The Zen of Technology & Scientific Discovery! (& Robots)

[Jundo]

You are this as you, this is you as this. You are there over here. There is you over there.

This scintillating image, which was captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3 and Advanced Camera for Surveys, showcases the globular cluster NGC 6540 in the constellation Sagittarius. ... NGC 6540 is a globular cluster, which is a stable, tightly bound multitude of stars. The populations of these clusters can range from tens of thousands to millions of stars, all of which are trapped in a closely-packed group by their mutual gravitational attraction.

... NGC 6540 is about 17,000 light years away from Earth and was discovered by Wilhelm Herschel on May 24, 1784 with an 18.7-inch mirror telescope, who described the cluster as "pretty faint, not large, crookedly extended, easily resolvable".

https://scitechdaily.com/hubble-space-telescope-spies-a-scintillating-globular-cluster/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_6540

http://spider.seds.org/spider/MWGC/n6540.html

[Jundo]

This is just cool ... a spin bike to the stars ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeoh-EE9TXU

But still some hurdles that will make your head spin ...

https://youtu.be/a1zp4OHJjrw

Gassho, J

STLah

[Tokan]

And time to throw out (or, at least, modify) the laws of physics ... in the U.S. State of Georgia, anyway ...

I don't pretend to understand this, but just another funky quirk of the universe that defies explanation, or at least keeps moving the goalposts of understanding

Gassho, Tokan (satlah)

[Jundo]

And time to throw out (or, at least, modify) the laws of physics ... in the U.S. State of Georgia, anyway ...

Georgia Tech Researchers Defy Standard Laws of Physics

Robotic Motion in Curved Space Defies Standard Laws of Physics

When humans, animals, and machines move throughout the world, they always push against something, such as the ground, air, or water. Until recently, physicists thought this to be a constant, following the law of conservation momentum. However, scientists from the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) have now proven the opposite – when bodies exist in curved spaces, it turns out that they can in fact move without pushing against something.

These findings were published on July 28, 2022, in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In the paper, a team of scientists created a robot confined to a spherical surface with unprecedented levels of isolation from its environment, so that these curvature-induced effects would predominate. ... “We let our shape-changing object move on the simplest curved space, a sphere, to systematically study the motion in curved space,” said Rocklin. “We learned that the predicted effect, which was so counter-intuitive it was dismissed by some physicists, indeed occurred: as the robot changed its shape, it inched forward around the sphere in a way that could not be attributed to environmental interactions.”

https://scitechdaily.com/georgia-tec...ws-of-physics/

[Jundo]

A picture of our future ...

A new telescope image showcases two entangled galaxies that will eventually merge into one millions of years from now -- and previews the eventual, similar fate of our own Milky Way galaxy.

The Gemini North telescope, located on the summit of Maunakea in Hawaii, spotted the interacting spiral galaxies about 60 million light-years away in the Virgo constellation. The galactic pair NGC 4567 and NGC 4568, also known as the Butterfly galaxies, have just begun to collide as gravity pulls them together.

In 500 million years, the two cosmic systems will complete their merger to form a single elliptical galaxy.

At this early stage, the two galactic centers are currently 20,000 light-years apart and each galaxy has maintained its pinwheel shape. As the galaxies become more entangled, gravitational forces will lead to multiple events of intense star formation. The original structures of the galaxies will change and distort. Over time, they will dance around each other in circles that become smaller and smaller. This tightly looped dance will pull and stretch out long streams of gas and stars, mixing the two galaxies together into something that resembles a sphere. As millions of years pass, this galactic entanglement will consume or disperse the gas and dust needed to trigger star birth, causing stellar formation to slow and eventually cease. ...

Once the pair come together, the resulting formation may look more like elliptical galaxy Messier 89, also located in the Virgo constellation. Once Messier 89 lost most of the gas necessary to form stars, very little star birth occurred. Now, the galaxy is home to older stars and ancient clusters.

A similar galactic merger will unfold when the Milky Way galaxy eventually collides with the Andromeda galaxy, our largest and nearest galactic neighbor. Astronomers at NASA used Hubble data in 2012 to predict when a head-on collision between the two spiral galaxies might occur. Estimates project that the event will happen in about 4 billion to 5 billion years.

Right now, a massive halo that surrounds the Andromeda galaxy is actually bumping up against the Milky Way galaxy's halo, according to research based on Hubble Space Telescope data that published in 2020.

...

https://us.cnn.com/2022/08/10/world/...scn/index.html

and then ...

... Scientists at NASA said it's unlikely that our solar system will be destroyed when the Milky Way and Andromeda merge, but the sun might get kicked into a new region of the galaxy -- and Earth's night sky may have some new spectacular views. ...

In my new book, Building the Future Buddha, I ponder whether we (our descendants) might have wandered off to somewhere safe by then ...

Gassho, J

STLah

[Tokan]

Wow my brain is tired just thinking about all the thinking all these geniuses do!

Gassho, Tokan (satlah)

[Jundo]

Well, not to be overshadowed by Webb, old Hubble can still show us a thing or two ...

Hubble Space Telescope Captures a Spectacular Star-Studded Skyfield

This spectacular star-studded image shows the heart of the globular cluster NGC 6638 in the constellation Sagittarius. Captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, this star-strewn observation highlights the density of stars at the heart of globular clusters, which are stable, tightly bound clusters of tens of thousands to millions of stars. ... Since it is almost impossible to clearly distinguish the stars in globular clusters with ground-based telescopes, Hubble revolutionized the study of globular clusters. ... Now, with the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, we will improve our knowledge of globular clusters by peering into those globular clusters that are currently obscured by dust. Webb will primarily observe at infrared wavelengths, which are less affected by the gas and dust surrounding newborn stars. This will allow astronomers to inspect star clusters that are freshly formed, providing insights into stellar populations before they have had a chance to evolve.
https://scitechdaily.com/hubble-spac...dded-skyfield/

Soon, the handless and legless will reach and walk ...

A pioneering project to develop advanced pressure sensors for use in robotic systems could transform prosthetics and robotic limbs.

The innovative research project aspires to develop sensors that provide enhanced capabilities to robots, helping improve their motor skills and dexterity, through the use of highly accurate pressure sensors that provide haptic feedback and distributed touch. It is led by the University of the West of Scotland (UWS), Integrated Graphene Ltd, and supported by the Scottish Research Partnership in Engineering (SRPe) and the National Manufacturing Institute for Scotland (NMIS) Industry Doctorate Programme in Advanced Manufacturing. ... Made from 3D graphene foam, which offers unique properties when put under mechanical stress, the sensors use a piezoresistive approach. This means that when the material is put under pressure it dynamically changes its electric resistance, easily detecting and adapting to the range of pressure required, from light to heavy.
https://scitechdaily.com/advanced-ne...robotic-limbs/

A human brain of synapses builds synapses faster than synapses ...

MIT’s New Analog Synapse Is 1 Million Times Faster Than the Synapses in the Human Brain

New Hardware Delivers Faster Computation for Artificial Intelligence, With Much Less Energy

The amount of time, effort, and money needed to train ever-more-complex neural network models is soaring as researchers push the limits of machine learning. Analog deep learning, a new branch of artificial intelligence, promises quicker processing with just a fraction of the energy use. Programmable resistors are the key building blocks in analog deep learning, just as transistors are the core elements for constructing digital processors. By repeating arrays of programmable resistors in complex layers, scientists can create a network of analog artificial “neurons” and “synapses” that execute computations just like a digital neural network. This network can then be trained to achieve complex AI tasks such as natural language processing and image recognition.

... “Once you have an analog processor, you will no longer be training networks everyone else is working on. You will be training networks with unprecedented complexities that no one else can afford to, and therefore vastly outperform them all. In other words, this is not a faster car, this is a spacecraft,” adds lead author and MIT postdoc Murat Onen. ... This new electrolyte enabled a programmable protonic resistor that is a million times faster than their previous device and can operate effectively at room temperature, which is important for incorporating it into computing hardware.

Thanks to the insulating properties of PSG, almost no electric current passes through the material as protons move. This makes the device extremely energy efficient, Onen adds.https://scitechdaily.com/mits-new-an...e-human-brain/

I thought that a "blazar" was a sports jacket that my dad had!?

For the first time, researchers reveal the origin of neutrinos, elementary particles that reach our planet from the depths of the Universe.

Highly energetic and difficult to detect, neutrinos travel billions of light years before reaching Earth. Although it is known that these elementary particles come from the depths of our Universe, their precise origin is still a mystery. An international research team, led by the University of Würzburg and the University of Geneva (UNIGE), is shedding light on one aspect of this enigma: neutrinos are thought to be born in blazars, galactic nuclei fed by supermassive black holes. These results were published on July 14 in the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters.
https://scitechdaily.com/neutrino-fa...-our-universe/

Gassho, J

STLah

[Jundo]

Life extending life ...

World's first HIV-positive to HIV-positive heart transplant performed at NYC hospital

A New York City hospital performed the world's first HIV-positive to HIV-positive heart transplant.

The patient, a woman in her 60s, suffered from advanced heart failure and received the donation, along with a simultaneous kidney transplant, in early Spring at Montefiore Health System in the Bronx, according to a news release.

Dr. Ulrich P. Jorde, with the Division of Cardiology at Montefiore and a professor of medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, called the procedure a "milestone in the history of organ donation."

... Montefiore is one of 25 centers in the U.S. eligible to offer the procedure after it met surgical benchmarks and outcomes set by the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, according to the news release.

“This was a complicated case and a true multidisciplinary effort by cardiology, surgery, nephrology, infectious disease, critical care and immunology,” said Dr. Omar Saeed, the woman's cardiologist.

"Making this option available to people living with HIV expands the pool of donors and means more people, with or without HIV, will have quicker access to a lifesaving organ," Saeed said. "To say we are proud of what this means for our patients and the medical community at large, is an understatement."

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/worlds-first-hiv-positive-hiv-positive-heart-transplant-performed-nyc-rcna40797

[Jundo]

Better than spiders ...

Forever young, beautiful and scandal-free: The rise of South Korea's virtual influencers

She's got more than 130,000 followers on Instagram, where she posts photos of her globetrotting adventures. Her makeup is always impeccable, her clothes look straight off the runway. She sings, dances and models -- and none of it is real.

Rozy is a South Korean "virtual influencer," a digitally rendered human so realistic she is often mistaken for flesh and blood.

"Are you a real person?" one of her Instagram fans asks. "Are you an AI? Or a robot?"

According to the Seoul-based company that created her, Rozy is a blend of all three who straddles the real and virtual worlds.
She is "able to do everything that humans cannot ... in the most human-like form," Sidus Studio X says on its website.

... The "virtual human" industry is booming, and with it a whole new economy in which the influencers of the future are never-aging, scandal-free and digitally flawless -- sparking alarm among some in a country already obsessed with unobtainable beauty standards.

How virtual influencers work

The CGI (computer-generated imagery) technology behind Rozy isn't new. It is ubiquitous in today's entertainment industry, where artists use it to craft realistic nonhuman characters in movies, computer games and music videos.

But it has only recently been used to make influencers.

Sometimes, Sidus Studio X creates an image of Rozy from head to toe using the technology, an approach that works well for her Instagram images. Other times it superimposes her head onto the body of a human model -- when she models clothing, for instance.
https://us.cnn.com/style/article/sou...dst/index.html

https://youtu.be/vTg7VG-V1kc

Gassho, J

stlah

[Jundo]

This is just creepy! ... but surprisingly practical for use ... the Necrobots ...

TRIGGER WARNING: If you do not care for spiders ... especially revived dead ones ...

https://youtu.be/Y8ABHOFynIA

... and a small but interesting invention ... less yucky ...

MIT Engineers Develop Ultrasound Stickers That Can See Inside the Body

Ultrasound imaging currently requires bulky and specialized equipment available only in hospitals and doctor’s offices. However, a new design developed by MIT engineers might make the technology as wearable and accessible as buying Band-Aids at the drugstore. The engineers presented the design for the new ultrasound sticker in a paper published on July 28 in the journal Science. The stamp-sized device sticks to skin and can provide continuous ultrasound imaging of internal organs for 48 hours.

Gassho, J

STLah

[Jundo]

Where (maybe) life began ...

Primordial Soup: Scientists Discover New “Origins of Life” Chemical Reactions

The reaction generates the building blocks of proteins and DNA: amino acids and nucleic acids

Four billion years ago, the Earth looked very different than it does today. It was devoid of life and covered by a vast ocean. Over the course of millions of years, life emerged in that primordial soup. For a long time, researchers have theorized how molecules came together to spark this transition. Now, scientists at Scripps Research have discovered a new set of chemical reactions that use ammonia, cyanide, and carbon dioxide—all thought to be common on the early Earth—to generate amino acids and nucleic acids, the building blocks of proteins and DNA. “We’ve come up with a new paradigm to explain this shift from prebiotic to biotic chemistry,” says Ramanarayanan Krishnamurthy, PhD, and an associate professor of chemistry at Scripps Research. “We think the kind of reactions we’ve described are probably what could have happened on early Earth.” Krishnamurthy is the lead author of the new paper that was published in the journal Nature Chemistry on July 28, 2022.

... “We were expecting it to be quite difficult to figure this out, and it turned out to be even simpler than we had imagined,” says Krishnamurthy. “If you mix only the keto acid, cyanide, and ammonia, it just sits there. As soon as you add carbon dioxide, even trace amounts, the reaction picks up speed.”

Because the new reaction is relatively similar to what occurs inside cells today—except for being driven by cyanide instead of a protein—it seems more likely to be the source of early life, rather than drastically different reactions, the scientists say. The research also helps bring together two sides of a long-standing debate about the importance of carbon dioxide to early life, concluding that carbon dioxide was key, but only in combination with other molecules.

https://scitechdaily.com/primordial-...cal-reactions/

... and then maybe some such life could exist on Mars, or elsewhere in the cosmos ...

Scientists Discover Blueprint for Life Forms on Mars

Genomic analyses of microbes from Canada’s Arctic provide insight into life forms that could survive on Mars.

Under the permafrost of Lost Hammer Spring in Canada’s High Arctic is an extremely salty, very cold, and almost oxygen-free environment that is most similar to certain regions on Mars. So, if you want to understand more about the types of life forms that could once have existed – or may still exist – on Mars, this is a fantastic place to look.

... In a recent paper in The ISME Journal, the researchers show for the first time, that microbial communities discovered living in Canada’s High Arctic, in conditions corresponding to those on Mars, can survive by eating and breathing simple inorganic compounds of the type that have been detected on Mars (such as methane, sulfate, sulfide, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide). ...

Lost Hammer Spring, in Nunavut in Canada’s High Arctic, is one of the saltiest and coldest terrestrial springs discovered to date. The water which travels up through 600 meters (2000 feet) of permafrost to the surface is extremely salty (~24% salinity), perennially at sub-zero temperatures (~−5 °C/23 °F), and contains almost no oxygen (<1ppm dissolved oxygen). The extremely high salt concentrations keep the Lost Hammer spring from freezing, allowing it to maintain a liquid water habitat even at sub-zero temperatures. These conditions are analogous to those found in certain regions of Mars, where widespread salt deposits and possible cold salt springs have been observed. While previous research has shown evidence of microbes in this kind of Mars-like environment – this is one of the very few studies to find microbes alive and active.

...“The microbes we found and described at Lost Hammer Spring are surprising, because, unlike other microorganisms, they don’t depend on organic material or oxygen to live,” adds Whyte. “Instead, they survive by eating and breathing simple inorganic compounds such as methane, sulfides, sulfate, carbon monoxide, and carbon dioxide, all of which are found on Mars. They can also fix carbon dioxide and nitrogen gasses from the atmosphere, all of which makes them highly adapted to both surviving and thriving in very extreme environments on Earth and beyond.” ...

https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-...forms-on-mars/

Gassho, J

Stlah

[Jundo]

More tiny technology ...

Stanford-Developed Millirobot Swims in Your Body and Delivers Medicine to Places That Need It

... biomedical researchers have only lately started looking into methods to treat more complex medical problems like cancer or cardiovascular disease more effectively using targeted drug delivery.

The millirobot is a potential development in this developing field of biomedicine. With their ability to crawl, spin, and swim into tight locations on their mission to explore inner workings or distribute medications, these fingertip-sized robots are set to become the future lifesavers in medicine. Renee Zhao, a mechanical engineer who leads research in this field at Stanford University, is developing a number of millirobot designs simultaneously, including a magnetic crawling robot that was recently seen worming its way through a stomach on the cover of Science Advances. Her robots can self-select various locomotive states and navigate obstacles within the body because they are powered by magnetic fields, which allow for continuous motion and can be applied instantaneously to produce torque. Zhao’s team has discovered a way to propel a robot across the body at distances ten times its length in a single jump simply by changing the magnetic field’s direction and strength.

... If this work goes Zhao’s way, her robots won’t just provide a handy way to effectively dispense medicine but could also be used to carry instruments or cameras into the body, changing how doctors examine patients. The team is also working on using ultrasound imaging to track where robots go, eliminating any need to cut open organs. ...

https://scitechdaily.com/stanford-de...-that-need-it/

A picture of the origami millirobot that can move by spinning. This robot waits to deliver a high-concentration medicament until it reaches the target, as opposed to pills that must be ingested or liquids that must be injected.

[Jundo]

Personally, I believe that only technologies like these can be the future hope of humankind. I will be posting something about that very soon in the "ECODHARMA" discussion ...

DNA Nano-Device Injection Found To Be Safe for Medical Use

The ability to create DNA structures for use in biomedical applications like creating vaccinations or medication delivery systems has been made possible by advances in nanotechnology, but a recent study in mice looks into the safety of the technology.

Scientists can construct a variety of tiny devices with complicated structures that might be implanted in the body to transport medications or carry out other duties using a method called DNA Origami (DO), which involves folding complementary strands of DNA into double helixes repeatedly. However, due to the fact that this technology is still in its infancy, there is disagreement among experts as to whether nanostructures could cause dangerous immune responses or be toxic in other ways in animal systems.

... “DNA is unbelievable in terms of construction and how it’s able to be manipulated and designed to form nano-robots in a very coordinated manner,” said Christopher Lucas, lead author of the study and a research scientist in mechanical and aerospace engineering at Ohio State. “We believe this technology, which has an incredible amount of potential, can be used to diagnose, treat and prevent disease.” ... As for what’s next, since they’ve shown the technology isn’t toxic to mice, the team wants to start loading the devices up with chemotherapy drugs and begin learning how to use the devices to effectively target cancer cells in animals. “We’re just scratching the surface,” said Castro. “We’re revealing a whole new set of interesting questions that we can dig deeper into.” ...

https://scitechdaily.com/dna-nano-device-injection-found-to-be-safe-for-medical-use/

Gassho, J

STLah

[Artien]

Hopefully the right section. I would like to point this article out:

https://www.newsweek.com/insects-may-able-feel-pain-study-suggests-1721418

In a study published on Tuesday, a team of researchers argue that these animals have a certain biological mechanism that indicates they may indeed have a subjective experience of pain.

A profound thing for ethical questions, in my opinion.


Gassho,
Artien
Sat

[Jundo]

I will have that with marinara ...

(I think the graphic is so cool!)

The Ultimate Fate of a Star Shredded by a Black Hole: Spaghettified at 22 Million Miles per Hour

In 2019, astronomers observed the closest example to date of a star that was shredded, or “spaghettified,” after approaching too close to a massive black hole. ... That tidal disruption of a sun-like star by a black hole 1 million times more massive than itself took place 215 million light years from Earth. Fortunately, this was the first such event bright enough that astronomers from the University of California, Berkeley, could examine the optical light from the stellar death, specifically the light’s polarization, to learn more about what happened after the star was ripped apart, Their observations on October 8, 2019, suggest that much of the star’s material was blown away at high speed — up to 10,000 kilometers per second (22 million miles per hour) — and formed a spherical cloud of gas that blocked most of the high-energy emissions produced as the black hole devoured the remainder of the star.
https://scitechdaily.com/the-ultimat...iles-per-hour/

This animation depicts a star experiencing spaghettification as it’s sucked in by a supermassive black hole during a ‘tidal disruption event’. In a new study, done with the help of ESO’s Very Large Telescope and ESO’s New Technology Telescope, a team of astronomers found that when a black hole devours a star, it can launch a powerful blast of material outwards

Gassho, J

STLah