Lifeboat Foundation

Finally, the future that children of the ’80s want to see is on its way. NASA is working on its very own Transformer — a bot called Shapeshifter, made up of smaller robots which can combine into different configurations to roll, swim, fly, and float.

Shapeshifter is a prototype for exploring Saturn’s moon Titan. Before it ended its mission by burning up in Saturn’s rings, the Cassini probe flew by Titan more than one hundred times, observing the moon which is surprisingly similar to Earth. It has rivers, lakes, and rain, but instead of being made of water, these bodies are made of liquid methane and ethane. On Earth, these are gases, but in the freezing temperatures of Titan, they are liquid. Cassini collected mapping data of the surface, and scientists have been keen to discover more since then.

Continue reading “Autobots, Roll Out: NASA Creates Transforming Robot for Exploring Titan” »

Caves on the #Moon? This is a 100 m deep pit in the Sea of Tranquility, potentially an entrance to a tunnel system. We’re seeking innovative ideas for how to explore #lunar caves, via the Open Space Innovation Platform 👉 http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Preparing_for_the_Future/D…unar_caves (📷 NASA/GSFC/Ariz. State Univ.)

How would you design a system to detect, map and explore caves on the Moon? Our latest hunt for ideas is seeking novel initiatives that address this question.

While the surface of the Moon has been well-documented with cameras on board several satellite missions, relatively little is known about the presence and nature of subsurface cavities. In volcanic areas of the lunar maria, planetary geologists have identified pits that could be related to the collapse of cavities such as lava tubes – where lava once flowed under the lunar surface.

Continue reading “Seeking innovative ideas for exploring lunar caves” »

Researchers have launched a new database dedicated to mapping and understanding the complexity of cellular senescence in a bid to help us fully understand this age-related phenomenon.

Introducing the CellAge database

The Human Ageing Genomic Resources ( HAGR ) is a series of databases and tools that have been developed to aid researchers on aging and help them study the genetic elements of human aging. The databases utilize modern techniques, such as functional genomics, network analyses, systems biology, and evolutionary analyses, to build what is one of the most valuable resources available today.

One of the biggest mysteries out there in the Universe is inching closer to answers. An astonishing eight new repeating radio signals known as fast radio bursts (FRBs) have been detected flaring from deep space.

At the start of 2019, just one of these mysterious signals, FRB 121102, was known to flash repeatedly. In January, scientists reported a second repeating one (FRB 180814).

This new paper — available on preprint server arXiv, and accepted into The Astrophysical Journal Letters — describes eight new repeating signals detected by the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) radio telescope.

July 20, 2019 marked the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Navy Veteran Neil Armstrong, and Air Force Veterans Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins manned the mission.

The National Air and Space Museum displayed full-motion projection-mapping artwork on the Washington Monument. The 17 minute long show, “Apollo 50: Go for the Moon”, included a true-to-scale 363 foot Saturn V lift off, various stages of the rocket separation, the lunar landing, the first step on the moon, re-entry, and splash down back to earth.

To read more about the Apollo 11 crew, visit https://www.blogs.va.gov/VAntage/63407/veteranoftheday-apollo-11-crew/

10 best 3D map photogrammetry software reviewed. Top drone mapping and modelling solutions from DroneDeploy, Open Drone Map, Pix4D, PhotoScan, Precision Mapper, AutoDesk plus more.

Scientists seeking to bring to Earth the fusion that powers the sun and stars must control the hot, charged plasma—the state of matter composed of free-floating electrons and atomic nuclei, or ions—that fuels fusion reactions. For scientists who confine the plasma in magnetic fields, a key task calls for mapping the shape of the fields, a process known as measuring the equilibrium, or stability, of the plasma. At the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), researchers have proposed a new measurement technique to avoid problems expected when mapping the fields on large and powerful future tokamaks, or magnetic fusion devices, that house the reactions.

Neutron bombardments

Such tokamaks, including ITER, the large international experiment under construction in France, will produce neutron bombardments that could damage the interior diagnostics now used to map the fields in current facilities. PPPL is therefore proposing use of an alternative diagnostic system that could operate in high-neutron environments.

In a way, the connectome is also a foundation for understanding far more complex nervous systems like our own.

“If a worm can do so much with so few neurons, and we have orders of magnitude more neurons,” Paul Sternberg, a biology professor at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, told Scientific American, “then we’re amazing.”

Continue reading “Scientists succeed in mapping every neuron in a worm, a breakthrough in neuroscience” »

Robocars need to park sometimes, and find places to drop off and pick up passengers. The vast array of rules for public and private parking and pick-up spaces is more complex than the rules of the road, so a public and private mapping system is called for.