Collaborate Disseminate
In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the first Apollo moon landing, Google created a 1.4-square-mile portrait of NASA software developer Margaret Hamilton using more than 107,000 mirrors from the Ivanpah Solar Facility in the Mojave Desert, a solar thermal power plant with a gross capacity of 392 megawatts.
The …read more
Continue reading Reflecting On Margaret Hamilton: 50 Years After Apollo 11
“Once we figure out, or I hope we figure out, that we are not alone in the universe, the connection to the cosmos is just going to be even stronger.” Continue reading Scientists Design a ‘Template’ for Plant Life on Alien Worlds
Conservation scientists found that 261 out of 1,438 cactus species are unprotected by preserves or conservation regulations, putting them more at risk than mammals and birds. Continue reading A Booming Black Market Is Putting Many Cacti Species in Danger
You’d be hard pressed to find an aircraft that wasn’t designed and tested without extensive use of simulation. Whether it’s the classic approach of using a scale model in a wind tunnel or more modern techniques such as computational fluid dynamics, a lot of testing happens before any actual hardware gets bolted together. But at some point the real deal needs to get a shakedown flight, and historically a favorite testing ground has been the massive dry lake beds in the Western United States. The weather is always clear, the ground is smooth, and there’s nobody for miles around.
Thanks …read more
Continue reading Quadcopter Hardware Gets Classic Lake Bed Test
From the windtraps and stillsuits of Dune’s Arrakis, to the moisture vaporators of Tatooine, science fiction has invented fantastic ways to collect the water necessary for life on desert worlds. On Earth we generally have an easier go of it, but water supply in arid climates is still an important issue. Addressing this obstacle, a team of researchers from MIT and the University of California at Berkeley have developed a method to tease moisture out of thin air.
A year after the team first published their idea, they have successfully field-tested their method on an Arizona State University rooftop in …read more
The strange story of a decades-long quest to recreate Earth in miniature and why it’s integral to our future as a species on and off the planet. Continue reading A 21st Century ‘Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth’
An oasis in the desert is the quintessential image of salvation for the wearied wayfarer. At Burning Man 2016, Grove — ten biofeedback tree sculptures — provided a similar, interactive respite from the festival. Each tree has over two thousand LEDs, dozens of feet of steel tube, two Teensy boards used by the custom breath sensors to create festival magic.
Grove works like this: at your approach — detected by dual IR sensors — a mechanical flower blooms, meant to prompt investigation. As you lean close, the breath sensors in the daffodil-like flower detect whether you’re inhaling or exhaling, translating …read more
No evidence of sandworms yet. Continue reading A New Type of Dune Has Been Found on Mars
