Science, Space, Health & Robotics News - Page 2

The world is patiently awaiting news of the OceanGate submarine and its five passengers that lost communication with the outside world as it plummeted to 12,500 feet below the surface to observe the Titanic wreck.

Elon Musk's SpaceX has been caught up in the news surrounding the missing submarine, with reports stating that the submarine used SpaceX's Starlink service to provide an internet connection while it was out at sea. The reports cited a tweet from OceanGate Expeditions that announced it was using Starlink to acquire an internet connection necessary "to make our #Titanic dive operations a success."

Musk responded to a tweet by Snopes that brought Musk's name into the ongoing situation by pointing out that he is the CEO of SpaceX, the company behind Starlink. Musk said in response to the tweet, "You can't even run a good psy op". Notably, many people thought that an inefficient Starlink connection was the reason why communications dropped out between the submarine and the research vessel it launched from.

It was confirmed on Sunday that an OceanGate expedition to the wreck of the iconic Titanic went terribly wrong with the group of five individuals inside of a submarine lost communication with the main research ship.

The group of five have been missing ever since, with search parties underway in both the air and underwater. OceanGate Expeditions conduct purchasable trips down to the Titanic, which is 12,500 feet below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean. Each trip costs $250,000 and totals five people aboard the Titan submersible. Reports indicate that an hour and forty-five minutes into the submarine's descent, it lost communication with the main research ship called Polar Prince.

Following the shock announcement, details began to emerge about the submarine's unconventional design and the complete lack of regulation that took place throughout its construction. Notably, the submarine is controlled by a $30 Logitech F710 wireless PC game controller that was released in 2010. The controller is wireless, features a dual-thumbstick gamepad, 2.4 GHz communications to a USB receiver, and is typically used for PC gaming.

Authorities have launched a widespread search both above water and below for the submersible Titan that contains at least five individuals that were on a journey to see the Titanic in the Atlantic Ocean.

So, what happened? Tour firm OceanGate charges approximately $250,000 per guest it takes on an eight-day expedition to observe the famous Titanic wreck located 12,500 feet below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean. Participants are then crammed into a submersible vehicle called Titan, which is equipped with anywhere between 70 and 96 hours of emergency oxygen, and then dropped into the ocean to begin its dive to the bottom of the ocean.

According to reports, the Titan sub lost communication with the vessel Polar Prince an hour and 45 minutes into its dive. Who was on board? So far, we know the sub had five people on board, three of which have been confirmed to be Hamish Harding, a 58-year-old British businessman and explorer, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son, Suleman Dawood. It's believed French explorer Paul-Henry Nargeolet and Stockton Rush, a chief executive at OceanGate, are also on Titan - however, this isn't confirmed.

A YouTuber has decided to take on the task of constructing a AT-AT walker from the original Star Wars movies, and the results are quite impressive.

James Bruton, a mechanical engineer that runs a YouTube channel that has amassed more than 1 million subscribers has taken on the challenge of building a custom AT-AT walker, or more specifically called, All Terrain Armored Transport (AT-AT). Bruton points out that the first toy version of the AT-AT walker were capable of walking but required a human to manually move the toys legs. Other toy versions of the AT-AT could walk, but struggled to do so given their limited design.

Bruton teaches his viewers how he went about building the AT-AT, mentioning that the design he implemented is statistically stable as the AT-AT is able to lift one leg off the ground and remain balanced. The custom AT-AT features a quadrupedal locomotion system, with each leg powered by three servo motors. Notably, the mechanical engineer published all of the resources used to constructed the AT-AT on GitHub for anyone that is looking to recreate the iconic Imperial armored transportation.

Since early December 2022, the public has been patiently waiting on the edge of their seat to see when Neuralink, Elon Musk's brain chip company, will conduct its first human trials.

Musk made the announcement that Neuralink was ready to begin human trials on December 1, 2022, and during that announcement, the Tesla CEO outlined what the brain-chip-interface company intends to achieve with its product, what Neuralink wants to solve in the future, and where the company is expected to be six months from the announcement.

It's exactly six months from the December 2022 announcement, and Musk has appeared on stage at the VivaTech event in Paris, where he gave similar statements to the announcement from six months ago. "Neuralink is ready for humans," and he expects a human trial will happen sometime "this year."

A company founded by a former founding member of Xiaomi has introduced the world to the very first Android desktop robot.

The founding member of Xiaomi is Li Ming and under his company JoyfulRobotics he has launched the world's first Android desktop robot that comes with a $252 price tag. The small desktop robot features a 2.1-inch circular screen that has ear-like extensions on either side of the 'head'.

According to Li Ming, the world's first desktop robot uses JoyfulRobotics' own software called GeeUI, running on Android, that gives the robot interactive capabilities such as moveable legs that allow for left and right movement, an electronic pet mode, function mode, and a hybrid mode. Notably, the robot will receive over-the-air updates that will enable users to download Android applications and personalize their experience with their desktop buddy.

Scientists have used stem cells to create the world's first synthetic human embryo, raising important scientific and ethical questions among fellow researchers and the public.

A new report from The Guardian revealed that a team of researchers from the University of Cambridge have manipulated stem cells to create the first completely synthetic human embryo. The researchers were able to grow the human embryonic stem cells into cells that lead to the creation of a placenta and a potentially functional human embryo, completely bypassing the need for sperm and eggs.

Notably, this scientific achievement raises important ethical as well as legal questions, especially in the US as there currently isn't any laws or regulations specifically for stem cell derived models of human embryos. It should be noted that these synthetic human embryo models were in the very earliest stages of development, meaning there was no beating heart or brain. Additionally, international law currently states that the embryo's can't be grown for more than 14 days.

Robot police officers are real and the Singapore Police Force have announced that many more are to be rolled out and put on duty.

According to a recent report from The Straits Times, the Singapore Police Force has conducted several small scale roll outs of these robot police patrols, while also working through five years of trials to come to the conclusion that robot officers will be "progressively deployed across Singapore." If this is your first time hearing of patrol robots, the Singapore actually first used them back in 2018 during a parade and abundantly during the COVID-19 pandemic as the patrol robots reminded people to socially distance.

Reports indicate that since 2019 Singapore has been using patrol robots at the Changi airport as means of maintaining traffic regulations. Since April 2023 two types of new robots have been spotted, and according to reports they are based on the Multi-purpose All Terrain Autonomous Robot 2.0 and 3.0.

Science fiction is slowly becoming real life as humans continue to level up technology and be able to see further and more accurately out into the universe.

An artists illustration of a planet orbiting two stars

One could argue that Star Wars is one of the biggest movies to inspire generations of scientists and engineers, as the science fiction that was displayed on the big screen back in 1970 was simply draw dropping. Astronomers, along with everyone else, would have noticed that Luke Skywalker's home planet on Tatooine featured two Suns. Now new research, confirmed by astronomers, indicates that a Tatooine-like planet exists, and its called BEBOP-1C.

The findings of the planet were published in Nature Astronomy, and according to astronomers, the official description of a planet with two suns, or a planet that is orbiting two stars, is a circumbinary planet. BEBOP-1C is located approximately 1,320 light-years from Earth, and now that it's been discovered, astronomers have added BEBOP-1C to the very short list of previously discovered circumbinary planets, a list that only now stretches to 15, making discoveries such as this extremely rare.

A team of engineers has unveiled a unique robot design that's similar to origami as it can fold and change its shape.

Astronauts heading to the Moon may be joined by shapeshifting robots called Mori Modular Robot for Space, or Mori3 for short. The team of engineers from EPFL's School of Engineering has taken to its website to announce the new research has been published in Nature Machine Intelligence, and that the idea behind the Mori3 is to create a shapeshifting robot that can be easily assembled for specific functions. The origami-like robot features individual triangular modules that can be joined together to make polygons of various sizes.

The robots can be delivered to the Moon via a flatpack, making storage easy. According to the announcement, Mori3 robots are able to achieve three necessities a lunar robot should do; move around, handle and transport objects, and the ability to interact with human users. The researchers behind the Mori3 acknowledge that robots designed for specific tasks will be much more efficient, but hope the Mori3's versatility will make it an attractive option, especially for astronauts that need to complete tasks in confined and sometimes cramped spaces.