Drones to Help Re-seed Burned Forests

Last year's Castle Fire in California’s Sierra Nevada is estimated to have killed more than 10 percent of the world’s giant sequoias, the largest trees on earth. Sequoias can live through many fires over life spans that last thousands of years; their bark is fire-resistant and they rely on fire to reproduce. To help restore fire-ravaged forests and temper the effects of climate change, a handful of young companies want to scatter seeds from drones. At least three—Dendra Systems, CO2 Revolution, and Flash Forest—have pledged to plant a billion trees, or more. But it’s not clear how effective drone-led reforestation can be. One study found that fewer than 20 percent of seeds dropped by drone take root and grow into trees. None of the companies contacted by WIRED would disclose how many trees they’ve successfully grown to date.

After the Castle Fire, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection considered working with DroneSeed, a Seattle company that uses drones the size of washing machines to plant trees within six months of a fire, to help restore Mountain Home State Forest. DroneSeed is the only company in the US with FAA approval to fly multiple drones more than 55 pounds beyond line of sight, but the plan was put on hold. Not every drone-fired seed must take root for the method to be successful. According to Canadian startup Flash Forest, two drone pilots can scatter as many as 100,000 seeds a day. By comparison, a person working by hand can plant about 1,000 seedlings a day. In a landmark study released this summer, researchers from more than a dozen government agencies, universities, and companies in seven countries conclude that drone seeding has the potential to restore forests and cool the planet, but low seed survival rates and other challenges stand in the way.

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Credits:
https://www.wired.com/story/drones-replant-forests-seeds-take-root/

CERN Detects Neutrinos for the First Time

Neutrinos are basically omnipresent in the universe but only in the right conditions do they interact with ordinary matter. Trillions of neutrinos are passing through your body as you read this sentence. But to actually “see” the particles, physicists have to build massive detectors in extremely isolated conditions. Last week, a team of physicists working in CERN’s Large Hadron Collider announced the facility’s first-ever detection of neutrinos, which are some of the smallest, most weakly interacting particles yet proven to exist. Neutrino detectors have been buried in mile-deep ice or submerged in the deepest lake in the world, for example. But the recent detection—published in Physical Review D last week—flips that script, as it is the first one to come out of a collider.

The particles were detected by a pilot run of an emulsion detector called FASER, a particle physics experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. Emulsion detectors are a way of looking for super-small particles, like the unknown stuff that constitutes dark matter. The FASER pilot detector was made of alternating lead and tungsten plates (101 and 120 of them, respectively), each containing a corresponding number of emulsion films. Neutrinos produced by the reactions in the Large Hadron Collider smash into the heavy metal nuclei in FASER, leaving marks of their presence on the emulsion layers.

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Credits:
https://gizmodo.com/physicists-detect-neutrinos-for-first-time-ever-using-l-1848131886

S or N: $170 Squirt Gun

There are few ways to better spend a hot summer afternoon than with a water gun fight, and the creators of one the most advanced water blaster ever developed—one that shoots liquid bullets—is back with an upgraded version that’s quieter, faster, more powerful, and is less likely to leave the shooter soaking wet. If the last time you played with a water gun was when the Super Soaker reigned supreme, you’ll be surprised at how far they’ve advanced.

The Spyra One, which was realized through a Kickstarter campaign back in 2018 and then shipped a year later, features a rechargeable battery, a built-in pump that automatically sucks water out of a pool or a bucket for effortless refills, a unique firing mechanism that launches individual droplets of water with a satisfying amount of force, and even an LCD display counting down how many shots you have left. The Spyra One’s creators are promising the SpyraTwo is better in almost every way, with a range that goes about five feet further, faster refill times, and a battery life that promises twice as many shots before you need to plug the water gun in. (Yep, that’s one more device you’ll have to add to the nightly charging roster.) Most importantly, the SpyraTwo supposedly doesn’t drip anymore, which might be the biggest selling point.



Credits:

https://twitter.com/CNET/status/1464633867579518976?t=dtl-aeGKoYzUr5ahVwzytQ&s=19
 

Man make 1:10^100 Gear Reduction

The number googol equals 1.0 x 10,100, or 1 followed by 100 zeros. To put that into perspective, scientists theorize there are between 120 and 300 sextillion stars in the observable universe, which translates into around 1,078 to 1,082 of the number of atoms in said universe. Daniel de Bruin's gear reduction machine would theoretically take more power to turn the last gear one revolution than the universe could provide.

As de Bruin explains, "Today at 14:52 I will be exactly 1 billion seconds old. To celebrate I build this machine that visualizes the number googol. That's a 1 with a hundred zeros. A number that's bigger than the atoms in the known universe. This machine has a gear reduction of 1 to 10 a hundred times. In order to get the last gear to turn once you'll need to spin the first one a googol amount around. Or better said you'll need more energy than the entire known universe has to do that. That boggles my mind."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xu9Wid465o8

Credits:

https://www.hackster.io/news/largest-gear-reduction-machine-features-100-gears-and-takes-eons-to-complete-one-rotation-5df73fd77790

S or N Purrible Helps Anxious Children Calm Down

Purrble is an interactive plush toy designed to help kids manage their emotions and feel calm. The toy is five years in the making and grounded in behavioral research. Purrble is most appropriate for students ages 5–12, though there’s a growing body of research pointing to its usefulness with older kids in special education and Tier 2 settings. When big emotions bubble up, Purrble can help kids take the first step toward calm. Purrble helps students get a handle on big emotions by appealing to their empathy.When Purrble is upset, its heart beats quickly. Children comfort and pet Purrble, slowing its heartbeat.

Purrble is an interactive plush toy designed to help kids manage their emotions and feel calm. Purrble can be used in a variety of school-based settings: in the front office, in discipline-referral situations, one-on-one with counselors or behavioral aides, and in classrooms. This year, a limited number of Purrble calming toys are available to school-based staff across the United States so that we can learn how Purrble affects educators’ work with students. To ensure that a wide variety of schools and educators are included, we’re limiting Purrble purchases to 10 toys per school.

https://www.facebook.com/purrble/videos/320660629296368/

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The Processor Turns 50 Years Old

On November 15, 1971, Intel publicly debuted the first commercial single-chip microprocessor, the Intel 4004, with an advertisement in Electronic News. Fifty years later, here’s a look at its legacy—and how the 4004 stacks up against a modern Intel powerhouse. The original 4004 advertisement announces “a new era of integrated electronics”—one of the rare times advertising copy wasn’t exaggerating. The ad’s illustration shows the four MCS-4 chips looming large over a pair of people at a computer, and the text boldy proclaims, “a micro-programmable computer on a chip!”The original 4004 advertisement announces “a new era of integrated electronics”—one of the rare times advertising copy wasn’t exaggerating. The ad’s illustration shows the four MCS-4 chips looming large over a pair of people at a computer, and the text boldy proclaims, “a micro-programmable computer on a chip!”

In particular, the Intel 4004 is especially celebrated because it marked the beginning of Intel’s long and very successful microprocessor business, which dramatically shaped the evolution of the personal computer and still powers billions of computers today. Had Intel fizzled out as a company in the early 1970s, it’s very likely we might celebrate another company’s earliest chip as being just as important as the 4004. But, in hindsight, we can look back and see that the 4004 was the beginning of something very big.



Credits:
https://www.howtogeek.com/766783/the-microprocessor-is-50-celebrating-the-intel-4004/https://www.howtogeek.com/766783/the-microprocessor-is-50-celebrating-the-intel-4004

Microsoft and Greek Government to Digitize Ancient Olympia

Ancient Olympia is to be digitally preserved, in a new deal between the Greek government and Microsoft. The collaboration uses artificial intelligence to map the site, and augmented reality to help restore the original home of the Olympic Games. It will allow viewers to explore the area as it stood more than 2,000 years ago. Microsoft has ambitions to rival Facebook with its own plans for the so-called metaverse. It recently announced Microsoft Teams metaverse for meetings and is keen to transform Minecraft and other games it owns into more immersive 3D worlds. Its tie-up with the Greek government means people can tour the site remotely or in person with an augmented-reality mobile app. At the Olympic Museum in Athens they can use HoloLens headsets to overlay a digital version of the site.

Microsoft's augmented reality smart glasses HoloLens use multiple sensors, advanced optics, and holograms, to display information, blend with the real world or simulate a virtual world. Among the 27 monuments to be preserved are the original Olympic Stadium, the temples of Zeus and Hera, and the workshop of the renowned sculptor Phidias. The buildings are as close as possible to their original forms and include historical timelines of the site's changes over time, and depictions of artefacts from each period. Through its AI for Cultural Heritage initiative, Microsoft partnered technology company Iconem, which specializes in digitising historic sites in 3D. Using on-the-ground cameras and drones to take hundreds of thousands of images of the site, Microsoft AI then processed the pictures to create models.


Credits:
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-59219079

Beijing to Use Robots to Monitor COVID

Beijing will host the Winter Olympics next year under unusual circumstances. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced organizers to come up with new ways to protect people from the virus. And robots are playing a big role. At Wukesong Ice Sports Center, a robot is used for disinfection. By spraying atomized mist on the ground, it can sterilize an area of 36 square meters within just a minute. It's about 1.4 meters tall, and the sensor inside can help it navigate around obstacles. It can store up to 16 liters of disinfectant, and its battery can last for four to five hours. For smaller areas, an ultraviolet robot is used for disinfection, which is said to be more effective.

And another robot can undertake the work of three to four human volunteers. It can walk up to people who are not wearing masks and tell them to wear one and has a contactless hand disinfection device on its head. Wukesong Ice Sports Center will host the ice-hockey competition next February. Organizers are also testing a closed-loop system that separates athletes and staff members from the media and spectators. People inside the loop will sometimes need things like paper documents, personal gear and medical equipment. Robots will be utilized to get those things in without breaking the rules. The "delivery robots" will be on standby in the buffer zone. In this area, staff members can put objects on the robots, which can carry up to 300 kilograms. Once programmed for a certain destination, the robots can move freely within the loop until the mission is accomplished," said Zhang Fan, logistics manager of the sports center.



Credits:
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-11-09/Beijing-Winter-Olympics-Robots-help-protect-people-against-COVID-19-153mg04Z7PO/index.html

Something or Nothing: Rumba Lawn Mowers

The Husqvarna 435X is the high-end, all-wheel-drive version of the company's robotic lawn mower line; Husqvarna has less-expensive models that can accomplish the same thing. The 435X costs more because it's specifically designed to handle sloping yards and rough terrain, both of which are landscape features at the house I rent. The results of the 435X far exceeded my expectations. Admittedly, my expectations were low: Just make it so I don't have to mow the lawn. The 435X is capable of much more than that. I never ran into problems, aside from getting hung up in fallen tree branches from time to time. In over six months of testing, that was the only trouble it ever had. It produced the healthiest, most well-manicured lawn in our area. Every delivery person that came to our house asked about both the lawn and the curious creature roaming it.

The 435X is relentless. It mows rain or shine, night or day, whenever and however much you want it to mow. I played with this quite a bit, mowing all day every day versus mowing every few days and only a couple of hours. I did not keep precise track, but it seemed to cover the roughly one-acre of lawn it was tasked with in about six hours of mowing. The results for mowing daily were not noticeably different than mowing three days a week, so that's how often it ran for most of the time I had it. I ran it three days a week, six hours a day, to cover about an acre of lawn, and did not notice any impact on my electric bill no matter how frequently it mowed.



Credits:
https://www.wired.com/review/husqvarna-435x-awd-automower/

What we all need: Noise Cancelling Forks

Some say it enhances the flavor, some see it as a sign of respect for the chef, some simply don't care and see it as pretty damn annoying. In any case, Japanese food manufacturer Nissin is fed up with ramen slurpers, developing a connected eating utensil to drown out noisy noodles. Nissin bills its Otohiko ramen fork as a solution to the "cultural friction" between those who love a good slurp and those that don't. The team actually went to the trouble of recording a bunch of slurping sounds, and then got to work designing noise to counteract them.

The result is what sounds like a flash of electronic dance music played through a smartphone application. This app takes its cues from highly directional microphones built into the fork, which send the slurping signals to the smartphone over NFC to trigger the noise-cancelling effect. Nissin has taken a crowdfunding style approach to selling the Otohiko fork. It says if 5,000 are pre-ordered at 14,800 JPY (US$130) a pop, it will actually start producing them.



Credits:
https://newatlas.com/noise-cancelling-ramen-fork/51873/

NASA to "Nudge" an Astroid Away from Earth

NASA plans to crash a spacecraft traveling at a speed of 15,000 miles per hour (24,000 kph) into an asteroid next year in a test of "planetary defense." The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) is to determine whether this is an effective way to deflect the course of an asteroid should one threaten the Earth in the future. NASA provided details of the DART mission, which carries a price tag of $330 million, in a briefing for reporters on Thursday. The DART spacecraft is scheduled to be launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 10:20 pm Pacific time on November 23 from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. If the launch takes place at or around that time, impact with the asteroid some 6.8 million miles from Earth would occur between September 26 and October 1 of next year.

Nancy Chabot of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, which built the DART spacecraft, said Dimorphos completes an orbit around Didymos every 11 hours and 55 minutes "just like clockwork." The DART spacecraft, which will weigh 1,210 pounds at the time of impact, will not "destroy" the asteroid, Chabot said. "It's just going to give it a small nudge," she said. "It's going to deflect its path around the larger asteroid. It's only going to be a change of about one percent in that orbital period," Chabot said, "so what was 11 hours and 55 minutes before might be like 11 hours and 45 minutes." The test is designed to help scientists understand how much momentum is needed to deflect an asteroid in the event one is headed towards Earth one day.

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Credits:
https://phys.org/news/2021-11-nasa-deflect-asteroid-planetary-defense.html

ISS Enjoys Tacos with Peppers Grown in Space

Some of humanity's first space-grown chile peppers have been consumed in orbit, taco-style. NASA astronaut Megan McArthur, one of the seven crewmembers currently living and working at the International Space Station (ISS), created what she called "my best space tacos yet," using some of the newly harvested peppers, some fajita beef and rehydrated tomatoes (as fresh food can only last so long in space.) The astronauts also got to eat some of the red and green peppers and perform a survey on their taste for future science work, McArthur said in the Oct. 29 Twitter post. The 48 Hatch peppers are part of a new push by NASA to test out more food ahead of long-term missions to the moon and Mars.

The "pepper-picking day" for the first harvest took place on Oct. 29, according to the International Space Station Research Twitter feed, presumably a few hours before the taco feast. The crop came from the Planet Habitat-04 study, which is an ongoing series of trying to grow different plants in orbit. Previous harvests included space-grown Mizuna mustard, radishes, zinnias red lettuce and two other lettuce types. The latest crop of Hatch chile peppers arrived at the ISS June 5 with the SpaceX Dragon CRS-22 commercial resupply mission. NASA announced the peppers were growing in a July 13 statement. It was serendipity that the SpaceX Crew-2 astronauts, including McArthur, were still on board when the chile peppers were ready for harvest. Initially they were supposed to return home in late October, before the crops were ready. They're still in space awaiting the weather to improve for the launch of their relief mission, Crew-3.

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Credits:
https://www.space.com/astronauts-eat-space-grown-chile-pepper-tacos