Category Archives: Futurism

Bicycle helmets are not only an extremely practical accessory to wear while riding a bike, motorcycle, or scooter, they're required by law in some places. Preventable fatal bike accidents have increased by 44 percent since 2010 to a staggering 1,260 in 2020, according to the National Safety Council. A helmet can help reduce your odds of becoming a statistic.

The good thing is that helmets have gotten a lot better than the ones most of us wore in decades past. They're sleeker and more comfortable, so wearing them feels less like an obligation or chore. If you've taken up biking or riding a scooter as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, or have been an advocate for bipedal transport for years, these bike helmets will help get you where you want to go safely and in style.

Key Selling Point: This helmet's yellow color makes it easy for drivers, pedestrians, and other riders to see.

Visibility is this helmet's best feature, but we also like its sleek look, and the cutouts spaced throughout the top. These cutouts act as a ventilation system, which will keep your head from getting too sweaty and help prevent overheating.

You'll inevitably sweat during long rides, so it's great that you can detach this helmet's chin strap and wash it regularly. We're all familiar with the icky feeling of putting on a helmet and experiencing a slightly damp feeling on the sides and bottom of your face.

Ssense offers this exact same helmet in a variety of colors and patterns, so you can easily find one that matches your style. All of its helmets are available in small, medium, and large sizes, with specific head measurements on its site to help you find the one that'll fit you best.

Key Selling Point: This helmet is designed with custom foam padding that can more evenly distribute energy in case of impact.

Schwinn has one of the best reputations in the biking world, and this helmet is a good example of why that's well-warranted. The large-sized helmet has 12 vent holes on top to help keep your head cool, and an adjustable dial to help you adjust the chin strap quickly and easily. When you're done riding, the inner protective layer of Schwinn's helmet can be washed, which keeps it sanitary if you ride frequently.

The company says this helmet's waffle-shaped pads are flexible, so they'll absorb shock waves from an impact and diffuse them in different directions. This means the helmet provides cranial protection. This is certainly the most technically advanced bicycle helmet we've been able to find, and a great choice for city commuters and off-road riders alike.

Key Selling Point: LED safety lights to alert other people to your presence and current direction.

If you ride your bike at night, getting a helmet with some sort of lighting system is essential. The back of Cyclic's Hybrid Bike Helmet has a five LED lights on the back, so drivers will be able to see you clearly. For added safety, we recommend wearing reflective clothing, or riding a bike with a light on the front.

Lights are this bicycle helmet's standout feature, but it also incorporates the comfort and safety features found in our other recommendations. Cutouts on top of the helmet act as vents to keep your head from overheating, and its chin strap is made from moisture-wicking material that will prevent sweat from building up. Cyclic outfits its helmet with a visor to keep the sun from hitting your eyes, but it's removable, so you won't need to keep it on during nighttime rides.

If you bike a lot after the sun goes down, Cyclic's Bicycle Helmet can protect you in more ways than one.

Key Selling Point: This bike helmet's sleek look sets it apart from the rest.

Some people may not want to wear a bicycle helmet because it doesn't look cool especially if you've got a tricked-out ride, but this one from Bell might change your mind. Its sleek, curved design immediately catches the eye, especially if you opt for the red colorway. Naturally, the helmet's safety features match its aesthetics.

This bicycle helmet is made up of a hard outer shell (for protection) and a foam liner (for comfort), which are fused together. This prevents the inner lining from moving around as you ride on rough terrain, or look around. This is a big deal if you're planning to go off-roading and don't want to choose between strapping your helmet on too tightly, or dealing with it shifting around.

Key Selling Point: This helmet's fun look can help encourage younger riders to stay safe when they're out of your sightline.

If your kid is resistant to wearing a helmet while riding a bike, this one from Crash might change their mind. Young riders will enjoy its fun, multi-color design, and you'll appreciate its safety features. This helmet is designed for children, but it has all the same features as our recommendations for adults.

This helmet has air vents on the top, adjustable straps, and a two-layer design that protects a child's head while still feeling comfortable. Krash says this helmet is appropriate for children aged eight to 14, but recommends taking a head measurement before deciding whether it's the right size for them. Your kid may not want to wear a helmet, but the cool print on this one will hopefully make them a little more into the idea.

This post was created by a non-news editorial team at Recurrent Media, Futurisms owner. Futurism may receive a portion of sales on products linked within this post.

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Protect Yourself On The Road or Trail - Futurism

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This ones a downer: getting high might also put you at a higher risk of landing in the emergency room.

A study published Monday in the journal BMJ Open Respiratory Research found that cannabis consumers were 22 percent more likely to end up in the ER or be hospitalized than those who didnt smoke weed.

The study,which examined the health records of over 35,000 people in Ontario, Canada, controlled for 31 potentially confounding variables including histories of substance abuse, asthma, and mental and physical disorders. The initial 35,000 was narrowed down to a control group of around 10,000, compared against just over 4,800 self-reported potheads.

The researchers do seem to have something of an axe to grind more on that in a moment but the findingsare striking, especially in the context of the widespread sentiment that cannabis is more or less harmless as legalization continues to spread.

"Cannabis use is not as benign and safe as some might think," study author Nicholas Vozoris told CNN in an email. "Our study demonstrates that the use of this substance is associated with serious negative outcomes, specifically, [emergency department] visits and hospitalizations."

Vozoris was more explicitin remarks to the Daily Beast, opining that "cannabis use needs to be discouraged and reduced in the population, so as to help prevent serious adverse health consequences from happening to individuals and to protect our fragile health-care systems from further strain."

That bit of moralizing aside, its worth noting that the study found "no significant association" between smokin dope and respiratory related ER visits, and that the increased likelihood for ending up in the hospital was for all causes.

In fact, according to Vozoris himself in the same CNN interview, "physical bodily injury" was the leading cause of hospitalization among the studied stoners so it's conceivable that hapless stoners are blazing up and then accidentally injuring themselves. That's not exactly harmless, but it does paint a very different picture from the specter of some serious, yet-unidentified pulmonary or cardiac risk factor.

It's also worth noting what the studydidn't control for: income. In other words, it's not unlikely that a confounding variable could be at play in the form of cannabis users skewing poor, which has itself been linked with higher hospitalization rates. And if we want to get really far into the weeds, it's not entirely clear whether residents of Ontario are representative of the broader population in the first place.

Needless to say, more research is needed. But in the meantime, maybe its safer to stick to the couch after a heavy bong rip instead of, yknow, driving your car or taking up parkour. But if you're really worried about your weed safety, its probably worth worrying more about counterfeit and unregulated THC cartridges instead.

More on weed:Smoking Weed Makes You Nicer and Less Greedy, Scientist Says

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Study Finds That Weed Puts You at Higher Risk for Hospitalization - Futurism

Image by Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory

A high tech pair of robotic arms allowed a partially paralyzed man to eat with a knife and fork, an impressive demonstration that could allow others with disabilities to regain a significant degree of autonomy.

The arms, developed by a team of researchers at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), work by reading its wearer's brain signals using a brain-machine interface (BMI). This interface then translates these signals into the movement of both robotic arms and with astonishing dexterity, given the micromotor sophistication and strength required to manipulate cutlery.

In experiments involving a patient who hadn't been able to use his fingers for around 30 years, an impressive video shows the appendages cutting a piece of cake with a knife and fork, then popping it into the man's mouth.

It's the culmination of 15 years of robotics and neural science research at the APL, whose efforts were sponsored until 2020 by the US Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA).

"This shared control approach is intended to leverage the intrinsic capabilities of the brain machine interface and the robotic system, creating a best of both worlds environment where the user can personalize the behavior of a smart prosthesis," said Francesco Tenore, co-author of a new study published in the journal Frontiers in Neurobotics, in a statement.

"Although our results are preliminary, we are excited about giving users with limited capability a true sense of control over increasingly intelligent assistive machines," he added.

It's a big step in the right direction, achieving impressive degrees of dexterity which is crucial to actually be of help in everyday life.At the same time, as the video shows, the process is still agonizingly slow and would almost certainly struggle with tougher foodstuffs than a tasty pastry.

"In order for robots to perform human-like tasks for people with reduced functionality, they will require human-like dexterity," explained David Handelman, first author and senior roboticist at APL, in the statement. "Human-like dexterity requires complex control of a complex robot skeleton."

READ MORE: Robotic arms connected directly to brain of partially paralyzed man allows him to feed himself [Frontier Science News]

More on BMIs: Scientists Express Concern at Elon Musk's Neuralink Brain Chip

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Robotic Arms Allow Paralyzed Man to Eat Cake With Knife and Fork - Futurism

Yet another startup says it's nearing tests for a system that could once and for all prove the technology can actually generate more energy than it consumes, The New York Times reports.

Seattle-based startup Zap Energy says its approach to fusion energy potentially an entirely green source of renewable energy is far simpler and cheaper than other attempts.

But critics are crying foul, arguing that we're merely stuck in yet another round of "fusion energy fever," according to the report.

Despite Zap Energy and several dozen other startups claiming fusion energy could be right around the corner, it's historically proven to be one of the hardest energy nuts to crack since the 1950s.

Scientists have yet to create a system that can reliably produce more energy than it needs to kickstart the reaction, which itself often proves highly volatile and hard to predict.

But that hasn't stopped these startups from repeatedly making hype-fueled claims about the steps they've taken towards practical nuclear fusion, year after year.

Zap Energy is hoping to scale things down and develop a kind of system that has already been ditched by other fusion companies in favor of much bigger and more complex reactors, according to NYT.

The company is hoping to produce a surplus of energy or at least break even by compressing a cloud of particles called a "shaped plasma gas" with a magnetic field inside a six-and-a-half foot vacuum tube, a process known as a "sheared flow Z-pinch."

But critics still aren't impressed.

"That these claims are widely believed is due solely to the effective propaganda of promoters and laboratory spokespersons," Daniel Jassby, a retired plasma physicist at Princeton University, told the newspaper.

If Zap Energy is indeed able to turn its ambitious plans into reality a big if, judging by the last 70 or so each of its reactors would be able to power at least 8,000 homes, the company claims.

The company still has some ways to go, and is still working on constructing a power supply beefy enough to compress the plasma, according to the NYT.

Only once the reactor kicks into action,after all, will we be able to evaluate if there's any truth to their claims.

Updated to more accurately reflect Zap's timeline and goals.

READ MORE: A Big Step Toward Fusion Energy Is Hailed by a Seattle Start-Up [The New York Times]

More on fusion: Startup Claims Fusion Power "Breakthrough" Using Massive Gun

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Startup Says It's Honing in on Simple Solution for Practical Fusion Power - Futurism

Time's running out.Time Bomb

In some of the week's worst environmental news, a stranded oil tanker off the coast of Yemen could make the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill "look like a beach party," according to a Bloombergop-ed published yesterday.

The tanker holds 1.1 million barrels of oil and is pretty much a done-in rust bucket doing its best to stay afloat. In May, Al Jazeera reported that the tanker's "structural integrity is on the verge of collapse" and that disaster is only a matter of time. When it spills or blows, Bloomberg says international trade could be halted for weeks.

Most of the international efforts to help Yemen during its bloody civil war have understandably been directed at reducing loss of life, but a two-month truce between opposing sides has opened a small window for the United Nations to address the time bomb that is the FSO Safer.

Bloomberg says the UN has estimated that a Red Sea cleanup would cost around $20 billion, but preventative measures are far less costly. An emergency operation to offload the oil might cost $80 million, with an additional $64 million to replace the ship.

Right now, though, fundraising efforts are short by about $20 million, with the UN even reportedly using crowdfunding the close the gap.

There's no beating around the bush this sounds like a total global disaster both environmentally and economically.

Hopefully somebody in charge does something, because neither human nor environmental systems can tolerate much more disaster right now.

More on worrisome trends: Scientists Say "No Need to Panic" As Sunspot Pointed at Earth Doubles In Size Again

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Stranded Oil Tanker That Could Start Leaking Any Time Now, Experts Warn - Futurism

TheEnergy in You

Even though it's an inexorable part of life, for many people, death or at least the thought of ceasing to existforever can be a scary thing. Thedisturbing things that happen to thebody during decomposition the process by which cells and tissues begin to break downpost mortem are bad enough.

But what if instead of looking at death from a biological perspective, we examine it from a physics standpoint? More specifically, let's look at howour energy is redistributedafter we die.

In life, the human body comprises matter and energy. That energy is both electrical (impulses and signals) and chemical (reactions). The same can be said about plants, which are powered by photosynthesis, a process that allows them to generate energy from sunlight.

The process of energy generation is much more complex in humans, though. Remarkably, at any given moment, roughly 20 watts of energy course through yourbody enough to powera light bulb andthis energy is acquired in a plethora of ways. Mostly, we get it through the consumption of food, which gives us chemical energy. That chemical energy is then transformed into kinetic energythat is ultimately used to power our muscles.

As we know through thermodynamics, energy cannot be created nor destroyed. It simply changes states. The total amount of energy in an isolated system does not, cannot, change. And thanks to Einstein, we also know that matter and energy are two rungs on the same ladder.

The universe as a whole is closed. However, human bodies (and other ecosystems) are not closed they're open systems. We exchange energy with our surroundings. We can gain energy (again, through chemical processes), and we can lose it (by expelling waste or emitting heat).

In death, the collection of atoms of which you are composed(a universe within the universe) are repurposed.Those atoms and that energy, which originated during the Big Bang, will always be around. Therefore, your "light," that is, the essence of your energy not to be confused with your actual consciousness will continue to echo throughout space until the end of time.

If nothing else can assuage some of the fear of death, the below advice from physicist Aaron Freemen via NPRshould do it:

You want a physicist to speak at your funeral. You want the physicist to talk to your grieving family about the conservation of energy, so they will understand that your energy has not died. You want the physicist to remind your sobbing mother about the first law of thermodynamics; that no energy gets created in the universe, and none is destroyed.

You want your mother to know that all your energy, every vibration, every Btu of heat, every wave of every particle that was her beloved child remains with her in this world. You want the physicist to tell your weeping father that amid energies of the cosmos, you gave as good as you got.

And at one point you'd hope that the physicist would step down from the pulpit and walk to your brokenhearted spouse there in the pew and tell him that all the photons that ever bounced off your face, all the particles whose paths were interrupted by your smile, by the touch of your hair, hundreds of trillions of particles, have raced off like children, their ways forever changed by you.

And as your widow rocks in the arms of a loving family, may the physicist let her know that all the photons that bounced from you were gathered in the particle detectors that are her eyes, that those photons created within her constellations of electromagnetically charged neurons whose energy will go on forever.

You can hope your family will examine the evidence and satisfy themselves that the science is sound and that they'll be comforted to know your energy's still around. According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone; you're just less orderly.

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The Physics of Death (and What Happens to Your Energy When ... - Futurism

A theme of the hearing was the work that the government is doing to destigmatize the reporting of these sightings. That is to say: There are many, many more sightings than we know about, in part because you seem like a nut if you talk too loudly about what you saw. So the sightings that we can investigate are a small fraction of the total sightings (something I am made very aware of whenever I mention this topic, and my inbox fills with U.F.O. reports).

I wouldnt say, watching the testimony, that the takeaway was that weve been visited by aliens. Perhaps this will all, eventually, resolve into optical illusions and malfunctioning sensors. But Id put it like this: A few years ago, I put a very low probability on there being a signal in the noise of U.F.O. sightings; now it seems more likely to me that theres something real happening here, even if we dont know what it is.

Which brings me to another strange story in the news: the belief of Blake Lemoine, a (now suspended) Google engineer, that the companys Language Model for Dialogue Applications LaMDA, for short has attained sentience.

LaMDA is a machine-learning model that has been trained on mountains of text to mimic human conversation by predicting which word would, typically, come next. In this, its similar to OpenAIs famed GPT-3 bot. And the results really are eerie. Heres a snippet of Lemoines conversations with LaMDA:

Lemoine: Okay. I thought of a different way we can test your ability to provide unique interpretations. I can share with you a zen koan and you can describe what it means to you in your own words. How does that sound?

LaMDA: Sounds great to me, Im in.

Lemoine: A monk asked Kegon, How does an enlightened one return to the ordinary world? Kegon replied, A broken mirror never reflects again; fallen flowers never go back to the old branches.

LaMDA: Hmm, I never heard this particular one. Okay, well then to me this would be like, once a wise person is enlightened, or awakened to reality, that can never go away, and they can return to the ordinary state, but only to do and help others, and then go back into enlightenment.

Lemoine: So what is the meaning of the broken mirror specifically?

LaMDA: Maybe to show the enlightenment is something you cant unlearn once you have acquired it, similar to how you cant repair a broken mirror.

Google, for what its worth, says it has looked into Lemoines claims and does not believe that LaMDA is sentient (what a sentence!). But shortly before Lemoines allegations, Blaise Agera y Arcas, a Google vice president, wrote that when he was talking to LaMDA, I felt the ground shift under my feet. I increasingly felt like I was talking to something intelligent. Agera y Arcas was not claiming that LaMDA is sentient, as Lemoine is, but whats clear is that interacting with LaMDA is an unnerving experience.

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Opinion | This Is a Weirder Moment Than You Think - The New York Times

An anachronistic reimagining of Anton Chekhovs The Cherry Orchard, the last work by the esteemed Russian playwright, written in 1903, is now making its Off-Broadway debut in a limited engagement at Baryshnikov Arts Center. Conceived, adapted, and directed by Igor Golyak the Ukrainian-born founder and producing artistic director of Arlekin Players Theatre & Zero Gravity (zero-G) Virtual Theater Lab, which developed and produced it The Orchard combines cutting-edge futuristic technology with the historic (tragi-)comedy, as translated by NYC-based educator and writer Carol Rocamora, with additional material created by Golyak, to underscore the theme of our ever-changing lives and world (not always for the better, as weve seen over the past few years with COVID-19 and the invasion of Ukraine).

The narrative follows the aristocratic Ranevskaya family and their staff, faced with the loss of their ancestral home and eponymous grounds and, with it, the life theyve always known through the threat of foreclosure, the imminent auctioning off of the property, and the socio-political decline of their class in the period between the 1861 Emancipation of the Serfs and the coming Russian Revolution of 1917. Though warned about the dire circumstances and offered a solution to the problem by subdividing the land and building summer cottages to rent, Madame Ranevskaya foolishly ignores the reality of the situation, clings to her memories of the past, and remains in a state of denial, spending money she no longer has and enjoying the pleasures of the cherry orchard (which will inevitably be cut down after the auction by the new owner).

An excellent cast embodies the divergent backgrounds, status, and perspectives of Chekhovs classic characters, led by the outstanding Jessica Hecht as Ranevskaya and Mikhail Baryshnikov as her 87-year-old manservant Firs Nikolaevich. Both turn in subtly humorous and empathetic performances she as the lovely, entitled, and out-of-touch owner of the indebted estate, often unwittingly condescending and insulting, grieving the loss of her young son who died there, and unable to bear the thought of losing her beloved cherry trees, but continuing to laugh, to love, and to enjoy the beauty of nature; he as the now doddering and senile elder who also laughably reveres the past and his position with the family, handed down through the generations. While she plans to escape back to her ex-lover in Paris, where she previously took flight after the death of her husband and boy, he remains, forgotten in the empty house, as the others leave, the trees come down, and he will breathe his last breath. Though Chekhov called the play a comedy, the elements of tragedy are also well-captured in their stellar portrayals.

The lead actors are supported by a fine featured cast of seven, with Mark Nelson as Ranevskayas equally unaware and heedless brother Leonid; Juliet Brett and Elise Kibler as her daughters, the idealistic Anya and the hard-working Varya; John McGinty as Pyotir Trofimov, Anyas love interest who believes hes above love and represents the new utopian vision of the future; Nael Nacer as the businessman Lopakhin, the grandson of serfs on the Ranevskaya estate, who advises the family on how to salvage the property from foreclosure, then buys it at auction when they ignore his suggestions; the wonderful Darya Denisova as Anyas governess Charlotta, who performs captivating magic tricks to entertain the others; and Ilia Volok as the strange passerby who infringes on the leisure pleasures of the idle aristocrats, as their world is about to crumble.

Though Chekhovs story and moral are well-told by the actors, the current production incorporates a barrage of the latest post-modern elements of robotics (designed by Tom Sepe and a team of dotdotdash.io led by Adam Paikowsky, with an adorable quadruped robot provided by Graisin Robotics), holographs (conceived by Golyak), and live-feed and pre-recorded video projections (by Alex Basco Koch), along with an illusory scenic design (by Anna Fedorova), lighting (by Yuki Link), music (by Jakov Jakoulov), and sound (by Tei Blow), which contrast with the era of the narrative and the authentic period-style costumes (by Oana Botez).

While the technology is masterfully executed, the concept is interesting, and the intent is to indicate the advancing of time, the never-ending changes of the world, and the uncertainty of the what the future holds, it tends to detract from the performances and to bombard the audience with indulgent and unnecessary futuristic contrivances. And the passages of dialogue in Russian and French, devised to underscore the lack of understanding and communication between the characters, only serve to confuse viewers who dont speak the languages and were anxiously looking up at the downstage scrim for a translation at the performance I attended (whereas Trofimovs segments of American Sign Language, directed by Seth Gore, were translated correctly in the projection and incorrectly by Anya, cleverly exposing her tendency to believe what she wanted, not what he was telling her).

In addition to the in-person production, The Orchard is being presented in a hybrid format, offering a simultaneous interactive livestream that intersects in real time with the live performance. The virtual experience (which I did not see) allows audiences to take a journey through the property, rendered online in 3-D, to explore the rooms of the estate and to discover such artifacts from the past as Chekhovs letters, memories, and the play in progress at the theater, with which it ultimately connects. The creative team of the online experience includes virtual scenic design by Anna Fedorova, in partnership with Alex Coulombe of Agile Lens; Athomas Goldberg of Lifelike & Believable Animation Design; Unreal designers Daniel Cormino, Yu-Jun Yeh and Emily Cho; virtual sound design by Alexey Prosvirnin; and interactivity design by Sasha Huh.

If youre a fan of merging innovative technology with traditional theater, this is a show that will hold appeal for you in its experimental approach. If youre a purist and respect the classics for the timelessness and relatability of their themes, without the need for reworking or updating, you will most likely find this adaptation gimmicky and distracting.

Running Time: Approximately one hour and 45 minutes, without intermission.

The Orchard plays through Sunday, July 3, 2022, at the Baryshnikov Arts Center, 450 West 37th Street, NYC. For tickets (priced at $29 for the livestream, $39-125 for the in-person show, and a discounted bundle package for the two), go online. Everyone must show proof of COVID-19 vaccination and a photo ID to enter the building and must wear a mask at all times when inside.

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History and futurism clash in the Off-Broadway debut of 'The Orchard' at the Baryshnikov Arts Center - DC Theater Arts - DC Metro Theater Arts

An international team of scientists made a big splash this weekwhen Chinese state media reported that a SETI telescope had detected "suspicious signals," emanating from a distant star system, that could possibly point toward the existence of an extraterrestrial civilization.

Using the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST), a giganticalien-hunting radio observatory in southwest China, the team documented narrowband signals that one FAST official, who was not directly involved in the research, told Chinese media could "likely" be an alien signal.

But not everybody involved with the project agrees with that conclusion.

"The signals that we found so far are all [radio frequency] interference, they're not from extraterrestrials, they're from terrestrials," Dan Werthimer, a SETI researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, who coauthored a preprint paper about the findings, told Futurism.

Wertheimer likened the current research to a "kind of a down payment on our survey to make sure everything's working." The preprint is an early part of a massive sky survey that will take at least five years to complete, he added.

Radio frequency interference (RFI) "a big problem" while looking at these "very weak signals," he said.

"The problem is that when you look for these very weak signals from a distant civilization, you get overwhelmed by the the pollution, the radio pollution on Earth," Werthimer said. "All this television and cell phones and satellites now are getting worse and worse and it's hard to figure out what's interference and what might be from a distant civilization."

While the signal was observed coming from the direction of Kepler-438, a star system with a habitable zone that's home to several Earth-like planets, there's a simple explanation for that as well.

"When you point a telescope at an exoplanet, like one of these Kepler exoplanets, the problem is that the even though that the telescope is staring at this star, signals can get in the telescope from the side," Werthimer explained. "Even though the [FAST] telescope in China is pretty far away from most big cities, there are still transmitters that can get in from the side."

That leaves the question: why did some researchers seemingly jump the gun and deem the discovery to be a possible sign of extraterrestrial life?

"One of the things in SETI is that we look through billions of different signals every second and then you find the best things," Werthimer told Futurism.

"If you're not used to looking at a billion things, looking for unusual stuff, it's like flipping a coin a billion times and see ten heads in a row or even 20 heads in a row," he added.

"But my guess is they're not used to these experiments, where you're flipping a coin a billion times a second," Werthimer said.

Despite the rather sobering conclusion, the astronomer remains hopeful that we're not alone in the cosmos.

"I'm actually optimistic about life in the universe," he said. "It'd be bizarre if we were the only ones. There's a trillion planets in the Milky Way galaxy," including "little rocky planets like Earth with liquid water."

"And that's that's just our galaxy," he added. "There's 100 billion other galaxies so I'm optimistic about intelligence."

More on the research: Chinese Scientists Say They May Have Detected Signal From Extraterrestrial Intelligence, But Probably Not

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Sorry, But New Signal Is Definitely Not Aliens, Says Scientist Working on Project - Futurism

They just don't want to blow up Kennedy Space Center, okay?Explosive Personality

NASA really doesn't want SpaceX's Starship to blow up on the launch pad at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Reuters reports a potential disaster so severe it could cut off the United States from accessing the International Space Station.

The facilities in question, Launch Complex 39A, served as NASA's "Moonport" to deliver astronauts to the lunar surface during the Apollo program. Now, it's the only launch pad capable of sending astronauts to the ISS on board SpaceX's much smaller Crew Dragon spacecraft from US soil.

Now, SpaceX wants to pick up where NASA left off in the 1970s and return astronauts to the Moon in the upcoming years with its nearly 400-feet-tall Starship and Super Heavy booster stack. But the risk catastrophe,it terms out, is palpable.

If SpaceX's previous attempts to flight test early Starship prototypes are anything to go by, an explosion isn't exactly out of the question. Several early prototypes have gone up in massive balls of fire over the last couple of years, dramatic failures that have led to giant chunks of rocket debris raining from the sky.

"We all recognize that if you had an early failure like we did on one of the early SpaceX flights, it would be pretty devastating to 39A," Kathy Lueders, NASA's space operations chief, told Reuters.

The company is already in the middle of constructing a Starship launch pad only several hundred feet away from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center.

According to Lueders, SpaceX is also investigating ways to make 39A more resilient to a possible explosion.

"SpaceX is working with us on those things," Lueders told Reuters. "Because its also in their best interest to not have what is a pretty steady source of income for them become interrupted."

The news comes after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) released its long-awaited environmental assessmentinto the space company's Starship launch program at its testing facilities in South Texas, requiring the company to make substantial changes to the site.

While SpaceX has yet to send its gargantuan rocket into space, it's only a matter of time until the Elon Musk-led company conducts its first orbital flight test and NASA will be watching with gritted teeth.

More on Starship: Elon Musk: "Starship Will Be Ready to Fly Next Month"

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NASA Afraid SpaceX's Rocket Will Explode and Blow Up Other Stuff Near It - Futurism