Category: Family

Low-Earth orbit is teeming with space junk. This increasingly cluttered area of space could benefit from a network of lasers that nudge objects at risk of colliding with satellites or spacecraft into safer orbits, according to new research.

While space debris has been a concern for decades, efforts to address this junk have only recently started receiving serious investment. The latest early-stage idea is to mount artificial intelligence-powered lasers on satellites or other dedicated platforms and have them monitor space debris objects. When an object is suspected to be on a collision course with a valuable space asset like the International Space Station (ISS) or a satellite, the lasers could, in theory, nudge that object into a safer orbit.

“Our goal is to develop a network of reconfigurable space-based lasers, along with a suite of algorithms,” Hang Woon Lee, the director of Space Systems Operations Research Laboratory at West Virginia University who is leading the new project, said in a statement. “Those algorithms will be the enabling technology that make such a network possible and maximize its benefits.”

Related: Orbiting debris trackers could be a game changer in space junk monitoring

NASA is funding Lee’s idea with $200,000 across three years. Although the plan is still in its infancy, its ultimate goal is to develop a system capable of making real-time decisions about which space objects to target and to ensure the new orbits are actually safe from further collisions. Using multiple lasers is crucial to efficiently alter the object’s trajectory “in a way that would be impossible with a single laser,” Lee said in the same statement.

Measuring the amount of risk from space debris is quite difficult, as not every object in orbit is capable of being tracked. Humans have flown over 15,000 satellites since the 1950s, of which only about 4,000 are operational satellites, according to 2022 estimates. According to the European Space Agency (ESA), around 34,600 space debris fragments are currently tracked by radar systems on Earth, but another 130 million pieces could be in orbit that are too small to be accurately detected or tracked.

So unlike other space debris removal ideas, a coordinated network of lasers in space could be particularly useful in tackling a space object of any size, researchers say. In March, a NASA report found space-based lasers are advantageous compared to ground-based ones because they don’t need to pass through Earth’s atmosphere, which could deform the beams. Being in space, the beam can more easily pulse the target object into favored orbits, according to the report.

Such AI-powered systems are also beneficial in terms of cost and could eventually be used to track space objects ahead of launches, for example. Last week, Amazon delayed the launch of its first two prototype internet satellites by six minutes to avoid colliding with a space object. Back in July, India had delayed launching its historic Chandrayaan-3 moon mission by three seconds for the same reason. 

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Tesla is now attempting to gauge the tiredness of its drivers through a new feature rolling out called “Driver Drowsiness Warning.” It uses the cabin-facing camera — built to ensure the driver was watching the road and not their phone — to gauge facial characteristics of drowsiness, such as the frequency of yawns and blinks. Rumors of the new feature first circulated in May when a Tesla hacker, known as Green, found indications of drowsiness tracking in Tesla’s software. 

In action, the Driver Drowsiness Warning tool looks at both facial characteristics and driving behavior. An alert will appear on the touchscreen in the cards area, and an internal alarm will sound if the system records indications of tiredness. Drivers can choose to disable the feature by navigating to Controls and then Safety. Though, unless it’s constantly beeping anytime the car moves from the direct center of a lane, there is little reason to do so. 

In any case, the Driver Drowsiness Warning should automatically turn back on during a new drive. However, the feature only activates when the car goes over 40 miles per hour and if Autopilot is not switched on. Even if an alert occurs, the warning system will deactivate if the car drops below that minimum speed. Tesla includes the usual disclaimer in its announcement, cautioning drivers that it’s their “responsibility” to stay alert and focused on the road ahead. 

Two years ago, late on a February night in Vernon, British Columbia, Melissa Trixie Watt was struggling to sleep, so she reached for her phone. She saw that she had a Facebook message. “How are you? I hope you are well,” read the DM from an unknown man. According to his profile, he was a tow truck driver with a long, graying beard. He lived 45 minutes away and said he’d been talking to her on OkCupid—a site she’d never used. “I think I should come to Vernon and see you,” he wrote. “What are your thoughts on that?” Lying under her duvet, Watt felt a chill.

She wrote back and asked for screenshots of the conversations. It turned out that he knew more of her personal details: the car she drives, that she works as a massage therapist, the name of her practice. Scariest of all, he was under the impression that they’d made plans to meet up and enact a rape fantasy. 

“I’ll wear black pantyhose with the crotch ripped open, no panties and high heels,” wrote the poseur, whose profile pic was Watt in a tie-dye tank top, her long blond hair swished to one side. 

“Mmm good little slut. You know what I want,” the tow truck driver wrote. 

“I can wear the pantyhose and heels at work all day with a short skirt and tease all the men I treat so that I get raped extra hard by you,” wrote the person impersonating Watt.

“Just wait till I have you in my hands,” the driver texted back.

“I am your property. I am your rape meat. I am a whore Daddy,” wrote the impersonator.

This wasn’t the first time Watt had received messages like this or seen a similarly horrifying exchange. Fake profiles impersonating Watt had been popping up on KinkD, FetLife, and OkCupid for the past four years. At times, late-night texts and calls poured in from men hunting for explicit photos or a hookup. Still, this one was different.

When she saw that the tow truck driver had a photo of her wearing a bra and panties, something clicked. She began to think she knew who was doing this—someone she had once considered a friend.

A cute little beagle with big smiley eyes … how could you not fall in love with Watson? But the residents of my Parisian building were terrified when they saw him enter. Watson is not like any other dog. He’s trained to detect the tiny insects that have been all over the front pages of French newspapers for the past few weeks: bedbugs.

This fall, fear has become paranoia. Pictures of bedbugs in cinemas, metros, and trains have saturated social media. “I’ve been getting so many calls from worried people lately,” says Watson’s owner, Charlotte Ducomte, founder of the company WatsonDetect. For years now, she and Watson have been going through the city and its suburbs to detect bedbugs in private apartments and company offices. These past few weeks, she’s been inundated with calls from people who “wanted to have their apartment checked … just in case.” There is “ia bedbug panic in Paris” right now, she says.

Bedbug numbers in France have surged in 2023. There’s been a 65 percent increase in pest control visits for the insects across the country this year compared to last, says France’s Union Chamber of Insect Control.

This is partly due to the weather. According to Jean-Michel Bérenger, an entomologist who cofounded the National Institute for the Study and Fight Against Bedbugs in 2018, heat accelerates a bedbug’s life cycle, and September and October have been particularly hot in Paris—average temperatures have been 4.5 degrees Celsius above normal. “When the temperature inside your house is 25 to 26 degrees Celsius (77 to 78.8 Fahrenheit), it takes only five days for the bedbug eggs to hatch. In normal conditions, when the temperature is around 20 degrees Celsius, it takes 10 days,” he explains.

But the current plague of bedbugs is also part of a general rise in their numbers in recent years, says Bérenger. The modern world, filled with people constantly on the move, easily allows the insects to spread. Ducomte says numbers have been increasing in Paris since 2002 and attributes this to more visitors to the city, driven by cheap flights and the convenience of Airbnb. “People move a lot more than before … and thus, they are more likely to be infested,” she says.

When Watson moves through my apartment, he doesn’t stop anywhere. Lucky me. Pausing is his way of showing his owner that he can smell bedbugs, which in the early stages of an infestation can be hard to detect—the insects are quite shy, often hiding inside furniture frames or under floorboards during the day and coming out to feast at night. With few effective tools for detecting small numbers of bedbugs, dog-based services have become increasingly popular in the city, even if the limited research on them suggests their accuracy can be patchy.