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Boston Dynamics have been working on incredible robotics technology. This one runs through the forest. To be fair, it runs like a toddler needing to use the restroom...for now. But as the technology progresses, it will lose the tether & will run around like a teenager. Yikes!
----- "...presentation featured some video that we’d never seen before as well as tantalizing hints of what Boston Dynamics has been working on. Here’s the clip that’s been going around, with Raibert showing some footage of Spot (an agile autonomous quadruped) opening a door with a manipulator mounted on it’s um, face (not nearly as scary as this), followed by ATLAS doing some dynamic walking outside, which is definitely new..." Read more @ IEEE Spectrum  "The capacity of our digital storage devices has skyrocketed in recent years. But there’s one storage medium that still kicks the crap out of our state-of-the-art solid state, and humans didn’t invent it. It’s called DNA.
A team of scientists is trying to figure out whether the double-helix molecules that encode every plant, animal and microbe on planet Earth can be used to..." Read more @ Gizmodo  Our advances in technology have allowed us to dream about a fusion plant. Can this be another "power" industry that our students will help develop?
----- "It’s an old joke that many fusion scientists have grown tired of hearing: Practical nuclear fusion power plants are just 30 years away — and always will be. But now, finally, the joke may no longer be true: Advances in magnet technology have enabled researchers at MIT to propose a new design for a practical compact tokamak fusion reactor — and it’s one that might be realized in as little as a decade, they say. The era of practical fusion power, which could offer a nearly inexhaustible energy resource, may be coming..." Read more @ MIT News  "Gravity is a constant for all organisms on Earth. It acts on every aspect of our physiology, behavior and development – no matter what you are, you evolved in an environment where gravity roots us firmly to the ground.
But what happens if you’re removed from that familiar environment and placed into a situation outside your evolutionary experience? That’s exactly the question we ask every day of the plants we grow in our laboratory. They start out here in our earthbound lab, but they’re on their way to outer space. What could be a more novel environment for a plant than the zero-gravity conditions of spaceflight?..." Read more @ The Conversation  Using LED's and aeroponic methods, the farm is 75 times more productive than an outdoor farm and uses 95% less water. This technology would be amazing in our drought stricken California. We're excited that this "new" industry will be supporting our nutrition needs, and more importantly our students will have the chance to contribute to this industry.
----- "With state-of-the-art, cleantech technology using aeroponics and LEDs, AeroFarms is the commercial leader for indoor vertical farming, utilizing a totally controlled growing environment without sun or soil and minimizing harmful transportation miles." Read more @ AeroFarms   Imagine a world when we will no longer worry about blood supply - especially in emergency transfusions and/during catastrophic events.
----- "The first attempt at giving human volunteers “synthetic blood” made in a laboratory for the first time will take place within the next two years, the NHS has announced. A long-awaited clinical trial of artificial red blood cells will occur before 2017, NHS scientists said. The blood is made from stem cells extracted from either the umbilical cord blood of newborn babies or the blood of adult donors. The trial, thought to be a world first, will involve small transfusions of a few teaspoons of synthetic blood to test for..." Read more @ The Independent  "OneWeb has closed a $500 million funding round to build a satellite system that it says will provide affordable broadband services across the globe.The company has attracted investment from Airbus, Bharti Enterprises, Qualcomm, Coca-Cola, Virgin Group and others. It will use the funds to develop key technologies required to enable internet access for undeveloped locations.
The announcement comes just days after..." Read more @ TNW "Robots are entering the workforce. Some will work alongside you. Others, sadly, will put you out of work. The question is, which jobs are actually on the chopping block?The answer to that has been bathed in media hype, but we talked to experts who gave us some realistic answers about which human careers might be endangered—and why.
Warehouse and factory workers Robots are already working in distribution centers. This kind of setting is fertile ground for robot takeover, because bots are good at repetitive tasks that don’t..." Read on Gizmodo.  "Network scientists at Indiana University have developed a new computational method that can leverage any body of knowledge to aid in the complex human task of fact-checking.
In the first use of this method, IU scientists created a simple computational fact-checker that assigns "truth scores" to statements concerning history, geography and entertainment, as well as random statements drawn from the text of Wikipedia, the well-known online encyclopedia. In multiple experiments, the automated system consistently matched the assessment of human fact-checkers in terms of their certitude about the accuracy of these statements." Read more @ Indiana.edu |
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