AI characters in Instagram. | Meta Meta is opening up the ability for anyone in the US to create AI versions of themselves in Instagram or on the web, with a new tool called AI Studio. The pitch is that creators and business owners will use these AI profiles to talk to their followers on their behalf. They’ll be able to talk directly with humans in chat threads and respond to comments on their author’s account. Meta says Instagram users in the US can get started with AI Studio via either its website or by starting a new “AI chat” directly in Instagram. In a blog post on Monday, the company writes that “creators can customize their AI based on things like their Instagram content, topics to avoid and links they want it to share.” The post goes on to say that creators will... Continue reading…

Readers, Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.…

A new poll show that a huge number of Americans have not been fooled by the gaslighting media where it concerns Joe Biden’s mental incapacity. And a large portion thinks Kamala was in on the scheme.…

Readers, Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.…

Readers, Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.…

File this under: Imagine if Donald Trump did this. Imagine if Donald Trump set up a Zoom call for white men only. The Harris campaign has been doing race- and sex-segregated Zoom calls, including the…

How will future robotic explorers navigate the difficult subterranean environments of caves and lava tubes on the Moon and Mars? This is what a recent study published in Science Robotics hopes to address as a team of researchers from Stanford University investigated the use of a novel robotic explorer called ReachBot, which could potentially use its unique mechanical design to explore deep caves and lava tubes on the Moon and Mars in the future. Here, Universe Today discusses this incredible research with Dr. Tony Chen, who is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Harvard Microrobotics Laboratory at Harvard University and lead author of the study, regarding the motivation behind developing ReachBot, significant results, what steps he thinks need to be taken for ReachBot to actually go to the Moon, and how ReachBot could contribute to the upcoming Artemis missions. Therefore, what was the motivation behind ReachBot? Dr. Chen tells Universe Today, “ReachBot started as a NASA NIAC [NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts] project, where the program is focused on the development of far-reaching and long-term technologies. The main motivation behind ReachBot is to enable robotic exploration of previous inaccessible planetary environments (such as lava tubes) that could provide interesting scientific discoveries and advancements.” What makes ReachBot unique is its ability to maneuver difficult terrain like uneven rock surfaces by using its elongated appendages with pivoting wrists and grippers guided by a series of algorithms to determine the best course of action. This allows ReachBot to contort its body in a variety of ways while traversing both tight and wide areas within a confined space like a tube or cave. The concept of ReachBot for use in Martian lava tubes was discussed in a 2021 study (Dr. Chen as co-author), followed by prototype testing in a 2022 study (Dr. Chen as lead author), prototype improvements in a 2022 study (Dr. Chen as co-author), and further improvements in a 2022 study (Dr. Chen as co-author). For this study, the researchers conducted field tests of ReachBot and its capabilities within a lava tube in the Lavic Lake volcanic field in the Mojave Desert as an analog for Martian lava tubes while building off the previous studies. This included investigating how ReachBot could predict how it will both grip and grasp rocky surfaces, gripper design, rocky surface site identification and selection, and how ReachBot performed in a lava tube using its extended appendages that enables the robot’s extreme maneuverability. In the end, the researchers found a wide range of possible extensions for ReachBot, along with favoring convex (outward curved) rocky surfaces that could provide stronger grips, as well. Image of the ReachBot prototype with its extended boom and grabber within a lava tube of the Lavic Lake volcanic field in the Mojave Desert. (Credit: Stanford University Biomimetics and Dextrous Manipulation Lab) Image of grabber attached to extended boom on ReachBot. (Credit: Stanford University Biomimetics and Dextrous Manipulation Lab) Closeup image of grabber attached to extended boom on ReachBot. (Credit: Stanford University Biomimetics and Dextrous Manipulation Lab) Closeup of the ReachBot grabber without the extended boom. (Credit: Stanford University Biomimetics and Dextrous Manipulation Lab) Closeup of the ReachBot grabber without the extended boom testing its dexterity. (Credit: Stanford University Biomimetics and Dextrous Manipulation Lab) Dr. Chen tells Universe Today, “The lava tubes in the Mojave Desert were chosen because it was a close analogous cave system to what the lava tubes could potentially be like on Mars. It allowed us to bring a partial ReachBot system into this environment and investigate how the various subsystems perform in a realistic environment.” This study comes as an international team of researchers led by the University of Trento in Italy successfully constructed a 3D map of a lava tube skylight entrance located in the Mare Tranquillitatis pit (MTP) on the Moon using radar data obtained by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). The team determined the lava tube could be tens of meters in length with the skylight itself being almost 100 meters in diameter, noting such lava caves could shield future astronauts from the harsh solar and cosmic radiation that endlessly blasts the lunar surface, thus opening the potential for long-term human exploration of the Moon. Lava tubes have long been studied for potential future human exploration on both the Moon and Mars, with more than 200 skylights having been observed on the Moon up to this point. Shielding future astronauts from harmful space radiation prevents potentially catastrophic health consequences, including biological effects, radiation sickness, cancer, and death. Being able to send a robotic explorer ahead of time could help astronauts and scientists better determine the most ideal lava caves where astronauts could call home for long-term missions. Therefore, what steps does Dr. Chen believe need to be taken for ReachBot to actually go to the Moon? “As it currently stands, only a partial prototype of ReachBot has been constructed and tested in a relevant environment,” Dr. Chen tells Universe Today. “There are many other technological developments needed in this project to push it forward. These include but are not limited to the further development of retractable space booms to be more suitable for ReachBot application, full system prototype, and further testing in relevant environments.” This study also comes as NASA plans to send humans back to the Moon for the first time since 1972 with the agency’s Artemis Program, including landing the first woman and person of color on the lunar surface in history. This program started with the uncrewed Artemis I mission that took the Orion spacecraft, performing a couple flybys of the Moon while testing out the various flight hardware during the mission. This will be followed with the crewed Artemis II mission, which is currently scheduled for a September 2025 launch, will consist of a 10-day mission and four astronauts (three from NASA and one from the Canadian Space Agency) who conducts flybys of the Moon without touching down on the surface. The first crewed landing on the lunar surface will be the Artemis III mission, which is currently scheduled for September 2026, which will occur near the lunar south pole in hopes of extracting water ice hidden within the deep and dark craters known as the permanently shadowed regions (PSRs). While lava caves and tubes are currently not part of the program, how can ReachBot contribute to the upcoming Artemis missions? “As you noted earlier, ReachBot was originally designed as a concept to explore Martian lava tubes,” Dr. Chen tells Universe Today. “But there are also lava tubes on the Moon that ReachBot could also provide interesting capabilities to explore. These lava tubes could potentially be a habitat for future space explorers, and ReachBot can help both exploring these caves to provide crucial data and forceful manipulation capabilities for potential construction tasks.” How will ReachBot help improve lava cave exploration on the Moon and Mars in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science! As always, keep doing science & keep looking up! The post Moon and Mars cave exploration could be easier with ReachBot appeared first on Universe Today.

Universe Today has had the incredible opportunity of exploring various scientific fields, including impact craters, planetary surfaces, exoplanets, astrobiology, solar physics, comets, planetary atmospheres, planetary geophysics, cosmochemistry, meteorites, radio astronomy, extremophiles, organic chemistry, black holes, cryovolcanism, planetary protection, dark matter, supernovae, neutron stars, and exomoons, and how these separate but unique all form the basis for helping us better understand our place in the universe. Here, Universe Today discusses the incredible field of evolutionary biology with Dr. David Baum, who is a Professor of Botany at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, regarding the importance of studying evolutionary biology, his career highlights, what evolutionary biology can teach us about finding life beyond Earth, and what advice he can offer upcoming students who wish to pursue studying evolutionary biology. Therefore, what is the importance of studying evolutionary biology? Dr. Baum tells Universe Today, “Humans and all living species are the products of evolution, so what could be more important than understanding how evolution works and yielded such amazing organisms and ecosystems! Most of biology is concerned with How questions, such as: How do we fight off infections? How do animals pick mates? How do plants use light energy to convert carbon dioxide and water into plant matter?” Dr. Baum continues, “Evolutionary biologists ask Why questions. When we do that, the answer can be either historical or general ahistorical. In either case, evolutionary models enrich our understanding of the natural world. Evolution also helps us make predictions, such as the almost inevitable evolution of resistance to antibiotics, pesticides, herbicides, etc.” The field of evolutionary biology, also called evolution by natural selection, was kickstarted in 1859 by Charles Darwin who famously crafted the notion of evolution by natural selection with his book On the Origin of Species. While groundbreaking, this new insight into the evolution of life was not accepted by the academic community as its own field until the 1930s, and waited another five decades until departments of evolutionary biology were created within the university system, as well. Since then, the field of evolutionary biology has “evolved” into better understanding speciation, sexual reproduction, ageing, and cooperation, while incorporating fields like computer science and molecular genetics into answering these questions. It involves the study of various types of evolution, including adaptive, convergent, divergent, and coevolution, which attempt to explain how life evolves over time based on its environment, species, and interactions. Additionally, the field of medicine uses evolutionary biology to gain greater insights into evolutionary medicine and evolutionary therapies. Therefore, what are some of the career highlights that Dr. Baum has encountered while studying evolutionary biology? Dr. Baum tells Universe Today, “Too many to recount, but perhaps the best was proposing a hypothesis for how complex cells with nuclei might have originated in 2014 and then having researchers discover a new group of organisms in 2015 that, when visualized in 2020, supported our model surprisingly well to the point where textbooks on the subject were rewritten!” As its name implies, the field of evolutionary biology involves studying how biology evolves over time, ranging anywhere from thousands to billions of years. Evolutionary biologists aim to understand the processes that allowed life on the Earth to evolve from the first single-celled organisms that existed early in our planet’s history to the millions of complex species that inhabit our planet today. But despite the Earth being the only known planetary body with life, the questions that drive the field of evolutionary biology span beyond the confines of our small, blue world. In doing so, evolutionary biologists ask if these same processes could have allowed life to emerge on other planetary bodies, including the planets Mars and Venus, and even moons like Europa and Titan. Today, the planet Mars is a dry, cold, and desolate world, but could life have formed billions of years ago after the Red Planet’s own formation? And while the surface of Venus exhibits extreme temperatures and pressures where life as we know it cannot exist, what about billions of years ago, as well? And what about Venus’ atmosphere, which has exhibited evidence that life as we know it might exist today at high altitudes where the conditions are more Earth-like regarding temperature and pressure? Does life exist in the deep oceans of Europa, and what about the liquid methane and ethane lakes and seas on Titan? Armed with these burning questions, what can evolutionary biology teach us about finding life beyond Earth? “My lab is studying how evolution can get started on non-living planets,” Dr. Baum tells Universe Today. “We use both chemical experiments and analytical work that draws on principles from physics and evolutionary theory. I believe that this work will eventually clarify whether some kind of evolving biosphere is inevitable and whether it is likely to be composed of individualized entities, like cells, and whether those units are likely to have some analog of genetic systems. It is too early to know, but I suspect that individualization is likely to be universal, but I am less sure about genetics. We do suspect, however, that without genetic-like systems, cellular complexity is likely to be limited.” As noted above, the field of evolutionary biology encompasses a wide range of expertise from a myriad of scientific disciplines, including computer science, genetics, and medicine. Additionally, it has enabled the creation of new research fields studying the evolution of robotics, engineering, architecture, and economics. For evolutionary robotics, scientists used the theory of natural selection to improve robots using artificial intelligence (AI) where the algorithms are produced to discard the least efficient robotic designs based on a specific task they’ve been assigned to do, which has allowed engineers to design efficient robots that can function in environments not friendly to humans, like nanoscales or space. Therefore, what advice can Dr. Baum give upcoming students who wish to pursue studying evolutionary biology? Dr. Baum tells Universe Today, “Read lots of wonderful popular books to get a feel for the underlying principles but be critical of your own thinking – the concept of evolution by natural selection seems simple, but it turns out to be much more subtle and complex that folk usually realize.” As the field of evolutionary biology continues to grow, expand, and “evolve” and help other scientific fields do the same, so will our understanding of how life on the Earth came to be and potentially on other worlds, as well. In the 165 years since its introduction by Charles Darwin, the field of evolutionary biology has grown to encompass far more than what Darwin potentially imagined, so it’s exciting to think where evolutionary biology will be in the next 165 years, as well. Dr. Baum concludes by telling Universe Today, “Evolutionary biology is central to the study of why organisms are the way they are, but also underlies the most profound questions in astrobiology and physics: Is there a drive to life in the universe? When a world spawns life, is there a drive to complexity and intelligence? And, by extrapolation, are we alone in the Universe?!” How will evolutionary biology help us understand our place in the universe in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science! As always, keep doing science & keep looking up! The post Evolutionary Biology: Why study it? What can it teach us about finding life beyond Earth? appeared first on Universe Today.

Not cool.

It seems like at least once a year, the topic of “BMI,” or “body mass index,” being a flawed measuring system for fat mass and health comes up in conversation. Experts will explain how BMI leads to an incomplete perspective at best—since it doesn't take into consideration several key factors that influence a person’s body composition—and at worst, actual health risks, affecting eligibility for things like weight loss medications, insurance rates, joint-replacement surgery and fertility treatment. And then life moves forward. And yet, despite the constant debunking, the belief in BMI still marches on. And this time, it was hurled at the USA rugby star and Olympian Ilona Maher.More specifically, someone commented “I bet that person has a 30% BMI” on one of Maher’s TikTok videos. Could this person have simply been pointing out the inherent flaw of BMI? Saying that Maher, an elite athlete, would be considered “overweight” using this system? Perhaps. But this is the internet we’re dealing with, so Maher (and others) interpreted it to be an insult. And under that context, Maher wasn’t having it, and chose "not to just ignore the haters." “Hi, thank you for this comment. I think you were trying to roast me, but this is actually a fact. I do have a BMI of 30. Well, 29.3 to be exact,” Maher said in response video…which became something of a roast itself. Maher talked about how she had been considered “overweight” her entire life, and even recalled being “so embarrassed” to turn in a physical form to the office which had “overweight” written on it. “I chatted with my dietician, because I go off facts, and not just what pops up here. You know, like you do.” she quipped while tapping her temples. See on Instagram Maher is 5-ft.-10-in. and 200 lbs, which is considered “overweight” by BMI standards. But as she explained, about 170 of those 200 pounds are “lean muscle mass.” “Do that math in your head…you probably can’t,” Maher said sarcastically. It’s easy to see through this example how bogus BMI really is, especially for athletes.Essentially, “BMI doesn’t tell you what I can do.”“It doesn’t tell you what I can do on the field. How fit I am. It’s just a couple of numbers put together,” she said. “It doesn’t tell you how much muscle I have, or anything like that.”Maher concluded by faux lamenting, “I do have a BMI of 30. I am considered overweight. But alas, I am going to the Olympics, and you’re not.” While Maher’s clapback was certainly satisfying, it also provided some much needed reassurance to folks. So many commented on how this outdated concept has affected (or still effects) their own body image of that of a loved one. “How can I get my teenage daughter with a high BMI (but fit!) to understand this?! She feels shamed even at the doctor for her BMI.”“Dancer here, I'll never forget at 13 being told I had the BMI of 24 of ‘overweight.’ I broke down and the nurse said it didn’t mean anything and all I could think was then WHY are you making me do this?!”“I had to ask the doctor’s office to put a note on my child’s file to not bring up/talk about BMI in her check ups. It isn't an accurate representation of health!”“Thank you for sharing your weight, bc seeing lbs numbers in different bodies has been so helpful in me loving mine. I’m nowhere near an athlete's body but damn, the numbers really do us in.”Until a more affordable solution pops up, BMI will continue to rear its ugly head in doctor’s offices and in our psyches. Maybe this is a reminder that our bodies are so much more than height and weight every now and again is a good thing. And if it comes from an Olympian…even better.