This week, create artificial life from man-made DNA, get a glimpse of a promising universal translator, discover the secrets of Venus with Japan’s Akatsuki, and see extraterrestrial lightning storms! All this and much more, plus our gadget of the week: Wincape!
Scientists Announce Breakthrough for Artificial Life
US scientists have recently announced a bold new step in artificial life. They have successfully produced a living cell powered by man-made DNA. Is this really creating life from nothing? While it is technically the world’s first synthetic cell, it’s more like a reboot than starting from scratch. Scientists basically change one simple form of bacterium into another. The team says that this project paves the way for their ultimate goal: being able to design an organism which could work differently than nature intended. They have hopes of using the new technology for development of new fuels, new ways to clean polluted water, faster vaccine production, and more. Following the announcement, President Barack Obama directed the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues he established last fall to make its first order of business a study of the milestone.
Microsoft’s Consumer-Ready Universal Translator
By gosh, they’ve done it! A piece of Trek-tech that companies have been working toward for years, the universal translator, is finally getting close to the market — and it works surprisingly well! Microsoft’s new translating telephone allows the user to speak into a microphone in any language. The computer then translates that and displays the text of the original language plus any other, and it speaks the translation aloud for you! The best part? It’s surprisingly not that buggy (at least judging from the video below). See for yourself!
Japan Launches Venus Probe
Japan, one of the up and coming countries in the space exploration business, has just launched a probe that is on its way to our yellow sister planet Venus. The satellite, called Akatsuki (or Dawn in English) will reach orbit around Venus in about six months. The spacecraft will take a look at Venus and its system of clouds in unprecedented detail. Ikaros, a solar probe, was also launched in the same rocket. Ikaros is propelled by a solar sail, and it will fly past Venus and make its way to the far side of the sun.
Artist conception of Akatsuki at Venus
Cassini Spies Saturnian Lightning Storms
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has spotted something quite exciting and new on Saturn – lightning storms! A series of images taken over about 16 minutes creates the first ever video of lightning on another planet. The super intense lightning strikes also emit radio waves that Cassini’s radio and plasma wave instrument can detect. The audio in the video approximates the static sound that often occurs on Earth when lightning interferes with AM radio signals.
Picture of the Week: Jupiter Looses a Stripe
In a development that has transformed the appearance of the solar system’s largest planet, one of Jupiter’s two main cloud belts has completely disappeared. “This is a big event,” says planetary scientist Glenn Orton of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab. “We’re monitoring the situation closely and do not yet fully understand what’s going on.” Known as the South Equatorial Belt (SEB), the brown cloudy band is twice as wide as Earth and more than twenty times as long. The loss of such an enormous “stripe” can be seen with ease halfway across the solar system.
Where is Jupiter’s lost stripe?
Gadget of the Week: Winscape Lets You Think You’re on the Space Station
Have a Mac and two HDTV’s? Then you’ve got yourself the makings of Winscape – the interactive window that gives the illusion you are anywhere you want to be. The Winscape software uses a camera and head tracking technology to make the images on your TV “windows” appear as if they are scenes in the far distance. You can even control the view with your iPhone (the company says they are also planning on creating a remote application for a Wii Remote). Check out the video below to see it in action.
#FollowFriday: Geeky Ladies
If you are on Twitter, you know there are plenty of amazing people out there tweeting away. Usually I bring you interesting science tweets, but this week is dedicated to some of my favorite geeky ladies.
- @Starfleetmom: Surely the Mom to all trekkie tweeps! Bio: I’m a crazy mom, sci fi nut, birdwatcher and I actually married an alien! Really!
- @TrekJen: Contributor for TrekSpace.org! Bio: Gamer, snowboarder, Trekhead, lazy bum, fingernail biter, coffee and zombie addict. Run TrekSpace.org, Trek over and visit us!
- @Televixen: Representing the geeky ladies on @DVDGeeks and now in Hollywood. Bio: Actress, writer, TV and radio host, sushi eater, and all-around animal lover extraordinaire.
- @aprilhebert: Everyone’s favorite Andorian formerly of Star Trek: The Experience. Bio: actress who will paint herself blue for money…also might do pointy ears if you’re really nice…
…and if you want to follow me, my Twitter is: @kaylai.
Science Quickies
Not enough science for you? Here’s a warp-speed look at some more science tid-bits that are worth a look.
- Turning planetary theory upside down
- Astronauts make third and final space walk of mission
- Artificial butterfly in flight and filmed
TrekMovie’s Science Friday is an homage the the great NPR radio show Science Friday. Science Friday® is a registered service mark of ScienceFriday Inc.
Artificial life? This has all happened before, and will all happen again…
Oops, wrong Sci Fi property!
That window thing is pretty effing cool.
The Universal Translator is actually pretty cool and such a simple concept too.
The Venus Probe. Sounds a little bit nawtee!
Oh, and that Jupier Stripe. I’ve got it. Its on ebay if you are interested in bidding. ;-)
It’s not just that stripe that’s different. There are numerous differences in the two images. But big deal, I’m sure Jupiter has gone through countless changes and it’s still here and will outlast us all.
I wonder if this new Cylon bacteria can resurrect?
pon-formaran!
I was instructed to speak English during this mission and i would appreciate it if you respect that.
Does anybody know how long the Jupiter’s southern stripe existed? I’m trying to put this news in some kind of context. Has the stripe been there for centuries, or merely years? I would think that the longer the stripe had been observed, the more significant it’s disappearance would be. I guess no one has offered any theories as to the cause of it’s absense…
Holy cow! That Winscape dealie is pretty cool. The holodeck get’s one step closer. And the translation technology is way cool.
Great stuff this week, as always, Kayla.
So f***ing cool!!!!! Okey, so the money I would have to shill out to make this work may not be worth it (yet). But still, to make it look like my house is hitching a ride on the space station is such a cool idea. And yes, It’s definatly one step closer to holodeck technology. All we have to build is force fields that can touch work, feel like real matter. We are almost there with the computing power for the personality matrix’s. Wow.
Sooooooooooooooo, was that a Saturn Bug Zapper in the Cassini video????
My god, I want that Winscape even if only to get my friends drunk and bring ’em home to freak when they realize my apartment is floating in space or has sunk beneath the ocean…. that’d be frackin’ hilarious!
That window thingy is pretty slick! I wonder if they could add a Klingon Bird of Prey crashing near the bridge. It would be cool to see that scene play out from the distance. The same with the Narada’s drill. Awesome!
RE: “Picture of the Week: Jupiter Looses a Stripe”
“It’s shrinking!”
(A “2010” reference.)
It’s the scenery channel from BTTF2 ;)
#15: That’s funny.. and exactly the thought that came to my mind as I read that.
9…. “Does anybody know how long the Jupiter’s southern stripe existed? I’m trying to put this news in some kind of context. Has the stripe been there for centuries, or merely years?”
Centuries, the northern and southern equatorial belts were discovered along with the Great Red Spot in the 17th Century. But like the Great Red Spot, they’ve been known to change appearance from time to time.
I wonder if that’s tied to solar activity, which has been very quiet for an unusually long time.
Hopefully this is helpful:
I just opened my handy-dandy “Mars as the Abode of Life” by Percival Lowell, published in 1908, which includes an illustration of Jupiter. The Southern Equatorial stripe is clearly and darkly indicated.
The stripe, therefore, is at least 102 years old, and the darkness of the lines in the illustration emphasizes its prominence even from the stance of a relatively primitive observatory. Its disappearance in a year’s time is startling, though it should be noted that Jupiter’s weather changes, just as the Earth’s does; however, it usually does it considerably more slowly to say the least.
That should be Jupiter “Loses” a stripe … unless it’s LOOSED IT UPON US! Everybody DUCK!
Seriously, thanks for the round-up, Kayla — I look forward to this every week!
Scott B. out.
The Jupiter “stripes” have disappeared in the past, in fact many times. The storms at that level die down over time, and passage around the Sun, and eventually start up again. What it does show is just how powerful and monolithic that Jupiter is.
Glad to hear about the Venus probe from Japan. However, Venus In-Situ Explorer from NASA is much more interesting. They are proposing an actual landing device, which would be the first in decades.
the universal translator looks promising but I will wait until the bugs are gone. Would be nice if they can convert Klingon, Romulan, Vulcan, Andorian, Tellerite, Ferrengi, Cardassian, Bajoran, Borg and the rest of the Star Trek Language world. That would be extremely cool!
Now what they need to do with the window is create a ton of micro polarized surfaces so they can display a different image to each person in the room so that the head capture tech can handle more than one person. After that it’s just a matter of reducing the cost of the tech and they’ll actually have truly virtual windows.
Oh yeah, and the Wii remote will have to be replaced with a camera that’s connected to image recognition software too so nobody will have to wear LEDs
tungkol sa science at sa planets