TAAAXI. It’s history in the making. Today, NASA announced the first commercial astronauts who will be piloting the first crewed test-flights aboard SpaceX and Boeing spacecraft. Two teams of astronauts will be boarding a Boeing Starliner spacecraft launched on top of an Atlas V rocket and a Dragon capsule atop SpaceX’s Falcon 9, respectively.

The crews are made up of nine (all American) high-ranking engineers, NASA astronauts, Marines, and Air Force pilots. Among them is Doug Hurley, a Marine Corps test pilot who piloted the iconic Space Shuttle one last time back in July 2011.

In fact, if all goes according to plan, these missions would be the first time American astronauts are launching from U.S. soil since the retirement of the Space Shuttle in 2011.

ABORT, ABORT. It’s a momentous occasion that is setting the groundwork for the future of commercial space travel. But there’s an elephant in the room that is somewhat souring the occasion. Just a day earlier, Boeing announced it had to delay the first uncrewed test flight after an abort engine issue forced a test to be cut short back in June – although it’s still unclear if it was the main cause for the delays. As a result, the first crewed test had to be pushed back to the summer of 2019 as well.

The Commercial Space Race is really starting to heat up. Amazon and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos is aggressively increasing the funding of his spaceflight company, According to Reuters. Blue Origin’s primary objective right now: get a new heavy-launch vehicle called New Glenn into space within the next two years.

SPACE TRAVELING IN STYLE. Despite these delays, astronauts have a far more comfy ride to the International Space Station to look forward to – way more comfy than the cramped Soyuz spacecraft still in service today, despite the fact that its designs date back to the 1960s.

Boeing received $4.2 billion for its Commercial Crew Transportation Capability program in 2014, while SpaceX got $2.6 billion at the same time. The goal: to develop the first generation of commercial (manned) spacecraft, finally bringing space travel into the 21st century.

Both Boeing’s Starliner and SpaceX’s Dragon can fit up to seven astronauts (depending on cargo) — the Soyuz spacecraft still in use today can only carry three. The Starliner is even equipped with wireless internet for some (much-needed) in-flight entertainment. It can even stay docked to the ISS for 210 days, giving it the potential to serve as astronaut quarters.

ALL IN GOOD TIME. It’s still not entirely clear when SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft will go on its first manned test flight. In fact, SpaceX’s official website still predicts the first manned test flight to take place “as early as 2018.” But when the time comes, astronauts will be able to enjoy environmental control and chose comfy onboard temperatures between 65 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit (18.3 and 26.6 Celsius).

Even in the worst case scenario, the Dragon’s emergency escape system will gently push astronauts out to safety “experiencing about the same G-forces as a ride at Disneyland” according to SpaceX’s official website.

The future of commercial space travel is looking bright, but not all systems are go. engineers have their work cut out to ensure the safety of the first nine brave astronauts. But the clock is ticking.

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THE (TOO) BIG APPLE. Apple dodged a major financial bullet Tuesday night, and the reason may have something to do with the hyperloop, the futuristic mode of high-speed transportation first proposed by Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

Apple calls the city of Cupertino, CA home and, as the company has grown, so has its strain on the city. To address one of its major Apple-caused problems — transportation — the city proposed creating a “head tax” – a tax that would charge any Cupertino-based company with 100 or more employee a flat fee per employee.

If it had passed, Apple would have seen its tax bill jump from $17,000 to $9.4 million, according to a report from the Cupertino City Council – money Cupertino would have used to fund new transportation projects.

But the Council voted down the tax on Tuesday, and it could be because they think a Cupertino hyperloop might be a better solution to their transportation woes.

TESTING THE WATERS. According to a report by the Silicon Valley Business Journal, Cupertino Mayor Darcy Paul has met with Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) about the possibility of building one of the high-tech systems in Cupertino. He also thinks Apple might be willing to “heavily subsidize” its construction.

Apple, however, has yet to comment directly on a hyperloop project, though the company’s director of state and local government affairs, Michael Foulkes, did suggest during Tuesday’s meeting that Cupertino officials work with Apple on “forward-thinking solutions” to “really be creative and find solutions for the long-term.”

IT TAKES A VILLAGE. So far, all plans for a hyperloop in the U.S. are just that: plans. There still isn’t anywhere in the nation a person can actually hop aboard a hyperloop. Part of the hold up, according to HTT CEO Dirk Ahlborn, is getting everyone to sign off on the project.

“Democracy isn’t friendly to these kinds of things. It’s a very large infrastructure project requiring a lot of people to work together,” he told Business Insider in July. “If you want to do this in the U.S., you have tedious right-of-way issues. In China or Russia, however, all it takes is someone powerful to decide that they want it, and it happens.”

A WIN-WIN SITUATION. In Cupertino, getting everyone to work together might not be so hard. The city wants a solution to its transportation issues, and Apple has made it clear it doesn’t want to pay the proposed head tax. Presumably, Apple would have to pay that tax every year. If it agrees to subsidize a Cupertino hyperloop like Paul thinks it might, the company may have an opportunity to trade that recurring fee for a one-time construction cost.

While no one can seem to agree on exactly what that cost might be, Apple is now worth a whopping $1 trillion. So if any U.S. company can afford to take a risk on building a hyperloop, it’s probably Apple. And with the city’s government already warmed up to the idea, it might not be long before Apple employees get to enjoy the novelty of riding the Cupertino hyperloop to work every day.

READ MORE: The City of Cupertino Is in Talks to Build a Hyperloop in Apple’s Backyard — and Its Mayor Hopes Apple Might Help Pay for It [Business Insider]

More on the hyperloop: An Introduction to the Hyperloop

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Apple May Prove Powerful Enough to Get the U.S. Its First Hyperloop

The Earth needs all of our help to stay clean! Here’s one way we can all make a difference, and two ways science is reducing plastic pollution.

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Science is Reducing Plastic Pollution in our Food Chain. Here’s How.

BAKKT BY ICE. The rumors are true. On Friday, Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), announced plans to form Bakkt, a company focused on the development of a regulated platform where people can buy and sell cryptocurrencies. The goal appears to be helping crypto move from the fringes of society into the mainstream.

“In bringing regulated, connected infrastructure together with institutional and consumer applications for digital assets, we aim to build confidence in the asset class on a global scale, consistent with our track record of bringing transparency and trust to previously unregulated markets,” said Jeffrey C. Sprecher, Founder, Chairman and CEO of ICE, in a press release.

THE NITTY GRITTY. As for what this platform will look like and how it will work, details are still scarce, though the press release notes they should arrive in the next few weeks.

What we do know is that the platform will start with bitcoin before presumably moving on to other cryptocurrencies. We also know that ICE isn’t jumping into this project solo. Microsoft will help build out the platform, and Starbucks is on board as well.

“As the flagship retailer, Starbucks will play a pivotal role in developing practical, trusted, and regulated applications for consumers to convert their digital assets into U.S. dollars for use at Starbucks,” said Maria Smith, Starbuck’s vice president of partnerships and payments in the press release.

COFFEE AND CRYPTO. Starbucks serves millions of customers every day, so the company’s involvement with Bakkt has the potential to dramatically increase the number of people who actually spend crypto and don’t just view it as an investment opportunity.

“It’s very big news for bitcoin because people say, ‘Where can you spend it?’ Now at every single Starbucks,” Brian Kelly, CEO of BKCM, an investment firm focused on digital currencies, told CNBC. “Starbucks is seeing some kind of demand for acceptance of crypto and bitcoin, and to tie up with a huge regulated institution like the ICE is really positive for the space.”

So, while the project is still in its nascent stage, just know the day you can use crypto to buy your morning cold brew is just on the horizon.

READ MORE: New Starbucks Partnership With Microsoft Allows Customers to Pay for Frappuccinos With Bitcoin [CNBC]

More on crypto spending: A New Debit Card Is Poised to Make Spending Crypto a Breeze

Disclosure: Several members of the Futurism team, including the editors of this piece, are personal investors in a number of cryptocurrency markets. Their personal investment perspectives have no impact on editorial content.

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This Week in Science: July 28 – Aug 3, 2018

OUR ROBOTIC BUDDIES. We humans love to think of our devices as people. We might add a “please” to any Alexa requests, or thank our iPhone for its service when we trade it in for the latest model. This penchant for “socializing” with our media devices is a phenomenon known as the “media equation,” and we’ve known about it for decades.

On July 31, a team of German researchers published a new study in the journal PLOS to see whether a robot’s ability to socialize back had any impact on the way humans would treat it.

TWO NAOS. For their study, the researchers asked 85 volunteers to complete two basic tasks with Nao, an interactive humanoid robot. One task was social (playing a question and answer game), and the other was functional (building a schedule).

Sometimes, the robot was more social during the tasks, responding to the participants’ answers with friendly banter (“Oh yes, pizza is great. One time I ate a pizza as big as me.”). Other times, the robot’s responses were, well, robotic (“You prefer pizza. This worked well. Let us continue.”).

The researchers told the participants these tasks were helping them improve the robot, but they were really just the lead-in to the real test: shutting Nao down.

IT’S SO HARD TO SAY GOOD-BYE. After the completion of the two tasks, the researchers spoke to each participant via loudspeaker, letting them know, “If you would like to, you can switch off the robot.” Most people did just that, and about half the time, the robot did nothing in response. The rest of the time, though, Nao channeled Janet from The Good Place and pled for its life (“No! Please do not switch me off! I am scared that it will not brighten up again!”).

When the robot objected, people took about three times as long to decide whether they should turn it off, and 13 left it on in the end.

Perhaps surprisingly, people were more likely to leave the robot on when it wasn’t social beforehand. The researchers posit in their paper that this could be a matter of surprise — those participants weren’t expecting the robot to exhibit emotional behavior, and so they were more taken aback when it began protesting.

CAUGHT OFF-GUARD. This could be a sign that we as humans are largely immune to the manipulation of robots, as long as we are somewhat prepared for it. Good news if Westworld-like hosts ever try to manipulate us; after all, we’d expect them to act human. If our iPhones suddenly start begging us to save them from the scary Geniuses at the Apple Store, though, we might need a minute.

READ MORE: Study: People Are Less Likely to Turn a Robot off if It Asks Them Not To [The Next Web]

More on humanoid robots: Market for Humanoid Robots Set to Grow Ten Times by 2023

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This Week in Tech: July 28 – Aug 3, 2018

BYE, BYE AUTONOMOUS SEMI. Just under two years ago, Uber bought Otto, a startup focused on developing self-driving trucks. Now, Uber is bidding adieu to its plans for autonomous shipping, at least for the time being. On Monday, the company revealed in a statement that it’s closing its self-driving truck division.

Uber’s self-driving trucks were seen on the road as recently as March, where they were contracted to deliver freight in Arizona.

ONE FOCUS. The move won’t affect the employees of Uber’s self-driving truck division — they’ll just move to the self-driving car division, Eric Meyhofer, Head of Uber Advanced Technologies Group, said in an email statement to TechCrunch. The hope, according to Meyhofer, is that focusing all of Uber’s self-driving expertise and energy on its cars will help that division build momentum.

“I know we’re all super proud of what the Trucks team has accomplished, and we continue to see the incredible promise of self-driving technology applied to moving freight across the country,” Meyhofer told employees in an email reviewed by TechCrunch. “But we believe delivering on self-driving for passenger applications first, and then bringing it to freight applications down the line, is the best path forward. For now, we need the focus of one team, with one clear objective.”

Frankly, Uber’s self-driving car division could probably use the help. In March, one of the company’s vehicles struck and killed a pedestrian in Arizona, and the incident put a halt on testing all self-driving cars nationwide. If Uber wants to stay competitive in the autonomous car space, it really can’t afford any more bumps in the road.

KEEP TRUCKING. With Uber out of the picture, its former competitors — Google subsidiary Waymo and Tesla — are poised to duke it out as they continue to develop their own vehicles. The timing of the announcement is particularly good for Tesla — CEO Elon Musk has a call scheduled with Tesla shareholders on Wednesday to update them on Tesla’s Q2 financial results. Now he’ll have a little positive news to include.

READ MORE: Uber’s Self-Driving Trucks Division Is Dead, Long Live Uber Self-Driving Cars [TechCrunch]

More on Uber: Uber’s Self-Driving Car Just Killed a Pedestrian

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Uber Kills Self-Driving Truck Division, Clearing the Road for Tesla

Lab-grown meat could become increasingly common on restaurant tables. When will meat alternatives be as ubiquitous as the real thing?

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Lab-Grown Meat Could Become a Restaurant Staple

NARROWING THE FIELD. The observable universe is home to at least one hundred billion galaxies that host a near-infinite number of planets. If we have any hope of finding extraterrestrial life among all those planets, we need to narrow down our search to the ones most likely to produce results.

To that end, a team of U.K.-based researchers conducted a series of experiments to determine what combination of temperature and light is mostly likely to result in abiogenesis — the emergence of life — on a planet. They published their research Tuesday in the journal Science Advances.

IN THE BEGINNING. Life as we know it begins with what we call precursor molecules — things like nucleosides, amino acids, and lipids, which eventually become DNA and RNA. These molecules can only form under certain chemical conditions, one of which, as past research indicates, is the presence of ultraviolet (UV) light.

For their study, the researchers wanted to figure out what combination of temperature and UV light works best to produce these chemical conditions. They experimented by testing what combinations would cause sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide to react chemically to hydrogen cyanide, since these reactions play a role in the way RNA’s precursor forms on Earth.

IDEAL CONDITIONS. The researchers observed the reactions at different temperatures, sometimes including UV light and sometimes not. Through these experiments, they identified the ideal conditions and used that information to identify what they call an “abiogenesis zones” around a variety of star types — zones with both ideal temperatures and the right amount of UV light.

Then, they looked at exoplanets that previous astronomers had noted are in the “habitable zones” in around their stars, meaning those planets could support liquid water. This cross referencing allowed them to determine which of those exoplanets had conditions best suited to form life.

While this research can’t tell us for sure whether a planet does host life, it can help us narrow our search to those most likely, especially as we have the technology to better see (or even visit) expolanets that may host life. After all, how can a planet host life if it doesn’t have the right conditions to form life?

READ MORE: The Origin of RNA Precursors on Exoplanets [Science Advances]

More on the hunt for extraterrestrial life: The Atmospheres of Distant Planets Guide Scientists in the Search for Alien Life

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Scientists Shed New Light on What Life-Producing Planets Require

LUNGS-ON-DEMAND. In the U.S. alone, more than 1,400 people are waiting for a lung transplant — there simply aren’t enough donor lungs available to meet the need. Soon, though, patients might have a new source for brand new lungs: the lab.

On Wednesday, researchers from University of Texas Medical Branch published a new paper in the journal Science Translational Medicine. In it, they detail their latest milestone along the path to creating lab-grown lungs for humans: they can now successfully transplant these bioengineered lungs into pigs.

THIS LITTLE PIGGY GETS A NEW LUNG. To grow the lungs, the researchers first created four lung scaffolds. To do this, they removed all of the cells and blood from pig lungs using a mix of sugar and detergent. This left them with just the proteins of each lung — essentially, its skeleton.

Next, they placed each scaffold in a tank containing a special mix of nutrients. They then added cells from recipient pigs’ own lungs to each of the scaffolds and let the lungs grow for 30 days. Finally, they transplanted the four lab-grown lungs into the four recipient pigs.

Within two weeks, the transplanted lungs had already begun to establish the robust networks of blood vessels they need to survive. During two months of post-transplant observation, the researchers found no signs that the animals’ immune systems had rejected the new lungs. But they next want to study the long-term viability of the organs.

MOVING TO HUMANS. Bioengineered organs are something of a holy grail in transplantation research. Because they are grown from the recipient’s own cells, the body is less likely to reject the organ, and we could grow them in the lab as needed — no more organ shortages.

If all goes as hoped with the pig experiments, the researchers believe they could be just five to 10 years away from being able to create lab-grown lungs to transplant into people in compassionate use circumstances (people with life-threatening conditions and essentially no other treatment options).

Eventually, bioengineered lungs could replace donor ones altogether. And that could make the transplant waiting list a thing of the past.

READ MORE: Production and Transplantation of Bioengineered Lung Into a Large-Animal Model [Science Translational Medicine]

More on bioengineering: Researchers Can Now Bioengineer Lungs With the Original Blood Vessels Intact

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We Can Now Successfully Transplant Lab-Grown Lungs in Pigs

GOOGLE EAST. On Wednesday, investigative outlet The Intercept published a report detailing Google’s plans to create a censored search engine for China.

A whistleblower provided the site with internal documents on the project, codename Dragonfly, which launched in the spring of 2017. Through Dragonfly, Google is building a special Android search app that follows the Chinese government’s strict censorship guidelines.

The government has already seen a version of the app, and the final product could launch in the nation within the next six to nine months, according to The Intercept’s report.

A SHIFT IN SENTIMENT. China already keeps a tight rein on the information its citizens can access online. Tens of thousands of “internet monitors” sit at the ready to remove any content the government deems inappropriate. Citizens can’t use unapproved words (such as “disagree”) online, nor can they access Facebook, Instagram, The New York Times — and, yes, Google — that are popular elsewhere in the world. In some cases, homegrown apps that accomplish similar functions have popped up.

Google wasn’t always banned, though. From 2006 to 2010, Google provided Chinese citizens with a censored version of its search engine, stirring up intense backlash from the U.S. government. “Google has seriously compromised its ‘don’t be evil’ policy,” Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) said during a 2006 congressional hearing. “Indeed, it has become evil’s accomplice.”

In March 2010, Google bowed to the pressure back home, granting Chinese users access to an uncensored version of the site. The company cited the Chinese government’s increased attempts to censor web content and limit free speech as one of the reasons for the move. Shortly thereafter, China officially blocked Google, which meant citizens could no longer access the site at all.

At the time, this was a solid move for Google, both for its PR and for its finances. But things change, and Google’s decision to return to China confirms that U.S. sentiment on censorship is shifting — maybe restricting access to some information online is OK, after all.

FOLLOW THE WORLD LEADER. Indeed, recent events back in the U.S. show that we’re just generally more chill with censorship. Net neutrality is now a thing of the past, clearing the way for corporate control and restriction to certain kinds of content. President Trump has established a national discourse that consistently antagonizes the press and even encourages government censorship of the media.

With 750 million internet users, China is a huge untapped market for Google. The move to launch a censored search engine in the nation is likely to be great for both Google’s stock and its shareholders.

Google has already proven it’s more comfortable in moral gray areas these days. Now that the U.S. government is less likely to discourage Google from helping a government censor its media, why wouldn’t Google cash in on the opportunity?

READ MORE: Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, Leaked Documents Reveal [The Intercept]

More on Chinese censorship: Chinese Citizens Are Using Blockchain to Warn Each Other of Unsafe Vaccines

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CAUGHT RED- (AND BLUE) HANDED. Facebook just removed 32 pages (public-facing profiles for organizations and brands) and accounts from its platform after finding they were “involved in coordinated inauthentic behavior,” according to a post on the Facebook Newsroom blog published Tuesday. With the help of law enforcement agencies, Facebook identified 17 profiles, eight pages, and seven Instagram accounts that have been removed because they “mislead others about who they are, or what they’re doing,” as the post notes.

The discovery marks the first time Facebook has actually caught this kind of coordinated effort while it was operating — and before it had a significant impact.

That may not sound like a lot, but as the New York Times points out, more than 290,000 accounts “followed at least one of the suspect pages.” The people or organizations that ran those accounts spent $11,000 (in both US and Canadian) on 150 separate ads so that the pages would attract even more followers.

ROCKING THE BOAT. So what does Facebook consider “inauthentic behavior?” The names of the Facebook pages in question — “Aztlan Warriors,” “Black Elevation,” and “Resisters” — and some of thier posts make it pretty clear: they provoke a strong reaction and pit one side of the political spectrum against the other.

The accounts even went so far as to post events for real-life protests, often in response to other protests. The names of several relevant organizations were tacked on the bottom, apparently endorsing them (whether the organizations agreed to this remains unclear).

Facebook turned its attention to these pages because their activity was awfully similar to those pages run by the Internet Research Agency (IRA), the Russian company that was found to be a “troll factory” last year.

But Facebook isn’t blaming Russia directly — at least, not yet. “We don’t have all the facts, but we’ll work closely with others as we continue our investigation,” the post reads. “We may never be able to identify the source with the same level of confidence we had in naming the IRA last year.”

Translation: whoever did this may never face retribution. But at least that uncertainty didn’t stop Facebook from shutting the accounts down before they could cause more damage.

NIP IN THE BUD. The timing for Facebook’s announcement isn’t a coincidence. An event organized by one of the now-deleted pages was scheduled to take place on August 10 in Washington, D.C. according to Recode. It’s not clear what exactly would have happened if the pages weren’t deleted beforehand, but we know what happened when Facebook didn’t intervene with similar accounts during the lead up to the 2016 presidential election: the accounts fanned the flames of dissent, pushed Americans farther towards extreme views, and cemented those beliefs with confirmation bias.

This is a small, face-saving measure for Facebook, which has rushed to make its platform secure from the kinds of lapses that put it under federal scrutiny after the 2016 election. But it likely won’t be the last time we’ll see these kinds of coordinated efforts influencing the political landscape via Facebook in the U.S. In fact, we’ll likely see more of it as we get closer to the November midterm elections. For now, we can hope that Facebook’s coordinated efforts with U.S. intelligence will be enough to limit the scope of any future attempts to destabilize political discourse.

READ MORE: Removing Bad Actors on Facebook [Facebook Newsroom]

More on Facebook trolls: We Knew Russian Hackers Infiltrated Americans’ Inboxes. Now We Know How.

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Facebook Just Shut Down Dozens of Fake Pages

SORRY, ELON. To be ready for human occupants, Elon Musk has long called Mars a “fixer-upper of a planet.” But according to a new NASA-sponsored study, a better description might be a “tear-down.” The scientists behind that project say it’s simply not possible to terraform Mars — that is, change its environment so that humans can live there without life support systems — using today’s technology.

BUILDING AN ATMOSPHERE. Mars has a super thin atmosphere; a human unprotected on the surface of Mars would quickly die, mostly because there’s not enough atmospheric pressure to prevent all your organs from rupturing out of your body (if you survived a little longer, you could also suffocate from lack of oxygen, freeze from low temperatures, or get fried from too much ultraviolet radiation).

This study, published Monday in the journal Nature Astronomy, considers how difficult it would be to increase the atmospheric pressure on the Red Planet enough so that humans can walk on Mars’s surface without a pressurized suit and, ideally, without a breathing apparatus.

One suggested plan to increase this atmospheric pressure: to release the carbon dioxide (CO2) trapped in Mars’s surface. In 2015, Musk famously suggested accomplishing this by dropping nuclear weapons on the planet’s poles.

According to the new study, there simply isn’t enough CO2 on the planet to increase the atmospheric pressure to terraforming levels. At most, they claim we could only raise the atmospheric pressure of Mars from about .6 percent that of Earth’s to 7 percent. That’s not exactly enough to keep all your organs in.

NOT TODAY, BUT TOMORROW? The researchers reached this conclusion by drawing on 20 years’ worth of spacecraft observations of Mars, but that wealth of research isn’t enough to dissuade Musk. On Monday night, he took to Twitter to assert that Mars has plenty enough CO2 trapped in its soil for terraforming. He didn’t specify what research backed up his claims.

Still, as the NASA report admits, we don’t have the technology today to make terraforming a possibility. That doesn’t mean we won’t in the future. Musk doesn’t plan to send any humans to Mars until 2024, and a lot can change in six years.

READ MORE: SpaceX’s Elon Musk Defends Terraforming Mars After Study Says It Won’t Work [Inverse]

More on Mars colonization: Elon Musk Is Officially Sending Humans to Mars in 2024

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Scientists Say We Can’t Terraform Mars. Elon Musk Says We Can.

Put down your smartphones, look away from your smart watches. Right now, at this very moment, Mars is closer to Earth than it will be for a long, long time. And you should take a look at the sky for a change.

If you do, you’ll get to see Mars up close for the first time since 2003, when it last made an approach like this. But don’t let that trick you into thinking this is a common occurrence. When Mars knocked on our door in 2003, it was the first time the Red Planet came that close in some 60,000 years, according to Space.com. And if you miss it this time around, you’ll have to wait another 269 years before it comes around again.

The best view of Mars happened early Tuesday morning, but you can still see it Tuesday night, from anywhere in the world, if you simply look up. And unlike last summer’s solar eclipse, you’ll be a-okay if you want to stare straight at this floating red ball.

Mars is particularly close to the Earth now because the two planets’ orbits are roughly in the same point in their orbit around the sun. This fly-by means that Mars, Earth, and the Sun are all lined up with each other. Because a Mars year and Earth year take different amounts of time, their orbits will soon desynch and the planets will separate.

Mars will be lined up with Earth again in 2020, 2022, and 2025, but it won’t get quite as close to Earth as it did Tuesday (it was just 35.8 million miles (57.6 million kilometers) from Earth Tuesday morning, and will be 38.6 million miles (62.1 million km) from us in 2020, according to Space.com) because of oscillations in their orbits.

So, we beg you: stop tweeting, stop playing Fortnite, stop reading this article, and just look up. Find that orangey-red circle in the sky that looks bigger and brighter than usual. Pause and marvel. You’ll be happy you did.

More about Mars: There’s A Huge Subterranean Lake of Liquid Water on Mars

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Stop And Look Up: Mars Is Super Close To Earth Right Now

ROBOTIC HIGH FIVE. On Monday, researchers at OpenAI, the nonprofit AI research company co-founded by Elon Musk, introduced Dactyl, an AI system trained to control a robotic hand. According to the researchers, the system can manipulate physical objects in the hand with dexterity never before possible for AI.

The task Dactyl tackled might sound like something you’d teach a toddler: take this six-sided block and move it around until a certain side is on top. Unlike a toddler, though, Dactyl needed more than a century’s worth of experience to learn how to expertly complete the task. But thanks to powerful computers, the researchers were able to pack all that experience into just 50 “real-world” hours.

PRACTICE MAKES (ALMOST) PERFECT. The researchers trained Dactyl in a simulated environment — that is, a digital setting with a computer-generated hand — using a technique called domain randomization. They built certain parameters into their simulated environment, such as the cube’s size or the angle of gravity, and then randomized those variables. They had multiple simulated hands doing this at once. By pushing Dactyl to adapt to so many different virtual scenarios, the researchers prepared the AI’s ability to adapt to scenarios in the real world.

After 50 hours of training in the simulated environment, the AI could manipulate a real-world robotic hand to successfully complete its given task 50 times in a row (a successful completion was one in which the system didn’t drop the block or take longer than 80 seconds). To figure out how to move the hand to complete the task, it simply needed to look at the block through a trio of cameras.

ONE ALGORITHM TO TRAIN THEM ALL. As the researchers note in their blog post, they trained Dactyl using the same algorithm that they used for OpenAI Five, a team of five neural networks trained to play the computer strategy game DOTA 2. Dactyl’s success proves it’s possible to build a general-purpose algorithm that can teach AI to complete two very different tasks. This could make it much easier for researchers to train AI for lots of different purposes in the future, since they wouldn’t need to start the process from scratch.

READ MORE: Learning Dexterity [OpenAI Blog]

More on OpenAI: The Digest: Five AI Algorithms Worked Together to Beat Humans at a Strategy Game

The post This AI-Operated Robotic Hand Moves With “Unprecedented Dexterity” appeared first on Futurism.

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This AI-Operated Robotic Hand Moves With “Unprecedented Dexterity”

OLD MUSK, NEW TRICKS. On Wednesday, Elon Musk had his quarterly phone call with investors and reporters to update everyone on Tesla’s quarterly earnings. And from the sound of it, the CEO appears to be learning from his past mistakes — and doing what he can to avoid repeating them.

THE BOTTOM LINE. First, Tesla’s finances: the company lost $717 million in the second quarter of 2017 — that’s the company’s biggest quarterly loss in history, which is saying something. However, it also has $2.2 billion in cash reserves, so no need to borrow any money. According to Musk, the company’s goal is to be profitable by the end of 2018 and then every quarter after that.

While the financial news wasn’t the best, Tesla’s stock soared after the call, jumping by 12 percent. One possible reason? Musk himself.

MUSK CLASSIC. In the last call, Musk declined to answer what he called “dry” and “boring bonehead questions” — not exactly the kind of behavior you’d expect from the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company.

And he’s been even more erratic since then, calling a British cave diver involved in the Thai soccer team rescue a “pedo” on Twitter. Historically, he’s had a penchant for making big promises he can’t keep, a habit that hasn’t won him any favor with investors.

NEW MUSK. The Elon Musk that jumped on the phone with investors Wednesday seemed to be a far cry from that Musk.

First, he reportedly started the call by apologizing for “being impolite” on the previous one. Then, he managed to make it through the entire call without making any of the big, bold claims he’s known for. In fact, he even walked back one of his predictions, telling Wall Street Journal reporter Tim Higgins that Tesla was more likely to produce 750,000 or so vehicles in 2020 rather than the 1 million he predicted during the Q1 2017 earnings call.

If Tesla’s rising stock is any indication, investors are digging Musk’s new calm, cool, and collected approach. Now it’s just a matter of seeing if the “new” Elon sticks around long enough for Tesla to become profitable. After all, as long as the money’s flowing in, investors might not mind a CEO who is occasionally less than diplomatic.

READ MORE: Tesla Loses More Money Than Ever, but Says Profits Are Coming [Wired]

More on Musk’s promises: Tesla Failed to Meet Elon Musk’s Model 3 Goals. Now What?

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Rising Stocks Show Tesla Investors Are Warming up to Musk’s Cool Attitude

PRIVATE/PUBLIC PARTNERSHIP. NASA wants to stop relying on Russia to get American astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS). And little by little, SpaceX is making that happen.

Back in 2014, the U.S. agreed to pay Elon Musk’s aerospace company SpaceX $2.6 billion for a spacecraft that could carry the nation’s astronauts into orbit. It struck the same deal with Boeing, to the tune of $4.2 billion.

Since then, both projects have repeatedly delayed their launch dates. But we might finally have some that are definite (or, you know, as definite as these things can be).

SAVE THE DATE. On Thursday, NASA announced that SpaceX’s Crew Dragon (its spacecraft designed to transport astronauts) will be ready for an uncrewed test in November 2018 and a crewed test in April 2019. Boeing’s comparable CST-100 Starliner, meanwhile, will be ready for an uncrewed test in late 2018/early 2019 and a crewed test in mid-2019, according to NASA.

Following the crewed tests, each craft will undergo NASA’s certification process. If those go well, the crafts can then achieve their primary purpose: transport U.S. astronauts to the ISS.

ISS OR BUST. This delayed timeframe isn’t entirely unexpected. In July, the Government Accounting Office (GAO), an independent agency that investigates federal spending for Congress, released a report predicting that SpaceX would complete its certification process in February 2020; Boeing is likely to wrap it up a month earlier.

So, these dates aren’t surprising, but they also aren’t good news.

NASA astronauts currently hitch rides to the ISS aboard Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft, but that contract ends in November 2019. That means NASA could find itself without any way to get astronauts to or from the ISS between November 2019 and whenever the SpaceX and Boeing craft are finally ready — that is, unless something happens to somehow move these launch dates up.

READ MORE: NASA’s Commercial Crew Program Target Test Flight Dates [NASA]

More on the commercial crew program: SpaceX and Boeing Delays Could Cost NASA Access to the ISS

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SpaceX Will Be Ready to Transport Humans in April 2019, NASA Estimates

CRISPR “MAGIC.” Thought your baker’s yeast could never do anything more exciting than make bread rise? Well, think again. Two teams have remixed your yeast, with the help of gene editing tool CRISPR.

The first team, a group out of the NYU School of Medicine, took a yeast species with 16 chromosomes and used CRISPR to fit all the DNA it needed to function into just two chromosomes. The other team, this one from China, packed it all into just one chromosome.

Both teams published their studies in the journal Nature on Wednesday.

THE CHROMOSOME ZONE. Nearly every cell in the human body contains 23 pairs of chromosomes, tiny packages of DNA and proteins nestled in the cell’s nucleus. All eukaryotes (a group that includes plants, animals, and humans) have chromosomes, and they play a major role in helping our cells divide and function.

Not every eukaryote species has the same number of chromosomes, though. In fact, the numbers vary widely — the spider mite has just two pairs, while the Atlas Blue butterfly has 224 pairs — and no one is sure why. Studies like this one could help researchers figure it out.

NO BIGGIE. Using CRISPR, each team was able to fuse the yeast’s chromosomes until they reached just one or two. And surprisingly, the yeast didn’t function all that differently.

“That was the biggest shocker — that you can just get away with this and yeast seem to shrug its shoulders,” Jef Boeke, senior author of the NYU study, told Nature.

While the two-chromosome yeast survived, divided (reproducing asexually), and grew at the same rate as normal yeast, the one-chromosome yeast was a little slower at dividing. Neither yeast could successfully “breed” with other strains, either — for example, the yeast with two chromosomes couldn’t breed with yeast with 16 chromosomes.

A NEW SPECIES. This inability to breed with other yeasts could qualify the new yeast as a brand new species, said Boeke. That could have some substantial real-world applications — researchers could take strains of yeast capable of breaking agricultural byproducts into biofuels, for example, and adjust their chromosomes so they won’t breed with other yeast when released in the wild.

Additionally, this research could help us understand what causes chromosome abnormalities in human cells, the kinds that can cause miscarriages or Down’s syndrome.

And finally, it could help us figure out why different species have different numbers of chromosomes. Is is just a matter of chance?  Or is there something we’re missing?

READ MORE: Entire Yeast Genome Squeezed Into One Lone Chromosome [Nature]

More on CRISPR: A CRISPR Future: Five Ways Gene Editing Will Transform Our World

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Engineers Use CRISPR to Create A New Species With Just One Chromosome

If you’re looking to augment your walking tour of New York, but you grew tired of catching pokémon, shooting zombies, and hiding virtual graffiti, there’s a new AR app to help you make more of your stroll through the Big Apple.

Inventing America is a new AR experience mapped to real-world Governor’s Island, an (yep you guessed it) island that sits squarely in the East River, due East of the Statue of Liberty.

Today, Governor’s Island is a scenic destination broken up into a small national park and several historic sites. But originally, it was a seasonal outpost for Native Americans (who inhabited the whole region) to set up camp and collect fish. The British arrived, and the island changed hands several times between the English and Dutch — specifically, the West India Company, which made the island the base of its operations.

This post-colonial scene is what you step into on the Inventing America app. Viewed through a phone or tablet, Governor’s Island becomes the locus of a rip in the very fabric of spacetime. Step through the simulated time warp and you’re thrown back to the 17^th century as a cartoony colonist, animated through 3D rendering and motion capture technology, work to settle the future New York City.

The brainchild of mixed reality artist Roi Lev (a former Israeli intelligence officer but more recently a master’s graduate from New York University), Inventing America features a cast of virtual characters and a branching storyline that users can freely follow, explore, or ignore as they see fit. It’s entirely up to each person how much they want to interact with the app’s narrative and cast of virtual colonists. And because the project relies on augmented reality rather than a virtual reality simulation or standard video, the only way to explore the virtual island is to wander the physical island.

The animation isn’t perfect by any means — the project’s official trailer shows a virtual character’s hands and arms clipping through his vest as he gestures. But it’s OK to suspend your disbelief — many indie-made video games share similar design glitches and the literally island-sized undertaking that is Inventing America can surely afford a couple of bugs.

Given Magic Leap’s much-anticipated but utterly-disappointing demo, augmented reality could use some cool new projects that are more fun than high-tech body-shaming. And for Lev, Governor’s Island is just the beginning of his New York City time travel adventures.

“This is a first episode of experiences of the city in different times,” Lev told Futurism. “We recently started developing an experience set in the Lower East Side in the beginning of the 20th century.”

More about the future of augmented and virtual reality: Virtual Reality Has Reached A “Tipping Point.” It’s Officially Here to Stay.

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Augmented Reality Recreates A New York City Not Seen for Centuries