Daily Archives: May 20, 2021

After China landed its Zhurong Mars rover on the Red Planet yesterday, there was just one important question on everyones minds: When are we going to see a robot battle between NASAs rover and Chinas?

Okay, maybe that wasnt immediately the first thing on your mind but a surprising amount of people are clamoring for an epic fight between the Zhurong lander and Perseverance. Many of them took to social media to voice their support for the battle.

From Twitter:

To Reddit:

To Facebook:

And who can blame them? An interplanetary robot fight would be awesome.

But lets get one thing out of the way: This is not going to happen.

Both countries spent billions upon billions of dollars and yuan not to mention the untold hours of human labor to get their craft to the Red Planet. Theyre not going to throw it away in a single (but admittedly epic) fight. Not only that, but Perseverance and Zhurong are hundreds of miles away from each other, according toNature.

BUT what if they did though? Who would win in a martian robot battle between NASAs Perseverance and Chinas Zhurong? Which rover is the pound-for-pound robot fighting champion of the galaxy?

To answer that question, were going to analyze each rover and score them against one another using four criteria: Weight, reach, speed, and heart.

Well be drawing on publicly available information about each rover though we should note that China is tight-lipped about its rover (as with most of its space operations). But we can make a few educated guesses to fill in the gaps.

Size is incredibly important when it comes to combat. Even the slightest difference in weight can make all the difference when it comes to human boxing and robot boxing is no different.

Zhurong weighs in at a respectable 530 pounds. Thats the same weight as a grizzly bear and is heavier than both the Spirit and Opportunity rovers that landed on Mars in 2004.

But Percy has Zhurong beat by a whole lot.

NASAs Perseverance rover clocks in at a staggering 2,260 pounds, according to NASA. Its roughly the size of an SUV and more than four times the size of Zhurong.

This would be like if a fully grown man fought a Galapagos penguin.The winner here is clear.

Edge: Perseverance.

A fighter with long arms can keep their opponents at bay while punching them from afar. Rovers can do the same with their onboard instruments.

Zhurong is fairly limited in the instruments department. It has retractable solar panels that help power it and shake off martian dust, according to The New York Times. They can also be used to smack its opponents to death.

The rover also has a multi-spectral and terrain camera, ground-penetrating radar, magnetic field detector, and weather sensors. All great for being able to see your opponent.

But alas, Perseverance has the Chinese rover beat by a mile and I mean that literally. With assistance from the Ingenuity helicopter, it can fight Zhurong from a mile away.

Even without Ingenuity, Perseverance still has a seven-foot arm with a drill at the end of it, along with an actual freakin laser beam powered by plutonium used to find and analyze samples. Again, this one is barely a contest.

Edge: Perseverance.

To quote one of the greatest fighting movies of all time, In the world of kung fu, speed determines the winner.

Unfortunately, both rovers are so slow they can make a sloth look like Usain Bolt but one is indeed faster than the other.

Perseverance drives with a top speed of .01 miles per hour, according to Space.com. Thats obviously not very fast, especially when you consider that Ingenuity can move at 20+ miles per hour.

On the other hand, Zhurong clocks in at a breakneck .12 miles per hour. Thats lightning fast compared to Perseverance. If we rule Ingenuity out of the equation, the winner here is clear.

Edge: Zhurong.

If you have two completely equal fighters in weight, speed, and fighting technique, what will separate the winner from the loser is their heart.

Were talking about the intangibles. The grit that gives fighters that killer instinct. So which rover has more heart?

Perseverance won the love of a lot of space enthusiasts when it landed on Mars in February. It also has a very well-maintained social media presence that frequently updates us on its explorations of the Red Planet.

Percy has personality, but does it have that killer instinct?

Zhurong is named after the god of fire in Chinese folk mythology. Thats pretty badass. It evokes destruction and domination.

Its the name of a rover thats too busy building a mountain made out of the skulls of its enemies to do things like drafting a tweet.

This ones close but I think we know who ends up on top.

Edge: Zhurong.

Based on our highly rigorous criteria, the answer is clear: Itd be a draw.

Where Perseverance wins the day with weight and reach, Zhurong edges it out with speed and a killer instinct.

And, as cheesy as it is, the real winner would be the fans of science and space exploration everywhere.The more we learn about our galaxy and distant planets, the better prepared well all be when it finally comes time to colonize space and thats something we can agree on no matter what country youre from.

More on fighting Mars rovers: Could I Defeat NASAs New Mars Rover in Hand-to-Hand Combat?

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People Want NASA's Mars Rover to Fight the Chinese Mars Rover - Futurism

Investigators arent sure if he had autopilot mode on at the time of the crash. Turn Off the Tiktok

A Tesla driver posted several videos of him driving with his hands off the steering wheel to TikTok before he was killed in a car accident.

Steven Hendrickson, 35, died on May 5 when his Tesla Model 3 crashed into an overturned truck in Fontana, California, according to Reuters. Hendrickson was killed in the accident while the truck driver and a good Samaritan who stopped to help him were injured.

The victim had previously posted two videos of him driving with his hands off the wheel to his TikTok account. Both captions suggest that he had been using Teslas full self-driving feature while filming the videos.

What would I do without my full self-driving Tesla after a long day at work, said a caption on one of his videos.

Coming home from LA after work, thank god, self drive, read another. Best car ever!

Despite Hendricksons videos, investigators still arent sure whether or not he was actually using Teslas controversial full self-driving feature at the time of the crash.

Police officers initially stated that the Autopilot system was engaged before the accident. However, they have since retracted that initial claim, saying that there has not been a final determination made as to what driving mode the Tesla was in, according to a statement obtained by Reuters.

If investigators do determine that Full Self-Driving was the cause of the crash, theyll be adding to a growing list of accidents, tragedies, and terrible press related to Teslas autopilot feature.

In April, authorities determined that Teslas Autopilot system was behind a fiery crash in Houston, Texas. That led Senator Richard Blumenthal to issue a strong condemnation of Musk.

In May, Teslas own director of Autopilot software CJ Moore admitted to the California Department of Motor Vehicles that Musk had grossly exaggerated their cars self-driving capabilities.

Whatever the case is with Hendricksons accident, one thing is clear: Tesla needs to be much clearer about the efficacy and capabilities of its Autopilot feature. Doing so now can quite literally be the difference between life and death.

READ MORE: Tesla crash victim lauded full self-driving in videos on Tiktok [Reuters]

More on Tesla Full Self-Driving: Remorseless Man Brags About Abusing Tesla Self-Driving Features

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Man Posted Video of Driving With Hands Off Wheel Before Fatal Tesla Crash - Futurism

Autonomous drones will seek and destroy bird nests near airfields.Fight or Flight

The US Navy and a company called Hitron Technologies are developing a new autonomous killer drone designed specifically to seek and destroy the Navys ultimate foe: birds.

The drones are a counterattack against the dangers of bird strikes at and around airfields, New Scientist reports, which can damage planes and have led to crashes and forced landings in the past. The drones, which are currently being tested in a lab while they await permits for field tests, will hunt out bird nests and spray eggs with an oil that prevents them from hatching.

Coating eggs in oil essentially deprives the bird embryos of oxygen, killing them without physically destroying the eggs, which can motivate parent birds to lay more.

Oiling is considered a humane way of controlling bird populations by the Humane Society of the United States, according to New Scientist. But experts have called into question whether the autonomous drones could effectively oil an egg, which would need to be entirely coated including the underside in order for it to work.

Egg oiling can cause welfare issues for the adult birds and, in addition, the oiling needs to be done carefully, Graham White, head of ecology at the UKs Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, told New Scientist.

And, he adds, attacking these nests risks triggering all-out-war between bird and machine.

Adult gulls would very likely attack the drone, risking themselves and the drone, White said.

READ MORE: US Navy is developing drones to exterminate birds eggs near airfields [New Scientist]

More on bird strikes: Canadian Airport to Use Robotic Falcons to Stop Bird Strikes

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The US Navy Is Developing Drones to Kill Eggs in Wild Bird Nests - Futurism

The race is on to become the next mainstream cryptocurrency that doesnt contribute millions of tons of carbon dioxide emissions due to unsustainable mining practices.

Now, a new cryptocurrency called Chia, founded by BitTorrent creator Bram Cohen, is promising to make mining cryptocurrencies at home a whole lot easier and sustainable.

But it may have an Achilles heel that could make it a lot less useful to the average person than the company likes to think, as Toms Guide reports.

Chias secret sauce is an entirely new way to mine, a process the company is calling farming.

Rather than completing complex and taxing calculations on beefy computational hardware such is the case for any proof of work-based cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Dogecoin Chia can be farmed by using unused storage on practically any device.

Chias farming concept relies on a consensus model called Proof of Space and Time (PoST).

Unlike most projects, coin ownership has nothing to do with the protocol this is not Proof of Stake, Chia COO Gene Hoffman told CoinDesk in February.

PoST works by provers showing that they can allocate unused hard drive space for storage space, according to the companys FAQ. In other words, its a way to prove that you are keeping some storage unused on your hard-disk drive.

Other users will seed unused space through a special software to build plots. New blockchain challenges then reveal which farmers seed comes closest, kind of like a massive game of Bingo.

The process also happens to be way more energy efficient according to the company, minimizing electricity waste.

While that may sound like a wholesome way of mining cryptocurrencies, the approach comes with a major downside.

According to Toms Guide, this back and forthof allocating and then freeing up space on storage devices could age solid state drives (SSD) incredibly fast. In fact, a consumer grade 512GB SSD could be killed in just 40 days while farming Chia, according to Toms Guides reporting.

Luckily, specialized storage devices are already hitting the market, with some of them designed specifically for Chia farming. Such drives will likely cost you a pretty penny, however.

Chia has gained significant momentum over the last week, jumping by more than 50 percent.

Its still far too early to tell if Chia has what it takes to join the big leagues but any cryptocurrency that sidesteps using vast amounts of electricity generated using coal and fossil fuels could have a pretty decent shot right now.

READ MORE: Chia crypto mining could kill your SSD in 40 days heres why [Toms Guide]

More on crypto: It Would Be Incredibly Hard to Make Bitcoin Sustainable, Experts Say

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New Cryptocurrency Kills Your Hard Drive to Mine New Coins - Futurism

One of the major initial challenges of the COVID vaccine rollout? Making sure anybody who got an initial dose of the Pfizer, Moderna, or AstraZeneca vaccines could be matched with a second dose of the same vaccine. Besides not knowing what it would do if we did vax-mix-and-match, combining different brands of a brand-new vaccine, developed under a year, to fight a brand-new virus? It just sounds like a bad idea.

But the appeal is obvious: As COVID variants with the ability to get around lower thresholds of vaccine efficacy spread around the world, the world needs to make it easier to get people greater amounts of protection, more quickly, in order to bring the virus to heel. From a logistics standpoint, the fantasy scenario is being able to mix vaccines, with excellent long-term results.

And now, the initial results of a small study in Spain are demonstrating a very, very exciting possibility: Holy hell, you can mix vaccines and it works.

As reported by Nature, a study of 673 people lead by the Carlos III Health Institute in Madrid demonstrating that participants who chased a single shot of the AstraZeneca (a vaccine armed with a harmless adenovirus that trains your cells to defend themselves from SARS-CoV-2) with a second shot of Pfizer (an mRNA vaccine, which introduces a piece of mRNA to your proteins, like giving them a blueprint to create defensive antibodies).

On its face, its surprising that those two different strategies would be effective in tandem. But the mix-and-match strategy boosted antibody responses remarkably, per McMaster University immunologist Zhou Xing, who concluded: This is all around wonderful news.

The study enlisted 673 people with an average age of 44 who had already received a first shot of the AstraZeneca vaccine. Thenthe researchers hit 441 of those participants with the AstraZeneca shot who produced robust amounts of antibodies, especially compared with the 232 who didnt get that second shot.

This is, of course, great news. But like any great revelation, it comes with its fair share of new questions, as well. What happens to efficacy rates if we need a third booster shot? How does the mix-and-match strategy compare with two doses of mRNA vaccines on their own (which trigger better immune responses than the adenovirus vaccines)? And why as revealed by a recent UK study does the mix-and-match strategy yield more vaccine side effects than taking two doses of the same vax?

These are all questions well no doubt be getting answers to in the coming months. And yes, even though as one immunologist Nature spoke with noted the mixing-and-matching of vaccines is entirely predictable from the basic immunology, the knowledge that we can do it safely, with excellent results? Nothing less than a shot in the arm of great news.

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Incredible: Mixing Vaccines Works, and Is Safe, According to New Study - Futurism

"Why are you taking business meetings with a person like that?"On Blast

Bill Gates cant seem to catch a break over his ties to convicted sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein. Not only were those connections a seemingly major factor in Gates ongoing divorce, but now a lawyer who represents nine of Epsteins victims is putting Gates on blast all over again.

Gates has long downplayed any relationship with Epstein an assertion that later reporting undermined and he even said that he didnt know whose plane he was riding regarding his trips on Epsteins infamous private jet.

But the lawyer, Spencer Kuvin, told The Sun that hes not buying it and that Gates should come forward with any information or evidence he has on Epstein instead of covering his own interests.

Bill Gates first met with Epstein after the latter had already been convicted of sex crimes. And even though Gates eventually severed those ties, perhaps because of his wife Melindas distaste for Epstein, it seems unlikely that someone as powerful and well-connected as Bill Gates somehow didnt realize who he was dealing with at the time.

Why are you taking business meetings with a person like that? Kuvin asked The Sun. I question anyones moral character who chooses to take business meetings with someone whos exhibited that kind of behavior and admitted to that type of behavior.

With Bill Gates, his wealth and investigatory powers, I find it incredibly hard to believe that he would not have known the full extent of the allegations that have been brought against Epstein here for that, Kuvin added.

Ultimately, Kuvin wanted to remind Gates and the world that Epsteins associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, is still under investigation for alleged sex trafficking and that Gates may be able to help.

Remember, theres an ongoing investigation regarding Ghislaine Maxwell, Kuvin said. So if Mr. Gates, has information that could assist in that investigation, I would say he should step forward.

READ MORE: STEP UP BILL Bill Gates urged to give evidence to Ghislaine Maxwell investigators about ties to Jeffrey Epstein by victims lawyer [The Sun]

More on the Gates divorce: Melinda Gates Met With Divorce Lawyers Around the Time of Epsteins Arrest

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Lawyer Slams Bill Gates for Connections to Jeffrey Epstein - Futurism

A team of researchers have fired tardigrades, which are the tiny microscopic invertebrates also known as water bears, out of a gun to see if they could survive in extreme conditions like in outer space, as Science Alert reports.

The tiny organisms are extremely hardy and can survive practically any conditions. Their survivability could have far-reaching consequences on our understanding of how life could spread throughout the Solar System and our chances of ever encountering extraterrestrial life.

The research could also answerwhether its possible that we already contaminated a nearby celestial body with microscopic life. Israels lunar lander Beresheet spilled thousands of tardigrades onto the surface of the Moon when it crashed in April 2019, prompting widespread speculation that some may have survived.

Inthe experiment, the team, made up of University of Kent astrochemist Alejandra Traspas and astrophysicist Mark Burchell, shot two to three individual freshwater tardigrades out of a specially made two-stage light-gas gun.

The gun first uses gunpowder and then pressurized hydrogen or helium to accelerate projectiles up to a speed of five miles per second.

The goal was to see if the tiny organisms could survive not only on the surface of otherwise inhospitable places like the Moon or other planets icy moons, but also if they could survive a trip across the Solar System to seed microscopic life elsewhere via asteroids or comets that smash into celestial bodies at incredible speeds, a theory known as panspermia.

The tiny freshwater tardigrades were first frozen into a tun state, which has previously been shown to allow them to withstand extremely low temperatures as well as very dry conditions.

They were then fired at sand targets at several hundred meters per second, much faster than the velocity of a bullet leaving a handgun.

The results speak for themselves. A control group of 20 tardigrades that werent shot out of the gun took eight to nine hours to recover from the same tun state. The ones shot at a velocity of 825 meters per second survived, but took a while to recover.

At 901 meters per second, though, the tardigrades turned into mush.

In the shots up to and including 0.825kilometers per second, intact tardigrades were recovered post shot, but in the higher-speed shots only fragments of tardigrades were recovered, the researchers paper published in the journal Astrobiology reads. Thus, shortly after the onset of lethality, the tardigrades were also physically broken apart as impact speed increased.

That means there are some constraints on their survivability when it comes to being blasted through the Solar System on an asteroid and impacting with a nearby planet.

The research didnt come to any new conclusions as to whether the tardigrades survived when Beresheet impacted with the lunar surface, but the spacecraft was reportedly only traveling at 134 meters per second vertically and 946 meters per second horizontally, as Science Alert points out.

And what about material hitting the Martian moon Phobos?

Similarly, Martian impact ejecta striking Phobos, for example, at a typical impact speed will not permit viable transfer of tardigrade-like organisms, but if a fraction of such material had a lower impact speed, survival may be possible, the researchers write.

The researchers also arguedthat their findings could determine how to have a best chance of finding life during flybys of either Saturns moon Enceladus and Jupiters moon Europa both of which have been found to eject saltwater in giant plumes.

Either way, our fascination with the tiny microscopic creatures continues. As it turns out, it really does take an astonishing amount of energy to kill a tardigrade.

READ MORE: Scientists Fired Tardigrades Out of a Gun to See if They Can Survive Space Impacts [Science Alert]

More on tardigrades: This Livestream of Tardigrades on Twitch is Oddly Soothing

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Scientists Loaded Tiny Organisms Into a Gun and Shot Them At Targets - Futurism

If they pull this off, it'll be the first movie filmed in space. Mission Impossible

Russia has selected the cast itll send to the International Space Station (ISS) to film the first movie in space signaling its intention to beat celebrity middle-tooth-haver Tom Cruise to orbit.

Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, announced on Thursday that it has cast actor Yulia Peresild to star in the space-produced film Challenge with Klim Shipenko to direct, according to The Guardian. The two willlaunch to the station as part of Russias Soyuz mission.

The production is set to begin on October 5, 2021 the same month Cruise and director Doug Liman are expected to arrive at the ISS to film the first Hollywood production in space. For that, theyll be working with SpaceX and NASA to get it done.

Though plenty of films have utilized zero-gravity flights to simulate space (like Apollo 13), none have actually filmed there before.

As such, both movies cast and crew are expected to undergo rigorous training to ensure theyre ready for the task.

Among other things, they will have to take centrifuge tests, vibration stand tests, perform introductory and training flights on a zero-gravity plane, undergo parachute training, said Roscosmos in a statement attained by NBC News.

As you can imagine, theres plenty of tension between these opposing ventures. For one, the first one to film in the ISS gets the prestige of being the first movie filmed in space.

Secondly, these productions can be seen as an extension of the current strained geopolitical relationship between Russia and the US and therefore, the Cold War-era Space Race itself.

Sure, Cruise isnt likely to defeat Moscow with his movie, but he could give the US bragging rights if he finishes production first. Thats almost enough to ignore his other eccentricities.

READ MORE: Space race 2: Russian actor bound for ISS in same month as Tom Cruise [The Guardian]

More on Tom Cruise: Uncanny Deepfake Tom Cruise Fools People on TikTok

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Russia Is Sending Its Own Actor to Space Before Tom Cruise - Futurism

A team of researchers from Northwestern University have created a high-resolution 3D simulation of the moment a star is formed.

The gorgeous animation is the most realistic of its kind to date, according to the team, and could teach us valuable lessons about how stars are formed in the universe.

The computational framework, called STARFORGE (Star Formation in Gaseous Environments), simulates a gas cloud 100 times the mass of any simulation previously possible and includes details such as jets of energy escaping out of the stars poles, supernova activity, and radiation.

Stellar jets are massive fountains of gas that escape while a star is forming. They also play a significant role in determining the eventual mass of a given star.

People have been simulating star formation for a couple decades now, but STARFORGE is a quantum leap in technology, said Claude-Andr Faucher-Gigure, astrophysicist at Northwestern, and senior author of an accompanying paper that was accepted into the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, in a statement.

Its been a very challenging question to explore because of the range of physical processes involved, he added. This new simulation will help us directly address fundamental questions we could not definitively answer before.

Its exceedingly difficult to follow the process of a star forming, as it can take tens of millions of years and is often obscured from view.

When we observe stars forming in any given region, all we see are star formation sites frozen in time, co-author Michael Grudi said. Stars also form in clouds of dust, so they are mostly hidden.

To render the stunning animation, the team took an astronomical amount of data into account, including gas dynamics, magnetic fields, and gravitational forces. In fact, the finished product was so computer intensivethat it took up to three months to run a single animation using one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world.

STARFORGE has already led to tangible results, allowing the researchers to better understand the role of stellar jets in the creation of stars.

Jets disrupt the inflow of gas toward the star, Grudi said in the statement. They essentially blow away gas that would have ended up in the star and increased its mass.

While its not an entirely new discovery, the simulation allowed them to solidify what they already knew.

People have suspected this might be happening, but, by simulating the entire system, we have a robust understanding of how it works, Grudi said.

Theinsights it provides could have even greater consequences on our understanding of the universe, the scientists say.

If we can understand star formation, then we can understand galaxy formation, Grudi explained. And by understanding galaxy formation, we can understand more about what the universe is made of.

Understanding where we come from and how were situated in the universe ultimately hinges on understanding the origins of stars, he added.

READ MORE: Stunning simulation of stars being born is most realistic ever [Northwestern University]

More on star formation: Astronomers Surprised to Find That Stars Compete With Each Other

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Amazing Simulation Shows the Moment That a Star First Ignites - Futurism