Say ‘Hello’ To The Remote Controlled Gun-Wielding, Rocket Launching Vehicle

Scott Kelly is two inches taller after 340 days in space

After 340 days on the International Space Station, Scott Kelly grew 2 inches taller than his twin brother who spent the time on Earth, CNBC reports.

Gaining a couple inches is pretty common among astronauts that spend a significant amount of time in space. That’s because the microgravity environment allows room for their vertebrae to expand. Here’s how NASA explains it:

Imagine that the vertebrae in your back form a giant spring. Pushing down on the spring keeps it coiled tightly. When the force is released, the spring stretches out. In the same way, the spine elongates by up to 3% while humans travel in space. There is less gravity pushing down on the vertebrae, so they can stretch out — up to 7.6 centimeters (3 inches).

He aged less than us Earth-bound humans too.

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A man in Sweden accidentally captured this image of a green meteorite while taking pictures of the Northern lights.

Scientists Make New Form of Gold That’s Nearly as Light as Air

Researchers in Switzerland have been able to produce gold foam that is almost as light as air. In fact, 98% of it consists of air; the rest is made up of 20-carat gold and milk protein. According to materials scientist Raffaele Mezzenga from ETH Zurich, this gold aerogel is a thousand times lighter than any other gold alloy, is lighter than water, and is almost as light as air itself.

Read more at: http://futurism.com/links/scientists-make-new-form-of-gold-thats-nearly-as-light-as-air/

All city lights in Reykjavik are generated with CO2 free energy so the act had nothing to do with raising awareness of global warming. The only initiative is the fact that we are raising the first generation on earth without access to dark skies, stars and the Milkyway

-Andri Magnason

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Scientists just released a ton of surprising new information about Pluto.

Eight months after the New Horizons spacecraft whizzed past this small planet, scientists have published a whole suite of studies that bring into perspective just how strange and wonderful a place the tiny dwarf planet is.

Pluto’s surface is even more alien than we thought. The dwarf planet’s smooth plains, scarred craters and ice mountains were not what scientists expected to find on something so far out in the outer solar system. Scientists think all that diverse terrain means Pluto has been geologically active for much of its life over the past 4.6 billion years. 

Pluto’s atmosphere is still a mystery. Turns out Pluto’s atmosphere is about 70 degrees Fahrenheit colder and much more stable than scientists initially thought.

We finally got a close look at Pluto’s five moons. Scientists think that Pluto and its largest moon Charon once collided. Instead of completely breaking apart, they went into orbit around one another. Now there’s evidence that Pluto’s four smaller moons may have formed from chunks of debris that spilled out of the same collision, according to the new research.

We still only have about half the data that New Horizons collected during its flyby, so Pluto may hold many more mysteries. Read more.

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NASA is Planning to Capture an Asteroid and Put it in Orbit Around the Moon

NASA is planning a mission that will visit a large asteroid and redirect a large portion of it into a stable orbit around the Moon. From there, we can study it at our leisure. http://futurism.com/videos/nasa-planning-capture-asteroid-put-orbit-around-moon/

Is the End of Daily Insulin Injections for Diabetes Sufferers in Sight?

A new study reportedly shows that boosting the immune system can safely restore insulin production for up to a year—which might make it possible for those who suffer with diabetes to not require daily injections. Notably, these are Phase 1 trials, which are designed to look at safety, not long term effectiveness. So much research is still needed.

Yet, if the technique proves viable and effective, this could change the lives of millions of people around the world. According to the Center for Diseases Control, in the United States alone, 29.1 million people (or 9.3% of the population) have diabetes. That’s one out of every 11 people. 371 million people worldwide have this condition.

To break down the research, those afflicted with Type 1 diabetes do not have enough T-regs or ‘peacekeeping’ cells, which is ultimately what causes the disease. Researchers from Yale and University of California have just showed that T-regs can be removed from the body, increased by 1,500 in a lab setting, and then placed back into the bloodstream as a way of potentially restoring the body’s insulin production back to normal.

Find out more at: http://futurism.com/links/end-daily-insulin-injections-diabetes-sufferers-sight/

This is the spaceship that could bring humans to Mars

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Why wildfires are necessary

Did you know that several forest species need fire to survive?

In the conifer-rich forests of western North America, lodgepole pines constantly seek the sun. Their seeds prefer to grow on open, sunny ground, which pits saplings against each other as each tries to get more light by growing straighter and faster than its neighbors. Over time, generations of slender, lofty lodgepoles form an umbrella-like canopy that shades the forest floor below. But as the trees’ pine cones mature to release their twirling seeds, this signals a problem for the lodgepole’s future: very few of these seeds will germinate in the cool, sunless shade created by their towering parents.

These trees have adapted to this problem by growing two types of cones. There are the regular annual cones that release seeds spontaneously:

And another type called serotinous cones, which need an environmental trigger to free their seeds:

Serotinous cones are produced in thousands and are like waterproof time capsules sealed with resinous pitch. Many are able to stay undamaged on the tree for decades. Cones that fall to the ground can be viable for several years as well. But when temperatures get high enough, the cones pop open.

Once it’s gotten started, a coniferous forest fire typically spreads something like this: flames ravage the thick understory provided by species like Douglas Fir, a shade-tolerant tree that’s able to thrive under the canopy of lodgepole pines. The fire uses these smaller trees as a stepladder to reach the higher canopy of old lodgepole pines. That ignites a tremendous crown fire, reaching temperatures of up to 2400 degrees Fahrenheit. At those temperatures, the serotinous cones burst open, releasing millions of seeds which are carried by the hot air to form new forests. After the fire, carbon rich soils and an open, sunlit landscape help lodgepole seeds germinate quickly and sprout in abundance. From the death of the old forest comes the birth of the new.

So however counterintuitive it may seem, wildfires are important for the wider ecosystem as a whole. Without wildfires to rejuvenate trees, key forest species would disappear—and so would the many creatures that depend on them. And if a fire-dependent forest goes too long without burning, that raises the risk of a catastrophic blaze which could destroy a forest completely, not to mention people’s homes and lives. That’s why forest rangers sometimes intentionally start controlled burns—to reduce fuels in order to keep the more dangerous wildfires at bay.  

From the TED-Ed Lesson Why wildfires are necessary - Jim Schulz

Animation by @provinciastudio

Scientists Are Teaching This Robot To Say “No” Humans - watch the full video