Tractor Beams - No Longer SciFi

Rebel ships better watch out because, apparently, we’re closer to making tractor beams a reality than ever. Once relegated to the realm of fantasy in Star Wars and Star Trek, Phys.org is reporting that a team of aerospace engineers led by Professor Hanspeter Schaub is working on electron beams that use attractive or repulsive electrostatic force to remove space debris from orbit. Presumably, if the team finds success in creating these beams, we could prevent Kessler Syndrome from becoming a reality.

Kessler Syndrome is a phenomenon, laid out by NASA scientist Donald Kessler, where the space debris in Earth’s orbit becomes so significant that it hinders our ability to launch satellites, spacecraft, orbital stations, and anything else into orbit. It’s a major problem that could easily become the state of our orbit if measures aren’t taken to prevent it. Using so-called “space dump trucks” with tractor beams could be one way to lessen our debris problem.

The main problem with space debris is that it’s not so easy to clear out, as objects in space move rapidly and unpredictably, so you can’t just grab it like you would grab trash out of the ocean. Tractor beams would allow us to move debris and other objects out of the way without having to touch them directly. Another example of the usefulness of these beams would be moving old satellites out of the way to make room for new satellites.

Of course, there is still a lot of work today before these tractor beams can be applied in real-world scenarios. To test the technology, the team uses a vacuum chamber called the Electrostatic Charging Laboratory for Interactions between Plasma and Spacecraft. The vacuum chamber can simulate a space environment, and the team can place simulated debris made out of metal to experiment with the electrostatic tractors.  READ MORE...

They Are The Borg

In the TV series Star Trek, the Borg are cybernetic aliens that assimilate humans and other creatures as a means of achieving perfection. So when Jill Banfield, a geomicrobiologist at the University of California, Berkeley, sifted through DNA in the mud of her backyard and discovered a strange linear chromosome that included genes from a variety of microbes, her Trekkie son proposed naming it after the sci-fi aliens. 

The new type of genetic material was a mystery. Maybe it was part of a viral genome. Maybe it was a strange bacterium. Or maybe it was just an independent piece of DNA existing outside of cells. Whatever it is, it's "pretty exciting," says W. Ford Doolittle, an evolutionary biologist at Dalhousie University who was not involved with the work.

Researchers have found many examples of DNA floating independently outside the chromosome or chromosomes that make up an organism's standard genome. Small loops called plasmids, for example, exist inside microbes and ferry genes for thwarting antibiotics among different kinds of bacteria.

But Banfield wasn't looking for DNA that could move between organisms. Instead, she and graduate student Basem Al-Shayeb were searching for viruses that infect archaea, a type of microbe often found in places devoid of oxygen. 

They would dig 1 meter or more below the surface and collect mud samples that might harbor archaea and their viruses. Next, they would sequence every stretch of DNA in the samples and use sophisticated computer programs to scan for sequences that signified a virus, rather than any other organism.

"We started off with a piece of mud and 10 trillion pieces of DNA," Banfield says. One sample, taken from the mud on her property, contained a gene-filled stretch of DNA almost 1 million bases long—and more than half the genes were novel. 

This linear stretch of DNA also had a particular pattern of bases at its beginning and end, distinct stretches of repetitive DNA between its genes, and two places along the sequence where DNA duplication could begin—which indicated the Borg could make copies of itself. Together, this suggested it was not just a random concoction of genes.

After they identified the first Borg sequence, the researchers began to scan microbial DNA in public databases to see whether they could find anything similar. They found a few variations in groundwater from Colorado—there, the first purported Borg showed up about 1 meter deep and got more abundant deeper down. 

Other versions showed up in DNA from the discharge of an abandoned mercury mine in Napa, California, and from a shallow riverbed of the East River in Colorado.

Altogether, the researchers isolated 23 sequences they think may be Borgs—and 19 they have identified as having all the characteristics of the first Borg they discovered, they write this week on the preprint server bioRxiv. 

Some are almost 1 million bases long. "I don't think anything else that's been discovered is as big as these guys are," among previously known extrachromosomal DNA elements, Doolittle says.  READ MORE...

Metaverse Education

The term Metaverse was invented by Neal Stephenson in a science fiction novel, almost 30 years ago. He envisioned lifelike avatars who met in 3D buildings and other virtual reality environments. Over the past couple of years, the metaverse has begun representing a progressive convergence of digital experiences. This upcoming domain is perceived as a graphically rich virtual space, with some degree of multi-dimensional aspect that will allow people to work, play, shop, socialize, and bring humans back together in this virtual world.

Big tech companies are building metaverse projects to utilize the benefits of the metaverse. Companies like the Meta Platforms build in the metaverse by using its world-leading software and solutions. Other big tech companies are building blocks with the help of advanced technologies like augmented reality, virtual reality, and mixed reality. The digital world is garnering millions of dollars worth of investment to foresee the future of the internet.  SOURCE:  AnalyticsInsights.net

According to Loma Linda University, the best way to achieve student knowledge retention is to teach what you know to someone else, followed by learning by doing...  However, most instructors and college professors still teach via lecture notes, PowerPoint, and teaching assistants who help themselves more than they are helping their students...

While big tech is looking at the metaverse as a way to generate profits, teaching and training organizations should look at the universe as a way to not just accelerate the teaching of employees but increase their retention of knowledge abilities.

A student surgeon can practice surgeries in the metaverse for as long as is needed in order to perfect a procedure...  so, would not the same concept apply to a supervisor who has to talk with disruptive employees...  or take classes during their lunch hour?

A NASCAR team can use the metaverse to help perfect their tire-changing abilities as can a Broadway actor use the metaverse to help learn their lines and perfect their body language.

The metaverse is not just a tool for Mark Zuckerberg to increase his wealth.

China's Westworld

A museum in China has taken a page out of science fiction and is creating lifelike robots with veins in their legs and goosebumps on their skin.

The EX Future and Science Museum in the Chinese city of Dalian shows off advanced forms of robotic technology aimed at making robots as customizable and lifelike as possible.

According to a tour of the museum's research and design center published by the Chinese state-linked media channel CGTN, the technicians at the museum can scan features and limbs to create dynamic 3D robots.

In a clip posted on YouTube, a journalist has her facial features scanned to "customize an android of her own." Parts of her body are then 3D printed. The video shows her controlling the movements of a 3D printed robotic limb via a wearable glove.

"The skin is made of medical-grade bionic silicone, and the goosebumps on the skin, the veins on the feet, and the palm lines — they're all very realistic," the museum's vice president, Yang Jianguo, told CGTN.  READ MORE...

Nigerian Scifi

Nigerian Teenagers Are Making Slick Scifi Films With Their Smartphones

Someone should really snap up the rights for a movie about The Critics, a collective of self-taught teenage filmmakers from northwestern Nigeria.

The boys’ dedication, ambition, and no-budget inventiveness calls to mind other filmmaking fanatics, from the sequestered, homeschooled brothers of The Wolfpack to the fictional Sweding specialists of Me and Earl and the Dying Girl and Be Kind, Rewind.

While smartphones and free editing apps have definitely made it easier for aspiring filmmakers to bring their fantasies to fruition, it’s worth noting that The Critics saved for a month to buy the green fabric for their chroma key effects.

Their productions are also plagued with the internet and power outages that are a frequent occurrence in their home base of Kaduna, slowing everything from the rendering process to the Youtube visual effects tutorials that have advanced their craft.

To date they’ve filmed 20 shorts on a smart phone with a smashed screen, mounted to a broken microphone stand that’s found new life as a homemade tripod.

Their simple set up will be coming in for an upgrade, however, now that Nollywood director Kemi Adetiba has brought their efforts to the attention of a much wider audience, who donated $5,800 in a fundraising campaign.  READ MORE...