Is it really that time again? Yep, can you believe it, it’s already Science Friday! Catch up on sciencey goings on this week and watch the fireball that lit up Utah, get up close and personal with some tiger stripes, cheer on the Spirit Mars rover, and teach your computer to think like a cat! All this and more plus our gadget of the week: Frolicat!
Fireball Lights Up Utah Skies
A very large meteor lit up the skies in Utah Wednesday night just after midnight. Scientists are calling it a “remarkable midnight fireball”. The meteor was said to light up the sky to daylight levels, and the flash caught many Utahans off-guard. Local news stations and even 911 received several calls from concerned citizens. A caller in Bountiful told dispatchers, “It flashed from the west, and it lit up the whole freakin’ neighborhood.” A Salt Lake City caller said, “Ma’am, I’m not kidding you. I am terrified.” Luckily, they had nothing to worry about. The large hunk of space rock broke up in the atmosphere and gave us one heck of a show!
Cassini Returns to the Tiger Stripes
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft currently in orbit around Saturn has another flyby of Saturn’s moon Enceladus scheduled for tomorrow, November 21st. Cassini will be imaging Enceladus’s famous “Tiger stripes“, a series of ridges and fractures on the moon’s icy surface. The spacecraft will be under the control of thrusters during the flyby, to allow for precise tracking of surface features during closest-approach; the Composit Infrared Spectrograph (CIRS) instrument will make a map of thermal emission from the tiger stripe known as Baghdad Sulcus. Be sure to check for the new images, in all their glory, on the CICLOPS website tomorrow!
A view of the tiger stripes on Enceladus
Spirit Rover is Making Progress to Get Unstuck
Spirit, one of the twin MER rovers currently roving on Mars, has been stuck for quite some time now. Scientists have been taking their time to determine the best way to get Spirit unstuck by performing simulations in a laboratory. Now, they have started to send the rover signals to get it to try and move, but there has been little success. Today we got a bit of good news for Spirit — she moved! Just a little bit, mind you, but this is just the first step of a two-part motion to try and free Spirit from her sand trap. On on Sol 2090 (Nov. 19), the rover spun its wheels for the equivalent of 2.5 meters (8.2 feet) in the forward direction, and the center of the rover moved approximately 12 millimeters (0.5 inch) forward, 7 millimeters (0.3 inch) to the left and about 4 millimeters (0.2 inch) down. Again, not much, but its the first good news and good movement the rover has had in months.
Free Spirit!
IBM Makes Supercomputer as Smart as a Cat’s Brain. Are Human Brains Next?
Last year, IBM and five universities were awarded a DARPA contract to begin working on achieving the goal of creating a computer that could mimic the computing power of the human brain. Just a year later, they have announced that they have been able to mimic the computing power of a cat’s brain using an algorithm called BlueMatter. Now that computers are up to the sophistication of the feline cortex, the possibility of computers that think like humans may not be far behind.
The BlueMatter algorithm can simulate a cat’s brain
Gadget of the Week: Frolicat — Because Kitties Need Gadgets, too!
Okay, okay, so maybe I chose this for GOTW so I would have an excuse to put up a video of cats chasing laser pointers. Can you blame me? The Froilcat is the laser pointer buddy for your feline friend. Does your arm tire easily when playing laser pointer with kitty? Just a lazy pet owner? Have no fear! Frolicat will do the work for you, so you have your hands free to grab the video camera and upload some more vids to YouTube.
Science Quickies
Not enough science for you? Here’s a warp-speed look at some more science tid-bits that are worth a look.
- Lab worms are stunned by ‘phaser’
- Close-up movie shows details of the birth of supersuns
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.
I would like to see how the super-computer cat brain reacts to the Frolicat…
Um, First?
I’m interested to know how they measure the “computing power” of the BlueMatter algorithm, or a cat brain.
Here is a great idea…lets create a device that indiscriminately shoots a beam of light which can potentially blind someone.
It can mimic a cat’s brain? Are we supposed to be impressed? LOL
Don’t get me wrong, I love cats. But.. going from a cat’s brain to a human brain.. that’s a BIG leap. Unless they meant that they’re trying to mimic Sarah Palin’s brain. Then, yeah, I could see that happening next.
Colossus: The Forbin Project…
I would like to know why they chose the most independent, self absorbed, untrainable, vindictive creature on the planet to make their artificial brain after. This computer will be the one to decide when you can and can’t use it, it will be finicky about what media you put in it, and within weeks or even days it will take over your house and make you beg for mercy.
They should build a computer that thinks like a dog…. ;-)
Hey, what about Fire&Blood part 2? It was announced here for 20th release several weeks ago. Nothing about it on Phase 2 site…
A computer based on a cat’s brain? Its probably in power-save mode all day and then operates really fast around midnight when you’re trying to sleep.
Maybe those NASA scientists should get a clue and realize that Spirit’s movement is nothing more than the rover digging itself deeper in the sand.
#3: drama queen
I live in Utah and was just leaving work when that meteor flashed across the sky. It was so bright I felt like one of the monkeys in Project X.
#4… grow up. You know Sarah Palin would pwn you in Scrabble.
#7… i’m right there with you. where’s blood & fire part 2? not trying to complain but i’ve been very patient all this time.
Wasn’t the Spirit rover originally supposed to go for like a couple of months or something? And it’s still going strong after 5 YEARS?!
Bravo NASA!
So now we can train our computers to chase laser pointers? This is truly the pinnacle of Computer Science.
In other news, that rover’s got Spirit!
#13
I’m impressed as hell with that too. There was a great special on the two rovers a month or so ago. Amazing pieces of work, those two things are.
And congratulations on Cambridge, Kayla!
My impression is they’re making a wiring diagram of the brain and setting up a model of it’s processing based on that. That doesn’t sound very trivial.
# 4. For that coment you get 72 Hours Straight in the Agoniser Booth. Hey. Maybe Nasa needs to call AAA. I wonder if they can get it unstuck. Or they can call the Mars Tow Truck to get it out of the Mars Dirch. I had that problem once there. Oh Wait. never mind I said that.
# 7 and 12. You are right.. What about blood and fire. Come on MR Cawley. Time to release Blood and fire.
#6 Exactly.
#13 That’s because they over-engineer everything, which is the way it should be.
#17 You are the smartest guy in the world.
“Now that computers are up to the sophistication of the feline cortex, the possibility of computers that think like humans may not be far behind.”
I really doubt they can simulate the entire cortex. Cortical columns, perhaps.
But the brain is far more than just cerebral cortex ;)
#13 A sol is just 40 minutes longer than a day, so 2090 of them is
2090×24.02777/24= 2092.42 days, or 5.78 years, so yep, longer than 5 years is right, almost 6 now! Wow!
Must be the effect of putting Marvin The Martian on their logos, it keep the Martians from discombulating the rovers like they do most probes :D
I just want to know who’s going to be responsible in the future for contaminating the galactic food supply with “dithienylethene” so that the “stun” setting will work?
#6 – They already make computers like this…. called Windows PCs.
Is it wrong that I found the cat video the most interesting thing in an article featuring exploding fire balls, extra-terrestrial terrain and the valiant efforts to free a stranded rover from 50 million kilometers away?
I’m in UT as well. It was amazing!
#21 ” A sol is just 40 minutes longer than a day, so 2090 of them is
2090×24.02777/24= 2092.42 days, or 5.78 years”
I have no idea what a sol is, but 0.027777 hours does not equal 40 minutes.
Moops! I misread. Ignore #27
G/#4
warning for political trolling
and the rest of you, stop with the politics, this is science!
up-to-the-minute science news:
Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN back online!
…I think that’s worth a “Science Saturday”, isn’t it?
cats love laser spots, a friend of mine has some amazing still photo shots of his cat doing amazing acrobatics in mid-air while also using a strobe light. amazing!
Once had a larrrrrrrge flash o’ light like that when me still blew up….
I blamed a meteor on it when tha’ local coppers questioned me…
And if they can make a Rover that lasts so long on a desolate word wit’ no petro station in site, how come they canna’ do the same ta’ make me Ford Pinto last like that?!
Oh, speakin’ o’ large flashes o’ light… dunna’ tailgate me…
Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…
Isn’t it kind of sadistic to make cats chase things that aren’t really there? ;-)
Catbrains? Not bad as long as they can eliminate the hairballs.
I am thrilled to hear some good news from Spirit. Poor rover :( Hard to believe they have lasted for so long (over 5 years) and they were only supposed to last about 30 days or so. Amazing!