It’s expensive to ship things through space, so when the first space colonists reach the moon or Mars, they will want to carry as little cargo as possible. That poses a challenge: If they need to limit the amount of resources they bring, what will colonists use to build their shelters?
One idea is to live in networks of lava tubes, which would protect them from the extreme conditions found at the surface. Another is to build their shelter using resources found along the way.
To that end, NASA has selected three finalists in the latest stage of its 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge, an ongoing competition to design sustainable shelters suitable for the first space colonists. The goal is to build the structures out of things found on-site so that missions can limit their cargo.
Since the challenged was launched in 2015, it has gone through three phases with multiple levels each. The substages required teams to develop and demonstrate designs in fields like architectural modeling, material development, and construction.
The most recent stage, complete virtual construction, saw 11 teams develop full-scale renderings using modeling software. They were tasked with describing their decisions in an accompanying video. NASA assessed the entries based on aspects like feasibility, scalability, functionality, and aesthetic.
The first place award of the most recent stage went to Team SEArch+/Apis Cor (pictured at top), whose twisting smokestack structure is designed for continuous reinforcement. Ports situated on the top and sides of the cylindrical shelter maximize natural lighting. Watch the team’s virtual video here.
Team Zopherus (above) won second place for its shelter that is designed to be constructed by an autonomous roving printer. The rover is designed to complete the shelter in stages, completing one section before moving on to the next.
Team Mars Incubator (below) brought home the third-place prize for its modular design. The structure includes four separate quarters connected by walkways. One of the rooms is specifically designed for growing plants. The team consists of artists and engineers.
These three teams will share a $100,000 prize purse. So far, more than $3.1 million has been awarded to teams through the competition.
The finalists will now compete for $800,000 in a stage that requires them to 3D print scale models of their designs. A head-to-head print-off will draw the 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge to a close in May. The event will take place in Peoria, Illinois.
Google has been finding more ways to make Gemini a part of your daily routine, from putting together playlists to ordering groceries through your favorite apps. Now it's expanding those capabilities to more services, with Google Search joining in, too.
The company has announced a new Connected Apps Platform that makes it easier for developers to bring their services to both Gemini and Search. Alongside this, Google is adding new partners to its growing lineup, bringing more of the apps people already use into its AI ecosystem.
In the broad context of AI and its perceived harms, health and medical risks often pop up in the conversation. The warnings even come from frontier AI labs, such as ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and Anthropic, both of which have warned about misusing AI to cook up bioweapons. Security experts have already spotted a few such incidents in the wild, especially with the usage of AI models without any solid guardrails.
Well, it appears that the risks run deeper. As per an analysis appearing in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), AI bots are now being deployed to influence public policies governing health risks to citizens. In this instance, an attempt was made using AI bots to thwart regulations that aim to restrict the sale of disposable vapes, all while disguising the manipulation efforts as a response from real humans.
What if checking your drinking water for dangerous chemicals were as simple as plugging a tiny gadget into your smartphone? Researchers in Japan have developed a compact sensor that could make that possible, potentially bringing sophisticated water contamination testing out of expensive laboratories and into people's hands.
Scientists at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) have created a portable device capable of detecting extremely low concentrations of PFAS, commonly known as "forever chemicals." The findings were published in the journal Biosensors and Bioelectronics, which demonstrate how an inexpensive sensor and a smartphone could make identifying potentially harmful chemicals in water a lot easier.