Category Archives: Futurism

Flashing Lights

With rare exception, stars die in one of two ways: they either slowly transition into white dwarfs or quickly explode as supernovae.

But some stars appear to temporarily die without a whimper or a bang they just disappear from the night sky and then appear again later and the scientists behind a newly published study believe this strange phenomenon could have one of two explanations: were either witnessing something brand new in astrophysics or seeing signs of alien activity.

On Thursday, the scientists involved in the Vanishing and Appearing Sources during a Century of Observations (VASCO) project published their first study in The Astronomical Journal, a prestigious and peer-reviewed publication. It details their hunt for objects that appeared in surveys of the night sky dating as far back as the 1950s, but that no longer appear in modern surveys.

That hunt turned up a hundred red objects that have blinked in and out of existence over the past 70 years.

Study co-author Martin Lpez Corredoira noted in a press release that the VASCO team hasnt found any direct evidence linking the lights to extraterrestrial intelligence but the studys abstract implies that the authors arent ruling out the possibility, either.

The implications of finding [vanishing and appearing sources] extend from traditional astrophysics fields to the more exotic searches for evidence of technologically advanced civilizations, they wrote.

READ MORE: Unexplained Lights in Sky Could Be Alien Structures or Communication Lasers, Scientists Say [The Independent]

More on aliens: Penn States SETI Center Could Legitimize Alien Research

Link:
Newly Discovered Blinking Space Lights Could Be Signs of Aliens - Futurism

Top Priority

Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders has a suggestion: stop spending so much money on the military and global warfare, and instead put it toward fighting climate change.

He made the argument during Thursday nights Democratic Party debate, The Hill reports. Sanders, whos previously introduced legislation to declare a state of emergency to mobilize against the existential threat that climate change poses, argued that the money to fund climate programs exists but its being spent in the wrong places.

Thursdays debate wasnt Sanders first attempt to push back against militarization: in August, he made a campaign promise that would stop police from using facial recognition systems, the flaws of which have only grown increasingly apparent.

Maybe, just maybe, instead of spending $1.8 trillion a year globally on weapons of destruction, Sanders said during the debate, maybe an American president i.e. Bernie Sanders can lead the world and instead of spending money to kill each other, maybe we pool our resources and fight our common enemy, which is climate change.

READ MORE: Sanders: Instead of weapons funding we should pool resources to fight climate change [The Hill]

More on Bernie Sanders: Bernie Sanders Vows to Ban Police From Using Facial Recognition

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Bernie Sanders: Spend Money on the Climate Instead of Weapons - Futurism

Strong Bug

As if nature wasnt already full of pests, a team of engineers just built their own and the little bug can take a beating.

The DEAnsect is a soft robot modeled after an insect, and its the work of engineers from Switzerlands cole polytechnique fdrale de Lausanne (EPFL) and Frances University of Cergy-Pontoise.

After they built the bot, the engineers stomped on it, smooshed it with a fly swatter, and even folded it in half, but the robot kept scooting along a creepy mental image, sure, but also a big step forward for soft robotics technology.

According to research published Wednesday in Soft Robotics, the engineers built two versions of the DEAnsect one tethered to a controller and the other wireless and more autonomous giving scientists the ability to choose the little critter that best meets their needs.

The two versions present a tradeoff between durability and mobility. The tethered model can survive more abuse because it only contains its own tiny artificial muscles. The wireless model, however, has to carry visual sensors, a battery, and other electronics that make it a bit more vulnerable to being squished.

Even if the wireless bug cant take as much abuse, the fact that it can carry everything it needs marks a significant leap forward for autonomous soft robots.

This technique opens up new possibilities for the broad use of [artificial muscles] in robotics, researcher Herbert Shea said in the release, for swarms of intelligent robotic insects, for inspection or remote repairs, or even for gaining a deeper understanding of insect colonies by sending a robot to live amongst them.

READ MORE: A soft robotic insect that survives being flattened by a fly swatter [EPFL newsroom]

More on soft robots: This Soft Robot Mimics Plant Tendrils to Creep and Climb

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This Robotic Bug Was Designed to Survive Swatting - Futurism

Rysing to the Skys

Urban flight company Skyryse just showed off what it calls the worlds most intelligent helicopter a modified helicopter that can fly itself. In a video uploaded by the company, you can watch the FAA-approved helicopter take off all by itself with a safety pilot in the cockpit to make sure nothing goes wrong.

Rather than representing an entirely different take on the flying car, the helicopters new brains are more equivalent to the self-driving features you see in contemporary cars an effort to make vehicles safer and more accessible than ever before.

Today, we design our lives around traffic and make decisions about where we live and work based on how hard it is to get there, Mark Groden, Skyryse CEO and founder, said in a statement. To get there, we need to make urban flying as safe as riding an elevator and as accessible and affordable as riding a bus.

The technology behind the feat called Flight Stack allows for either full or partial autonomous flight think of it like cruise control on a car.

An air network management system is designed to work out of the box with the FAAs existing technology and networksby communicating flight paths, altitude and other critical data.

The news comes after a team of German researchers developed a landing system that lets an aircraft land autonomously on virtually any runway entirely by itself.

READ MORE: Skyryse shows off its self-flying helicopter tech [Engadget]

More on self-flying: Watch This Tiny Plane Nail a Fully Autonomous Landing

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Watch the First Commercial Self-Flying Helicopter Take Off - Futurism

Trypophobia

Even putting its Great Red Spot aside for the moment, Jupiter is a bizarre place covered in gigantic, swirling storms.

NASA recently discovered another storm this one the size of the United States on the planets south pole, joining an array of six others that were already swirling around in abeautiful hexagonal pattern, according to an agency press release.

NASA first observed the new storm when the space agencys Juno spacecraft flew past the south pole in late November.

The flyby, which marked the 22nd time Juno checked up on Jupiter, was actually a bit of an evasive maneuver: NASA had to reroute Juno to keep it from dying in an eclipse that would have blocked its solar panels and ended the mission.

We realized that the orbit was going to carry Juno into Jupiters shadow, which could have grave consequences because were solar powered, Juno principal researcher Scott Bolton said in the release. No sunlight means no power, so there was real risk we might freeze to death.

Lo and behold, first thing out of the gate on the other side, we make another fundamental discovery, he added.

READ MORE: NASAs Juno Navigators Enable Jupiter Cyclone Discovery [NASA]

More on Jupiter: Scientists: Jupiters Great Red Spot Isnt Dying After All

Excerpt from:
Check Out This Hypnotic Array of Colossal Storms on Jupiter - Futurism

Star Light

Scientists just observed a new galaxy for the first time, and at 13 billion lightyears away, its one of the most distant galaxies spotted to date.

The galaxy, MAMBO-9, isnt setting any long-distance records. Scientists have found galaxies at similar and even greater distances from us. But MAMBO-9 is nearly as old as the universe, CNN reports, so the new finding could help astronomers reveal more information about the earliest days of the cosmos.

MAMBO-9 is only about 970 million years younger than the universe itself, according to research published Wednesday in The Astrophysical Journal. Thats an unfathomable length of time for humans, but a mere blip in the cosmic calendar.

The new discovery presents a rare opportunity to watch a galaxy form. Light from MAMBO-9 that just reached Earth which portrays things that actually happened 13 billion years ago reveals a vast cloud of dust that will someday form into new stars and exoplanets.

We expect 100 times more stars than dust, lead researcher Caitlin Casey from the University of Texas at Austin told CNN. But MAMBO-9 has not produced that many stars yet, and we want to find out how dust can form so fast after the Big Bang.

READ MORE: Meet MAMBO-9, one of the most distant galaxies to ever be observed [CNN]

More on space: Something Very Strange Seems to be Synchronizing Distant Galaxies

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Scientists Spot One of the Most Distant Galaxies Ever: MAMBO-9 - Futurism