Sun, Jul 11
This event is part of Summer Science 2021.
The ExoMars rover is due to launch in 2,022 and will travel across Oxia Planum on Mars drilling for signs of life.
Continue reading “Engineering ExoMars — Summer Science 2021” »
The Astronomy, Technology, and Space Science News Podcast.
SpaceTime Series 24 Episode 91
*Astronomers zero in on source of the impactor that wiped out the dinosaurs.
A new study claims the impactor believed to have wiped out and 75 percent of all life on Earth 66 million years ago including all the non-avian dinosaurs — likely came from the outer half of the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
*Producing matter out of pure energy.
Scientists have directly converted pure light energy into matter in a single process for the first time.
The findings reported in the journal Physical Review Letters involved the creation of Electrons and their antimatter counter parts positrons — by colliding quantum packets of photons – light particles.
*Discovery of a galactic stream of galaxy clusters.
Astronomers have discovered a never-before-seen galaxy cluster with a black hole at its centre, travelling at high speed along an intergalactic road of matter.
*Solar Orbiter and BepiColombo making space history with double flyby of Venus.
As we go to air tonight the European Space Agency is making space history with two of its space craft6 undertaking almost simultaneous flybys of the planet Venus.
*The Science Report.
New US congressional report says COVID-19 leaked out of Chinese Government Wuhan Lab.
Wearing masks and social distancing even when vaccinated key to combat new COVID strains.
Rising sea levels may mean fewer eruptions from volcanic islands.
How slowing of the planet’s rotation could have paved the way for life on Earth.
Skeptic’s guide to low vaccination and low IQ.
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NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover recently attempted its first-ever sample collection of the Martian surface on August 6. However, data shows that while the rover’s drill successfully drilled into the surface, no regolith was collected in the sample tube.
Meanwhile, as Perseverance was preparing for the sample collection event, a team of researchers using ESA’s Mars Express orbiter found evidence that previously thought of lakes of water underneath Mars’ south pole might actually be made of clay.
Perseverance’s sample collection failure
It’s interesting, but the most advanced robots are acrobatic enough. The Glaring Challenge in robotics right now is copying and duplicating the function of the Human Hand.
Researchers studying rodents’ leaping abilities suggest findings could help them create nimble artificial intelligence systems.
The idea is to offer the predictions for the structure of practically every protein with a known sequence of amino acids free of charge. “We believe that this is the most important contribution to date that artificial intelligence has contributed to scientific knowledge,” he said following the publication of DeepMind’s research in the medical journal Nature.
DeepMind, a company bought by Google, predicts with unprecedented precision the 3D structure of nearly all the proteins made by the human body.
Ever wonder what an atom looks like?
A remarkable photography of a single atom by Ph.D. student David Nadlinger has won the EPSRC science photography contest. The atom photo was captured using a long exposure while the atom emitted light from a laser in a vacuum chamber.
The Science of Aliens, Part IV: Would they have blood (implying a circulatory system) and if so, what color would it be?
Not every animal bleeds red, even on Earth.
The company has already used AlphaFold, its protein folding AI, to generate structures for nearly all of the human proteome, as well as yeast, fruit flies, mice and more.
Nick Saraev is 25 years old, far too young, it would seem, to be thinking about death. And yet, since he turned 21, he has taken steps to prevent the infirmities of old age. Every day, he takes 2000 mg of fish oil and 4000 IU of vitamin D to help prevent heart disease and other ailments. He steams or pressure-cooks most of his meals because, he says, charring meats creates chemicals that may increase the risk of cancer. And in the winter, he keeps the humidity of his home at 35 percent, because dry air chaps his skin and makes him cough, both of which he considers manifestations of chronic inflammation, which may be bad for longevity.
Based on the life expectancies of young men in North America, Saraev, a freelance software engineer based near Vancouver, believes he has about 55 years before he really has to think about aging. Given the exponential advances in microprocessors and smartphones in his lifetime, he insists the biotech industry will figure out a solution by then. For this reason, Saraev, like any number of young, optimistic, tech-associated men, believes that if he takes the correct preventative steps now, he might well live forever. Saraev’s plan is to keep his body in good enough shape to hit “Longevity Escape Velocity,” a term coined by English gerontologist Aubrey de Grey to denote slowing down your aging enough to reach each new medical advance as it arrives. If you delay your death by 10 years, for example, that’s 10 more years scientists have to come up with a drug, computer program, or robot assist that can make you live even longer. Keep up this game of reverse leapfrog, and eventually death can’t catch you. The term is reminiscent of “planetary escape velocity,” the speed an object needs to move in order to break free of gravity.
The science required to break free of death, unfortunately, is still at ground level. According to Nir Barzilai, M.D., director of the Institute for Aging Research at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, scientists currently understand aging as a function of seven to nine biological hallmarks, factors that change as we grow older and seem to have an anti-aging effect when reversed. You can imagine these as knobs you can turn up or down to increase or decrease the likelihood of illness and frailty. Some of these you may have heard of, including how well cells remove waste, called proteostasis; how well cells create energy, or mitochondrial function; how well cells implement their genetic instructions, or epigenetics; and how well cells maintain their DNA’s integrity, called DNA repair or telomere erosion.
