The Arecibo telescope is one of the largest radio telescopes in the world. Weighing in at 1.8 million pounds, Arecibo’s massive structure was suspended by cables attached to towers in the mountains of Puerto Rico.

Those outside the astronomy community may remember the telescope as it was used in the film ‘Contact’ starring Jodi Foster. The Arecibo telescope was being used in the SETI (search to extraterrestrial intelligence) program in the movie – and in real life.

The first indication of trouble came on November 6, 2020 when the first of 3 support cables broke. Engineers were on scene to evaluate the damage and develop a plan to repair the telescope. The remaining 2 cables should have been able to support the telescope while repairs were being made.

However, at only 60% of its designed breaking strength, a second cable broke. This signaled to engineers that the cables had grown very weak over time, and from hurricanes over the years. As a result, it was deemed unsafe to attempt repairs.

Staff working at the other facilities in the Arecibo Observatory were warned of the danger. Fortunately, they took the appropriate precautions to keep everyone safely away from the main telescope.

Earlier this week, at 8:55am eastern time on December 1, 2020, the structure completely collapsed. Fortunately, no one was injured but there was damage to some of the other facilities at Arecibo.

What’s next for Arecibo?

The University of Central Florida (UCF) currently operates the facility. They receive funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Together the two are working on plans to maintain other elements of the facility and make repairs to those damaged in the collapse. There are currently no plans to resurrect the 305-meter telescope however.

“We are saddened by this situation but thankful that no one was hurt,” said NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan.

“When engineers advised NSF that the structure was unstable and presented a danger to work teams and Arecibo staff, we took their warnings seriously and continued to emphasize the importance of safety for everyone involved. Our focus is now on assessing the damage, finding ways to restore operations at other parts of the observatory, and working to continue supporting the scientific community, and the people of Puerto Rico.”

Among the facilities being repaired include the observatory’s 12-meter radio astronomy telescope, and the roof of the LIDAR facility.

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The new bridge designs come from a team of engineers and researchers at Texas A&M University and the University of Colorado Boulder. The National Science Foundation (NSF) provided funding for the research.

Their designs appear to result in a structure that is more damage-resistant. Less damage could mean saving billions in repair costs after a large earthquake.

So far, these designs have been limited to the lab, and are still in the early stages of development, but appear promising.

The design is based on how limbs and joints in the body work to support us while also absorbing impact and allowing for some flexibility.

Current bridge designs will crack and even break when subjected to very large quakes. They are constructed of steel and poured re-enforced concrete. There is no flexibility in these structures.

They are built to support their own weight plus expected traffic loads. But they are static structures built on a stationary surface. The problems come when the surface is no longer stationary – like with an earthquake.

The team calls their design a hybrid sliding-rocking bridge. During an earthquake, “the joints allow some of the energy from the ground motion to spread while the segments move slightly, sliding over one another rather than bending or cracking,” explains the NSF in a press release on the design.

When the team compared their ‘limb-inspired’ bridge design to current designs when subjected to a quake, the results were dramatic.

The columns in the new design “showed very little damage even when subject to motions reminiscent of a powerful once-in-a-few-thousand-years earthquake.”

What’s more, the damage that did occur could be repaired easily and inexpensively. The complete detailed of the study were published in the Journal of Structural Engineering.

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A group of engineers at Purdue University have developed an incredibly small rectangular micro robot which can travel through the human body to deliver medicine. Or they can be used as a diagnostic tool to report back on your health.

The robot as tiny as a few human hairs, according to the recent announcement by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Seen in this image of a penny, the micro-robot is the tiny speck smaller than the ‘U’ in United States.

Why are these Micro-Robots important?

Current medicines often have very negative side-effects. Much of this is due to the fact that the medicines travel throughout various areas of the body in order to reach their target. In this way, the medication can adversely impact other organs and body parts.

By placing the medicine onboard a tiny robot like this one, it can be programmed to wait until it reaches a very specific part of the body before releasing the medicine.

How do they work?

This first micro robot has been tested in live animals. It has been able to travel throughout a colon by essentially doing back flips. In the end, developers aim to use these robots eventually transport therapeutic drugs through the colons and other organs have rough terrain.

The tiny device derives its power from a magnetic field outside of the patient. Doctors would use the same field to control the robot – directing it to the target location.

“When we apply a rotating external magnetic field to these robots, they rotate just like a car tire would over rough terrain,” said David Cappelleri, a Purdue mechanical engineer. “The magnetic field also safely penetrates different types of mediums, which is important for using these robots in the human body.”

This video explains more about how the micro-robots work.

The NSF helped to fund this research. The work has been cited as the “first demonstration of a microrobot tumbling through a biological system in vivo.”

According to the study, the microrobots are nontoxic and biocompatible. They are made of polymer and metal.

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A recent report in Nature describes a Room-Temperature Superconductivity breakthrough by a team at the University of Rochester and the University of Las Vegas, Nevada.

A superconductive material is one in which there is basically no resistance flow of electric current. This means that there is no power loss as a current travels through a circuit.

Until now, achieving superconductivity in materials was only possible at extremely low temperatures. This has made them impractical for use in today’s tech. This breakthrough however, could change everything.

The research team is led by physicists Ranga Dias and Ashkan Salamat of  the University of Rochester and UNLV respectively. Their research is being funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).

“It’s a game changer,” said Salamat.

“The discovery is new, and the technology is in its infancy and a vision of tomorrow, but the possibilities are endless. This could revolutionize the energy grid and change every device that’s electronically driven.”

Instead of using ultra low temperatures (close to -273 Celsius) to achieve superconductivity, the teams did it with pressure. Extremely high pressure – similar to the crushing pressure near the Earth’s core.  

The researchers are still at an early stage in their work. But if they can continue to see success as they try to use less or no pressure, a whole new wave of technological advances lies ahead.

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The pair received this year’s Nobel Prize for what the assembly cited as “improvements to auction theory and inventions of new auction formats.”

Watch the 2020 Nobel Prize for Economics Announcement

Celebrating their achievements, the National Science Foundation (NSF) released a statement in which they touted the work, done by Milgron and Wilson, that led to the award.

The NSF has been a sponsor of the two researchers over the years. The pair had received funding for research into game theory. This work ultimately helped them develop the auction system for which they are now being honored.

NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan issued the following statement on the Nobel announcement:

“Cooperation and competition are fundamental aspects of economics, and they govern the complex auctions societies use to allocate everything from minerals and energy to landing slots at airports,” said NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan.

“Understanding how bidders process information is crucial for designing these auctions, especially when the seller’s primary goal is to benefit society.”

The auction formats that Milgron and Wilson developed allow multiple, simultaneous transactions in a highly complex and efficient manner.

Why Auction Formats are Nobel Prize Worthy

If you’re wondering why the development of complex auctions deserves government funding, here’s an example.

Wireless carriers like Verizon, AT&T and others have to pay license fees to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for the use of the radio spectrum in which they broadcast and receive all of your cell phone calls and data.

There is a limited amount of this spectrum bandwidth. As a result, competing carriers pay a premium for it. What’s more, they have to bid for it with the FCC.

According to the NSF, the license fees from these wireless carriers have been worth over $60 billion for U.S. taxpayers. The auction formats developed by the Nobel Prize winning pair are used to award the bids and generate that revenue.

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Published in the Nature, the study is based on work done by scientists from the University of Buffalo. Researchers, led by geologist Jason Briner, developed models of the ice melt. These models are able to reconstruct the climate thousands of years ago, and use that information to produce their findings.

With their data and the models, they are able to more accurately understand the Greenland ice sheet. Not only do the models let them better understand the past in the area, but also better predict the future.

What they have found in their predictions of the future, and their understanding of the present, is astounding.

“Basically, we’ve altered our planet so much that the rates of ice sheet melt this century are on pace to be greater than anything we’ve seen under natural variability of the ice sheet over the past 12,000 years,” says Briner.

“We’ll blow that out of the water if we don’t make severe reductions to greenhouse gas emissions.”

The results of this study, add to the mountains of climate change data that scientists have amassed in recent years. Unfortunately, many politicians still choose to ignore or discount the findings.

Based on their data, Briner and his team are urging leaders in countries world-wide to make the necessary changes to slow the decline of ice sheets and their impact on sea level rise.

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The Nobel Prize for CRISPR has been cited as a “development of a method for genome editing.”

Doudna’s research and method is nothing new however. 20 years ago, she was recognized for this breakthrough methodology when she, and her team, received Alan T. Waterman award.

According to Doudna, CRISPR began as a basic science, curiosity-driven project.

The CRISPR method is not limited to a cure for cancer. Although its impact on that disease will surely have a dramatic effect on ridding our planet of the disease.

This also has applications across a wide array of fields including bioengineering, medicine, agriculture — even manufacturing.

In the coming years, it is expected to impact other areas as well.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has been a large supporting force behind this new scientific tool for decades. In addition to the Waterman award, the NSF has provided Doudna and her team with other funding grants.

CRISPR provides a way for scientists to more readily edit genes. This allows for enhancement but, perhaps more importantly, allows for the removal of thigs which lead to disease.

The acronym stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats. This is a family of sequences in the genomes of prokarotic bacteria. These are able to detect and destroy DNA from similar bacteriophages during subsequent infections.

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While it may sound like the beginning of a science fiction story, this one appears to be true.

In late May of 2019, a team of research scientists from several institutions picked up on a signal. It came in the form of gravitational waves from deep in space.

The signal was just four brief wiggles on a screen, lasting a mere tenth of a second. But it took the team some time to fully analyze and understand the signal.

This week, the team announced their findings.

The signal they detected is evidence of a black hole with a mass about 142 times that of our sun.

What’s more, the black hole resulted from the merger of two other black holes – a binary black hole.

When the twin black holes completed their merger, they created a pulse of gravity waves. As a result, the energy of these waves was equivalent to 8 times that of our sun.

Like a stone creating ripples in a pond, the gravity waves traveled out into space.

In the U.S., the National Science Foundation has its LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory) facility, and in Italy there exists a similar facility called Virgo.

Both facilities make use of a laser interferometer – essentially a system that creates a pair lasers 3 to 4 kilometers (several miles) in length – which can detect the fine ripples of gravity waves.

Labeled GW190521, the signal was picked up by both facilities.

Researchers have determined that it originated at a location so far away that the waves, traveling at the speed of light, took the last half of the age of the Universe to arrive here.

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It turns out that earlier this month, the Earth came very close to getting another similar size scar as an asteroid, estimated to be ten to twenty feet in diameter, passed closer to the planet than any other recorded so far – without impacting.

What’s perhaps even scarier – no one saw it coming.

The near-miss on August 16, by what has been named asteroid 2020 QG, was not known until after it had already passed.

As reported by the National Science Foundation, astronomers at the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF), a robotic survey camera located at the Palomar Observatory near San Diego, detected the asteroid just a few hours after it narrowly missed the Earth.

“The asteroid flew close enough to Earth that Earth’s gravity significantly changed its orbit,” says Zwicky Transit Facility co-investigator Tom Prince, a physicist at Caltech. Asteroids of this size that fly roughly as close to Earth as 2020 QG do occur about once a year or less, but many of them are never detected.

Doing the math and retracing 2020 QG’s path, they have calculated that it missed hitting the earth by only a mere 1,830 miles or 2,950 kilometers. That’s less than width of the continental United States.

The last asteroid to pass so dangerously close to our home planet was 9 years ago when asteroid 2011 CQ1 missed the Earth by about 3400 miles (5500 km).

Because this asteroid was a good deal smaller than the one that created Meteor Crater, it’s likely that it would have mostly burned up entering the Earth’s atmosphere if it had been a direct hit. But it still illustrates how precarious our existence truly is.

The asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs (who inhabited the earth for hundreds of millions of years) was about 6 miles in diameter.

If this fly-by 2 weeks ago was 1800 miles closer, and if asteroid 2020 QG was a bit bigger, humans (who have only inhabited the earth for much less than one hundred thousand years – not millions) could easily have gone the way of the dinosaur.

In recent years, additional funding has been allocated for projects to help provide early warning of objects like this which could provide a threat to the Earth. In addition to its hunt for Supernova and other astronomical objects, the ZTF team provides part of that early warning system.

The ZTF combines a very large field lens with machine learning AI systems to quickly analyze images and point out threats like 2020 QG. A close object moving quickly in the sky compared to the background stars, like an asteroid, shows as a streak instead of a dot and is easily identified by the software.

While the software is able to capture and sort through over a hundred-thousand images, and narrow the potential threats to around a thousand – that still means that members of the team need to hand sort and follow up on about a thousand of these images each day.

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Research into this elusive area have often come up short as most elements only exhibit quantum properties at very low temperatures, making them impractical for use in portable devices and computers for the masses. 

After ten years of searching, a team of international research scientists under the direction of M. Zahid Hasan, a physicist at Princeton University, appears to have identified a new class of magnet that indeed has these quantum properties at room temperature.

Research for the team has been funded in part by the National Science Foundation and have been published in the journal Nature.

“The discovery of a magnetic topological material with quantized behavior is a major step forward that could unlock new horizons in harnessing quantum topology for future fundamental physics and next-generation device research,” said Hasan.

“This is like discovering water on an exoplanet — it opens a new frontier of quantum matter research.”

While it may take some time for this discovery to make its way into the hands of everyday users, the future implications across a wide array of future tech are truly remarkable.

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