A fictional killer robot in the film “Terminator 2: Judgment Day.” In reality, researchers are less worried about a robot uprising and more concerned about how development of lethal autonomous weapons that take responsibility for killing out of human hands. Credit: Studio Canal | Carolco Pictures
Notable tech leaders and scientists have signed open letter petitions calling for a ban on lethal autonomous weapons powered by artificial intelligence technologies. But a group ...read more
[Editor’s note: So, it turns out that there are actually two species of goblin spider named after David Attenborough! I already written about one, Prethopalpus attenboroughi, but I’ve just stumbled across another. It’s cool, and also a weird coincidence — though, to be fair, the papers describing the species do share a coauthor. Big David Attenborough fan, I guess. In any case, it’s cringe-y enough when you’re the new guy in the office and someone already has ...read more
Holding the current bottle of peanuts in the MSA. Teitel.
Next to the Deep Space Network’s main control room at JPL is the aptly named Mission Supply Area. It’s an area used for major mission events like launches, landings, and orbit insertion burns, and if you go there on a tour someone will offer you peanuts. It’s tradition, a tradition that gained a lot of popularity when the world watched engineers eating peanuts during Curiosity’s 2012 landing on Mars. There’s ...read more
In the 1970s, the original version of the Voyager mission was supposed to include a Pluto flyby–and Alan Stern worked through many failed attempts to launch a Pluto mission in the decades since. (Graphic: Jason Davis/The Planetary Society)
On July 14, 2015, the New Horizons spacecraft swept past Pluto, returning eye-popping images of the dwarf planet and its huge (relatively speaking) moon, Charon. At the time, the best existing images of Pluto showed nothing more than an enigmatic blur. ...read more
A bright tangle of magnetic field lines has appeared on its surface. But otherwise the Sun is singularly serene. What’s going on?
View of the Sun from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory
The other day, NASA posted this closeup view of the Sun under the headline: “Tangled Up in Blue.”
The reference to the Bob Dylan tune aside, I found the video particularly intriguing. That’s because the Sun’s surface, as imaged here by the Solar Dynami ...read more
This colorful version of Mercury was assembled from spectral data taken with the MESSENGER spacecraft, highlighting various minerals on the planet’s surface. (Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington)
New data is throwing our theories about Mercury’s formation into disarray.
Scientists already knew that Mercury looked a bit odd inside. The planet is 60 percent core by volume. Earth is just 15-17 percent core. The crust and ...read more
The new fissure eruption in Leilani Estates on the far downslope of the East Rift zone of Kilauea, seen on May 3, 2018. USGS/HVO.
Yesterday, a new eruption started on the slopes of Kilauea. Far down the East Rift zone, in the Leilani Estates subdivision, fissures began to open yesterday. By the time evening hit, lava was spattering from the cracks and short lava flows that travelled ten meters (30 feet) soon followed.
Scientists from the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory flew over the new erupt ...read more
While this captive gorilla noshes on fibrous veg such as kale, in the wild, the animals’ diets vary seasonally, as does their microbiome. (Credit Wikimedia Commons/Ltshears)
Researchers analyzing the gut microbes of gorillas and other primates found seasonal shifts that underscore just how much is missing from the modern human diet — and why it matters.
Right now, you’re hosting your own special ecosystem. Millions of microbes live out their lives on your skin and in every no ...read more
