Tensegrity: The Art and Science of Balance

Tensegrity is a fascinating design principle where rigid rods carry compression while cables handle tension. What makes it truly striking is that the rods never touch each other — instead, they seem to “float” in space, held together only by the balance of stretched cables.

This concept began to take shape in the early 20th century. American architect Buckminster Fuller coined the term “tensegrity”, and it quickly became a symbol of futuristic design and structural innovation.

In the video, you’ll see a famous example — the so-called floating table, a mesmerizing object that brings this principle to life. 🛋️✨

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🤖 Robots don’t have to look like clunky metal machines — and soon, they won’t.

Meet the AI-powered robotic head from Chinese company AheadForm. Its facial expressions are driven by a dedicated artificial intelligence, making interactions far more natural.

And here’s the twist: a robot’s “intelligence” doesn’t even need to live inside its head. In many cases, robots are controlled directly from the cloud, tapping into vast computing power far beyond what fits in hardware.

The future of robotics may look — and think — very different from what sci-fi once imagined.

🚨 China surpasses the world in robot installations!

According to the latest report by the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), China installed nearly 300,000 industrial robots in 2024 — more than the rest of the world combined. 🤖🌏

🔹 Total operational robots in China now exceed 2,027,000 units.
🔹 China’s share of global installations has reached 54%.
🔹 It took just 3 years for China to go from 1 million to 2 million robots on its factory floors.
🔹 For comparison: the U.S. installed about 34,000 robots in 2024, while Japan added around 44,000.

China’s rapid automation is reshaping global manufacturing and accelerating the future of smart factories.

#robotics #China #automation #industry40 #science

🚨 Magnetic Storms Linked to Heart Attacks — Especially in Women

The Earth is shielded by its magnetosphere, which constantly shifts in response to solar activity. When powerful disturbances occur — known as geomagnetic storms — they don’t just disrupt satellites and power grids, but also our bodies.

A team of Brazilian researchers analyzed hospital data on myocardial infarction (heart attacks) over several years, comparing the frequency of cases and deaths during periods of strong geomagnetic activity with calm days.

🔬 Their findings:
• Using the planetary K-index to track geomagnetic storms, the scientists discovered a clear trend:
• Women showed a significant increase in both hospitalizations and mortality during solar storm days.
• Men, despite making up the majority of patients overall, showed no comparable effect.

💡 Why does this happen?
The heart relies on finely tuned electrical impulses to maintain rhythm. Intense external magnetic fields may interfere with this system, especially in people with pre-existing cardiovascular issues, triggering critical events.

🌍 This research suggests that space weather isn’t just a cosmic curiosity — it may directly affect human health.

#Science #SpaceWeather #Medicine #SolarStorms

🚀 Jeff Bezos: AI Data Centers Will Move to Space

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos believes that within the next 10–20 years, massive data centers for training AI models will be built in outer space.

Why? 🌌
In space, there’s unlimited solar energy available 24/7, no atmospheric interference, and natural cooling conditions — perfect for large-scale computing infrastructure.

Bezos envisions space as the next extension of Earth’s industrial and technological ecosystem, where humanity can build, power, and scale its most energy-intensive systems without harming the planet.

#AI #Space #Bezos #FutureTech #Science

☀️ A giant solar prominence has just broken away from the Sun — one of the largest this year, according to Russia’s Space Research Institute (IKI RAS).

This time, we got lucky. Scientists say that if it had happened a day later, Earth would have been grazed by the edge of the blast — and if two days later, we’d have taken a direct hit.

Fortunately, the plasma cloud is heading safely into deep space, missing all planets.

Still, the spectacle was breathtaking — a fiery arch of superheated plasma tens of thousands of kilometers high, briefly suspended above the solar surface before being hurled away into the void.

#Space #Sun #SolarStorm #Science

🤖 A robot that feels touch with its whole body

German Aerospace Center (DLR) engineers have created SARA — a robot that can sense touch across its entire surface — without any external tactile skin or sensors.

How it works:
SARA uses only the force sensors built into its joints plus clever math.
When a person touches the robot’s body, the system calculates where and how strongly it was touched by analyzing subtle mechanical changes in the joints.

What it can do:
✍️ Recognize letters or numbers traced on its body — with 90–95% accuracy
🔘 Create “virtual buttons” anywhere — place a sticky note and the robot will remember that spot
🎚 Adjust settings — swipe across its arm like a slider to change speed or grip strength

Why it matters:
Traditional tactile robots rely on expensive, fragile “electronic skin.”
SARA skips that — turning its entire body into an interactive surface, like a smartphone screen.

Limitations:
Currently it can detect only two simultaneous touches, and sensitivity is lower than dedicated sensors.
But for most human–robot collaboration tasks, this minimalist design is a breakthrough.

#robotics #AI #DLR #innovation #HRI #sensors

☀️ A massive explosion erupted last night on the far side of the Sun (IKI RAS).

The bright ejection you see in the footage is plasma being hurled away from the Sun — fortunately, in the opposite direction from Earth.

The dark circle and stripe in the frame aren’t mysterious objects — they mark the blind zones of the coronagraph’s optics, used to block direct sunlight and make solar activity visible.

Even though the blast happened on the far side, it shows just how restless our star remains — constantly storing and releasing titanic amounts of magnetic energy.

#Sun #Space #Astronomy #SolarFlare

🚀 The first color footage of a FUSION REACTOR in action!

Tokamak Energy has just released incredible high-speed video — shot at 16,000 frames per second — showing the birth of plasma inside their fusion reactor.

In the clip, you can see a mesmerizing bright pink glow at the plasma’s edge — that’s light emitted as the superheated gas interacts with the reactor walls. The core itself remains invisible, simply because it’s millions of degrees hot — far beyond what any camera can capture.

This is what the future of clean, limitless energy looks like — contained in a magnetic field.

🎥 Full video here: watch the fusion magic

#fusion #energy #tokamak #plasma #science

Cyberpunk remote work, IRL.

Operators in the Philippines—paid about $250/month—are remotely piloting shelf-stocking robots in Japanese stores.
Today it’s teleoperation; tomorrow it’s training data. The real question: how fast until the robots learn enough to cut humans out of the loop?

#robots #teleoperation #retailtech #AI #futureofwork #science

🚀 Starcloud wants a 4-km, 5-GW GPU data center… in space

NVIDIA-backed startup Starcloud is about to put a data-center-class GPU in orbit: their Starcloud-1 satellite launches in November with an NVIDIA H100 onboard — roughly 100× more GPU compute than any prior space system. The 60-kg, fridge-sized sat is a first step toward orbital GPU clouds.

Why it matters: today, satellites downlink raw data to Earth for processing. With an H100 upstairs, AI runs where data is born — cutting response times from hours to minutes. That’s big for sensors like SAR, which can spit out ~10 GB/s; instead of shipping it all home, the model can filter, segment, and alert in orbit.

Power & cooling: sunlight is (nearly) constant in orbit and space is an “infinite heat sink” via radiators, so no water-hungry chillers. Starcloud’s roadmap sketches a ~5 GW orbital data center fed by solar + radiator panels about 4 km × 4 km. Future birds aim to integrate Blackwell GPUs for up to 10× more performance versus Hopper.

Biz timeline: Crusoe (the “energy-first” cloud) plans to deploy capacity on Starcloud’s platform from 2026–27. Starcloud projects ~10× lower energy cost than Earth data centers long-term. A white paper even models a 40 MW cluster with a ~$8.2M launch cost — if Starship-class launch prices fall to ~$30/kg (a big if).

CEO Philip Johnston’s bet: within 10 years, most new data centers get built in space. Gamers, rejoice — astronauts might finally run DOOM at ultra.

#Starcloud #H100 #Blackwell #OrbitalCompute #SpaceDatacenter #SAR #EdgeAI
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AI-powered parking never looked like this in my head.

A 35-kg Unitree G1 running BAAI’s THOR whole-body control just dragged a 1.4-ton car — ~40× its own weight. It’s a stunt, but it shows how fast balance, traction, and whole-body control are improving. Next stop: factory logistics, recovery, and precision vehicle positioning.

#Unitree #BAAI #THOR #Robotics #AI #Humanoids
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@science