Shape-shifter Conspiracy, AI Overlords and More Mysterious News Briefly — October 7, 2020

Mysterious News Briefly — October 7, 2020

Mars will be closer to Earth this week than at any other time for the next 15 years and planet-gazers will get a clear look because it appears all by itself in the evening sky. Elon Musk will probably be on his roof, looking up and singing “Home, home on the red.”

Researchers at American University have developed carbon-based nanosheets out of spinach that they claim will supply batteries with enough energy to power an electric car. Drivers will soon have a choice – eat their spinach and fight the guy who flipped them off or dump it in the fuel cell and outrun him.

The Nobel Prize in physics was awarded to Roger Penrose, of the University of Oxford, Andrea Ghez of University of California, Los Angeles, and Reinhard Genzel, of the University of Bonn and the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics for their work involving black holes. They’re an inspiration to all workers who consider their jobs to be black holes.

NASA astronauts are testing their new Artemis moon mission spacesuits underwater in the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory Pool at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Who knew that patching kiddie pools could someday qualify you for a job at JSC?

Toyota announced it is developing a hydrogen fuel cell powered electric semi-truck for hauling loads cross country without generating any pollution. Someday soon, the only emissions coming from trucks will be due to whatever the driver ate at the last stop.

Washington State University researchers have identified a genetic factor that will allow adult skin to repair itself like the skin of a newborn baby. These are the researchers walking around the WSU campus in short sleeves asking people to feel their arms.

Some planetary scientists are warning that the biggest challenge facing a life-detection mission to Saturn’s moon Enceladus will be to first eliminate what life forms it brought along itself from Earth. It’s apparently not enough just telling workers preparing the spacecraft to wash their hands, wear a mask and don’t touch their faces.

For those who fear someday bowing down to their AI overlords, an Aberystwyth University computer scientist offers the comforting thought that any advanced AI system can’t truly achieve that kind of dominance without being in a human-like robotic body. In the meantime, it doesn’t hurt to practice saying “Klaatu barada nikto.”

Some conspiracy theorists see the coronavirus as a triggering tool being used by evil immortal aliens to shapeshift from their human forms into their real bodies and conquer Earth. We may not have any new movies or television shows, but science fiction is not dead yet.

The post Shape-shifter Conspiracy, AI Overlords and More Mysterious News Briefly -- October 7, 2020 first appeared on Mysterious Universe.

from Mysterious Universe https://ift.tt/3iAR9RD