News 23 June 2022 NASA had planned to boost the International Space Station into a slightly different position using the engine on a Cygnus space freighter. There was a problem however, the engine cut off after only five seconds. It turns out this type of maneuver is common when repositioning the space station. The cause of the engine cut off is yet to be determined as of the writing of this article. There has been a lot of complaints sometimes the voice controlled devices who have become quite common, are listening to our conversations. It is also true that sometimes they will talk when no question has been asked. Now there is a new wrinkle. As most of us know Alexa can synch with a door bell and also provide video and photos, besides talk. A video has been released where a man is shown being communicated with what he says is a ghost over his Alexa. As with any electronic device, there is always the chance it could be hacked. Supposedly the voice said "You took her from me.” The NASA Artemis Moon rocket was given its 4th wet test. It failed the first three. This test was declared a success, but was it really? I guess it depends on what you think was successful. During the test there were 2 fuel leaks and a fire. All I know is I wouldn’t want to go up in it. The rocket is way over budget, years late and in my opinion the engines are not much more advanced than those which were on the Saturn 5 rocket when we landed on the moon in 1969. SpaceX Raptor engines are far more advanced and more powerful while being far cheaper, and tried and true. Scientists produced an atom laser. Typically, lasers work by quick blasts of energy. Not so with the new atom laser. Scientists have said it can make a steady ray that can keep going forever. It is felt that this ability will make it perfect for many different applications which were not possible until now. The atom laser puts out a beam made of matter. What I am about to tell you seems unbelievable, but so does some of the other stories, but this is even more far out. Mashable India reported a very strange cloud was seen drifting across the Caspian Sea and when the cloud was magnified you could see the letters G.O.D. on the cloud. They claim the photo is from NASA. When a mechanical computer was found which was over 2,000 years old it was given the name of the Antikythera Mechanism by astounded scientists. The shipwreck it came from was still there and started to be investigated again and a giant marble head was found under some debris. It is speculated the ship contained looted booty from Athens by the Romans. Human life may have started in China even earlier than scientists thought. Fossils have been found which are believed to be from hominins known as Homo erectus which date back 1.6 million years. How they reached China is still unknown. Homo erectus sites have been found in China before, but the oldest dates back 800,000 years and another 400,000 years. Another story about China states artifacts have been found there which prove there was a long lost civilization. The civilization was known as the Sanxingdui. Over 13,000 artifacts were found which were from them. The Sanxingdui disappeared without a trace thousands of years ago and the reason is shrouded in unknown history. MIT, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has come up with a robotic firefly. Every time it flaps its wings a tiny light, lights up. It is said this lighting could make it easier to track the robots. A few years ago, astronomers discovered explosions were occurring in the universe which were far more powerful than a supernova explosion. When they investigated, they could not determine the cause of the explosions. This all started in 2018 when the first of these explosions was discovered and named AT2018cow. The explosions were named Fast Blue Optical Transients. Lately we have been hearing a lot about quantum computing. It is supposedly the wave of the future. I say supposedly, because maybe there are even more ways to create advanced computing yet undiscovered. Anyway, ram is random access memory used in computing, and now scientists are telling us they have created quantum ram using a relatively new discovery call time crystals. These crystals if cooled low enough allow the crystal’s movements to continue indefinitely. No energy is used to keep the movement in the crystals going. Pollution is never good, or so they say, but there might be an exception to the rule. Scientists have found something in the plastic pollution bugging all of us. The plastics found in the ocean contain novel antibiotics. A recent study showed this to be true. It is being said plastic waste is high in biomass which makes it suitable for antibiotic synthesis. The study is yet to be peer reviewed. A space tug was launched into space. It was launched on a SpaceX rocket into orbit, but since then has experienced many problems. The tug was created by a company named Momentus. On the tug is nine small satellites which need to be launched. The mission was a demonstration mission. The idea was to be able to carry customers satellites to different orbits after launch. There is a communication problem with the tug, but the company hopes to be able to remedy it. Fast radio bursts continue to be discovered by scientists. So far, they have been from natural causes. One is raising questions. Some believe this could be from an alien race. Not so cry the scientists even though China had announced it had intercepted what could be an alien communication. This was jumped on by the press which said China said they had intercepted an alien communication when they didn’t say that at all. They said COULD! A study has revealed something strange and it is fish gaining new abilities. The study has shown some fish are beginning to develop the ability to survive out of water and can jump out of the water to avoid being eaten. The Blennie fish has become an amphibian. According to scientists this is a repeat, only happening faster, as fish came onto land about 400,000 million years ago. Many people are scared of spiders, and it is easy to see why. What we have to realize however, is spiders eat over 800 million tons of insects a year and without them these pests would be much harder to handle.
|
