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| Amphibious drones are go... |
It's hotting up - big money prizes for first team to the moon , and the first to explore the deep sea.
The deep sea contest has a one-day time restriction, and it's got to be done by amphibious drone.
This could be useful for imminent exploration of other worlds - but as I studied this article, I learned that we have only explored 5% of our own oceans.
That stopped me in my tracks - mainly because at this point in our jaded , world-weary 21st century we must have explored everywhere on Earth ?
Nope, most of the oceans remain unknown.
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| Who knows what lurks... detail from Carta Marina 1572 |
Exploration is underway in Antarctica , deep inside icy caverns where conditions are similar to Europa (ok, not that similar - temperatures on Europa would be way more frosty at -160°c )
Harsh environments provide serious challenges for exploration , and so JPL have a development facility for monitoring extreme environments , where they are developing robots that can crawl, scurry and climb .
I also learned that there is a department of planetary protection within NASA - is this a conflict of interest ?
Or is it a genuine watchdog for the many exploration methods that are being developed?
Perhaps the most bizarre news in terms of biological matters is that the MRSA bug - the 'superbug' as it was termed by the media in the uk when it created a scare recently, ( ...a bug that you could catch in hospital that was immune to all medicines!) is being sent to the ISS.
We are assured that it will be subject to serious, high-level containment - but anyone with a working knowledge of sci - fi knows how that plays out...
Apparently, space is being upgraded to broadband or something similar , with wider bandwidth enabling bigger images and information packets to be transmitted across the cold vacuum of space.
I'm glad, because I always have problems with my dial-up connection to Pluto.*
Which reminds me that there are many who won't know what I mean by ' dial-up' - and now, I feel old.
...meanwhile, down here on Earth,
Strange life forms have been discovered embedded in crystals in a system of caves in Naica, Mexico
Dating back some 50 000 years, the living microbes are proof of the resilience of life in extreme environments (the Naica caves are 58°c, 99% humidity).
They are complex microbes, and their DNA differs as much from us , as we differ from mushrooms.
The specimens have been revived in a restricted environment (a lab)
So, that's all right, then , it's not as if we could ever be invaded by rocks...
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* At the time of writing, it's 86 years since the discovery of sometime planet Pluto, so, happy birthday!
