27 Apr Hubble’s Greatest Discoveries Weren’t Planned – They Were Surprises 

It was already 28 years ago that the Hubble Space Telescope was launched and deployed in low-Earth orbit, where it remains today. Outfitted with a 2.4 meter mirror, a slew of instruments designed for viewing stars, planets, nebulae and galaxies, Hubble became humanity’s first civilization-class space telescope. Although it had a number of science goals, its most ambitious was what gave rise to its name: it was the Hubble telescope because it was built to measure the Hubble expansion rate of the Universe. But what Hubble wound up teaching us went far beyond anything it was designed for, and that was due to a combination of three factors. First, Hubble was overbuilt for its mission. Second, Hubble was repaired, upgraded, and serviced. And third, the people administering Hubble had the foresight to green-light some very bold, ambitious proposals. This review article summarizes what we have learned.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.forbes.com

27 Apr Experts Sign Open Letter Slamming Europe’s Proposal to Recognize AI Robots as Legal Persons 

Over 150 experts in AI, robotics, commerce, law, and ethics from 14 countries have signed an open letter denouncing the European Parliament’s proposal to grant personhood status to intelligent machines. The EU says the measure will make it easier to figure out who’s liable when robots screw up or go rogue, but critics say it’s too early to consider robots as persons—and that the law will let manufacturers off the liability hook.

This all started last year when the European Parliament proposed the creation of a specific legal status for robots: The parliament said the law would apply to “smart robots,” which it defined as robots having the capacity to learn through experience and interaction, the ability to acquire autonomy through its sensors, the capacity to adapt its behavior and actions to the environment, among other criteria. By virtue of this proposal, the EU is responding to rapid advances in robotics and AI, and the potential risks imposed on humans and human property. The fear isn’t a robot uprising (at least not yet), but more mundane risks, such as autonomous vehicles and drones accidentally smashing into people, a factory robot crushing an absent-minded worker, or a Roomba giving your cat an unexpected shave.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: gizmodo.com

20 Apr Dinosaurs ended – and originated – due to a mass extinction

It is commonly understood that the dinosaurs disappeared with a bang – wiped out by a great meteorite impact on the Earth 66 million years ago.

But their origins have been less understood. In a new study, scientists from MUSE – Museum of Science, Trento, Italy, Universities of Ferrara and Padova, Italy and the University of Bristol show that the key expansion of dinosaurs was also triggered by a crisis – a mass extinction that happened 232 million years ago.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.bristol.ac.uk

20 Apr Elon Musk is raising half a billion in cash for SpaceX – and there are 3 epic projects to spend it on

Elon Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX, is likely raising about $500 million in new funding. The cash investment would be a boon to SpaceX, which is chasing three incredibly ambitious projects in the coming decade. Those plans include (i) a global satellite-internet network, (ii) a spaceship to explore and colonize Mars, and (iii) the world’s fastest transportation system.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.appy-geek.com

16 Apr TESS – NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite is Launching Soon 

NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite or TESS is an all-sky survey mission that will discover thousands of exoplanets around nearby bright stars.

NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is scheduled to launch no earlier than 6:32 p.m. EDT Monday, April 16, 2018. TESS is on a mission to find planets outside of our solar system and the prelaunch mission coverage will start on NASA Television and the agency’s website Sunday, April 15, with three live briefings.

NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is prepared to launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Once in space, TESS will spend approximately two years monitoring 200,000 of the brightest stars near the sun to detect planets outside our solar system.

TESS is NASA’s next step in the search for planets outside of our solar system, called exoplanets, including those that could support life. The mission is expected to catalog thousands of planet candidates and largely increase the current number of known exoplanets.

TESS will find the most promising exoplanets orbiting relatively close stars, giving future researchers a vast set of new targets for more comprehensive follow-up studies, such as the potential to assess their capacity to harbor life.

Launch Resources:

TESS Launch Blog
TESS Launch Team
TESS Briefings and Events
Launch Campaign Photos

TESS project website at NASA Goddard

TESS Guest Investigator Program Office website

TESS science writers guide

HD multimedia on TESS

Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.nasa.gov

07 Apr 200 universities just launched 600 free online courses. Here’s the full list. —

If you haven’t heard, universities around the world are offering their courses online for free (or at least partially free). These courses are collectively called MOOCs or Massive Open Online Courses. In the past six years or so, close to 800 universities have created more than 8,000 of these MOOCs. And I’ve been keepin

Sourced through Scoop.it from: qz.com