Technological Advances It seems like scientific discoveries are coming out every day. Most are pretty straight forward but some you just have to take the word of the scientist or inventor on because they are so complicated as to be beyond the understanding of us mere mortals. Some of what I mentioned I am going to talk about. There is a new method being proposed for diminishing the effect of large asteroids hitting the earth. As most of you probably know, NASA has been experimenting with the idea of crashing rockets into the ones heading this way to change their course. Instead of doing this some scientists have suggested the use of thin rods. The idea is to place the rods in the path of the asteroid and when they are hit with the force from the asteroid it should slice the asteroid into smaller pieces. When that happens, the pieces will hit the earth and be burned up in the atmosphere, hopefully. I had thought about another way but don’t know if it was feasible. I was thinking about a rocket hitting the asteroid from behind and pushing it off course using the asteroid’s energy combined with the rocket hit from behind. I personally can’t wait for the James Webb telescope to be launched. It is such a major upgrade to Hubble. The date set by NASA is December 18, 2021. What puzzles me is the fact NASA is going to use an Ariane 5 rocket instead of an American one. I guess the fact NASA has partnered with the European Space Agency is the reason. Another reason may be where it has to be launched from to be sent to the right area most efficiently. In order to build one of the most complex pieces of kit ever, NASA employed thousands of people from more than 14 other countries. The telescope construction fell years behind and the cost skyrocketed. To give you an idea of how much more powerful it is than the Hubble telescope, it is 100 times more powerful, but telescopes are really not rated this way. They are rated by how much light they can gather. The James Webb telescope can gather 6.25 times more light than the Hubble telescope allowing for much closer clear views of objects. It seems to only be a matter of time before computer hard drives are based on DNA. This might sound crazy to some, but people that have been keeping up with research in this field know exactly what I am talking about. It turns out DNA is a very efficient way to store info. How much more efficient is it than current solutions? It is millions of times more efficient. If you had a couple of hundred pounds of DNA, you could store every bit of information on earth in it. It might even be able to change the way we use memory. We might be able to have just one type of memory which would never be off, even when the computer is. The field of machine learning is gaining steam. It has been around for a while, but it has really taken off lately. One of the professions it has advanced is archaeology. It has taught computers how to recognize archaeology sites which we missed and it can do this from space. There may come a time when there will be no more undiscovered archaeology sites. Machine learning is popping up everywhere. A few places are in software engineering, and in data science to just name a couple. Your search engine no doubt uses machine learning as does your banking software. The advancement in robotic devices has hardly gone unnoticed. Robots are getting better at moving around and their vision has undergone quite an improvement. There is talk of them being so good one day they will be used to explore alien planets on their own. Robots have gotten good enough to be used by a restaurant in Dallas, Texas. Facing a labor shortage, the restaurant elected to use robots as greeters and runners. It seems people are really taking to them. Robot astronauts could be used one day for those decade long space voyages. Norway has come up with a very efficient system for taking advantage of wind power to generate electricity. Instead of those high wind turbines with the huge propellers that kill birds, a sort of floating barge containing a framework of much smaller propellers is used. Another advantage is they can work with higher wind speeds than a turbine. This system is 500 percent more efficient. The good part is it costs about the same. It is being said as this system scales up the costs should go down. Scientists have discovered a new artificial fiber. It is made from a liquid crystal using electricity and acts like human muscle fiber. The fiber is said to have a future in the replacement of muscle fibers lost by humans and in creating robotics which have human like muscles. This fiber allows reaction times which are as fast as those in our bodies. Reaction time lag had been a problem with robots. Holograms are all the range, but there has always been something missing from the experience and that is the ability to touch a holographic object and feel like it was really there. Engineers in Scotland at the University of Glasgow have invented a system to let us feel a holographic object. There are just so many uses for something like this besides the entertainment value. Let me give you a simple example. A holographic keyboard could be as easy to use as an actual one. How would you like to do a teleconference and be able to shake hands? As of the writing of this article NASA is on the verge of testing a new machine. This is one of the most incredible ones they ever tested. The machine can be used to power aircraft with its one-megawatt electric motor or it can be used as a generator and produce enough power for about 760 homes. One thing which I have to wonder about is will jet engines be replaced by electric motors and propellers. I would hate to see all the progress we made go out the window as we climb into our electric aircraft and prepare for a much slower trip.
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