Tag: technology

NASA Awards SpaceX, Blue Origin, and 3 Other Companies $146 Million in Contracts to Go to the Moon

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, better known as NASA, announced this week the award of five contracts for $146 million to U.S. companies, including Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, to design lunar landers.

As reported by Forbes, these private companies will work over the next 15 months on various projects for the development of the Artemis program to ensure the return of humanity to the moon in 2024.

Contracts are well distributed, according to the statement from NASA:

  • SpaceX: $9.4 million
  • Blue Origin: $25.6 million
  • Dynetics: $40.8 million
  • Lockheed Martin: $35.2 million
  • Northrop Grumman: $34.8 million

The idea is that the five companies develop sustainable models of landing modules to regularly transport astronauts to the moon. Much of what is designed for Earth’s satellite will apply to future missions to Mars.

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SCIENTISTS CREATE HOLOGRAMS THAT YOU CAN TOUCH

Researchers have developed a hologram that allows you to reach out and “feel” it — not unlike the holodecks of “Star Trek.”

University of Glasgow scientists have created hologram system that uses jets of air known as “aerohaptics” to replicate the sensation of touch, according to Ravinder Daahiya, a researcher who worked on the project. He said that the air jets can allow you to feel “people’s fingers, hands and wrists.” The team published a paper of their findings in Advanced Intelligent Systems.

“In time, this could be developed to allow you to meet a virtual avatar of a colleague on the other side of the world and really feel their handshake,” he said in his piece for The Conversation. “It could even be the first steps towards building something like a holodeck.”

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Vaccines in your salad? Scientists growing medicine-filled plants to replace injections

Vaccinations can be a controversial subject for many people, especially when it comes to injections. So what if you could replace your next shot with a salad instead? Researchers at the University of California-Riverside are working on a way to grow edible plants that carry the same medication as an mRNA vaccine.

The COVID-19 vaccine is one of the many inoculations which use messenger RNA (mRNA) technology to defeat viruses. They work by teaching cells from the immune system to recognize and attack a certain infectious disease. Unfortunately, mRNA vaccines have to stay in cold storage until use or they lose stability. The UC-Riverside team says if they’re successful, the public could eat plant-based mRNA vaccines — which could also survive at room temperature.

Thanks to a $500,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, researchers are now looking to accomplish three goals. First, the team will try to successfully deliver DNA containing mRNA vaccines into plant cells, where they can replicate. Next, the study authors want to show that plants can actually produce enough mRNA to replace a traditional injection. Finally, the team will need to determine the right dosage people will need to eat to properly replace vaccinations.

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How Iran’s top nuclear scientist was assassinated by a killer AI machine gun that allowed sniper based 1,000 miles away to fire 15 bullets after disguised spy car had pinpointed his location 

Iran‘s top nuclear scientist was assassinated by a killer robot machine gun kitted out with artificial intelligence and multiple cameras and capable of firing 600 bullets a minute, according to a new report.

Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, 62, dubbed the ‘father’ of Iran’s illegal atomic program, is said to have been killed in the November 27 ambush by a Mossad sniper who pulled the trigger from an undisclosed location more than 1,000 miles away thanks to the use of satellite.

The gun which fired the fatal shots was positioned in a camera-laden pickup truck lying in wait for his vehicle to come past the ambush point. 

It was programmed with AI technology to compensate for a 1.6 second lapse between the intel from the kill site and the sniper’s actions, as well as movements caused by the shots being fired and Fakhrizadeh’s car driving. 

This precision enabled the sniper to hit the desired target and leave Fakhrizadeh’s wife, who was in the passenger seat next to him, unscathed. 

There was also a second disguised spy car positioned three-quarters of a mile earlier along the route in a spot where Fakhrizadeh’s car would make a U-turn to turn down the road toward his country home in Absard, a town east of Tehran.

Cameras fitted in this decoy vehicle positively identified Fakhrizadeh and pinpointed the scientist’s location in the car – in the driver’s seat with his wife in the passenger seat – sending this information back to the remote sniper. 

The entire ambush was over within one minute of the first round being fired.  

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Yes, Scientists Built the World’s Smallest Implantable Chip. But Don’t Freak Out.

Your next doctor’s appointment could soon become much more informative thanks to new microchips the size of dust mites, only visible beneath a microscope.

Picture this: Your surgeon wants to continuously monitor your lungs prior to a procedure to ensure your respiratory system is strong enough to deal with anesthesia. So, a technician uses a hypodermic needle to inject a few small microchips into your body. Then, they use an ultrasound machine to communicate with the chips, which show your lungs are primed for the operation. Your subsequent surgery is a breeze.

This is a vision of the future with the world’s smallest single-chip system, a complete electronic circuit that technicians could one day inject directly into the body to monitor and diagnose certain health conditions.

Scientists at Columbia University have designed and fabricated the chips to measure body temperature so far, but they hope that one day, the chips can monitor everything from blood pressure, to glucose, to respiration, according to their new research, which appears in the journal Science Advances.

“We are very eager to pursue devices like this to augment ultrasonography, to go beyond what is available through endogenous characteristics of tissue,” lead researcher Ken Shepard, professor of electrical engineering and biomedical engineering at Columbia University, tells Pop Mech.

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Editor’s note: DO freak out.

New Bioscience Company Raises $15 Million to Revive Woolly Mammoth

Boasting a whopping $15 million in funding, a newly formed bioscience company hopes to bring the woolly mammoth back from extinction. Dubbed ‘Colossal,’ the organization is reportedly spearheaded by technology entrepreneur Ben Lamm and Harvard geneticist George Church. The first stage of the ambitious project will be centered around producing a hybrid creature, of sorts, comprised of Asian elephant DNA that has been infused with woolly mammoth genes that are responsible for the animal’s iconic hairy coat and bodily characteristics that allow it to withstand freezing temperatures. Ultimately, Church explained, “our goal is to make a cold-resistant elephant, but it is going to look and behave like a mammoth.”

The purpose of this endeavor goes beyond merely bringing a mammoth-like creature into our modern world to demonstrate the awesome power of science as the company foresees the hypothetical animal as a way of both helping to stave off the extinction of Asian elephants, which are a threatened species, and also preserve the climate of the Arctic tundra. Their reasoning for the latter goal is that if that region of the world were once again populated by the massive pachyderms, the animals would naturally knock down trees and cause grasslands to emerge while also compacting the permafrost beneath them.

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Israel Unveils New Armed Robot Amid Outcry Over “Death Machines”

Israel unveiled a new remote-controlled killer robot Monday at a major weapons fair in the U.K. that human rights advocates are criticizing as an event to sell “death machines” and tools of abuse.

Developed by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), the Rex MK II is a four-wheeled vehicle mounted with two machine guns to carry out remote attacks. According to a press statement from the state-owned company announcing the release, the robot has already been sold to global customers.

The weapon was unveiled Monday at Defence & Security Equipment International (DSEI) in London, an event that occurs every two years and is one of the world’s biggest arms fairs. The weapons expo has faced sustained condemnation from anti-war campaigners who say it’s a venue “where those who profit from war, repression, and injustice do business.”

IAI describes the robot as an unmanned land vehicle that can carry a load of 1.3 tons and execute operations including intelligence gathering using “electro-optical sensors and radar.” It can also be used to launch attacks with “remotely controlled weapons systems including a 7.62mm machine gun” and “a cal 0.50 heavy machine gun,” the company says, and serve “as a multi-mission multi-purpose platform to support additional missions based on troops needs.”

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Technocrats Are Determined To Reduce Every Human To A QR Code

Without fanfare and with hardly a peep from the corporate-owned establishment media, the United Nations World Health Organization, also known as the WHO, issued a document last week that should set off alarm bells for lovers of freedom and liberty everywhere.

The document provides “guidance” for every nation in the world on how to go about implementing digital health passports, which is something Bill Gates, Klaus Schwab and other power elites have said since last year would be absolutely essential to conquering the Covid pandemic.

The title alone of the document appears designed to repel the average reader and lull them to sleep: Digital documentation of COVID-19 certificates: vaccination status: technical specifications and implementation guidance.

The WHO is working with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, or CDC, “to produce a high-value standard for international adoption and technical information exchange.” In layman’s terms, we’re talking about a digital health passport. These passports, as we’ve covered in depth in previous articles, are meant for no other purpose than to track and trace the movement of people in real time, scooping up data all along the way.

In other words, one of the most basic rights in any free society, the freedom of movement, will be shattered if your city, state or nation follows the advice of the WHO, the World Economic Forum, or any of its tech partners such as Microsoft, Google, Facebook, etc.

The WHO paper states its purpose is to provide standards and specs for the governments and contractors seeking to impose digital vaccine passports on global populations.

“This is a guidance document for countries and implementing partners on the technical requirements for developing digital information systems for issuing standards-based interoperable digital certificates for COVID-19 vaccination status, and considerations for implementation of such systems, for the purposes of continuity of care, and proof of vaccination.”

A condensed version of the 99-page document, with helpful graphics, some of which are reproduced below, can be found here.

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Facebook apologizes after its AI software labels Black men ‘primates’ in a video featured on the platform

Facebook on Friday issued an apology after its AI software labeled Black men “primates” in a video featured on the social media network.

The New York Times first reported the story. A Facebook spokesperson told the publication that it was a “clearly unacceptable error,” and said the recommendation software involved had been disabled. 

“We disabled the entire topic recommendation feature as soon as we realised this was happening so we could investigate the cause and prevent this from happening again,” the spokesperson said.

In a statement to the publication, Facebook said: “We apologize to anyone who may have seen these offensive recommendations.”

The offensive terminology related to a video, dated June 27, 2020, which was posted by The Daily Mail. The clip was titled “white man calls cops on black men at marina,” and featured Black men in disputes with white police officers and civilians. 

Facebook users who watched the video received an automated prompt asking if they would like to “keep seeing videos about Primates,” according to The New York Times. 

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Maybe You Missed It, but the Internet ‘Died’ Five Years Ago

If you search the phrase i hate texting on Twitter and scroll down, you will start to notice a pattern. An account with the handle @pixyIuvr and a glowing heart as a profile picture tweets, “i hate texting i just want to hold ur hand,” receiving 16,000 likes. An account with the handle @f41rygf and a pink orb as a profile picture tweets, “i hate texting just come live with me,” receiving nearly 33,000 likes. An account with the handle @itspureluv and a pink orb as a profile picture tweets, “i hate texting i just wanna kiss u,” receiving more than 48,000 likes.

There are slight changes to the verb choice and girlish username and color scheme, but the idea is the same each time: I’m a person with a crush in the age of smartphones, and isn’t that relatable? Yes, it sure is! But some people on Twitter have wondered whether these are really, truly, just people with crushes in the age of smartphones saying something relatable. They’ve pointed at them as possible evidence validating a wild idea called “dead-internet theory.”

Let me explain. Dead-internet theory suggests that the internet has been almost entirely taken over by artificial intelligence. Like lots of other online conspiracy theories, the audience for this one is growing because of discussion led by a mix of true believers, sarcastic trolls, and idly curious lovers of chitchat. One might, for example, point to @_capr1corn, a Twitter account with what looks like a blue orb with a pink spot in the middle as a profile picture. In the spring, the account tweeted “i hate texting come over and cuddle me,” and then “i hate texting i just wanna hug you,” and then “i hate texting just come live with me,” and then “i hate texting i just wanna kiss u,” which got 1,300 likes but didn’t perform as well as it did for @itspureluv. But unlike lots of other online conspiracy theories, this one has a morsel of truth to it. Person or bot: Does it really matter?

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