Show Notes 29 March 2024
Story 1: A new watchdog satellite will sniff out methane emissions from space.
Source: The Washington Post Story by Nicolás Rivero
See also: https://www.edf.org/methanesat
See also: https://seas.harvard.edu/news/2024/03/cutting-edge-methane-monitor
See video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTuaigBiNvw&t=2s
First, the article offers some background before the news:
- Methane, a potent greenhouse gas released from farms, landfills, and leaky fossil fuel equipment, accounts for nearly a third of global warming. Cutting methane emissions is one of the fastest ways to slow climate change, according to climate scientists.
- Most of the world’s oil and gas companies agreed to slash their methane emissions by more than 80 percent by 2030 at last year’s COP28 climate conference [that’s Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change], and policymakers are working to hold them to that promise.
- U.S. regulators proposed steep fines on methane emissions in January and struck a deal with regulators in Europe, Japan, South Korea, and Australia last year to monitor fossil fuel companies’ methane emissions.
- But so far, it’s been hard to track progress. There are thousands of oil and gas facilities around the world with countless pieces of equipment that can leak or malfunction and release methane, which is odorless and invisible to the naked eye.
- Companies and regulators can measure some emissions by installing methane detectors or using planes or drones to fly sensors over a facility, but the data is incomplete and hard to compare between companies.
- Okay, at last, here’s the news: The global crackdown on methane emissions got a boost on March 4 with the launch of a watchdog satellite called MethaneSAT built to track and publicly reveal the biggest methane polluters in the oil and gas industry. It was successfully launched from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
- The satellite, designed by scientists from the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund and Harvard University, will monitor areas that supply 80 percent of the world’s natural gas. Unlike other methane tracking satellites, it will cover a vast territory while also gathering data detailed enough to spot the sources of emissions.
- Side note: Other methane detecting satellites include:
- Iris: Iris is another powerful satellite designed to monitor methane emissions. It can map plumes of methane in the atmosphere down to a resolution of just 25 meters, making it possible to identify individual sources, such as specific oil and gas facilities.
- GHGSat Constellation: This constellation includes several hyperspectral and multispectral land imaging sensors, such as PRISMA, Sentinel-2, Landsat-8/9, and WorldView-3.
- The head of the United Nation’s International Methane Emissions Observatory noted, “We’re on the verge of a methane data revolution … in which satellites are having a very prominent role. MethaneSAT is exciting in particular … because it’s expected to give us so much better data than what we have now.”
Story 2: Honda unveils mind-controlled scooter, a hands-free VR mobility device.
My comment – Actually, it is more like a wheelchair, and is controlled by a person’s posture or position of the body, the attitude or carriage of the body, or the position of the limbs. Not controlled by your thoughts.
Source: Interesting Engineering Story by Ameya Paleja
Link: https://interestingengineering.com/transportation/honda-personal-mobility-xr
See also: Honda Combines Personal Mobility and VR in World’s First Extended Reality Mobility Experience to Debut at SXSW 2024 [Honda Press Release]
See video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deHB2woZZ0E
- Japanese automotive giant Honda recently unveiled a unique extended reality experience at the SXSW 2024 event in Austin, which opened March 8, by combining personal mobility with virtual reality (VR). Central to this experience is the new Honda UNI-ONE, a hands-free mobility device for single users.
- The UNI-ONE, being shown for the first time in the US, is a personal mobility device that uses self-balancing technology and is driven completely hands-free. Sensors in the device detect the postural movements of the rider and estimate whether the user intends to stay in a place or move in a certain direction at a certain speed.
- The company’s proprietary wheel mechanism powers the personal mobility device dubbed the Honda Omni Traction Drive System. The system has been in the works for over a decade and has evolved considerably since it was first introduced in 2013.
Honda Omni Traction Drive System
- The UNI-ONE uses two units of the Omni Traction Drive System to deliver smooth mobility in any direction. The battery-powered system has a maximum speed of 3.7 miles (6 km) an hour. It has a maximum user weight capacity of 242 pounds (109 kg).
- Honda has previously used the UNI-ONE with augmented reality to create a game at the Suzuka Circuit Park, where users controlled the mobility device with a tablet. Now, it is taking it further by allowing users to don virtual reality headsets and choose their own experience while sitting in the UNI-ONE.
- Side note – The Suzuka Circuit Park, also known as the Suzuka International Racing Course, is a renowned motorsport racetrack located in Ino, Suzuka City, Mie Prefecture, Japan.
- At the SXSW 2024, visitors can choose between simulations of floating in the sky or gliding along a half-pipe path, but Honda’s vision for the experience goes beyond.
- Honda wants to deliver extended reality experiences in indoor and outdoor spaces by combining UNI-ONE with scenarios and games. In obstacle-free spaces such as entertainment zones and theme parks, Honda wants the UNI-ONE to be used as a mobility device inside games where racers can move about hands-free.
- My comment – other than games, what could this be used for? A transportation alternative to a wheelchair that uses arm movements to “drive” the device for people with hand disabilities – i.e. unable to use a joystick?
Story 3: Scientists create DVD-shaped disc that can hold more movies than you could see in your entire life.
Source: Futurism.com Story by Victor Tangermann
Link: https://futurism.com/the-byte/dvd-shaped-disc-hold-more-movies-life
Source: A 3D nanoscale optical disk memory with petabit capacity
Link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06980-y
Source: DVD’s New Cousin Can Store More Than a Petabit Containing more data than the entire Internet can transmit in a second
Link: https://spectrum.ieee.org/data-storage-petabit-optical-disc
- Researchers at the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology have come up with an optical storage device that has the same shape and size as a DVD or Blu-Ray disc — but can hold a whopping 1.6 petabits of data, or around 200,000 gigabytes.
- That’s enough data to store over 40,000 DVDs, or over 100 years of watching one movie a day. As IEEE Spectrum reports, that’s around 4,000 times the data density of a Blu-Ray, and roughly 24 times of the highest-capacity hard drives currently available.
- Instead of just allowing you to live out the rest of your life watching movies without having to swap out the disc, the researchers are hoping their invention could significantly shrink the size of data centers — which still rely heavily on huge numbers of conventional hard drives.
- Best of all, the researchers claim their discs could make use of conventional DVD mass production methods, producing a single disc in only six minutes.
- Instead of storing data in a single layer, the team came up with a way to encode data across 100 layers. As detailed in a paper published in the journal Nature in February [article published February 28], the data is also recorded in spots that measure only 54 nanometers across. [Remember a nanometer is one billionth of a meter].
- To both write and read data, the researchers relied on nanometer-scale lasers. By finely timing the system, they were able to significantly pare down the size of the spots where the data is stored.
- The scientists believe their optical discs can be manufactured at commercial scales, making them an intriguing option to scale down the physical space taken up by data centers.
Story 4: RoboGuide: AI-powered robot dog developed to assist blind and visually impaired individuals.
Source: The Science Times Story by Margaret Davis
See video here: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/this-robot-is-the-ai-powered-seeing-eye-dog-of-the-future/vi-BB1jmKpA
- First, some background before the news – The estimated cost to breed, raise, train, and match a guide dog with a person with vision loss is approximately $50,000. Source: https://www.guidedog.org/GD/about/GD/about-us/about-the-guide-dog-foundation.aspx
- Researchers at the University of Glasgow created RoboGuide, an AI-driven robot dog designed to potentially replace guide dogs.
Their robot dog looks a lot like BostonDynamic’s robot
- According to its developers, RoboGuide could enhance the mobility of blind and visually impaired individuals in spaces like museums, shopping centers, and hospitals.
- RoboGuide employs advanced sensors to map and assess its surroundings accurately. [AI, machine learning] … software enables the robot to learn optimal routes, interpret real-time sensor data, and avoid collisions with moving obstacles while guiding a person. With the ability to understand speech, RoboGuide can provide verbal responses, enhancing its communication capabilities.
- The project’s principal researcher noted that the RoboGuide employs advanced external sensors for precise mapping, utilizes software to learn the best routes, and interprets data to navigate around obstacles while guiding users. Additionally, the robot integrates language technology to comprehend and respond to user inquiries and remarks.
- The prototype was tested at a museum in Glasgow where volunteers experienced the robot’s assistance in navigating exhibits. Developers aim to create a versatile system adaptable to various robots, offering comprehensive support to the visually impaired in diverse indoor settings.
Honorable Mentions:
Story: Scientists zoom in on distant solar system. It’s teeming with water.
Source: Mashable.com Story by Mark Kaufman
Link: https://mashable.com/article/solar-system-water-discovery
- Using a sprawling astronomical array in the lofty Chilean desert — the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) — scientists found huge volumes of water around a young, developing solar system (technically still in its “protoplanetary disk” phase). The star, HL Tauri, is located 450 light-years away in space. Yet in the disk around HL Tauri, the powerful observatory was able to spot at least three times the amount of water contained in Earth’s oceans.
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Story: Terahertz biosensor: Light waves see through skin to detect cancer early
Source: Interesting Engineering Story by Mrigakshi Dixit
- A novel biosensor has harnessed the power of harmless terahertz waves to identify skin cancer early on.
- Terahertz (THz) waves exist between microwave and infrared frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum. This THz technology has shown to be a promising frontier in biomedical applications.
- This biosensor, developed by Queen Mary University of London and the University of Glasgow, has a high sensitivity for detecting skin cancer compared to other, often time-consuming approaches.
- The biosensor leverages these waves to provide a non-invasive method for analyzing underlying tissue properties.
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Story: Scientists develop ‘nanosphere’ paint that could reduce planes’ carbon dioxide emissions – to reduce weight of an aircraft
Source: Engadget.com Story by Sarah Fielding
- Paint might not seem like the heaviest component to consider when building a large device like an airplane, but its mass can add up. Now, a new and lightweight substance could provide a welcome substitute: Two material scientists from Kobe University, Fujii Minoru and Sugimoto Hiroshi, have discovered nanospheres that are near-invisible silicone crystals. The particles can reflect light thanks to very large and efficient scattering, research published in the journal of ACS Applied Nano Matter details. The result could mean covering a surface in vibrant color while only adding 10 percent of the weight that paint would bring, Fast Company reports.