Author: Alan Boyle

Mastermind of Cosmic Log, contributor to GeekWire and Universe Today, author of "The Case for Pluto: How a Little Planet Made a Big Difference," past president of the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing.

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Invisible ink updated with magic algae

Image: Living Ink pen
Lines drawn with Living Ink’s algae pen disappear, then reappear. (Credit: Living Ink Technologies)

Remember invisible ink? You could write a secret message with the stuff, watch your words disappear, then make them magically reappear by holding the message over a heat source.

The basic idea goes back to ancient times, but now it’s been updated with a biotech twist. Colorado-based Living Ink Technologies has created a type of ink that’s “green” in more ways than one. It’s made from algae, it’s non-toxic, and it’s produced in a way that’s environmentally sustainable.

“Our mission is to displace toxic petroleum-based ink, in which our first partnership is with Aveda to make sustainable packaging ink from algae cells,” Living Ink’s co-founder and CEO, Scott Fulbright, told GeekWire in an email.

Fulbright and his fellow inventors, Steve Albers and Jeff Zdunek, are having a little fun with the invisible-ink idea. Their Kickstarter project offers an algal-based ink that’s loaded into a pen or a printer. When the ink is applied to paper, it dries to become invisible. But when the paper is placed in a clear “greenhouse” frame, the algae multiply so fast that the ink eventually reappears like the fuzz on a Chia Pet.

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Women astronauts get the Glamour treatment

Image: Anne McClain
NASA astronaut Anne McClain keeps her eye on the Magic 8 Ball during zero-G training on NASA’s “vomit comet” airplane in 2014. The toy served as a mascot for the eight astronauts in the class of 2013, who were nicknamed the “8 Balls.” (Credit: NASA via @AstroAnnimal)

That’s one small step for NASA’s women astronauts, one giant leap for Glamour magazine.

Women have had a hard time getting their just deserts when it comes to human spaceflight: The “Mercury 13” were passed over in the early 1960s, and that was just the start. In 2005, a top Russian space medicine official said women were too weak to take on a trip to Mars. Just in the past year and a half, women astronauts have had to fend off questions about hair styling and makeup.

Glamour’s interview with NASA’s newest women astronauts – Nicole Aunapu Mann, Anne McClain, Jessica Meir and Christina Hammock Koch – could easily have gone off in the same direction. After all, the biggest headline on the magazine’s February cover is “Best Hair Year Yet!”

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3-D printer makes hardware from asteroid metal

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This spacecraft prototype was created on a 3-D printer using metal from a meteorite found in Argentina. The object sits on the part of the space rock that was left over. (Credit: Planetary Resources)

A palm-sized prototype spacecraft is the first geometric object to be 3-D printed from asteroid metal, Redmond-based Planetary Resources says.

The shiny object is being shown off at the International CES show in Las Vegas to boost Planetary Resources’ vision of mining precious materials from near-Earth asteroids. The feat also gives a boost to 3D Systems’ direct metal printer.

“It’s really an eye-opener for people,” Planetary Resources’ president and CEO, Chris Lewicki, told GeekWire.

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How we’re leaving our mark on Earth’s geology

Image: Anthropocene sign
A 2013 art installation by Robin Wollston provides a Vegas look to the Anthropocene Age. (Credit: Robyn Woolston / Edge Hill University)

Millions of years from now, could alien geologists pinpoint a distinct time when humans changed the world? An international team of scientists says they could, by looking at the crushed-up remains of concrete, aluminum and plastics.

Further evidence would come in the form of dramatic spikes in radioactive fallout and fossil-fuel particulates, the researchers report in this week’s issue of the journal Science. And if environmental trends proceed the way most scientists think, the aliens also could document the signs of sea level rise and mass extinctions –perhaps including our own.

“All of this shows that there is an underlying reality to the Anthropocene concept,” the University of Leicester’s Jan Zalasiewicz, a co-author of the study, said in a news release.

Many scientists have said our current era should be called the Anthropocene Epoch rather than the Holocene Epoch, thanks to the ways in which human activity is drastically altering global ecosystems. The latest study lays out detailed evidence arguing that the Anthropocene Epoch is already geologically distinct, with its start dated to around 1950.

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Iceman mummy suffered tummy troubles

Researchers Eduard Egarter-Vigl and Albert Zink sample the 5,300-year-old Iceman mummy in 2010. (Credit: Samadelli Marco / EURAC)
Eduard Egarter-Vigl and Albert Zink sample the Iceman mummy. (Credit: S. Marco / EURAC)

An analysis of the stomach contents from a 5,300-year-old European mummy known as Ötzi the Iceman has turned up a double surprise, scientists say.

First, the researchers found DNA traces of a nasty strain of bacteria, Helicobacter pylori, which is linked to ulcers. That discovery, paired with the presence of other immune-system proteins, suggests that the Iceman could have been suffering from stomach problems in addition to his other maladies – ranging from hardening of the arteries and lactose intolerance to Lyme disease and bad teeth.

The second surprise came when the research team looked more closely at the bacteria’s genome. The DNA sequence showed that the bacterial strain wasn’t the one that’s most common in Europeans today, but is linked instead to modern-day populations in South Asia.

That finding appears to answer questions relating to the peopling of Europe thousands of years ago, the researchers report in this week’s issue of the journal Science.

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How Boeing helped build a better golf club

Image: Callaway XR16 golf club
Boeing drew upon lessons learned from airplanes to build a better golf club. (Credit: Boeing)

What do aerospace and golf have in common? For the Boeing Co. and Callaway Golf, it’s a new line of golf clubs that have been tweaked to optimize the air flow for a faster, surer swing.

The results of one of Boeing’s most unusual collaborations will hit the market on Jan. 29, in the form of Callaway’s XR16 drivers. (Even the name sounds like an experimental aircraft, doesn’t it?)

The XR16 is a stretch version of last year’s model, redesigned to produce a higher moment of inertia. That keeps the head more stable when a golfer takes a swing. But a bigger head also typically means more aerodynamic drag, which would slow down the swing. That’s why Boeing was brought into the picture.

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LHC readings intrigue physicists: Stay tuned

Image: Diphoton excess
A computer graphic shows the spray of particles created by a proton collision in the Large Hadron Collider’s CMS detector. The two green lines indicate the emission of two photons. Physicists say that could be part of an intriguing pattern, or merely a coincidence. (Thomas McCauley / CERN / CMS)

The Higgs boson is the biggest find of the century in particle physics, but for the past few weeks, physicists at the Large Hadron Collider have been considering whether there’s a mystery that’s even bigger. Or at least more massive.

The potential mystery has to do with a pattern of particle decay that results in the emission of two photons. The readings collected so far by the teams using the ATLAS and CMS detectors point to a slight “bump” in the expected pattern.

That may hint at the existence of a previously undetected particle with a mass of about 750 billion electron volts – six times heavier than the Higgs, French physicist Adam Falkowski (a.k.a. Jester) writes in his Resonaances blog.

Could it be a second Higgs boson? Evidence for gravitons or extra dimensions? Ever since the findings were made public three weeks ago, theories have been flying around like speeding muons, and with good reason. “If the diphoton excess is really a new particle, we are basically guaranteed to find other phenomena beyond the Standard Model,” Falkowski says.

However, the two-photon excess may be merely a coincidence – the sort of pattern that pops up in an early stage of data collection, but fades away when more readings are factored into the findings.

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FAA says drone signup list has hit 181,000

Image: Parrot Disco
The Parrot Disco is one of the new drones introduced at CES 2016. (Parrot photo)

The Federal Aviation Administration’s chief says he’s happy to see about 181,000 Internet users register recreational drones in less than three weeks’ time – and to help new drone owners, the agency has unveiled a smartphone app that shows no-fly zones.

Even if there’s a chance you might own a drone someday, you could save $5 by taking the FAA up on its introductory offer of free registration through Jan. 20. (That’s what I did.) The FAA requires all recreational drones heavier than a half-pound to be registered by Feb. 19, but the registration website actually registers people and their contact information rather than the hardware. No drones required.

FAA officials hurried up to establish a registration system because they were concerned about a series of high-profile drone crashes last year – including an intrusion on White House grounds. They tallied hundreds of occasions when drones interfered with air traffic. The Computer Technology Association estimates that about 400,000 drones were sold during the holiday season, and the FAA wants to get a better handle on all those flying robots.

During today’s drone panel at the International CES show in Las Vegas, FAA Administrator Michael Huerta said he was “very encouraged by the numbers” that have been racked up since the registration website went live on Dec. 21.

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Satellite antennas are getting more shipshape

 

Image: Maritime antenna
Kymeta’s antenna can provide a communication link for maritime vessels. (Credit: Kymeta)

Redmond-based Kymeta Corp. and Panasonic Avionics Corp. are setting sail on a new partnership to put Kymeta’s lightweight, flat-panel antennas on ships.

Today the companies said Panasonic will order a “significant volume” of the antennas, and also use Kymeta’s mTenna technology in maritime terminals that can be used on vessels around the world. The satellite communication system is due to go through testing this year and become commercially available in 2017.

Kymeta’s notable not only for its innovative metamaterials technology, but also for its lead investor: Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. Over the past few years, the company has built up collaborations with the usual satellite suspects (Inmarsat and Intelsat) plus some not-so-usual suspects (Airbus and Toyota).

For Kymeta, the key technology is an LCD-laden panel that’s the size and shape of a stop sign, but has as much capacity for broadband communications as the big dome-shaped antennas typically seen on cruise ships.

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Social-friendly Ying joins the drone parade

Image: Qualcomm drone
Qualcomm has developed a Snapdragon Flight computing platform for drones. (Qualcomm photo)

China’s largest Internet service portal, Tencent, is teaming up with chipmaker Qualcomm and drone-maker Zerotech to field the Ying drone, a flying robot that’s optimized for online sharing.

“This drone allows you to fly around, capture video and then share it directly with social media sites,” Qualcomm CEO Steven Mollenkopf said today during a sneak peek at the International CES show in Las Vegas.

Ying is built around Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Flight control platform, which can capture and correct video in 1080p or 720p resolution, depending on the perspective. The video can be uploaded or streamed directly to Tencent’s social media platforms, Wexin (a.k.a. WeChat) and QQ, the three companies said in a news release.

Snapdragon Flight is an array of circuitry that’s designed specifically for recreational drones and robotic applications. Qualcomm says the package offers GPS and 4K video as well as robust capabilities for autonomous or smartphone-controlled flight.

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