Ithaca NY (SPX) Feb 12, 2021
Soft robots may not be in touch with human feelings, but they are getting better at feeling human touch. Cornell University researchers have created a low-cost method for soft, deformable robots to detect a range of physical interactions, from pats to punches to hugs, without relying on touch at all. Instead, a USB camera located inside the robot captures the shadow movements of hand gestures on

Atlanta GA (SPX) Feb 12, 2021
Individually, California blackworms live an unremarkable life eating microorganisms in ponds and serving as tropical fish food for aquarium enthusiasts. But together, tens, hundreds, or thousands of the centimeter-long creatures can collaborate to form a "worm blob," a shape-shifting living liquid that collectively protects its members from drying out and helps them escape threats such as excess

Moscow, Russia (SPX) Feb 16, 2021
Researchers from the Oil and Gas Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences and their Skoltech colleagues have surveyed the newest known 30-meter deep gas blowout crater on the Yamal Peninsula, which formed in the summer of 2020. The paper was published in the journal Geosciences. Giant craters in the Russian Arctic, thought to be the remnants of powerful gas blowouts, first att

Flyover movies, elevation maps, 3D views and detailed colour scenes: ESA’s Mars Express and ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter missions have provided imagery of Jezero Crater and the surrounding region in support of NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover landing on 18 February 2021.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Space Force awarded LinQuest Corp. a $200 million contract for advisory and support services for one of the service’s field commands, the Defense Department announced Feb. 16.

The contract is for work performed at the Space Operations Command headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado, between now and February 2030.

Image: Satellites and debris take a long time to return

WASHINGTON — BAE Systems announced on Feb. 17 that it won the largest share of a $552 million deal the Space Force awarded to three companies in November to design and manufacture advanced GPS receivers that provide positioning, navigation and timing to U.S.

HELSINKI — As NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover barrels through the Martian atmosphere this week and jettisons ballast that would otherwise doom its landing, the U.S. space agency’s two-year-old InSight lander will be listening intently, collecting data that could help scientists better understand the planet’s composition.

HELSINKI — Russia is preparing to sign a memorandum of understanding with China to cooperate on a vision for an international lunar research station.