What happens when you combine a NASA fidget spinner with a nearly weightless environment? Wacky hijinks, of course. Astronaut Randy Bresnik took time out from capturing pictures of the Earth and taking selfies during spacewalks to share a video on Twitter. The clip shows the crew of the International Space Station enjoying themselves with a fidget spinner. “A fidget spinner in space! How long does it spin? I’m not sure, but it’s a great way to experiment with Newton’s laws of motion!” he wrote.
Grabbing hold of the spinner allows the astronauts to spin at a speed relative to their mass. That’s why even using a simple tool such as a screwdriver can be difficult in a weightless environment if you don’t have something to anchor yourself down to.
A fidget spinner in space! How long does it spin? I'm not sure, but it’s a great way to experiment with Newton’s laws of motion! pic.twitter.com/5xIJDs2544
— Randy Bresnik (@AstroKomrade) October 13, 2017
If you’re not following Bresnik, aka @AstroKIomrade on Twitter, you’re missing out on some of the most spectacular photographs of our planet and the ISS you’ll ever see.
When they’re not playing with children’s toys, the crew is hard at work performing experiments, maintaining the station, and transferring cargo. The latest mission to the ISS launched a few days ago, set to deliver almost three tons of fuel, food, and supplies to the station. You can experience life aboard the ISS for yourself with this free virtual reality app.
The ISS is actually visible from Earth, and it’s the third-brightest object in the sky and fairly easy to see with the naked eye. It looks like a very high, very fast-moving plane. The space station completes nearly 16 orbits of the Earth per day, and NASA has eve set up a Spot the Station website where you can find a viewing spot in your area.
The ISS can’t be seen during the day and is only visible during the morning or evening hours, when it’s reflecting light from the sun. Depending on the orbit, you may be able to see the space station several times a week or only once or twice per month. You can set up email or text alerts at the site to notify you when a viewing opportunity is coming up.
If you’d like to snag your very own NASA fidget spinner, they’re available at the NASA store for $6.
AI companies spend enormous amounts of time convincing us their technology is safe and secure. But what happens when those same companies become targets of increasingly sophisticated AI-powered attacks? Anthropic, the company behind Claude, is now facing that question. According to a Washington Post report, cybersecurity startup Cathedral discovered vulnerabilities that let its researchers access sensitive information in Anthropic's internal systems.
The researchers used AI agents to identify potential entry points in less than 12 hours. Interestingly, they didn't need to crack Claude itself. Instead, they exploited weaknesses in third-party business applications that Anthropic uses for everyday operations. Anthropic's security testing program disclosed the findings, which allows outside researchers to identify and report vulnerabilities.
Military working dogs charge into places the rest of us would flee. So, I understand why anyone would want to breed tougher, healthier dogs for the job.
Warhound, a new startup from Colossal Biosciences co-founder Ben Lamm and Anduril co-founder Palmer Luckey, has stepped out of stealth with $200 million to clone and gene-edit working dogs for American troops, police departments, and emergency services (via TechCrunch).
AI can describe a picture, identify objects, and answer questions about what a camera sees. But when a blind user needs a quick answer, getting an entire spoken essay about the scene isn't exactly helpful. Researchers at the University of Maryland (UMD) have found that AI-powered visual assistance can leave blind users doing too much work to get the information they actually need.
The study, titled Say It My Way: Exploring Control in Conversational Visual Question Answering with Blind Users, examined how people interact with Be My AI, an AI-powered feature of the Be My Eyes app. The researchers found that users often received lengthy descriptions that didn't adequately address their immediate goals, forcing them to ask follow-up questions or find ways to steer the AI towards a more useful answer.