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SpaceX Dragon Capsule Could Bring Soil Samples Back From Mars

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Dragon capsule lands on Mars

Illustration by SpaceX

SpaceX’s Dragon capsule has been dutifully carting supplies to and from the International Space Station since 2012. Now a team of researchers wants to send the Dragon capsule to Mars and back.

The “Red Dragon” mission concept is just a concept, with no formal plans to carry it out yet. But scientists envision that a Dragon capsule could rendezvous with the 2020 Mars rover, which may collect samples of Martian soil to eventually return to Earth. So far, NASA hasn’t chosen a plan for getting those samples back to Earth.

Team ‘Red Dragon’ suggests that a Dragon capsule could launch from Earth on a SpaceX heavy rocket, travel to Mars, and set down near the rover or samples the rover caches.

Equipped with arms, the Dragon could grab the samples (or, if all else fails, collect its own) and attach them to a launch vehicle that sits atop the capsule. The launch vehicle would send the sample back to Earth.

That’s a lot of trouble to go through to get a bunch of rocks and dirt. But it’s still up for debate as to whether life could have thrived on Mars in the past or even in the present day, and the best way to settle the debate is by getting samples into the hands of human scientists.

Red Dragon is "technically feasible with the use of these emerging commercial technologies, coupled with technologies that already exist," said Andy Gonzales from NASA's Ames Research Center during a conference last week.

Although Elon Musk isn’t involved in the ‘Red Dragon’ idea, he lent his support for the idea via Twitter.

In fact, he’s even got bigger plans for the Dragon, hinting at the possibility of sending more complex missions (or even supplies for a human base??) to Mars and beyond.

[Via Space.com]


Turning Back The Biological Clock

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Could this be possible at any age?

San Luis Obispo County California

Women who wait to have children can sometimes feel like they’re racing against their own biological clocks. Even though some reports of declining fertility after a woman’s mid-20s may be overblown, it does become much harder for a woman to have a baby past the age of 35. Now a fertility treatment from biotech company OvaScience may change all that, making it much easier for a woman to have a baby well into her 40s, as the Daily Beast reports.

Over the past 20 years, thousands of women who have struggled to get pregnant have turned to in vitro fertilization (IVF), a procedure in which doctors collect eggs and sperm from the potential parents, fertilize the eggs in the lab, then implant several embryos into the woman’s uterus. But most women undergoing IVF have only a 20 to 35 percent success rate--the eggs or sperm may not be high enough quality, or the embryos may not implant in the uterine lining. The procedures are expensive and, if they don’t succeed, are often emotionally wearing for the parents.

OvaPrime, the treatment created by scientists at OvaScience, would intervene with a woman’s fertility long before an egg has matured. For decades scientists thought that a woman was born with all the eggs she would ever have, but in 2004, researchers discovered egg precursor cells--stem cells in the ovaries that become fertile eggs--in mice. The OvaPrime treatment removes a woman's egg precursor cells and places them in a different part of the ovary in which they can mature into healthy cells. And since stem cells are the youngest cells in the body, the Daily Beast article notes, they haven’t been damaged by the biological changes that can cause eggs develop mutations and become less healthy. Doctors can then remove those healthy eggs and perform a typical IVF procedure, theoretically yielding a higher success rate.

Of course, OvaPrime couldn’t enable a woman to have a child indefinitely--after menopause, a woman’s body stops producing eggs, so theoretically either the egg precursor cells or the way they mature would be disrupted and the treatment wouldn’t work. And since OvaPrime hasn’t become commercially available yet, there aren’t any numbers comparing its success rate to typical IVF. But if OvaPrime does live up to its potential, it could enable women to have children well into their 40s or even 50s.

Correction (9/15/2015, 06:10 p.m. ET): The original sub-headline stated that OvaPrime wouldn't need IVF. However, the OvaPrime treatment does also require IVF, as stated in the rest of the story. Our bad!

Mercedes-Benz's Future Is The "Transformer"

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Like most automakers, Mercedes-Benz is studying the future of the automobile and building concept cars to predict that future. The night before the 2015 Frankfurt Auto Show, Mercedes-Benz unveiled its latest concept, the Intelligent Aerodynamic Automobile (IAA), to a gathering of journalists.

A four-door coupe, the IAA may preview the design direction for the next generation of the CLS. More importantly, however, it hints at a future that could include greater use of active aerodynamics.

We've seen active grille shutters before, but this vehicle takes that idea much further. Mercedes calls it a "transformer," and says that above 80 kph (about 50 mph) several exterior changes take place. In addition to active grille shutters, the flaps in the front bumper move outward and rearward to improve the airflow to the wheels and over the wheel arches. The louver in the front bumper also moves rearward about 2.4 inches to improve airflow to the underbody. The five-spoke wheels fill their gaps to become flat discs with far better aerodynamics. Finally, a rear extension juts out more than 15 inches to create a boattail effect that makes the air hug the vehicle more closely and create a smaller area of turbulence behind the car.

The total effect of these measures lowers the car's coefficient of drag from 0.25 to a very slippery 0.19. In the ever-evolving search for greater fuel efficiency, these types of measures could make their way to production vehicles in the future.

The IAA's interior will likely be more important in the near term, as Mercedes says elements of it will soon appear in one of its "business" sedans. We're guessing that's the next E-Class, which should be shown later this year at the Los Angeles Auto Show or early next year at the Detroit Auto Show. The IAA features a fully digital head unit with two side-by-side 12.3-inch screens capable of showing real-time graphics that Mercedes says otherwise exists only in Hollywood movies. It also has a new touch-based operating surface that Mercedes claims will let drivers better concentrate on the road. We're guessing both of those features are in store for the new E-Class.

The car is 198.4 inches long and has a wheelbase of 117.1 inches. It is 78.5 inches wide, and 51.4 inches tall. Power is derived from a plug-in hybrid powertrain with a gasoline engine for a total output of 279 horsepower and 41 miles of electric range (the latter in aerodynamic mode). The top speed is electronically limited to 155 mph.

Mercedes used a completely digital process which allowed the company to develop the IAA in just 10 months instead of the usual 18 for a concept car. Digital prototyping accelerates the development of new generations of cars—but more than that, it also raises their quality and offers opportunities for increased diversity. This is because it allows the development team to simulate and optimize the design from the earliest stages.

“Before we let a new car anywhere near our wind tunnel, it has already successfully passed a barrage of digital tests as a complete data model,” Mercedes R&D boss Thomas Weber explains.

More From Motor Authority
Porsche Mission E Electric Sedan Concept: 310-Mile Range, 15-Minute Charging--Live Photos & Video
Audi e-tron quattro Concept Previews Electric Crossover Coming In 2018
2017 Audi S4 Debuts At 2015 Frankfurt Auto Show: Video
Bugatti Previews Veyron Successor With Vision GT Concept: Live Photos & Video

DARPA Wants A Robotic Space Port

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Phoenix Robot Spaceport Concept Video

Phoenix Robot Spaceport Concept Video

Screenshot by author, from YouTube

Humans have hurtled objects into space since the Soviet Union’s Sputnik satellite in October, 1957. After 92 days, Sputnik crashed back to Earth, a victim of inevitability as much as anything else. While humans are good at getting objects into space, it’s expensive to do so, and once in orbit, it’s hard for ground-based humans to do much repair work. Enter DARPA’s Phoenix program. Weirdly not an acronym, Phoenix is a robotic hub concept. Built from tiny satellites and remaining in geosynchronous orbit with Earth, Phoenix would use robotic arms to build in space.

At last week’s DARPA “Wait, What?” technology conference in St. Louis, Pamela Melroy, DARPA’s deputy director of their Tactical Technology Office, said for the Phoenix concept the team looked to “the great seafaring port cities in the world for inspiration,” to make a functional port of call for satellites orbiting 22,370 miles above the Earth.

Space is an ideal environment for robots, who don’t need to worry about such inconvenient challenges like breathing oxygen and staying warm. Working in space, this Phoenix port would breathe new life into other satellites in geosynchronous orbit, which are hard to reach at present. Previously, DARPA has worked on the idea of removing space junk from orbit. There are a lot of hazards orbiting Earth that could potentially take out spacecraft, so a satellite repair station, staffed entirely by robots and capable of returning space objects to where they belong, would be a boon to space operations.

We might not be able to make space any easier, but if DARPA’s Phoenix program yields the results they want, space might just become cheaper.

Watch a concept video about Phoenix below:

[Via Space.com]

Alphabet Hires Director Of National Institute Of Mental Health

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After 13 years as the director the National Institute of Mental Health, neuroscientist Tom Insel has stepped down in order to take a position with Google Life Sciences, one of the first entities to exist separately under the new Alphabet umbrella.

Before starting at the NIMH, Insel’s work focused on the biology and genetics of psychology; he is best known for his work on hormones involved in complex social behaviors. He continued this focus at the NIMH; during Insel’s tenure, the organization took impressive strides to marry biology and psychology in order to better diagnose and treat people who are suffering from mental illness. Under his leadership, psychological treatments and diagnoses have progressed through initiatives like the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium, in which dozens of research institutions around the world collaborated to study the connections between genes and mental illness, and the Research Domain Criteria, which provides a more biology-based framework for how psychology research should be conducted.

Insel didn’t get into specifics about what he would be working on at Google Life Sciences, noting in a statement that he is "still working out the final details." He also wrote, “The GLS mission is about creating technology that can help with earlier detection, better prevention, and more effective management of serious health conditions. I am joining the team to explore how this mission can be applied to mental illness.” Google Life Sciences has already developed a heart and activity monitor and contact lenses that can read blood glucose levels for diabetics. But the organization has not yet announced any efforts to address mental illness, which one in four adults suffers from every year. Insel, it seems, is an excellent choice to expand the company’s purview, finding new technological resources to better diagnose and treat mental illness.

The NIMH is still looking for a new director to take Insel’s place; until they find one, acting deputy director Bruce Cuthbert will fill the role, according to a statement from NIH director Francis Collins.

Thousands Of Connected Cars To Roll Out Across U.S.

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Times Square traffic jam

joiseyshowaa via Flickr

If these cars could talk, right? Well, soon they will. Yesterday, transportation secretary Anthony Foxx announced the U.S.'s largest vehicle-to-vehicle pilot program. The $42 million project will roll out in New York City, Tampa, and Wyoming to cut down on traffic problems, and crashes.

The vehicle-to-vehicle technology has been in development in Ann Arbor, Michigan, since 2012, and uses a network of sensors that communicate over the wireless spectrum. The sensors can be added to vehicles and nearby infrastructure like traffic lights and stop signs.

The sensor-enabled vehicles will lead to an "unprecedented" amount of anonymous data, which could help to build smarter cities in the future. And in the meantime apps using the data could alert drivers if there's a vehicle in their blind spot or when cars are braking up ahead (similar to what Waze offers thanks to user input).

New York City will receive $20 million to outfit up to 10,000 vehicles including taxis, MTA buses, and UPS trucks that frequently travel through Midtown Manhattan, as well as infrastructure in a few other key areas and around Brooklyn.

In Tampa, the project will be used to study the city's particularly bad rush hour congestion (as a Tampa Bay native, I can attest), and adding the tech to pedestrians' smartphones could help further analyze the traffic issues.

Where city traffic congestion is less of a stressor, in Wyoming, the DOT will use the new tech to monitor trucking corridors.

In a statement, Foxx called it "a big step forward for the future of how we move in this country, from our rural communities to our biggest cities."

[Department Of Transportation Via Gizmodo]

Lockheed's New U-2 Successor Will Be Built For War

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TR-X Concept Art

TR-X Concept Art

Lockheed Martin Skunk Works

Few aircraft are as long-serving as Lockheed Martin’s venerable U-2 spyplane. First flown in the 1950s, it served well in the Cold War and has been upgraded ever since, a high-altitude surveillance vehicle. Yesterday, Lockheed released a loving tribute to the uncomfortably nicknamedDragon Lady. It’s as warm and affectionate as a defense contractor can possibly be about a flying camera:

Despite the obvious motherly love towards the old U-2, and no matter how many times it’s been upgraded, eventually all airframes have to retire, and Lockheed is looking ahead to their next spyplane. The plane has been in the works for a while, and Lockheed has separately emphasized both its ability to fly unmanned like a drone or have a human in a cockpit, like an old-school U-2. At a media briefing last month, Lockheed released both an artist’s concept of the new plane, and a revealing designation: TR-X, for “tactical reconnaissance”, instead of the vague “U” for utility.

The distinctions between aircraft roles and designation come from decades of jargon and role differentiation, but they aren’t just simple bureaucratic details. While the Cold War U-2 shined in capturing pictures of strategic threats, like a nuclear missile build-up in Cuba, “tactical reconnaissance” is a different beat, more about watching battlefields where American forces are already fighting or likely to fight, and spotting risks visible from 70,000 feet that guys on the ground might not see. It’s a role that matches well with the wars the United States has fought since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Lockheed aims to have the plane ready for 2025, and if their past success with the U-2 is any indication, they will want it to stay in service a long time. if it has a similar 60-year lifespan in service, who knows what new upgrades may come?

Watch the full U-2S tribute video below:

Navy Agrees To Limit Sonar Testing In California And Hawaii To Protect The Whales

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In a settlement announced this week, the United States Navy agreed to limit activities around sensitive whale and dolphin habitats off the coast of Southern California and Hawaii.

The agreement ends two lawsuits brought against the Navy by conservation groups concerned that certain naval activities were harming marine mammals. In addition to whales and dolphins getting hit by ships or injured or killed while testing explosives, one of the major concerns of the conservation groups was the use of sonar used for navigation. Sonar uses sound waves which bounce off objects and create a map to help locate hidden objects in the water. Because sound travels extremely well underwater, these sonar pings from Navy ships can damage the hearing of whales and dolphins.

Dolphins and whales use sound to find their way through the ocean (known as echolocation) and also to communicate with each other. Their hearing is extraordinarily sensitive, and conservation groups have pushed for both governments and private companies to sharply curtail the use of loud noises like sonar and explosions in the water.

“If a whale or dolphin can’t hear, it can’t survive,” David Henkin, an attorney for Earthjustice who brought one of the lawsuits, said in a statement. “We challenged the Navy’s plan because it would have unnecessarily harmed whales, dolphins, and endangered marine mammals, with the Navy itself estimating that more than 2,000 animals would be killed or permanently injured. By agreeing to this settlement, the Navy acknowledges that it doesn’t need to train in every square inch of the ocean and that it can take reasonable steps to reduce the deadly toll of its activities.”

Though indiscriminate use of machine-made sonar can be harmful, there has been some success in harnessing the sonar of whales and dolphins to keep them away from fishing nets by attaching small devices to the nets that reflect back noise produced by whales, alerting them to the potentially deadly obstruction. The Navy itself actually has a fairly long history with marine mammals. Until recently dolphins were used regularly to search for undersea mines, however the program is being phased out over the next few years.


Facebook To Add Dislike Button, Video Chat

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Mark Zuckerberg

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg plays in a VR world using a set of Oculus Touch controllers.

If today’s Townhall Q&A with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is any indication, we can soon expect some big changes in our Internet lives, both on and off Facebook.

"I think people have asked about the dislike button for many years,” Zuckerberg said. “Today is a special day because today is the day I can say we’re working on it and shipping it.”

He went on to explain that the reasoning behind the new Facebook function is to provide users with an appropriate public response to uncomfortable news. "What they really want is the ability to express empathy. Not every moment is a good moment," he said.

Reflecting the nuance in emotion, the so-called ‘dislike’ button will give users an as-of-yet unknown alternative to ‘like’ when it is revealed to the world.

Another development in the works is the much-anticipated video chat in Facebook Messenger, which spells a potential disturbance in the face-to-face chatting ecosystem currently dominated by Skype and Apple’s FaceTime.

Zuckerberg also hinted that somewhat further out is the rise of virtual reality (VR) in the media landscape. Mainstream immersive VR could become a reality in 10 years, he said, a sign that last year’s $2 billion acquisition of Oculus VR could pay off in the long run.

For its part, Facebook expects to ship Oculus VR headsets in early 2016. The company is also currently working on bringing a VR app to Apple and Android smartphones.

An Internet Map To Rule Them All

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A map of the physical Internet

Source: InterTubes: A Study of the US Long-haul Fiber-optic Infrastructure

The red squares represent the physical Internet links connecting the long haul routes of fiber optics.

Despite the fact that we use it every day, most of us don't really know where the Internet comes from or how it works. Hint: it's not magic, and it's not exactly a 'series of tubes'.

In a paper that was presented at the Sigcomm conference this summer, researchers have put together a fuller picture of the physical internet--the cell towers, routers, switches, and fiber-optic cables that make the World Wide Web work. They ended up creating the first detailed, public map of Internet infrastructure.

Sure, you could just go to Comcast's website to see where its network coverage is, but the maps that have been available so far have been either far less detailed or decentralized.

The researchers combined data from companies like Comcast and Verizon with data from the Internet Atlas project, and then added in information found in public records to build a U.S. map of the long-haul fiber-optic wired Internet--which is the static underlying infrastructure that connects cities across the country. The amount of data combing and combining they did is impressive, to say the least.

Roadways and railways maps

Source: InterTubes: A Study of the US Long-haul Fiber-optic Infrastructure

The map of the physical Internet (above) closely follows the map of U.S. roadways, and in some places, the railway map.

The resulting map is equally interesting. The northeast is densely packed, while the western plains are sparsely covered. The map above shows that the Internet infrastructure follows closely with interstate roadway routes, and less so with railways.

They were also able to determine that 89.67 percent of conduits were shared between at least two Internet service providers, and more than 50 percent were shared by at least four ISPs, finding that it was actually uncommon for a conduit to not be shared among more ISPs. To achieve better connectivity, they suggest cutting down on sharing, and strategically deploying new fiber optic routes.

"It provides quantitative data where all we had was anecdotes," writes David Wetherall of Google and the University of Washington, in the public review of the paper.

And despite all the work that went into it, the researchers concede that the map is not complete. "We hope this work will spark a community effort aimed at gradually improving the overall fidelity of our basic map by contributing to a growing database of information," they write. And since the process is replicable, the researchers note that the method could be used to build maps of the Internet infrastructure in other countries, too.

[Via MIT Technology Review]

Confirmed: Enceladus Has A Global Ocean

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Enceladus

Cassini Imaging Team, SSI, JPL, ESA, NASA

Saturn’s 300-mile-wide moon Enceladus is stretched and squeezed by gravitational interaction with its neighbors. The resulting friction heats its interior, and may power a system of hydrothermal vents below its south pole; such vents could be natural homes to rock-breathing microbes.

Enceladus is not the block of ice that scientists once thought it was. The Saturnian moon spouts giant plumes of water vapor from its southern pole, and gravity data indicate it likely harbors a liquid ocean beneath its surface, warmed by the friction of Saturn’s gravity deforming the moon’s rocky core.

Until now, scientists weren’t sure how big that subsurface ocean might be. Now NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has come back with an answer: Enceladus has a global ocean encircling its entire core.

The confirmation comes from studying the moon’s wobble. Enceladus moves slightly faster and slightly slower in different parts of its orbit around Saturn, so it rocks back and forth as it goes. If the moon were completely solid, it wouldn’t wobble nearly as much as it does. Models of Enceladus’ interior indicate that it must have a layer of liquid in between the surface and the core.

"This was a hard problem that required years of observations, and calculations involving a diverse collection of disciplines, but we are confident we finally got it right,"said Peter Thomas, a Cassini imaging team member and lead author of the paper, which appeared in the journal Icarus.

Enceladus is considered to be one of the top spots to look for life in our solar system, and the new findings certainly don’t hurt its case. It’s possible that Enceladus’ ocean is bubbling out through its geysers, just waiting for a spacecraft to swoop in and sample it to find out what might be lurking inside.

Cross-section of Enceladus' interior

NASA/JPL-Caltech

Why Are Bats' Immune Systems Totally Different From Any Other Mammal’s?

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The mastiff bat, found in Central and South America

Bats may be both ecologically and economically valuable, but they are also notorious for transmitting diseases particularly rabies and maybe even Ebola. The bats themselves, however, don’t often get sick as they have impressive immune systems unlike those of any other mammals, according to a study published this month in Biology Letters.

Bats host more pathogens than most other mammals, yet they rarely get sick—however their immune systems have been so little-studied that scientists didn’t know why. In this study, the researchers tested the immune response of the Pallas's mastiff bats, which live in Panama. They held a total of 34 bats in captivity and dosed them with a compound called lipopolysaccharide (LPS). By itself, LPS is harmless, but since it’s a chemical commonly found on the membranes of many disease-carrying pathogens, the researchers expected the bats’ bodies to respond as if they were infected.

The bats didn’t show any of the typical signs of infection—no fever, no increased white blood cell count—that other mammals would. The only sign that anything was wrong was that their body mass decreased slightly, which showed their immune systems were engaged.

These results are even more puzzling to researchers. They hypothesize that the bat’s drastic temperature changes over the course of the day might have something to do with it. When a bat sleeps during the day, its temperature drops to conserve energy, which might slow the pathogens’ spread; when it goes out at night to hunt, its temperature skyrockets to more than 100 degrees Fahrenheit, which could work like a daily fever to increase the activity of certain kinds of immune cells. Birds have similarly high body temperatures when they fly, but their bodies do respond to LPS with fever.

Overall the researchers concluded the study with more questions than answers about how exactly a bat’s immune system works. Future studies are needed to understand how their immune systems use the same cells for different roles than in other mammals, or if they stave off disease with different cells altogether. Understanding the mechanisms behind he functioning of their immune systems might also show researchers why it’s been weakened by White Nose Syndrome, which is ravaging bat colonies all over the world.

A Space Shotgun To Shoot At Asteroids

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Honeywell Space Shotgun Concept

Honeywell Space Shotgun Concept

Screenshot by author, from YouTube

“Shoot first, ask questions later” is simultaneously a cool line for a gruff action hero and a terrible policy. A new concept for a space shotgun offers a twist on the old refrain: what if shooting was asking questions? NASA’s Asteroid Redirect Mission wants to send a robot to an asteroid. In a video released today, Honeywell shows how a freaking shotgun attached to that robot could learn about the asteroid by shooting at it.

First, the vehicle would survey the surface of the asteroid. Then it would target the shotgun at the asteroid. Once on target, the shotgun will fire a projectile, which could do one of three things. One is to fire a shell that cracks open when met with a certain strength, thereby revealing just how hard the asteroid is, like this:

Another option is to bounce a ball off the surface of the asteroid, then track its rebound velocity to determine the strength of that asteroid. A third option is to shoot at it and make a crater, and then measure the size of that crater to determine that asteroid’s strength and density. It’s a new meaning to “strength through superior firepower.”

All of this is designed so that the NASA mission can retrieve a boulder of appropriate strength from the asteroid, in order to study it and then bring it back to… the moon. The mission has drawn criticism within and outside NASA. Landing on an asteroid certainly isn’t going to Mars. But there is value to be gained from studying asteroids themselves: NASA says“The robotic mission also will demonstrate planetary defense techniques to deflect dangerous asteroids and protect Earth if needed in the future,” and while they’ve previously discussed nuking asteroids that get too close to earth, perhaps it’s better to start with a weapon not explicitly banned by international treaty.

Watch the space shotgun concept video below:

Gallery: Up Close With BigDog and Other Robots of War

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DARPA brought some bizarre and awesome ideas to its "Wait, What?" tech conference last week, but it also brought some hardware. DARPA-funded projects like the Legged Squad Support System, otherwise known as BigDog, were on display in a convention center in downtown St. Louis. Here's a collection of some of the coolest things PopSci got to see.

National Science Foundation Devotes $20 Million To Building Tomorrow's Infrastructure

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Blatnik Bridge

Blatnik Bridge

Improving infrastructure is one of the main focuses of a new NSF initiative.

Wildfires are raging, sea levels are rising, and cities just keep on growing. Increasingly large numbers of people in the United States are dependent on aging infrastructure, from crumbling roads and bridges to to overworked power lines. It's a sorry state of affairs that hasn't changed all that much in the past few years. Luckily, there are plenty of brilliant minds dedicated to making a difference, and they're getting both attention and funding from the government.

This week marks the first-ever Smart Cities Week an initiative between the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the White House focused on building the city of tomorrow, ready for whatever disasters the future could possibly hold. But you can't build a towering initiative like that without a very strong foundation--good infrastructure.

To that end, the NSF recently announced that it was giving $20 million to projects around the country that were dedicated to making the basic building blocks of modern society (power, transportation, water supplies, healthcare) more robust and resilient.

12 projects were chosen to be part of a new initiative called Critical Resilient Interdependent Infrastructure Systems and Processes or CRISP, which distributes money to fund research over a period of 3 to 4 years. Among the lucky dozen were a project looking into ways to improve transportation even in the case of flooding along the coasts. Another project will look at how water and electrical systems can be modified to withstand extreme droughts, while another looks at how to protect infrastructure from man-made disasters like cyber and terrorist attacks.

There are plenty of other projects out there focused on the same goal. Researchers at both universities and companies are focused on building buildings that can monitor or even repair themselves. Maybe the city of the future isn't so far away after all.


8 Printable Martian Habitat Designs That We Want To Live In

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Design for a 3D-printed Martian shelter

If The Martian has taught us anything, it’s that surviving on Mars won’t be easy. It’s really cold, there’s practically no oxygen in the atmosphere, no food, no water, and it pummels you with radiation. NASA plans to send the first humans to the Red Planet in the 2030s, and if they want to come back alive, they’re gonna need a good, self-sustaining shelter.

Perhaps that’s why the space agency has teamed up with the additive manufacturing institute America Makes to host a competition to design a space habitat. Real architects and engineers were among the contestants. Now the judges have chosen 30 designs to move on to the next stage, and the selection includes some pretty rad concepts.

The goal of the 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge is to design a habitat that could be built with 3D printers using local materials or a mission’s waste products. “The vision,” says the website, “is that autonomous habitat manufacturing machines will someday be deployed to the Moon or Mars to construct shelters for human habitation.” Although 3D printing is hardly ready to go to space, it's never too early to start planning ahead.

Contestants were challenged to design a living space for a hypothetical set of four astronauts. The 1000-square-foot habitat would need to contain life support systems, bathrooms, cooking areas, and sleeping quarters.

The designs are pretty detailed, including the “locations of electrical outlets, fluid supplies and drains, and ventilation registers should be included.” Contestants also had to set aside at least three areas for life support systems, measuring 45 cubic feet apiece, to provide clean air and water and regulate pressure and temperature.

The top 30 designs have been selected, and may be whittled down before the final judging at New York City’s Maker Faire at the end of September. The first, second, and third place winners will take home $25,000, $15,000, and $10,000, respectively.

Here are some of our favorites.

Mysterious Google Patent Reveals Possibilities for The Future Of Google Glass

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Google/ US Patent Office

Google's patent designs for a potential head-mounted display.

Since Google Glass transitioned earlier this year from experimental Google X moonshot to viable idea, we haven’t heard much from the newly-formed department. The Explorer program was shut down when Nest alum Tony Fadell took over the project, and in the intervening months, no designs have leaked.

Google/ US Patent Office

Google's quaint diagram of jogging with a head-mounted display.

However, a Google patent published last week details structural elements that could be key to future generations of Google Glass.

The patent mainly concerns a component that varies in tightness to keep snug hold on the user's head. The component, a piezoelectric material(that is, a type of material that gathers an electrical charge through mechanical forces), is located in the side-arms of the eyewear, and may be activated based on how much the user is moving. (I write “may” because the word is used exactly 450 times in the document.)

The patent describes a situation wherein a user is jogging. The eyewear would be able to calculate running speed based on an accelerometer and gyroscope, and could tighten or loosen itself if necessary, or even physically move the display to give the user a better angle. Movement data could also come from a separate wearable device.

However, the component wouldn't need any tiny plastic cogs or other moving parts to do all this, because the piezoelectric material is just intelligently flexing to reposition itself to give the user the best view. In essence, Google is designing glasses that give complete screen visibility, no matter the circumstance.

In detailing an “example” device, Google’s patent talks about how a video camera, capacitive touch control, and the wonders of "detector 126" (see diagram). It seems like the engineers have big plans for detector 126, which could be an eye-movement tracking sensor, or infrared camera, or even a 3D scanner (maybe retina-scanning authentication?). The idea of having an entire lens act as a display is even brought up.

Google/ US Patent Office

A top-down view of an example head-mounted display by Google.

Google’s patent references other previously accepted patents regarding smart footwear, eyewear with a bone conduction transmitter, and a neural-sensing device .

The patent itself was filed by Mitchell Joseph Heinrich and Eliot Kim, who work in industrial design at Google X. The pair recently also published a patent on a bone-conductive audio transmitter.

Patents aren’t production schematics, but the document signals Google innovating in the wearable space with fresh ideas for head-mounted displays. And if it works anywhere near described, maybe “jogging glasses” that find and highlight potholes or loose terrain could be in our future.

Nanoparticles Disguised As Blood Cells Could Destroy Diseases

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Platelet-coated nanoparticles (orange) bind to a damaged artery, left, and MRSA bacteria, right.

For years, scientists have known that drug-carrying nanoparticles could provide new, potent treatments for diseases like cancer by sending them to targeted parts of the body. But there was one big problem: Before the particles could make it to their intended location, the patients’ immune systems would kill them off. Now a team of California-based researchers has figured out a way to disguise the particles to look like parts of blood cells, according to an article published today in Nature.

Typically, nanoparticles are made of metal or plastic—materials that the body immediately recognizes as invaders. To avoid that, the researchers coated antibiotic-containing plastic nanoparticles with cell membranes removed from human platelets, which are disk-shaped cell fragments found in the blood. The membranes of these platelets contain a number of proteins that shield the cells from immune attack, including one previously used to coat nanoparticles that tells the immune system, “don’t eat me” nanoengineer Dennis Discher told Nature News.

In this study, the researchers injected the membrane-coated antibiotic particles into mice infected with MRSA, which is notoriously resistant to antibiotic treatment. The mice treated with nanoparticles saw a 1,000-fold reduction in the number of bacteria living in their spleens and livers compared to the mice that received conventional antibiotics, and at one-sixth of the dose. The researchers also found ways to exploit the particles’ other natural tendencies. Since the particles tend to congregate around damaged blood vessels, the researchers found that effective delivery of the chemotherapy drug docetaxel could prevent artery walls from growing back too thick after surgery.

This isn’t the first attempt to coat nanoparticles with disguising proteins. Another paper published recently showed that Singaporean researchers were also able to do so. And while a number of nanoparticle experts were impressed with this new research, according to the Nature News article and an opinion piece published alongside the paper, others were less impressed. Because most of the particles ended up in the liver and the spleen—and not necessarily concentrated at sites of disease—some researchers aren’t sure that they actually are sneaking past the immune system undetected. The researchers plan to continue testing their nanoparticles on larger mammals before beginning clinical trials in humans.

Half Of The Ocean's Population Disappeared In The Past 45 Years

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School of Spadefish

School of Spadefish

Life isn't always better under the sea.

A combination of overfishing and environmental changes have cut the population of the worlds oceans nearly in half, according to a new report from the World Wildlife Fund.

The report, which looked at 1,234 species of mammal, bird, reptile, and fish, found that between 1970 and 2012, populations declined by 49 percent, with some species hit much harder than others. Commercially valuable species like tuna and mackerel declined by 74 percent, and sea cucumbers (seen as a delicacy in some parts of the world) saw their populations reduced by over 90 percent in specific areas like the Galapagos and the Red Sea. Currently, harvesting sea cucumbers is banned in the Galapagos, though illegal fishing still occurs.

The report also found that marine habitats were in decline, with 1/3 of all seagrasses lost, and coral reefs facing extinction as early as 2050.

The report also says that there is some hope, if policy makers prioritize the protection of the ocean and climate at events like this fall's UN climate summit in Paris.

Fortunately for the oceans, there does seem to be a sea change in conservation policy with increasing protection of certain marine areas in the United States and around the world. In recent years researchers have identified the conditions that allow marine wildlife reserves to succeed and flourish. They have to be large, isolated, established places with strict enforcement of fishing and development bans. If conservation plans (including sustainable fishing practices and action on climate change) work, some populations could start recovering.

And, now we know, there's plenty of room for more fish in the sea.

Polar Bears Might Survive Ice Melting By Hunting New Prey

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Polar bears near the coast of the western Hudson Bay

AMNH/R.F. Rockwell

Polar bears are often used as the face of climate change and the melting of the Arctic. They have long been cast as one of the first large, familiar species to possibly go extinct because of a changing climate. As the spring and summer sea ice continues to retreat further and for longer periods of time, bears are losing access to their main source of food--ringed seals--and are starting to starve.

However, new research suggests suggests the situation may not be quite so grim. Linda Gormezano and Robert Rockwell from the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) posit that polar bears may be able to fulfill energy needs by feeding on caribou and snow geese instead. In fact, they're already starting to do so. Rather than waiting around to starve, the bears are trying to adapt.

During the late spring and summer months when the ice pack naturally starts to recede, there have always been polar bear populations that experience a couple of ice-free months--times when the the ice is too far out to sea to go and hunt seals in their ice lairs. To make do, the bears live on land, burning up the fat reserves from early spring gorging, and scraping together whatever else is easily available until the ice comes back in. In recent years, however, as the sea ice recedes earlier and earlier because of climate change, the amount of time the bears are marooned on land grows longer. Energy demands become more serious, and seal alternatives must be found. In the Western Hudson Bay, Canada, where the AMNH ecologists based their study, the ice-free season is predicted to expand from 120 days to 180. During that time, 28 to 48 percent of adult bears are projected to starve unless their nutritional needs can be met.

“I’ve got 1,200 piles of polar bear scat here at the AMNH full of caribou fur and goose feathers.”

Rockwell has been “watching polar bears eating things for 47 years,” and in recent times he's seen some pretty novel hunting behaviors. That spurred him and Gormezano to take a new look at an old model that predicted polar bear survival in the region. The model, developed in 2009, lays out an “energy budget” for the Hudson Bay bears and uses information on metabolic rates and energy requirements to gauge bear survival as the ice-free season grows. As expected, mass starvation was predicted to ensue. What the model didn’t take into account, however, was the possibility of marooned bears finding novel food sources on land. Based on Rockwell’s personal observations and experience, it seems that they are.

A mother polar bear and her cub near the coast of Western Hudson Bay.

AMNH/R. Rockwell

Gormezano and Rockwell calculated the total caloric values of snow geese and caribou--two possible prey alternatives to seals that bears have been observed hunting--and found there to be enough calories necessary to prevent starvation. One bull caribou, for example, worth approximately 105,000 calories, could last a bear for 27 days. Even a calf, depending on age, could provide anywhere from 4,700 to 34,000 calories and sustain an adult bear for 8 days or so. Feeding on smaller food sources, like geese and eggs, requires more consumption--between 10 to 26 clutches of eggs a day--but the relative lack of effort needed to harvest them tends to offset this. The reality is that polar bears are master opportunists (they have been known to snack on anything from berries and lichens to whale carcasses). As Rockwell so eloquently puts it, “If it’s lunch time and there’s a sushi bar, I’m there. But if it’s lunch time and there isn’t a sushi bar, pizza works.”

Rockwell and Gormezano didn’t randomly pick caribou and snow geese as prey alternatives to seals on a whim, but because they have observed bears feeding on the two. “I’ve got 1,200 piles of polar bear scat here at the AMNH full of caribou fur and goose feathers.” says Rockwell. Rockwell, who originally spent much of his time in the Hudson Bay region to study goose populations, noticed during his studies that although polar bears were being forced ashore earlier each year, they actually overlapped with the incubation period of snow geese. This offers up plenty of food and calories in goose eggs that couldn’t be any easier to get. (As Rockwell puts it: “I’m old, and I can outrun an egg. So can a polar bear.”) Their arrival, perhaps not coincidentally, has overlapped with caribou calving as well.

Male polar bears feed on the remains of a bull caribou.

R.F. Rockwell

The challenge with these findings is trying to figure out what it all means to polar bears as a whole. Each habitat, whether located in Canada, Alaska, Norway, or Russia, presents a unique set of pressures that different populations may or may not be adapting to in a similar fashion to the bears of the western Hudson Bay. Some hints have been observed, though. Rockwell’s friend and colleague Jouke Prop, has seen bears in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard coming onto land even before the ice has fully receded to feast on incubating goose eggs, only to head back out to the ice again to return to hunting seals before the ice melts. On Wrangell Island in the Bering Sea, polar bears have started hunting walruses without even doing the killing themselves. They charge herds lying on the beach, and in the resulting pandemonium and frantic dash to the sea, 2,000-pound bull walruses trample pups to do death. The bears then casually walk up and feed at their leisure.

Despite the changing hunting strategies of some polar bears, it remains to be seen how they will fare in the coming years as the weight of climate change piles on. Some populations of bears are having a harder time than others, particularly ones in colder locations like Alaska where they have been able to stay out on the pack ice and hunt seals all year round. It’s also possible that not enough bears will catch on to new hunting techniques, or that prey species like caribou or geese populations, though massive now, will also decrease due to climate change pressures.

It’s important to understand the stresses and dangers polar bears--as well as many other species, including our own--are facing because of climate change. But, as Rockwell is keen to point out, polar bears are not sitting around on ice floes waiting to die. Like life everywhere since time immemorial, they are fighting back and trying to adapt.

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