Tag: science
Here’s what NASA’s Mars helicopter will look like when it makes history with the first extraterrestrial powered flight
[embedded content] NASA is getting ready to send its next Mars rover to the red planet later this year, and that mission will also carry Ingenuity, a brand new helicopter robot that will attempt to make history by becoming the first vehicle to perform a powered atmospheric flight on another…
Read More
Uber AI plays any Atari 2600 game with ‘superhuman’ skill
DeepMind isn’t the only one with an Atari-savvy AI. A team of Uber AI researchers has developed a set of algorithms, Go-Explore, that reportedly beats any Atari 2600 game with “superhuman” scores, including ones where AI previously had trouble bestin… Source
Read More
NASA will test a new spacecraft solar sail using a NanoAvionics satellite
NASA is going to test a new solar sail system to determine if it’s a viable alternative to propellant-based thrusters for maneuvering small satellites, and potentially for low-cost transportation of spacecraft set on deep-space missions. The agency has selected Illinois-based NanoAvionics to provide the spacecraft that will be used to…
Read More
CZI teams up with UCSF and Stanford to research COVID-19’s prevalence in the Bay Area
With $13.6 million in funding from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, a new collaboration will pull together researchers at UCSF, Stanford and CZI-adjacent medical research nonprofit the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub to study the spread of COVID-19 in the Bay Area. The research team will conduct two separate large-scale studies over the…
Read More
Elon Musk provides more details about SpaceX’s plan to reduce Starlink satellite visibility
During a virtual conference briefing this week, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk provided more details about a new plan that his company has to mitigate the impact of their Starlink satellite constellation on night sky observation. Musk first revealed the intent to build a “sun visor” to lower their…
Read More
R&D Roundup: Sweat power, Earth imaging, testing ‘ghostdrivers’
I see far more research articles than I could possibly write up. This column collects the most interesting of those papers and advances, along with notes on why they may prove important in the world of tech and startups. This week: one step closer to self-powered on-skin electronics; people dressed…
Read More