, the engineers introduced their decontaminator to water polluted by indigo carmine, a blue dye often used within denim textile manufacturing. The team’s grid-like, living tool managed to safely and effectively decolorize the water solution over the course of multiple days.

However, that still leaves the alginate-cyanobacteria mixture within the water. Replacing one foreign pollutant with foreign, synthesized bacteria doesn’t necessarily solve the larger problem of contamination. To solve this, the UC San Diego team further engineered their version of cyanobacteria to adversely respond to theophylline, a molecule similar to caffeine found in many teas and chocolates. Whenever the decontamination substance comes into contact with the molecule, the bacteria subsequently produces a specific protein to break down and destroy its own cells, thus getting rid of the substance.

“The living material can act on the pollutant of interest, then a small molecule can be added afterwards to kill the [cyanobacteria],” Jon Pokorski, a professor of nanoengineering and research co-lead, said in the announcement. “This way, we can alleviate any concerns about having genetically modified bacteria lingering in the environment.”

As useful as this living filer could already be in decontamination projects, the team hopes to eventually take their substance a step further by designing it to self-destruct without the need for additional outside chemicals.

“Our goal is to make materials that respond to stimuli that are already present in the environment,” Pokorski explained.

The post ‘Living material’ water filter uses bacteria to neutralize water pollutants appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Human bodies can reject organ transplants at any time—sometimes even years after the procedure itself. When this occurs, time is of the essence to potentially save not only the organ’s viability, but the life of a patient. Unfortunately, noticeable symptoms of organ rejection can show up late, but a tiny new medical device is showing immense promise in offering dramatically earlier detection times.

As detailed in a new study published September 8 in the journal Science researchers at Northwestern University have developed an ultra-thin, soft implant that adheres directly to a transplanted organ’s surface to monitor its health. In small animal clinical trials involving kidney transplants, rejection warning signs were identified as much as three weeks earlier than current methods.

[Related: The first successful pig heart transplant into a human was a century in the making.]

“I have noticed many of my patients feel constant anxiety—not knowing if their body is rejecting their transplanted organ or not. They may have waited years for a transplant… [t]hen, they spend the rest of their lives worrying about the health of that organ,” Lorenzo Gallon, a transplant nephrologist at Northwestern Medical who led the study’s clinical portion, said in a statement. “Our new device could offer some protection, and continuous monitoring could provide reassurance and peace of mind.”

According to John A. Rogers, a bioelectronics expert who led device development for the project, identifying rejection earlier can allow physicians to administer various therapies to prevent a patient from losing the organ, or even their lives.

“In worst-case scenarios, if rejection is ignored, it could be life threatening,” Rogers said via Friday’s statement. “The earlier you can catch rejection and engage therapies, the better. We developed this device with that in mind.”

At 0.3 cm wide, 0.7 cm long, and just 220 microns thick, the new sensor is thinner than a single human hair and smaller than your pinky fingernail. The device’s tininess is key to its ability to adhere, slipping beneath a kidney’s fibrous renal capsule layer to rest directly against the organ. Once positioned, the device’s extremely sensitive thermometer measures kidney temperature fluctuations as miniscule as 0.004 degrees Celsius. A miniature coin cell battery currently powers the device alongside Bluetooth capabilities to wireless stream data results to researchers.

Since tissue inflammation is often an early sign of complications, researchers were alerted much faster to potential problems than currently available detection methods like creatine and blood urea monitoring. Due to normal body fluctuations, those existing options are also far less reliable and sensitive than the new device.

“Bodies move, so there is a lot of motion to deal with. Even the kidney itself moves,” Rogers continued, explaining that the organ’s soft tissue isn’t ideal for suturing. “These were daunting engineering challenges, but this device is a gentle, seamless interface that avoids risking damage to the organ.”

Moving forward, the team intends to begin larger animal trials, along with potentially expanding to test on organs such as livers and lungs. They also hope to integrate new power sources capable of externally recharging the device’s battery, thus offering a more permanent monitoring solution.

The post This organ-failure detector is thinner than a human hair appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.