Andrew McConnell's otherworldly photograph captures a Russian cosmonaut in front of the just-landed Soyuz MS spacecraft in Kazakhstan's remote grasslands

A small world in the outer solar system appears to have volcanic activity possibly spurred by liquid water

Many people enjoy the experience of using AIs like ChatGPT or voice assistants like Alexa to find out information, but it turns out doing so makes it less likely you will spot inaccurate information

Voice assistants can build profiles of their users’ habits and preferences, but the consistency and accuracy of these profiles vary

Krasinski scores the title of People’s Sexiest Man Alive 2024.

In the 1960s and 1970s, NASA spent a lot of time thinking about whether toroidal (donut-shaped) fuel tanks were the way to go with its spacecraft. Toroidal tanks have a bunch of potential advantages over conventional spherical fuel tanks. For example, you can fit nearly 40% more volume within a toroidal tank than if you were using multiple spherical tanks within the same space. And perhaps most interestingly, you can shove stuff (like the back of an engine) through the middle of a toroidal tank, which could lead to some substantial efficiency gains if the tanks could also handle structural loads.

Because of their relatively complex shape, toroidal tanks are much more difficult to make than spherical tanks. Even though these tanks can perform better, NASA simply doesn’t have the expertise to manufacture them anymore, since each one has to be hand-built by highly skilled humans. But a company called Machina Labs thinks that they can do this with robots instead. And their vision is to completely change how we make things out of metal.

The fundamental problem that Machina Labs is trying to solve is that if you want to build parts out of metal efficiently at scale, it’s a slow process. Large metal parts need their own custom dies, which are very expensive one-offs that are about as inflexible as it’s possible to get, and then entire factories are built around these parts. It’s a huge investment, which means that it doesn’t matter if you find some new geometry or technique or material or market, because you have to justify that enormous up-front cost by making as much of the original thing as you possibly can, stifling the potential for rapid and flexible innovation.

On the other end of the spectrum you have the also very slow and expensive process of making metal parts one at a time by hand. A few hundred years ago, this was the only way of making metal parts: skilled metalworkers using hand tools for months to make things like armor and weapons. The nice thing about an expert metalworker is that they can use their skills and experience to make anything at all, which is where Machina Labs’ vision comes from, explains CEO Edward Mehr who co-founded Machina Labs after spending time at SpaceX followed by leading the 3D printing team at Relativity Space.

“Craftsmen can pick up different tools and apply them creatively to metal to do all kinds of different things. One day they can pick up a hammer and form a shield out of a sheet of metal,” says Mehr. “Next, they pick up the same hammer, and create a sword out of a metal rod. They’re very flexible.”

The technique that a human metalworker uses to shape metal is called forging, which preserves the grain flow of the metal as it’s worked. Casting, stamping, or milling metal (which are all ways of automating metal part production) are simply not as strong or as durable as parts that are forged, which can be an important differentiator for (say) things that have to go into space. But more on that in a bit.

The problem with human metalworkers is that the throughput is bad—humans are slow, and highly skilled humans in particular don’t scale well. For Mehr and Machina Labs, this is where the robots come in.

“We want to automate and scale using a platform called the ‘robotic craftsman.’ Our core enablers are robots that give us the kinematics of a human craftsman, and artificial intelligence that gives us control over the process,” Mehr says. “The concept is that we can do any process that a human craftsman can do, and actually some that humans can’t do because we can apply more force with better accuracy.”

This flexibility that robot metalworkers offer also enables the crafting of bespoke parts that would be impractical to make in any other way. These include toroidal (donut-shaped) fuel tanks that NASA has had its eye on for the last half century or so.

Machina Labs’ CEO Edward Mehr (on right) stands behind a 15 foot toroidal fuel tank.Machina Labs

“The main challenge of these tanks is that the geometry is complex,” Mehr says. “Sixty years ago, NASA was bump-forming them with very skilled craftspeople, but a lot of them aren’t around anymore.” Mehr explains that the only other way to get that geometry is with dies, but for NASA, getting a die made for a fuel tank that’s necessarily been customized for one single spacecraft would be pretty much impossible to justify. “So one of the main reasons we’re not using toroidal tanks is because it’s just hard to make them.”

Machina Labs is now making toroidal tanks for NASA. For the moment, the robots are just doing the shaping, which is the tough part. Humans then weld the pieces together. But there’s no reason why the robots couldn’t do the entire process end-to-end and even more efficiently. Currently, they’re doing it the “human” way based on existing plans from NASA. “In the future,” Mehr tells us, “we can actually form these tanks in one or two pieces. That’s the next area that we’re exploring with NASA—how can we do things differently now that we don’t need to design around human ergonomics?”

Machina Labs’ ‘robotic craftsmen’ work in pairs to shape sheet metal, with one robot on each side of the sheet. The robots align their tools slightly offset from each other with the metal between them such that as the robots move across the sheet, it bends between the tools. Machina Labs

The video above shows Machina’s robots working on a tank that’s 4.572 m (15 feet) in diameter, likely destined for the Moon. “The main application is for lunar landers,” says Mehr. “The toroidal tanks bring the center of gravity of the vehicle lower than what you would have with spherical or pill-shaped tanks.”

Training these robots to work metal like this is done primarily through physics-based simulations that Machina developed in house (existing software being too slow), followed by human-guided iterations based on the resulting real-world data. The way that metal moves under pressure can be simulated pretty well, and although there’s certainly still a sim-to-real gap (simulating how the robot’s tool adheres to the surface of the material is particularly tricky), the robots are collecting so much empirical data that Machina is making substantial progress towards full autonomy, and even finding ways to improve the process.

An example of the kind of complex metal parts that Machina’s robots are able to make.Machina Labs

Ultimately, Machina wants to use robots to produce all kinds of metal parts. On the commercial side, they’re exploring things like car body panels, offering the option to change how your car looks in geometry rather than just color. The requirement for a couple of beefy robots to make this work means that roboforming is unlikely to become as pervasive as 3D printing, but the broader concept is the same: making physical objects a software problem rather than a hardware problem to enable customization at scale.

The Marine Institute and OceanGate signed a partnership in early 2023, but it remains unclear if the Memorial University campus knew the ill-fated Titan submersible was unregulated, unclassed and uncertified.

The standard model predicted that the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope would see dim signals from small, primitive galaxies.

The post New Research Questions Standard Theory of How Galaxies Formed in Early Universe appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

Wastewater is a major reservoir for antibiotic resistance genes, but modified bacteria can chop up this DNA before the dangerous microbes reach people

Surrounding ourselves with greenery can do wonders for our physical and mental wellbeing. Kathy Willis reveals just what kinds of plants are best for our brains and bodies, and why

Narratives around addiction often reduce it to a series of poor choices, lack of values and weakness. This has real-world consequences, warns Anna Wolfe

People with cancer may have understandable reasons to follow Australian supermodel Elle Macpherson in declining chemotherapy, but the odds aren’t in their favour, warns Elle Hunt

The number of people worldwide directly killed by antibiotic resistance will rise to 1.9 million a year by 2050, according to the most comprehensive study so far

While the 20th century saw rapid rises in average life expectancy at birth, more recent years have seen a slowdown, suggesting we may be reaching the limit of human lifespan

Peaks in appetite and metabolism driven by our body's inbuilt clocks mean that eating at the wrong time can have consequences for our health and waistline

Montana public health officials are investigating an outbreak of infections caused by Salmonella. The Cascade City-County Health Department in Great Falls is reporting that six students at Sacajawea and Valley View elementary schools have tested positive for the pathogen. A staff member at another school has also tested positive. There... Continue Reading

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion.

Humanoids 2024: 22–24 November 2024, NANCY, FRANCE

Enjoy today’s videos!

Just when I thought quadrupeds couldn’t impress me anymore...

[ Unitree Robotics ]

Researchers at Meta FAIR are releasing several new research artifacts that advance robotics and support our goal of reaching advanced machine intelligence (AMI). These include Meta Sparsh, the first general-purpose encoder for vision-based tactile sensing that works across many tactile sensors and many tasks; Meta Digit 360, an artificial fingertip-based tactile sensor that delivers detailed touch data with human-level precision and touch-sensing; and Meta Digit Plexus, a standardized platform for robotic sensor connections and interactions that enables seamless data collection, control and analysis over a single cable.

[ Meta ]

The first bimanual Torso created at Clone includes an actuated elbow, cervical spine (neck), and anthropomorphic shoulders with the sternoclavicular, acromioclavicular, scapulothoracic and glenohumeral joints. The valve matrix fits compactly inside the ribcage. Bimanual manipulation training is in progress.

[ Clone Inc. ]

Equipped with a new behavior architecture, Nadia navigates and traverses many types of doors autonomously. Nadia also demonstrates robustness to failed grasps and door opening attempts by automatically retrying and continuing. We present the robot with pull and push doors, four types of opening mechanisms, and even spring-loaded door closers. A deep neural network and door plane estimator allow Nadia to identify and track the doors.

[ Paper preprint by authors from Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition ]

Thanks, Duncan!

In this study, we integrate the musculoskeletal humanoid Musashi with the wire-driven robot CubiX, capable of connecting to the environment, to form CubiXMusashi. This combination addresses the shortcomings of traditional musculoskeletal humanoids and enables movements beyond the capabilities of other humanoids. CubiXMusashi connects to the environment with wires and drives by winding them, successfully achieving movements such as pull-up, rising from a lying pose, and mid-air kicking, which are difficult for Musashi alone.

[ CubiXMusashi, JSK Robotics Laboratory, University of Tokyo ]

Thanks, Shintaro!

An old boardwalk seems like a nightmare for any robot with flat feet.

[ Agility Robotics ]

This paper presents a novel learning-based control framework that uses keyframing to incorporate high-level objectives in natural locomotion for legged robots. These high-level objectives are specified as a variable number of partial or complete pose targets that are spaced arbitrarily in time. Our proposed framework utilizes a multi-critic reinforcement learning algorithm to effectively handle the mixture of dense and sparse rewards. In the experiments, the multi-critic method significantly reduces the effort of hyperparameter tuning compared to the standard single-critic alternative. Moreover, the proposed transformer-based architecture enables robots to anticipate future goals, which results in quantitative improvements in their ability to reach their targets.

[ Disney Research paper ]

Human-like walking where that human is the stompiest human to ever human its way through Humanville.

[ Engineai ]

We present the first static-obstacle avoidance method for quadrotors using just an onboard, monocular event camera. Quadrotors are capable of fast and agile flight in cluttered environments when piloted manually, but vision-based autonomous flight in unknown environments is difficult in part due to the sensor limitations of traditional onboard cameras. Event cameras, however, promise nearly zero motion blur and high dynamic range, but produce a large volume of events under significant ego-motion and further lack a continuous-time sensor model in simulation, making direct sim-to-real transfer not possible.

[ Paper University of Pennsylvania and University of Zurich ]

Cross-embodiment imitation learning enables policies trained on specific embodiments to transfer across different robots, unlocking the potential for large-scale imitation learning that is both cost-effective and highly reusable. This paper presents LEGATO, a cross-embodiment imitation learning framework for visuomotor skill transfer across varied kinematic morphologies. We introduce a handheld gripper that unifies action and observation spaces, allowing tasks to be defined consistently across robots.

[ LEGATO ]

The 2024 Xi’an Marathon has kicked off! STAR1, the general-purpose humanoid robot from Robot Era, joins runners in this ancient yet modern city for an exciting start!

[ Robot Era ]

In robotics, there are valuable lessons for students and mentors alike. Watch how the CyberKnights, a FIRST robotics team champion sponsored by RTX, with the encouragement of their RTX mentor, faced challenges after a poor performance and scrapped its robot to build a new one in just nine days.

[ CyberKnights ]

In this special video, PAL Robotics takes you behind the scenes of our 20th-anniversary celebration, a memorable gathering with industry leaders and visionaries from across robotics and technology. From inspiring speeches to milestone highlights, the event was a testament to our journey and the incredible partnerships that have shaped our path.

[ PAL Robotics ]

Thanks, Rugilė!

Manufacturing efficiency has always been a priority. As competition grows, optimizing every aspect of production becomes critical. Manufacturers turn to experts to make the right improvements and introduce systems that boost overall performance. One key area where many businesses seek help is through Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES). MES consultants play a pivotal role in achieving […]

The post The Role of MES Consultants in Streamlining Manufacturing Operations appeared first on Chart Attack.

Last year, FDA advisers unanimously voted that oral phenylephrine is ineffective.

Susan Holt, who repeatedly emphasized her differences with the prime minister leading up to last month’s election, was on more welcoming terms Tuesday after their first official meeting in Fredericton.

The billionaire businessman has spent weeks campaigning relentlessly for Donald Trump. That dedication could lead to major benefits for him and his companies.

1. Have a protein-rich breakfast every day for these 7 benefits  Hindustan Times
2. 6 Protein-Packed Breakfast Without Eggs  HerZindagi
3. 8 High-Protein Indian Breakfast Recipes to Fuel Your Day  Recipes
4. Wholesome Indian breakfasts that boost energy  Business Insider India
5. 5 DIY Protein-Packed Snacks That You Can Replace Breakfast With  WION

1. Mohammed Shami's return date announced as Gautam Gambhir, Rohit Sharma heave huge sigh of relief ahead of BGT  Hindustan Times
2. "360 Days Is A...": Mohammed Shami Posts Picture From Airport. Ex-India Star Says "Brother..."  NDTV Sports
3. Live Cricket Update - GOA vs ARP Plate Group - Ranji Trophy blog: Round 5, day 1: Shami set for return in Indore  ESPNcricinfo
4. Mohammed Shami makes Ranji Trophy comeback, plays first match with brother Kaif for Bengal  The Indian Express
5. Ranji Trophy: Double delight for Mohammed Shami on comeback as brother Kaif named in Bengal playing XI ag  The Times of India

1. Best smartphones under ₹20,000 with good cameras: Redmi Note 13 Pro, Vivo T3 5G and others  Hindustan Times
2. Best smartphones under ₹30,000 with good battery life and cameras  Mint
3. 5 Affordable Camera Phones To Make Instagram Reels  Times Now
4. Best Smartphones Under Rs 20,000 With Excellent Cameras, Redmi Note 13 Pro, Vivo T3 5G & More  NewsX

1. Swiggy’s reclusive CEO Sriharsha Majety makes rare public appearance at IPO listing ceremony  Hindustan Times
2. Zomato gives ‘Jai and Veeru’ vibes with special meme for rival Swiggy on IPO day  Hindustan Times
3. JM Financial gives Swiggy its first 'buy' tag, sees 20% upside from IPO price  Moneycontrol
4. Swiggy IPO: 9 execs who will become richer by Rs 50 crore or more  The Times of India
5. ‘You and I…’: Zomato welcomes Swiggy on Dalal Street post stock market listing  India Today

1. Church of England head Justin Welby who married Prince Harry and Meghan Markle resigns over pedophile scandal  Hindustan Times
2. Archbishop of Canterbury, Trump critic Justin Welby resigns. What is the sex abuse scandal?  The Times of India
3. Video | UK Church Abuse Scandal: Head Of Church Of England Steps Down  NDTV
4. ‘Church in crisis’: what the papers say about the archbishop of Canterbury’s resignation  The Guardian
5. World News Today Live Updates on November 13, 2024 : Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby resigns amid sexual abuse case—Who is he? What's the scandal? All you need to know  Mint

1. RG Kar rape case: Bengal governor seeks report from CM after Sanjay Roy made big allegation against ex-Kolkata top cop  Hindustan Times
2. RG Kar rape case: Bengal Guv seeks report from Mamata govt after accused Sanjay Roy claims ‘Vineet Goel is threatening…’  Mint
3. Video | RG Kar Case News | Kolkata Horror: Prime Accused Sanjay Roy's 'Shocking Revelation' On Camera  NDTV
4. RG Kar rape-murder victim’s dad deposes on day 1 of trial  The Times of India
5. RG Kar case: CM Mamata asked to submit report on prime accused's claim  CNBCTV18

1. Jharkhand election 2024 live: Over 13% voter turnout in 43 seats till 9am  Hindustan Times
2. Jharkhand Election 2024 Live Updates: Former CM, BJP candidate Champai Soren casts vote  The Times of India
3. Vote to protect rights, strengthen Constitution: Rahul to Jharkhand voters  The Hindu
4. Jharkhand elections phase 1: NDA vs INDIA bloc face-off with crucial tribal votes in play  India Today
5. Think of forming inclusive government not one that divides: Kharge to voters  Deccan Herald

A quarter-century in, Eiichiro Oda’s sprawling Japanese pirate saga has transformed into an ever-evolving odyssey, spawning a multimedia franchise to rival its Western counterparts 

‘Singham Again’ had an ensemble cast which includes Ajay Devgn, Akshay Kumar, Ranveer Singh, Tiger Shroff, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Deepika Padukone, Arjun Kapoor and Jackie Shroff

Santhosh Kana’s ‘A Musical Pilgramage’ containing 8 select poems combines soothing narration with Indian classical music.

Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani is a finalist for his first National League MVP award after winning the AL honor twice, joined among the top three in NL voting by New York Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor and Arizona second baseman Ketel Marte.

Balatro from developer LocalThunk and publisher Playstack is finally coming to mobile later this month on iOS, Android, and also …

Continue reading "‘Balatro’ Is Coming to Apple Arcade and Also iOS as a Standalone Premium Release Beginning September 26th"

All-timer of a game show moment stunned audience into silence

Social distancing, shelter-in-place, lockdown, quarantine:  the global coronavirus outbreak has made these terms part of daily usage. Governments and health organisations across the world are recommending social distancing. It is ...

The post Social distancing need not mean social isolation appeared first on Star Observer.

Researchers in Montreal are pointing to the benefits of bilingualism for the brain's health and efficiency — suggesting it could even help prevent diseases associated with aging, including Alzheimer's.

What will Judge Merchan do this week?

He has a good chance of getting the case reversed on appeal — but he can’t appeal until after Judge Merchan sentences him.

Lahore, Pakistan (AFP) Nov 13, 2024
On the streets of Pakistan's second biggest city, smog stings eyes and burns throats. Inside homes, few people can afford air purifiers to limit the damage of toxic particles that seep through doors and windows. Lahore - a city of 14 million people stuffed with factories on the border with India - regularly ranks among the world's most polluted cities, but it has hit record levels this mon

L’ex-premier ministre de la Colombie-Britannique John Horgan est décédé à l’âge de 65 ans après une bataille contre le cancer.

Elle tiendra la vedette de l’adaptation québécoise du succès mondial Ménopause aux côtés de Claudine Mercier, Catherine Sénart et Geneviève Charest.

Peytant has announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted marketing authorisation (clearance to market in the United States as a Class II device) for the AMStent Tracheobronchial Covered Stent System, a therapy platform.

In medieval times, astrology was considered a serious science, a branch of astronomy. Curator Larisa Grollemond of the Getty Museum, walks us through the medieval zodiac and how someone’s sign decided their day-to-day life.

Manu Prakash spoke with IEEE Spectrum shortly after returning to Stanford University from a month aboard a research vessel off the coast of California, where he was testing tools to monitor oceanic carbon sequestration. The associate professor conducts fieldwork around the world to better understand the problems he’s working on, as well as the communities that will be using his inventions.

Prakash develops imaging instruments and diagnostic tools, often for use in global health and environmental sciences. His devices typically cost radically less than conventional equipment—he aims for reductions of two or more orders of magnitude. Whether he’s working on pocketable microscopes, mosquito or plankton monitors, or an autonomous malaria diagnostic platform, Prakash always includes cost and access as key aspects of his engineering. He calls this philosophy “frugal science.”

Why should we think about science frugally?

Manu Prakash: To me, when we are trying to ask and solve problems and puzzles, it becomes important: In whose hands are we putting these solutions? A frugal approach to solving the problem is the difference between 1 percent of the population or billions of people having access to that solution.

Lack of access creates these kinds of barriers in people’s minds, where they think they can or cannot approach a kind of problem. It’s important that we as scientists or just citizens of this world create an environment that feels that anybody has a chance to make important inventions and discoveries if they put their heart to it. The entrance to all that is dependent on tools, but those tools are just inaccessible.

How did you first encounter the idea of “frugal science”?

Prakash: I grew up in India and lived with very little access to things. And I got my Ph.D. at MIT. I was thinking about this stark difference in worlds that I had seen and lived in, so when I started my lab, it was almost a commitment to [asking]: What does it mean when we make access one of the critical dimensions of exploration? So, I think a lot of the work I do is primarily driven by curiosity, but access brings another layer of intellectual curiosity.

How do you identify a problem that might benefit from frugal science?

Prakash: Frankly, it’s hard to find a problem that would not benefit from access. The question to ask is “Where are the neglected problems that we as a society have failed to tackle?” We do a lot of work in diagnostics. A lot [of our solutions] beat the conventional methods that are neither cost effective nor any good. It’s not about cutting corners; it’s about deeply understanding the problem—better solutions at a fraction of the cost. It does require invention. For that order of magnitude change, you really have to start fresh.

Where does your involvement with an invention end?

Prakash: Inventions are part of our soul. Your involvement never ends. I just designed the 415th version of Foldscope [a low-cost “origami” microscope]. People only know it as version 3. We created Foldscope a long time ago; then I realized that nobody was going to provide access to it. So we went back and invented the manufacturing process for Foldscope to scale it. We made the first 100,000 Foldscopes in the lab, which led to millions of Foldscopes being deployed.

So it’s continuous. If people are scared of this, they should never invent anything [laughs], because once you invent something, it’s a lifelong project. You don’t put it aside; the project doesn’t put you aside. You can try to, but that’s not really possible if your heart is in it. You always see problems. Nothing is ever perfect. That can be ever consuming. It’s hard. I don’t want to minimize this process in any way or form.

The FDA has proposed removing oral phenylephrine from its guidelines for over-the-counter drugs due to inefficacy as a decongestant. Use of this ingredient in cold and allergy medicines grew after a federal law required that pseudoephedrine-containing products be kept behind pharmacy counters.

The post FDA Takes Step Toward Removal of Ineffective Decongestants From the Market appeared first on MedCity News.

Technology has revolutionized the way people live their lives. Individuals can use smartphones to access their bank account, shop from almost any store, and connect with friends and family around the globe. In fact, these personal devices have tethered communities together during the coronavirus pandemic, allowing many people to maintain much of their lives remotely.