Elon Musk, co-funder and CEO of Tesla, Inc., and more than 100 leaders and experts in artificial intelligence have urged the United Nations to ban killer robots. In an open letter Musk, Google Deepmind's Mustafa Suleyman, and 114 other AI and robotics specialists have urged the UN to take action to prevent "the third revolution in warfare" by banning the development of lethal autonomous weapon systems. The letter was released to coincide with IJCAL 2017, the world's largest AI conference taking place in Melbourne, Australia this week. The "third revolution" refers to killer robots as the successors to gunpowder and nuclear weapons, and while the letter isn't the first time that experts have urged the world to move away from developing Terminator-like weaponry, it's the first time representatives from AI and robotics companies have joined the call, following the stance taking by luminaries like Stephen Hawking, Noam Chomsky, and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. To read the letter click on this link AN OPEN LETTER TO THE UNITED NATIONS CONVENTION ON CERTAIN CONVENTIONAL WEAPONS.
Don't panic!
On 1 September, a 4.4. kilometre (2.7 mile) asteroid will pass by Earth, the biggest object to pass this close since NASA's Near Earth Observations program began in 1998. But don't panic, the asteroid is not expected to come any closer than 7 million kilometres (4.4 million miles), roughly 18 times the distance between the Earth and the Moon. Named Florence by Schelte "Bobby" Bus at Siding Spring Observatory in Australia after the 19th century nurse Florence Nightingale, she was first detected in 1981 and hasn't been this close since 1880, and won't pass as close again until 2500. The close(ish) encounter will offer scientists the perfect opportunity to learn more about about Florence's shape, size, and composition, and could reveal more information about her orbital path, or provide important information on its structure that may help us fine-tune future strategies in avoiding catastrophic strikes — there are currently over 1,800 hazardous near-Earth objects being tracked by NASA. To find out more check out Large Asteroid to Safely Pass Earth on Sept. 1.
Water found on Mars — where there shouldn't be any
Scientists have taken a closer look at data from NASA's Mars Odyssey probe, revealing substantial amounts of water in the form of ice buried beneath the Martian surface around the planet's equator. Given what we know about the Red Planet's climate, there shouldn't be any there. The team of scientists, led by researchers from Johns Hopkins University in the U.S.A., reevaluated previous measurements from the probe's neutron spectrometer tool used to gauge the presence of hydrogen close to the surface of Mars. The probe orbits the planet at an altitude of 800 km (2,400 miles), preventing it from measuring water directly, so instead it looks for hydrogen, a reliable proxy for water, and led Odyssey to discover ice back in 2002, but was largely restricted to Mars' polar regions. This makes sense, because scientists think that ice around the equator can't persist for long periods buried in the soil, as thermal conditions mean it should sublimate into the atmosphere. One possibility, the team thinks, is that if the planet's current inclination was once tilted by 20 degrees a few million years ago, it might have been possible for ice in polar regions to sublimate, before eventually redistributing to found lower latitudes over time. To find out more check out Water ice found near Mars’s equator could entice colonists and life-seekers.
Way out man! Scientists can now mass produce psilocybin
Researchers from Germany have identified the four key enzymes involved in making psilocybin, the hallucinogen responsible for the 'magic' in magic mushrooms, opening the door(s of perception — sorry) for the mass production of a promising pharmaceutical. First identified by the Swiss scientist Albert Hofmann in 1959, scientists have long known about the chemical responsible for magic mushrooms' psychedelic reputation, but little was known about its biochemical pathway. Recently, however, psilocybin has emerged as as a safe way to treat conditions related to anxiety, depression, and addiction. So a team of researchers from Friedrich Schiller University Jena in Germany sequenced the genomes of the species Psilocybe cubensis and Psilocybe cyanescens to look for the biochemical components responsible for constructing this mind-bending molecule. Identifying these enzymes are as well as the genes that encode them will allow for the mass production psilocybin, and could lead to the recipe that could be tweaked to suit particular needs. To find out more check out Enzymatic synthesis of psilocybin.
Stars orbiting black hole have confirmed Einstein's theory of relatively
Scientists studying a supermassive black hole at the centre of the Miky Way have finally confirmed Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity a 100 years after he first proposed it. By accurately recording the orbits of stars around the black hole, referred to as Sagittarius A*, that's 26,000 light years from Earth and four million times the mass of the sun, the scientists suggest that Einstein was right all along. Einstein's general theory of relativity, introduced to the world in 1915, hypothesised that gravity was due to the curvature of space and time, produced by the distorting effect of massive objects like stars and planets, in much the same way as a bowling ball placed on a trampoline curves its surface. The researchers analysed around 20 years of observations from the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile as well as other sources to analyse the movements of three stars in orbit around Sagittarius A*, and found it doesn't match up with the predictions of Newtonian gravity. Although it's a significant result, the researchers admit that due to the limited precision afforded by the historical observational data used in the study it is only preliminary for now. To find out more check out Einstein's Theory Passes A Massive Test.
Almost 100 volcanoes discovered hidden under the Antarctic
Scientists from the University of Edinburgh in the UK have uncovered 138 volcanoes — 91 of which have previously been detected — after surveying the so-called West Antarctic Rift System, and say that it's imperative that we find out which of them remain active. The researchers studied the rift system lying underneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, analysing ice-sheet bed-elevation data for the presence of conical edifices protruding upwards into the ice across West Antarctica — much the same as we see when surface volcanoes extend out of Earth's surface. The volcanoes range from 100 metres (328 feet) to 3,850 metres (12,631 feet), and because they are buried under kilometres of ice, it's unlikely that they pose an immediate threat to anything on the Antarctic surface, but if one or more were to erupt, the heat generated could melt the ice above it, potentially increasing sea levels. To find out more check out Scientists discover 91 volcanoes below Antarctic ice sheet.
The largest dinosaur finally gets a name
At over 37 metres (122 feet) long, and weighing in at nearly 63 tonnes — more than 10 adult African elephants — the largest dinosaur ever to have walked the Earth has been named by scientists. The plant-eating beast first made headlines back in 2014, when a rancher from Patagonia in Argentina discovered a fossil bone. But despite its fame, the dinosaur did not have an official scientific name until now, when a report published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. named it Patagotitan mayorum. Patagotitan lived about 100 million years ago during the Cretaceous Period, and is considered a titanosaur, a class of long-necked herbivores, with long tails that walked on four legs, which vary in size with the smallest species weighing as much as an adult elephant and the largest ones weighing more than 55 tonnes. The discovery of Patagotitan has given scientists a clearer picture of how titanosaurs evolved in terms of their body mass, and the study has revealed that most of the giant titanosaurs discovered in Patagonia belonged to a single lineage. A full scale cast of the giant is on display at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. To find out check out The Paleontological Museum Egidio Feruglio.
Two exoplanets that could be habitable discovered
Researchers from the University of Hertfordshire in the UK have detected four Earth-sized exoplanets orbiting the closest Sun-like star outside our solar system, and think that two of them could be habitable. The star, called Tau Ceti, is located around 12 light-years away, and the scientists believe it has the potential to support alien life. The exoplanets were discovered using a technique called Doppler spectroscopy, also referred to as radial velocity or 'the wobble method', which detects extremely slight wobbles in Tau Ceti's movement, due to the gravitational pull of smaller astronomical bodies. Two of the exoplanets are located within the boundaries of Tau Ceti's habitable zone, where the conditions could support liquid water on their surface, and could possibly support life. This is not the first time Tau Ceti has been found to host potentially habitable worlds; a few years back the same team discovered five worlds orbiting the star, and the latest research is an amendment to their previous work, the findings from which will appear in an upcoming edition of The Astrophysical Journal. To find out more check out Color difference makes a difference: four planet candidates around tau Ceti.
The healing powers of nanotechnology
A new nanochip technology holds the promise for healing internal wounds by delivering specific genes that create new types of cells. Developed by a team at Ohio State University, the technology, called Tissue Nanotransfection, sits on the skin and uses an intense electrical field to deliver specific genes to the tissue underneath it, which can reprogram cells to replace tissue or even whole organs. The researchers have used the technology on animals to reprogram skin cells on the outside of injured legs to become vascular cells, which regulate blood flow through the body. Within a week, active blood vessels appeared in the injured legs, and a week later the injured legs were functioning normally. They also used the technology to generate nerve cells in the laboratory that were used to successfully help brain-injured mice recover from a stroke. The technology comprises two components: the nanochip that sits on the skin, about the size of a cufflink, which contains the biological cargo used to affect the tissue underneath. Zapping the chip with a harmless electrical charge releases the cargo into the cell membranes. To find out more go to Researchers Develop Regenerative Medicine Breakthrough.
Have you been hacked?
From social media and banking to online purchases, we all use passwords. They can be hard to remember, and we have millions of them, but more worrisome are the massive data breaches of companies that we trust with our online credentials, when our usernames and passwords can become exposed. Now there is a simple way to find out if your security has been compromised. Troy Hunt, an Australian security researcher has designed a website that lets you check to see if your email addresses and usernames have been involved in some of the biggest data breaches involving companies like Myspace, LinkedIn, Adobe, Dropbox and hundreds more. Hunt's new tool, called Pwned Passwords, has a staggering 320 million leaked passwords stored in its database, and allows you to enter just your password to see if they have been leaked in any of these hacks. To find out if your username, email address or password is on the list go to Have I been pwned?