We're so glad technology has come as far as it has. Waiting a day to download an album or a movie sounds like sheer torture.
technology
Have you ever wondered what the surface of an asteroid looks like? Well wonder no more, because the world has been blessed with pictures of Ryugu, a diamond-shaped asteroid the Japanese Space Agency has a spacecraft hanging around. The photographer is a little shoebox-sized probe named MASCOT (Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout) who bounced around the asteroid and snapped some pics for us. Thanks, buddy.
Remember when 3D printing became wildly popular overnight and everyone started 3D printing everything? Well 3D printing has just taken on a new dimension. Scientists have just 3D bioprinted a tiny human heart from stem cells. This is big, people. This is huge.
Chuck and Beans are two adorable rabbits who are addicted to technology.
In the past few decades, technology has allowed us to live a reality that seemed like magic not so long ago. Talking to people on the other side of the planet? Easy. Flying in the air? Done. Man on the moon? Pfft. We did that in the sixties. Since science is getting more confident, and maybe a little egotistical, scientists have thought up a new scheme that sounds quite fantastical to us (although I guess that's what people thought before the internet existed). Scientists want to build an elevator that goes to the moon. Who knows, at the rate of technological advancement today, maybe it isn't so crazy. Lets wait a few years and see what happens.
For the first time in history, a surgeon performed heart surgery without actually being in the room. Or building. Or town. The surgeon was 20 miles away from their patient, and the surgery was done with the assistance of a robot. Yes, we are officially living in the future.
Colonization of the moon isn't too far off: plans for permanent lunar bases are already in motion, and the equipment for cheaply transporting people to the moon is in it's first stages of conception. But once we get there, humans will have to live inside buildings (or whatever the moon-equivalent will be called). So, in consideration of this, astronomers on the ISS mixed cement to see what zero-gravity cement would turn out like.
The world's largest computer chip is called the Wafer Scale Engine, and it's slightly bigger than an iPad. This isn't huge - unless you compare it to the current size of computer chips, which are around the size of a finger nail or postage stamp. Now that's a big difference. And even more impressive is what the world's biggest computer chip will be able to do.
The United States Air Force will begin using 3D printers to print replacement aircraft parts. And what are they starting with? The most important part of a plane. Latrine covers.
It's easy to forget that the universe isn't a smattering of tiny white lights in the sky, but actually a crazy place full of exploding stars, black holes and probably, aliens. As technology brings us closer to the predictions in science fiction classics, exploration (and eventually colonization) of the moon is becoming a reality. The moon has been getting some coverage in the media recently, and we're here to remind you that it's actually more than a sliver in the sky; the moon is the closest astronomical body to Earth and it's really beautiful. Here are fifteen photos and bits of information to remind you how cool the moon is.
Robots are no longer a fantasy of the future. For centuries, humans have been hypothesizing about robots. Now, technology is advancing at such a fast rate that our fantasies (or nightmares) are becoming true. Robots are, whether or not we like it, going to continue to be more involved in our lives. So we might as well welcome our robotic overlords. Here are twelve GIFs of some very cool robots that exist today.
Author, Kate O'Neill used her platform on Twitter to encourage people participating in online activities like the recent, trending profile picture aging meme on Facebook, to slow down and think about it critically. O'Neill asks people to consider how willingly posting that information online for Facebook's seemingly sentient algorithm to digest, can have a ripple effect on society as a whole; how that information can be fed into worldwide databases, sold off to advertising agencies, and used to exploit the very people that upload it, without considering the impacts, in the process. She doesn't aim to inspire panic in this Twitter thread, but instead, she wants us to think critically when considering the fast-changing landscape of the world around us. Some solid advice!
If you experienced childhood somewhere around the turn of the century, then quite a few of of these pictures might hit you right in the memory nads. Remember back when you had to drive to a store to rent videos? Wild. If you want more '90s nostalgia, then check these out.
