Category Archives: Futurism

The Mysterious Black Hole

Believe it or not, weve never actually been able to catch a glimpse of a black hole. All those images featuring a starry sky with a perfectly circular dark blob in the middle? Simply an artists rendition.

Although scientists believe that there are hundreds, even thousands, of black holes that might be hiding in our own galaxy, its extremely difficult to prove their existence. They cannot be observed from a telescope because light is completely consumed once it passes the event horizon. To make matters more confusing, we arent even sure how black holes form, but we could be getting some answers very soon.

Last year, scientists announced the creationof the Event Horizon Telescope. This powerful telescope would be able to photograph black holes, and now, scientists are saying they believe the device willbe operable as soon as April. If it can successfully capture an image of this mysterious entity, wed retrieve a tremendous deal of evidence that would bring us several steps closer to understanding these unanswered questions.

The Event Horizon Telescope will operate through a network of radio receivers erected across the planet. Between April 5 and 14, itwill utilize a technique called very-long baseline interferometry (VLBI) in which the receivers collect radio signals emitted by a precise point in space.Once effective, sights are being set on our own galaxys black hole, Sagittarius A*,which is located 26,000 light-years from Earth with an event horizon stretching 20 million kilometers (12.4 million miles) in diameter.

Even though scientists have never been able to directly observe a black hole, there is pretty substantial evidence that points towards their existence.

For one, the influence that the proposed Sagittarius A* has on surrounding stars proves to us that something strange is affecting their orbit. The same is observed for several other black holes weve theorized to exist in our Universe.

Scientists are also able to detect the presence of a black hole by the amount of radiation being emitted from an area. The extremely hot x-rays weve detected are thought to come from the incredibly fast-moving disk of particles surrounding the hole.

The Event Horizon Telescope hopes to uncover this long-awaited evidence of a black holes existence. The images will mark a new milestone in humanitys understanding of the Universe. But given the amount of data and the time itll take to process it, images wont likely be ready until late 2017 or the beginning of 2018.

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We May Finally Get a Picture of a Black Hole - Futurism - Futurism

In Brief

Gabe Newell. the co-founder and president of Valve, has authored projects that have garnered so much attention that he has been meme-ifiedinto a god.

But looking past the deification by those who support his work, Newell is heavily involved in the future of virtual reality. His company has worked intimately with HTC to produce the Vive VR platform, one of the few mainstream software that consumers can use to access virtual reality. Yet, even though there are over 1,300 apps on the steam VR marketplace and there was an 86% growth in users in the end of 2016, the revenue stream isnt uplifting. There are30 VR apps that have made just over $250,000, which are not the most promising of figures.

SteamVR by Valve:

While Newell is optimistic, he says hes pretty comfortable with the idea that it will turn out to be a complete failure. He went on to say that, if you dont try things that dont fail you probably arent trying to do anything very interesting.

But that doesnt mean hes inclined to fail. By upgrading the VR console to have a stronger CPU and better resolution, having an open source platform for developers to tinker with software, hardware, and everything in between, and unleashing a litany of new games (valve is currently developing three games of its own). Newell believes that the shared optimism of developers and consumers alike will drive the newborn industry into its place in the family living room for years to come.

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CEO of Biggest VR Company Asserts That the Tech May Be A Complete Failure - Futurism

In Brief

Elon Musk has made another bold prediction about the future of self-drivingcars. In a conversation held at the World Government Summit in Dubai, the Tesla CEO stated that nearly all new cars would be self-driving within the next ten years.

Musk predicts that the first level four autonomous cars from Tesla will arrive by the end of this year. He views this arrival as a paradigm shift for the automobile industry:

There are about 2 billion cars in the world and the total annual production capacity is about 100 million cars, which makes sense since the average life of a car before being totally scrapped is about 20-25 years. This means that the shift to driverless cars wont be immediate, but the point for which we see autonomy appear will not be the point when we see a massive impact on people because it will take a lot of time to make enough autonomous vehicles to disrupt. That disruption will take place for about 20 years.

Musk also mentioned how the supercomputer used to control Teslas vehicles, the NVIDIA Drive PX 2, can reach level five autonomy. NVIDIA thinks that level 4-5 autonomy would only be possible with two supercomputers, but even so, Musk stated that the computers could easily be upgraded to rise the occasion.

We wont have to wait long to see how his predictions will play out.

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Elon Musk: All New Cars Will Be Self-Driving in 10 Years - Futurism

In Brief

Prof George Church and his team at Harvard University have been studying the DNA from frozen mammoths found preserved in the Arctic. Specifically, theyve been looking for genes that separated them from elephants.

Since elephant species are currently on the brink of extinction, the team is attempting to splice mammoth DNA into the genome of an elephant embryoin order to create a mammoth-elephant hybrid. The goal is to eventually grow a mammoth embryo within an artificial womb, as to not compromise the reproductive system of a healthy elephant.

Professor Church stated, Our aim is to produce a hybrid elephant/mammoth embryo. Actually, it would be more like an elephant with a number of mammoth traits. Were not there yet, but it could happen in a couple of years.

As awesome as playing Ice Age Jurassic Park sounds, there are also other preventative applications for this technology. According to Dr. Edze Westra of the University of Exeter, One can also use this technology for engineering the DNA of rapidly declining species or those that are becoming too inbred to increase their chance of survival.

Prof Church said the mammoth project has two main goals: securing an alternative future for the endangered Asian elephant and helping to combat global warming. Chruch explains that the animals could, keep the tundra from thawing by punching through snow and allowing cold air to come in. In the summer they knock down trees and help the grass grow.

Any of these possibilities are well worth the continued research. Technology is allowing for the impossible to become reality. Just a few years ago, we couldnt have dreamed of an extinct animal brought back, and now we could be within a few years of actually seeing that.

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Biologists Plan to Bring the Woolly Mammoth Back to Life by 2019 - Futurism

In Brief

SpaceX was all set to take off from the historic launchpad at Cape Canaveral this morning, but the unmanned mission was called off due to an engine nozzle issue.

The launch is being delayed while the issue is investigated. Once its back on track, the launch will be the first to take place at Launch Complex 39A at NASAs Kennedy Space Center since the final shuttle launch back in July of 2011. NASA leased the pad to SpaceX for twenty years back in 2014.

The launchpad was built in the 1960s as a part of the fabled mid-century Space Race. The pad has been the site of some of the most significant launches in the history of space flight. Nearly all manned Apollo-Saturn V launches, commencing with Apollo 8, used Pad 39A. The pad also played important roles in the launches of Skylab as well as the first space shuttles. Once the technical wrinkles are ironed out for SpaceX, some exciting new entries will likely be added to that storied history.

SpaceX has made some significant strides in its programs, but they do often get overshadowed by theirhiccups. Back in September of 2016, the company was dealt a heavy blow with an explosion after a fueling accident that damaged their nearby launch pad at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

Still, the strides SpaceX has made are remarkable. This past December, they celebrated the anniversary of the first completed launch and landing cycle of their reusable Falcon 9 rockets. Reusable rockets will significantly reduce the cost of space missions, thus making the volume of launches more accessible to greater numbers of researchers or adventurers.

One of the companys loftiest goals is to put a human on Mars by the end of 2025. Perhaps Launch Complex 39A will get to add another first to its storied history.

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Here's Why SpaceX's Next Launch Is Going to Make History - Futurism

In Brief

As scientists ask everyone to help them locate the elusive Planet Nine, researchers involved inNASAs Dawn mission are hard at work studyingthe dwarf planet Ceres. The Dawn mission has previously uncovered evidence of water, ice volcanoes, and carbonate minerals that cause the mysterious bright spots on Ceres surface. Now, researchers have found traces of organic molecules on Ceres using Dawns spectrometer to map the dwarf planets surface in visible and infrared wavelengths.

What weve found on Ceres is probably the most unambiguous detection of organics on any Solar System body other than Earth, said Carl Pieters, Dawn mission investigator, in an interview with Brown University. Weve collected meteorites on Earth with organic signatures, which makes us think their parent asteroids may have had organics. But until now we havent seen such definitive evidence on any asteroid. So this could help us put together the history of organics in the Solar System.

There are high-resolution data available from Dawn that provide the geologic context for these deposits, added Pieters. Were looking at those data now, which will help us to pin down the origin of these materials. The discovery was found in a crater-ridden region called Ernutet in the northern part of Ceres, and the teams findings were published in the journal Science.

Organic molecules, such as carbohydrates, nucleic acids, and proteins, are the basic building blocks of life. Organic materials have previously been found in meteorites and on Mars, and whilefinding these on Ceres doesnt mean that theres life on the dwarf planet, coupled with the discovery of water and carbonate minerals, they do indicate that Ceres is potentially ripe for life.

Its kind of like baking a cake, Pieters explained. You can have all the ingredients, but if you dont put them together properly, you dont end up with a cake. So there is still plenty of work to be done before we can start thinking about whether microbes were able to form on Ceres.

While the discovery doesnt directly translate to discovering extraterrestrial life, it definitely improves the chances of finding it. The fact that these ingredients of life are located in a single setting outside of Earth is a great first step.

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Traces of Organic Molecules Have Been Located on Ceres - Futurism