Gizmorama - February 29, 2016

Good Morning,

Did you hear that robots are being developed that learn from being bullied. So robots aren't even safe from bullying. What's the world coming to?

Learn about this and more interesting stories from the scientific community in today's issue.

Until Next Time,
Erin

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*-- NASA to repurpose spy telescope for sky survey satellite --*
WASHINGTON - NASA is using old spy telescope hardware to build and launch a satellite the agency says will be 100 times more powerful than the Hubble Space Telescope, the agency has announced.

The Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope will launch sometime in the 2020s, and is expected to help scientists learn about dark energy and dark matter, as well as see much farther beyond the solar system than they previously could.

"WFIRST is designed to address science areas identified as top priorities by the astronomical community," Paul Hertz, director of NASA's Astrophysics Division in Washington, said in a press release.

WFIRST will travel about a million miles from Earth, away from the sun, to the gravitational balance point, known as a Lagrange point, Earth-Sun L2, and begin observations of the universe from there.

The telescope can measure shapes, positions and distances of galaxies to track their growth, including galaxy clusters and the dark matter near them. The scientists say the new telescope will help answer questions about the structure and evolution of the universe because of the large area and distances it can observe.

NASA will turn its attention to WFIRST after the 2018 launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, which will pick up many of the exploratory tasks of the Hubble Space Telescope

"WFIRST has the potential to open our eyes to the wonders of the universe, much the same way Hubble has," said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate. "This mission uniquely combines the ability to discover and characterize planets beyond our own solar system with the sensitivity and optics to look wide and deep into the universe in a quest to unravel the mysteries of dark energy and dark matter."


*---- Boston Dynamics robot learns from being bullied ----*
BOSTON - Engineers at Google-owned Boston Dynamics have put their Atlas humanoid robot through a boot camp of bullying -- pushing, shoving, tripping.

But as a number of new videos reveal, the bipedal robot is road-tested and tough, capable of trekking across snow-covered fields or rough and rocky terrain. Atlas can right itself after a fall can bend over to pick up large objects.

Atlas isn't a new robot, but the latest videos show the agent in new and improved form. It's range of motion is more sophisticated and it no longer needs an external power source.

"It's definitely kind of jaw dropping," Ken Goldberg, robotics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, told WIRED. "They've really smoothed out a lot of the motion."

A lot of robots can perform some rather complex maneuvers. Atlas excels in its strength and resiliency.

Pushing Atlas to the ground over and over may seem a cruel exercise, but researchers say it's the best way to train the robot to respond to a jarring collision.

"When something sudden and fairly impactful happens to the robot, we call that an impulse, and that's very difficult for a system to respond to," Goldberg added.

Atlas's ability to navigate uneven terrain and pick itself up off the ground is made possible by a series of LiDAR sensors on its legs and body, as well as stereo sensors in its head.

Boston Dynamics have developed several Atlas iterations -- as well as other robots -- for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and U.S. Marine Corps, and some suggest the robot could be the future of ground combat.

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