Drone Maps Icy Lava Tube in Iceland in Preparation for Cave Exploration on the Moon and Mars
The SETI Institute and Astrobotic Technology, Inc. are announcing the successful mapping in 3D of the interior of an ice-rich lava tube in Iceland using a LiDAR-equipped drone.
“We went to Iceland to study a lava tube with massive amounts of ice inside it to understand better both the potential hazards and opportunities presented by the many lava caves we hope to explore on the Moon and Mars. One promising way to explore them is with drones.”
Press Release | SETI Institute
As air pollution gets worse, a dystopian accessory is born
The air is getting more dangerous to breathe all over the world — and a suite of companies are hoping to capitalize with a new fashion item.
Rose Eveleth | Vox
The US is working on one of the most expensive computers ever built
The "Aurora" supercomputer would be the first US computer to reach "exascale" performance, where a computer can do more than a quintillion calculations per second. Officials from the Department of Energy claim the $500 million machine will be roughly seven times faster than the current most powerful system.
via The Download | MIT Technology Review
How the Internet Travels Across Oceans
"People think that data is in the cloud, but it’s not. It’s in the ocean."
Adam Satariano | The New York Times
The world’s first genderless voice assistant is challenging gender stereotypes
Created by a group of linguists, technologists, and sound designers, Q hopes to “end gender bias” and encourage “more inclusivity in voice technology.”
Cara Curtis | TNW
Halo Drive: Lasers and Black Holes Could Launch Spaceships to Near Light Speed
"Using what he called a 'halo drive' — named for the ring of light it would create around a black hole — Kipping found that even spaceships with the mass of Jupiter could achieve relativistic speeds. 'A civilization could exploit black holes as galactic waypoints,' he wrote in a study accepted by the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society and detailed online Feb. 28 in the arXiv preprint server."
Charles Q. Choi | Space.com
The Weight of Light: A Collection of Solar Futures
A collection of science fiction stories, art, and essays exploring human futures powered by solar energy, with an upbeat, solarpunk twist.
From the Center for Science and the Imagination, at Arizona State University
How Dolphins on LSD Shaped the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
"For better or worse, this notion of dolphins as a prototypical extraterrestrial intelligence would shape the trajectory of interstellar communication for the next half century."
Daniel Oberhaus | Super Cluster
Russia says it's going to arm a submarine with 6 nuclear 'doomsday' devices
Russia built an underwater nuclear torpedo with a massive warhead designed to cause tsunamis and devastate entire continents. Russia said it will arm one of its most mysterious subs with up to six of these devices by 2020. The sub has also been linked to clandestine efforts to destroy vital undersea cables.
Alex Lockie | Business Insider
JAXA and Toyota Reach Agreement on Consideration Toward International Space Exploration
JAXA and Toyota have reached agreement to further cooperate on and accelerate their ongoing joint study of a manned, pressurized rover that employs fuel cell electric vehicle technologies, for human exploration activities on the lunar surface. The pressurized rover would accommodate two people, and have a total lunar-surface cruising range of more than 10,000 km.
via Toyota
A quantum experiment suggests there’s no such thing as objective reality
Physicists have long suspected that quantum mechanics allows two observers to experience different, conflicting realities. Now they’ve performed the first experiment that proves it.
via The Download | MIT Technology Review
The Willow Pattern 2.0
This latest cartoon by Tom Gauld, for New Scientist, is pretty great.
Galaxy Simulations Offer a New Solution to the Fermi Paradox
Astronomers claim in a new paper that star motions should make it easy for civilizations to spread across the galaxy, but still we might find ourselves alone.
Rebecca Boye | Quanta
As we build rivals to human intelligence, James Bridle looks at our relationship with the planet’s other alien consciousnesses
"After wilfully ignoring the intelligences of others for so long, the centrality of human intelligence is on the point of being knocked violently aside by our own inventions. A new Copernican trauma looms, wherein we find ourselves standing upon a ruined planet, not smart enough to save ourselves, and no longer by any stretch of the imagination the smartest ones around."
James Bridle | Life Rewired
Fighting for climate action with 'The Uninhabitable Earth' author David Wallace-Wells: podcast and transcript
In his book “The Uninhabitable Earth”, David Wallace-Wells depicts a catastrophic future far worse than we ever imagined... and far sooner than we thought. It is undoubtedly a brutal truth to face, as you will hear in this episode, but if there’s any hope to avert the worst case scenarios, we have to start now.
Chris Hayes, with David Wallace-Wells | Why Is This Happening
China opens its first Mars simulation base in Qinghai Province
Covering an area of 53,330 square meters, the base can accommodate 60 people in its capsules and hundreds in the base's tents. Construction started in June 2018 at a cost of about 150 million yuan ($22.3 million).
Liu Caiyu | Global Times
Space Station Celebrates 'A New Era' In Exploration With Arrival Of SpaceX Capsule
The new space vehicle, carrying only cargo and a human dummy, launched Saturday from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. On Sunday, the ISS crew watched as Crew Dragon became the first American commercial space vehicle designed to carry humans to dock at the station, according to NASA.
Francesca Paris | NPR
The Snap Forward: New thinking for winning the climate fight
Help launch a bold new book about the end of predatory delay and the beginning of rapid climate action.
Kickstarter Campaign by Planetary Futurist Alex Steffen