Off World

Slowly but surely, ESA's plan for an international, collaborative lunar settlement is beginning to take shape.
It's a more realistic goal than plans to colonize Mars, and if successful, the "Moon Village" would act as a kind of "backup" plan for the human species.  

ESA’s Plan for a “Moon Village” is Slowly Starting to Come Together

And it might happen sooner than a Mars colony. 

Artificial Intelligence

They're coming to get you, Barbara! But they'll make the world a better place…not eat your face.

Machines That Learn Are Invading, and Utterly Transforming, Our Lives

It is fast becoming more and more a part of our daily interactions.

A primer on AI: what it is, how it works, and why it's important.

Artificial Intelligence: What It Is and How It Really Works

Which is which, and how are they related?

Sci-Fi Visions

Will you ever be able to meet your twin self in another universe?

Physicists Weigh In: Could We Ever Travel to a Parallel Universe?

Intellectual face-off: which side are you on?

Hard Science

Researchers have paired extremely small diamonds known as diamondoids with sulfur and copper atoms to create electrical wires only three atoms wide, the thinnest size possible.
These tiny electrical wires could be integrated into electricity-generating fabrics, optoelectronic devices, and even superconducting materials.

Physicists Create Thin Diamond Wires That Could Make Future Tech Tiny

At only three atoms wide, these wires couldn't possibly be any thinner.

Earth & Energy

One of the tools aboard NASA's CALIPSO satellite is the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization, an autonomous light detection and ranging (lidar) instrument designed to measure plankton in polar regions.
Despite their microscopic size, plankton play a huge role in the ecosystem – they can even tell us about climate change. 

NASA’s Enormous Space-Based Laser Probes Earth’s Oceans

Plankton are so much more than just a source of food. 

Since 1992, astronomers have found and confirmed a total of 3,431 exoplanets, star-orbiting planets beyond Earth's solar system.
With several high-tech telescopes and observatories on the way in the next year, we have a better-than-ever chance of finding exoplanets with the potential to host extraterrestrial life.

2017 Will Bring Us More Earth-Like Alien Worlds Than We Ever Dreamed

It’s going to be a busy and exciting year for astronomy.

Future Society

With automation poised to take over an estimated 57 percent of jobs, many are turning to universal basic income (UBI) as a possible solution to widespread unemployment.
UBI systems are already being tested in countries such as Canada, Finland, and the Netherlands, so hard data on the practicality of such systems should be forthcoming.

Is a Universal Basic Income the Answer to Automation-Caused Unemployment?

Is a universal basic income the answer to automation?

Virtuality

Back in 1936, Hugo Gernback invented “teleyeglasses,” a pocket-sized, battery-operated portable TV with a separate screen for each eye, much like modern-day 3D VR glasses.
Though Gernback's invention was little more than a wearable television, today's VR tech is much more impressive, allowing wearers to immerse themselves in virtual worlds.

You’d Need to Travel Back in Time Over 50 Years to Get the World’s First VR Goggles

Sometimes the only difference between science fiction and reality is time.

In an attempt to marry gravity with quantum theory, physicists came up with a hypothetical particle—the graviton, which is said to be a massless particle that travels at the speed of light.
According to physicists, it will be a long time before gravitons are considered part of the established subatomic pantheon.

/ Author

Cecille De Jesus