Posts tagged technology
Tiny Robo-Fly Uses Micro Energy to Buzz
For 12 years, Harvard engineering professor Robert Wood has been trying to get a fly-sized drone off the ground. He and his colleagues have had to overcome issues of weight, aerodynamics of wing flapping, power supply, and figuring out how to manufacture a robot smaller than a quarter. Finally, the little robo-fly is airborn. Read more
Launched Dec. 7, 1972, Apollo 17 was the last space mission to land astronauts on the moon.
today marks 50 40* years since we last set out to land on the moon.
today is a sad day.
*It’s a sad day, Trace, but it’s not THAT sad! ;) ~Ian
Do Robots Rule the Galaxy? “…the rulers of our galaxy may have brains made of the semiconductor materials silicon, germanium and gallium. In other words, they are artificially intelligent machines that have no use — or patience — for entities whose ancestors slowly crawled out of the mud onto primeval shores.”
Artificial Muscle Stronger Than the Real Thing: They’re small but mighty. The tiny artificial muscles created by an international team of researchers are 200 times stronger than human muscle fibers of comparable size. In the future, improved versions of the muscles could go into the next generation of movers and doers. Go flex those artificial muscles and read more…
Hydro Power Project
“Hydro Project”, consists of shots in the construction of dams in Ethiopia and China. Splendid photographs the line between nature and human intervention by photographer Rüdiger Nehmzow.
they’re rather gigantic.
Vincent Fournier’s photo journalistic series ‘The Man Machine’ explores developing robotic technology from around the world. Click the photos for more information.
(also check out ‘Space Project’ posted earlier this week)
will there soon be a time when robots walk the streets just like us? it seems odd to me that it might soon be normal.
Bubbles can sense sulfur in the atmosphere, absorb ultraviolet energy and show 3-D images of the Earth floating in space.
Like my girl Lil’ Momma says, “it’s poppin’!”
Sudsy Tech Sexier Than You Know
Asking a chemistry professor about soap can lead down a slippery slope. W. Stephen McNeil’s daughter was three years old, her repetitive “why?” led to an exposition involving molecular bonds and the origins of the word “hydrophobic.”
McNeil, an associate chemistry professor at the University of British Columbia, published the exchange with his daughter for the Science Creative Quarterly several years ago, but still finds himself explaining soap to non-experts.
The HAL exoskeleton from Cyberdyne.
This week Cyberdyne unveiled a robotic exoskeleton called HAL (Hybrid Assistive Limb) that allows its wearer to carry superhuman loads while shielding them from radiation. With the Fukushima nuclear disaster still fresh in Japan’s national memory, the research team designed HAL to aid workers in dismantling the damaged power plant. The most incredible part is that the suit can be controlled by brainwaves! A network of sensors monitors electric signals coming from the user’s brain and uses them to activate the robot’s limbs in unison with the worker’s, allowing them to move without supporting the suit’s weight. As such, the 130-pound suit is barely noticeable to those wearing it.
Tony Stark: “Tell you what. Throw a little hotrod red in there.”
Jarvis: “Yes, that should help you keep a low profile.”
America’s Facebook Generation Is Reading Strong
Taken from NPR:
In what may come as a pleasant surprise to people who fear the Facebook generation has given up on reading — or, at least, reading anything longer than 140 characters — a new report from the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project reveals the prominent role of books, libraries and technology in the lives of young readers, ages 16 to 29.
Kathryn Zickuhr, the study’s main author, joins NPR’s David Greene to discuss the results.
Click here to read the full article.
i’d wager this is because of e-readers and the micro-pricing and commoditization of the book business.
plus it’s easer to read 50 shards of whatever when no one can see the cover.
Strap In: What It’s Like to fly on SpaceShipTwo
After a three-day training program, passengers will leave Virgin’s terminal at the newly built Spaceport America, located near Las Cruces, NM, and climb aboard SpaceShipTwo, which they’ll find hanging beneath the twin-boomed White Knight carrier aircraft.
The six-passenger, two-pilot vehicle is based on the prize-winning SpaceShipOne prototype, which now hangs in the Smithsonian Institution’s Air & Space Museum.
Their fliers won’t go far — just 65 miles or so above the southern New Mexico launch site — and they won’t be gone long. The supersonic sprint beyond the atmosphere will last only a few minutes.
Virgin Galactic is betting that the ride, albeit short, is sweet enough to warrant its $200,000 fare. As of last week, 545 people had put down deposits or paid the full fee to find out for themselves.
read more…
“When the initial landing system proposals came to NASA for Mercury, only one focussing on land landings – a proposal from the research group at Langley Air Force Base for a deployable wing that could turn the capsule into a controllable gliding vehicle. The proposal was known as the paraglider, or the Rogallo wing after its inventor.
…
The method was, for the inaugural Mercury program, [too] complicated. At least in the first stages of US spaceflight, developing a reliable way to leave the Earth was much more important than how the astronaut came back. Splashdowns won the Mercury bid by default.” — Amy Shira Teitel
“wheeeeeeeeee!!!” — Trace
i’ve got goosebumps.
The Shuttle’s Last Mission: LA
Last weekend, the last shuttle went on its last mission ever.
The shuttle Endeavour went from Los Angeles International Airport to the California Science Center last weekend. The trip took two days as NASA engineers working with utility crews, police and other personnel moved the shuttle through the streets of the city of angles.
With the parking of this shuttle, so ends the 30 year mission of the shuttle program. The end of an era of regular, United States-led space travel. The success of the shuttle program is so well known and the image of the shuttle so iconic, it’s almost surreal to see it sharing the same screen as Randy’s Donuts or Roscoe’s chicken and waffles.
This time lapse video of the shuttle’s journey is moving and jaw-dropping. I don’t often say this, but if you watch only one online video this week, it should be this one.
