News of the week selected by Impactscool – February 18th, 2019
18 February 2019 | Written by La redazione
The most important news about future and technology selected by Impactscool team
A Rover dedicated to Rosalind Franklin
ESA, the European Space Agency, has announced that the rover of the Exomars 2020 mission, which will start looking for life on the red planet, will be called Rosalind Franklin, in honour of the great English chemistry. Already other times in the past the ESA has titled its missions to great researchers, physicists and mathematicians, such as Newton, Planck and Euclid. In the case of Rosalind Franklin, General Manager Jan Woerner explained, Rosalind Franklin’s name “reminds us that it is mankind to explore. Science is in our DNA and in everything we do at ESA. The Rosalind rover captures the spirit and takes us all to the forefront of space exploration “.
Soon we could have a good coffee without using … coffee.
The American startup Atomo, based in Seattle, has developed a “molecular coffee”, obtained without using only one coffee bean. The company, in fact, believes that it has identified the approximately 40 compounds that generate the body, the sensation, the aroma and the colour of the coffee and have created a “photocopy” product made with naturally derived sustainable ingredients, which at the moment are not Note. Innovation could solve the major problems related to coffee production, ranging from difficulties in cultivation due to climate change to the exploitation of many workers.
The secret of the perfect pitch has been discovered
Mozart, Bach and Beethoven and other great protagonists of the history of music had one thing in common: the ability to instantly recognize musical notes. This particular talent, known as “perfect pitch”, resides in a characteristic of the brain and could be connected to DNA. This is indicated by research carried out on some volunteers, musicians and otherwise, made by the University of Delaware and published in the Journal of Neuroscience.
He was nicknamed “Skaterbot” the ice-skating robot made by a professor of the Computational Robotics Lab of the ETH Zurich. The device showed off its qualities last month in Davos, during the World Economic Forum. “Skaterbot” still has much to learn, but its creators expect it to be useful during search and rescue missions and could even be used for deliveries.
An interactive app shows the climate of 2080
Climate change is transforming our world. But what will be the impacts on our cities? Two US researchers have created an interactive web application that makes it easy for people in North America to see the dramatic potential impact. In a paper published in the journal Nature Communications, researchers describe how they projected the climate of 540 urban areas of North America in 2080. The climate of Washington DC, for example, in 2080 will very much resemble that of northern Mississippi today.
AI to avoid shootings in schools
About a year ago, the US was rocked by the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida. Since then, several technology companies have intensified their efforts to use artificial intelligence to prevent such tragedies. Among these Bark, who announced that he had prevented 16 shootings at school since February, thanks to what was detected by his algorithms and promptly reported to the FBI. Bark’s artificial intelligence monitors text messages, e-mails and social media accounts for signs of cyberbullying, drug use, depression and other possible security issues, sending automatic alerts to officials in over 1,100 school districts when notice something suspicious.
