Alright, so self-assembling electronics are hardly new in and of themselves, and nanoscale tech tends to always come with bombastic promises, but you don’t wanna miss how this latest innovation is built. Two professors from the University of Minnesota have successfully demonstrated a self-assembly technique that arranges microscopic electronic elements in their proper order thanks to the absolute enmity that exists between water and oil. By coating elements with a hydrophilic layer on one side and some hypdrophobic goo on the other, they’ve achieved the proper element orientation, and the final step in their work was the insertion of a pre-drilled, pre-soldered sheet, which picks up each element while being slowly drawn out of the liquid non-mixture. The achievement here is in finding the perfect densities of water and oil to make the magic happen, and a working device of 64,000 elements has been shown off — taking only three minutes to put together. If the method’s future proves successful, we’ll all be using electronics built on flexible, plastic, metal, or otherwise unconventional substrates sometime soon.
Astronomers have directly detected the light signature of a planet orbiting another sun-like star for the first time, according to Space.com.
The planet is about 10 times as massive as Jupiter, and orbits between two other giant planets–all of which circle around HR 8799, a very young star about 130 light-years from Earth.
The finding is significant not just for historical and planet discovery reasons, but also because the light signature can tell scientists the chemical makeup of the planet–which would lead to an understanding of how the planet was formed.
To find the planet, the team of astronomers used a ground-based telescope: the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile. In the future, the report said the light signatures could help scientists figure out which planets could support life. (Image credit: ESO/HR 8799)
Today at about 7:45 AM EST, a small asteroid called 2010 AL30 flew by Earth at a distance of 80,000 miles–just one third of the way from here to the Moon, reports Discovery News.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory confirmed that 2010 AL30 is in fact an “Apollo” class near-Earth asteroid (NEA) and not man-made space junk. Earlier theories revolved around the latter since the object’s orbital period is almost exactly one year. That made it a candidate for all the spent rocket boosters and spacecraft pieces floating in orbit.
Even if 2010 AL30 had struck the planet, it wouldn’t have done any damage. Instead, it would have vaporized in the upper atmosphere, which is something that happens about once per year for objects of this size. The report said that if anything, planetary scientists now know we get a two-day warning for 10-meter-wide asteroids before they hit us.
“The deeper Hubble looks into space, the farther back in time it looks, because light takes billions of years to cross the observable universe,” the Space Telescope Science Institute said in a statement.
Five separate international teams of astronomers have analyzed the WFC3’s new images, first taken from the Ultra Deep Field in August 2009. Many are presenting papers this week at the 215th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Washington, D.C.
Cue up the Blue Danube waltz from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Astronomers have discovered 33 pairs of black holes locked in a dance, with motions that mirror what Isaac Newton might have predicted over 300 years ago, had he known about the things.
The International Space Fellowship reports that astronomers discovered the 33 black hole pairs as part of the DEEP2 Galaxy Redshift Survey, which covers 50,000 galaxies observed with the Deep Imaging Multi-Object Spectrograph (DEIMOS) on the 400-inch Keck II telescope in Mauna Kea, Hawaii (pictured).
Nine years for a trip is a long time by just about any measure. But it’s already halfway over for NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, which is currently on track for a 2015 arrival with Pluto. (You know, the non-planet.)
Space.com reports that the craft is now 1.53 billion miles from Earth, and 1.53 billion miles from Pluto. It will first pass Pluto on July 14th, 2015 before dipping into the Kuiper Belt.
“This is the first of several milestones over the next 10 months that mark the halfway points in our journey to the solar system’s frontier, where Pluto lies,” said Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute in Colorado and New Horizons principal investigator, in the article.
On a personal note, I was fortunate enough to see Alan Stern speak at the Hayden Planetarium in New York back in 2005, right before the craft launched in January 2006. At the time, he characterized the spacecraft as about the size of a Mini Cooper, and had targeted the summer 2015 date back then as well. (Image credit: NASA)
Say hello to “the world’s first production model 3D bio-printer.” What you’re looking at is a machine capable of arranging human cells and artificial scaffolds into complex three-dimensional structures, which result in such wonderful things as replacement liver and kidney tissue, or such simple niceties as artificially grown teeth. All we’re told of the internal workings is that the bio-printer utilizes laser-calibrated print heads and that its design is the first to offer sufficiently wide flexibility of use to make the device viable. Organovo will be the company responsible for promoting the new hardware to research institutions, while at the same time trying to convince the world that it’s not the fifth sign of the apocalypse. Maybe if the printer didn’t have a menacing red button attached to it, we’d all be a little less freaked out by it.
The 2000s left us feeling battered, but the 2010s are looking awesome. Thanks to recent scientific research and an explosion of cultural interest in science fiction, there are at least 15 brilliant reasons to stick around for another decade.
Image by Dan Lydersen.
15. Lost returns Sure, it may not last for the entire decade, but you can start the ‘tens right by feeding your confused and delighted brain with the conclusion to JJ Abrams’ time-twisting tale of an island that ripped the fabric of space-time. Lost returns Feb. 2 to begin its sixth and final season.
14. Molecular machines As nanotechnology emerges from science fiction into the laboratory, one of the most promising nanotech applications is the molecular motor – an engineered molecule that can do anything from deliver a payload of medicine to a hard-to-reach part of the body, to crawl up your DNA to repair damage. Molecular motors might serve as cellular “prosthetics,” attaching to cells to augment their functioning (yes, you can overclock your cells). We’re pretty far from having replicators, but we may have ultra-tiny robots that can zoom through our blood and fix us up far more elegantly than the surgeon’s knife ever could.
13. Ridley Scott returns to scifi. He peeled the top layer off our brains and eyeballs with scifi flicks Alien and Blade Runner, and then went on to make dramas without any spaceships or dystopian future cities in them. At last one of science fiction’s greatest cinematic auteurs has pledged to make the ‘tens the decade when he returns to the genre. He’s got movie versions of Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World in the works, as well as a prequel to Alien. Knowing these films are coming from Scott is going to keep us on the edge of our (movie theater) seats for the next ten years.
12. A follow-up to Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. With her brilliant literary fantasy novel Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Susanna Clarke changed both fantasy writing and what was considered acceptable in literary circles. She took a novel scientific-historical approach to her story of two magicians who become involved in politics and warfare in England during the Napoleonic Wars. Fans have been waiting for a sequel to the novel for quite a while, and insiders at Clarke’s publishing house says she’s definitely under contract to write one – supposedly a sequel set in the Middle East and Asia – but there’s no deadline for this author who might take up to 10 years to write a novel. Let’s assume optimistically that she’s already been working on it for a couple of years – that means sometime in the ‘tens we’ll get to plunge into another of Clarke’s amazing tales of magic and geopolitical history.
11. A much-needed population dropoff is imminent. The US Census recently released its projections for global population expansion and decline over the next few decades. Although the population is growing, its rate of growth is entering a steep decline. Next decade may be the beginning of the end of the population explosion, which is good news for everyone – especially people who will be living on the planet 100 years from now.
10. Green development. Over the next decade, we’ll start to see results from programs designed to foster green development, like Google’s major alternative energy initiative RE<C or the US Department of Energy’s investments in green resources. Electric cars could come to dominate the roads, and eco-friendly urban developments (like China’s delayed Dongtan) could start opening their doors to residents. What happens when old energy is challenged by new energy? Live through the ‘tens and you just might find out.
9. Dubai skyline. Pretty much every major construction project and architectural wonder is being planned for the insta-city of Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. The world’s tallest building, the world’s roundest building, and the world’s most elaborate human-engineered islands are all part of Dubai’s future skyline and footprint. Though the Dubai government’s investment wing, Dubai World, is suffering a debt crisis, there is still ample time for it to be resolved with a bailout – and many of the region’s biggest projects (like world’s tallest building Burj Dubai) have continued despite financial setbacks. We can’t wait to see what the future looks like in the Middle East’s most cosmopolitan region.
8. Joss Whedon conquers the web After the disasters of Dollhouse and Firefly last decade, Joss Whedon has sworn off television and pledged to take his dark SF/fantasy visions direct to the web. He’s already won our hearts with his first web series, Dr. Horrible’s Singalong Blog. As web series grow in legitimacy, and most people turn to their monitors to watch TV, we anticipate that this may be the smartest move Whedon has ever made. We can’t wait to set our phasers to interweb and watch the next thing Whedon’s imagination will spawn.
7. Alastair Reynolds’ 10 books in 10 years for Orbit. A master of smart, intriguing space operas like Revelation Space, Reynolds has become over the past decade one of the most sought-after science fiction writers in the genre. UK publisher Orbit acknowledged his stature by offering the author an unprecedented book deal: £1 million to write 10 books over the next decade – approximately one per year. Reynolds is starting with what he calls an “African inflected” trilogy about how humanity will finally get offworld and start colonizing space.
6. Steven Moffat takes over Doctor Who Writer of some of the new Doctor Who‘s strongest episodes, such as “The Empty Child” and “Blink,” Moffat is also known for creating the BBC series Jekyll, which wowed critics and viewers with its intense reimagining of the classic Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde tale. Now that showrunner Russell T. Davies has stepped down, Moffat is taking over running Doctor Who starting in 2010 with the new series’ fifth season. Saying that we can’t wait is a major understatement.
5. Exploring the asteroid belt with Dawn satellite. Launched in 2007, the Dawn satellite is due to rendezvous with the large Vesta asteroids and with Ceres, the largest planetoid in the asteroid belt. Researchers believe that these asteroids will be packed with metals like nickel as well as ice. If we ever hope to send missions to the outer planets like Jupiter and Saturn (home to Titan, a moon that might support life), we’re going to need a stop-off point with a rich natural store of water (a source of oxygen, among other things) as well as metals. This mission, the first to examine the Vestas and Ceres up close, could help establish the asteroid belt as a massive rest stop for travelers in our solar system.
4. Synthetic life. Last decade, genome warlord Craig Venter promised – and nearly delivered – an entirely synthetic bacterium, with DNA made from scratch (well, from polymers) in the lab. Meanwhile synthetic biology pioneers like Drew Endy have worked to make the tools of genetic engineering available to everyone who wants to experiment with DNA. Researchers have created DNA-controlled counters and students invented bacteria that can locate buried landmines for the annual synthetic biology iGEM competition at MIT. In the ‘tens, get ready for the first synthetic organism, quickly followed by the second through the twentieth. We probably won’t be getting pigs with wings any time soon, but we could get bacteria that eat pollution in the ocean.
3. Space opera conquers movies. With JJ Abrams working on two sequels to his rebooted Star Trek series, Pixar’s Andrew Stanton (director of Wall-E) doing his John Carter of Mars movie, James Cameron contemplating other movies set in the Avatar universe, and Duncan Jones (director of Moon) signed on to helm several other scifi projects (including two more movies set in the Moon universe), it looks like space opera might be the new awesomeness in cinema. Instead of mutants and zombies destroying the Earth, spaceships and tales of astropolitics will be expanding our minds. And that’s something to look forward to.
2. Finding the Higgs boson particle. The Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland is just getting started on the many physics experiments scheduled to zoom through its long underground tunnels. By far the most widely-anticipated experiment will (hopefully) reveal the elusive Higgs boson, a particle that scientists believe is responsible for giving mass to every object in the universe. Isolating the Higgs boson could help us understand where mass comes from, and why some particles (like photons) are massless. If discovery is the first step towards mastery, then who knows where the Higgs boson could take us?
1. The Mars Science Laboratory Set to launch in 2011 and land on Mars in 2012, the Mars Science Laboratory is NASA’s latest effort to explore whether life like ours ever existed on Mars – and could be supported there again. The Laboratory is a robot rover called Curiosity, and is like a much larger and more sophisticated version of the two Martian rovers Spirit and Opportunity. According to NASA:
The rover will analyze dozens of samples scooped from the soil and drilled from rocks. The record of the planet’s climate and geology is essentially “written in the rocks and soil” — in their formation, structure, and chemical composition. The rover’s onboard laboratory will study rocks, soils, and the local geologic setting in order to detect chemical building blocks of life (e.g., forms of carbon) on Mars and will assess what the martian environment was like in the past.
So why get so excited about another Martian rover? Because what Curiosity discovers will help bring us closer to establishing a Martian base which could one day become the foundation for a thriving Martian civilization. And that’s the kind of future that we live for.
If you’re like me, you either own or know someone who owns a couple dozen old issues of the National Geographic magazine stashed away in a box somewhere in the attic or the back corner of a closet somewhere. Unfortunately, all that paper is wasting away slowly wasting away, and if you ever want to show off those old issues you may be out of luck if you’re not storing them properly.
A Russian Soyuz rocket with three astronauts from the U.S., Japan, and Russia has docked with the International Space Station, according to AFP.
The new crew consists of Soichi Noguchi of Japan, NASA astronaut Timothy Creamer, and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kotov. The three will spend the next six months in orbit, working on building a new 360-degree panoramic viewing platform for the ISS.
The ISS remains in orbit 220 miles above Earth, with one of its primary goals being a test of long-term space travel effects on humans, the report said–a necessity for any distant-future manned missions to Mars.
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Alright, so self-assembling electronics are hardly new in and of themselves, and nanoscale tech tends to always come with bombastic promises, but you don’t wanna miss how this latest innovation is built. Two professors from the University of Minnesota have successfully demonstrated a self-assembly technique that arranges microscopic electronic elements in their proper order thanks to the absolute enmity that exists between water and oil. By coating elements with a hydrophilic layer on one side and some hypdrophobic goo on the other, they’ve achieved the proper element orientation, and the final step in their work was the insertion of a pre-drilled, pre-soldered sheet, which picks up each element while being slowly drawn out of the liquid non-mixture. The achievement here is in finding the perfect densities of water and oil to make the magic happen, and a working device of 64,000 elements has been shown off — taking only three minutes to put together. If the method’s future proves successful, we’ll all be using electronics built on flexible, plastic, metal, or otherwise unconventional substrates sometime soon.
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Today at about 7:45 AM EST, a small asteroid called 2010 AL30 flew by Earth at a distance of 80,000 miles–just one third of the way from here to the Moon, reports 
