How Scientists Manage the Flood of “Big Data” from Space

As “big data” from space missions continues to pour in, scientists and software engineers are coming up with new strategies for managing the ever-increasing flow of such large and complex data streams.

For NASA and its dozens of missions, data pour in every day like rushing rivers. Spacecraft monitor everything from our home planet to faraway galaxies, beaming back images and information to Earth. All those digital records need to be stored, indexed and processed so that spacecraft engineers, scientists and people across the globe can use the data to understand Earth and the universe beyond.

Smart glasses that help the blind see

These specs do more than bring blurry things into focus. This prototype pair of smart glasses translates visual information into images that blind people can see.

Many people who are registered as blind can perceive some light and motion. The glasses, developed by Stephen Hicks of the University of Oxford, are an attempt to make that residual vision as useful as possible.

They use two cameras, or a camera and an infrared projector that can detect the distance to nearby objects. They also have a gyroscope, a compass and GPS to help orient the wearer.

Geoengineers are free to legally hack the climate

THE idea of artificially cooling the climate may have come in from the cold, but the laws governing trials of the technology are still all at sea. Many people think such trials are illegal, but this is not the case, according to an analysis of environmental treaties.

The latest report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change includes geoengineering – a sure sign that the idea has become respectable. But research and field trials are needed before we know whether influencing the climate like this is a viable option for cooling Earth.

This is easier said than done. In 2010, the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) forbade any form of geoengineering that could affect biodiversity – which is effectively all of them. And any geoengineering that involves adding chemicals to the ocean, to increase the carbon sequestered, for example, is prohibited by the London Convention and Protocol (LCP). However, some small-scale trials have gone ahead.

Lockheed Martin Is Developing A Hypersonic Spy Plane

The SR-71 Blackbird, iconic supersonic Cold War spy plane adopted by the X-Men as their vehicle of choice, might finally have a replacement. The Blackbird was retired in 1999, and since then there's been a serious deficit in crazy-fast spy planes that inspire unimaginable wonder in children named Kelsey. Lockheed Skunk Works revealed Friday that it is developing the SR-72, designed to fly at twice the maximum speed of the Mach 3 SR-71. That's Mach 6, or six times the speed of sound. The biggest difference between the SR-71 and the SR-72 is that the new plane will could fly without a pilot on board; both manned and unmanned options are being considered.

COMPUTERS PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE

First generation-vaccum tubes.

Computers of this generation used vaccum tubes to perform calculations. Vaccum tubes were expensive because of the amount of material and skill needed to manufacture them. Vaccum tubes got hot and burnt out. Computers of this generation were very large machines. Special rooms with air conditioning were needed to house them because of the heat generated by the vaccum tubes.