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Starliner capsule poised for fresh test launch to the ISS

The uncrewed test flight of Boeing’s Crew Space Transportation-100 Starliner spacecraft comes after a series of delays, including a failed launch in 2019 when the capsule was not able to reach the International Space Station (ISS). In November 2019, the Starliner astronaut capsule underwent its first flight test , as Boeing tested its ability to abort in the event of an emergency. Nasa’s Boeing Orbital Flight Test-2 – carrying no astronauts and only a test dummy – is another step on the path to regular human spaceflight to the ISS, Nasa has said. It will test the changes and improvements made to Starliner and prove the system is ready to fly astronauts. If successful, and following subsequent data reviews, Nasa and Boeing will set a target launch date for the Crew Flight Test with astronauts…

E+T Magazine in Space
E-commerce jumps a decade in two months

Has ‘the new normal’ become the most overused phrase in the English language thanks to Covid-19? It has competition: ‘doomscrolling’, ‘you’re on mute’ and, more recently, ‘work event’ should all be in with a shout, but our first nominee has that little bit extra. Those other three can all actually refer to something: respectively, social media, teleconferences and cake-led ambushes. ‘New normal’ is sometimes so completely void of meaning yet at others so packed as to be beyond comprehension. This is not just linguistic snark. This problem of definition is already having an economic and technological impact, particularly when it comes to advances in and the adoption of techniques around data science and artificial intelligence. Determining what exactly the new normal means is increasingly…

E+T Magazine in Computing
Pandemic science hub established to develop drugs for lung infections

The hub at the University of Edinburgh will use translational genomics – following clues from the human genome to identify and rapidly test new treatments – along with experimental medicine methods to quickly evaluate and develop drugs for lung inflammation and injury caused by infection. Independent investment partnership Baillie Gifford is supporting the launch with a philanthropic gift of £14.7m, with the university aiming to secure £100m worth of investment in total. As well as accelerating discoveries of treatments for Covid-19 and other human lung diseases, the Baillie Gifford Pandemic Science Hub aims to help prepare for future pandemics. It will build on the success of 'GenOMICC' and 'STOPCOVID', two experimental medicine projects led by Professors Kenneth Baillie and Kev Dhaliwal…

E+T Magazine in Research and Innovation
Renewables transition could create 9,000 Scottish energy-sector jobs by 2030

The study from Robert Gordon University estimated that the workforce could increase to a total of 54,000 by the end of the decade compared to approximately 45,000 today if it becomes established as a 'Global Energy Hub' for offshore wind. The government’s Energy Security Strategy currently targets 50GW of offshore wind, 10GW of hydrogen and up to 30 million tonnes of carbon capture and storage for the UK as a whole by 2030. But the report warns that falling short on that goal could see the regional offshore energy workforce decline by up to 40 per cent over the same time frame to as low as approximately 28,000 jobs. It finds that over £17bn in new regional investments between 2022 and 2030 will be needed to meet the targets in manufacturing and operational capabilities for the renewables…

E+T Magazine in Renewable Energy
Medical miracles from plant grown platinum

Platinum is best known as a catalyst – and as the precious metal one rank better than gold. However, it is also has near-miraculous medical applications. Chemotherapy drugs like cisplatin and carboplatin harness platinum’s ability to inhibit DNA replication and cause cell death. Thanks to their superlative array of physiochemical properties, platinum nanoparticles (PtNPs) could also be used in targeted drug delivery, photothermal therapy, radiotherapy, antimicrobial ointments, bioimaging, and biosensors. Their possibilities are tantalising, but PtNPs come with twin costs: monetary and environmental. PtNPs are created through physical and chemical processes. The former approach uses high pressures and temperatures to produce pure nanoparticles of uniform size and shape, with enormous cost…

E+T Magazine in Electronic Materials
Engineering greener beauty products

The process of fermentation has been used to make alcohol for thousands of years. Now, thanks to developments in bioengineering, the same process – where a microbe such as yeast interacts with a sugar molecule – is being used to create large quantities of ingredients used in the beauty industry. This is important as rare natural ingredients can be squandered to make creams, while some ingredients damage the environment. For example, squalene, which is used in moisturiser, is traditionally collected from the livers of sharks, contributing to millions being killed every year. To solve this environmental problem, and many others, Californian company Amyris genetically engineers yeast and ferments, or feeds, it with sustainably sourced sugarcane, to produce natural, high-performance molecules…

E+T Magazine in Engineering with a Disability
Porous material captures harmful pollutants from the air

The material is capable of capturing trace amounts of benzene, a toxic pollutant, from the air while using less energy than existing materials, the researchers said. Benzene is an air toxic typically emitted from gasoline service stations, motor vehicle exhaust and fuel evaporation, the burning of coal and oil, and various other sources. Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) including benzene are a class of toxic pollutants that cause severe environmental and health issues. Developing technologies to remove benzene from air at trace concentrations and doing it with a low energy footprint are both challenges that have not been overcome until now. Close-up of the material Image credit: UL/Bernal “A family of porous materials – like sponge – have been developed to…

E+T Magazine in Research and Innovation
London homes still have serious fire safety failings, says LFB chief

Roe has described the fire safety failings as “extremely concerning”. The 2017 Grenfell Tower fire was one of the UK's worst modern disasters. The fire broke out in the kitchen of a fourth-floor flat at the 23-storey tower block, raced up the exterior of the building and then spread to all four sides, killing 72 people. As a result of a public inquiry into the causes of the Grenfell fire, Home Secretary Priti Patel has announced a new Fire Reform White Paper that will address the fire risks of current buildings in the UK capital, and around the country. LFB Commissioner Andy Roe welcomed the new legislation, but said more needs to be done to tackle dangerous structures and ensure residents know how to escape in the event of a fire . He also warned rogue property owners that the brigade…

E+T Magazine in Engineering with a Disability
How the metal gurus hunt down a change of catalyst

At the end of 2016 a crash in commodities prices saw one class of crime become a lot less profitable. Along with oil and common metals like copper and nickel, the price of the far more expensive industrially important metals palladium and platinum slumped. In the case of platinum, the spot price plummeted by half as the world seemingly decided it did not need most of these materials. And fewer criminals were keen on jacking up cars parked out of sight and unbolting or sawing off catalytic converters that each contain around 5 grams of platinum and palladium. According to figures obtained by London Liberal Democrats using a freedom-of-information request on Metropolitan Police records, there were just 173 thefts of the exhaust units in the city in 2017. However, by 2020, that number had surged…

E+T Magazine in Research and Innovation
Robotic Hive technology behind online grocery boom

E&T: Could you start by telling us how and when the idea for this solution was conceived James Gralton (pictured below): Our founders always had the ambition to do online grocery differently and to use cutting-edge technology and automation through centralised fulfilment to deliver an amazing service to our customers. The tech that was available at the time wasn’t really appropriate; it was really designed for smal-basket shopping. We quite quickly realised that we were going to need to build it ourselves, and over the past 20 years or so we’ve continued to do that. Now we build and license that technology out to partners around the globe. E&T: Did you have set objectives? What was your starting point and what did you hope to achieve? JG: The guiding principle, obviously, was to offer…

E+T Magazine in Robotics
Is your advertising reaching the people you think it is?

Many websites are financed by advertising revenue, and many businesses invest significant sums of money in ads in the hopes of improving profitability. Any effort to mislead online advertising systems for monetary advantage therefore has a negative effect on both businesses and websites. Online ads are heavily reliant on algorithmic exchanges to connect content with prospective clients. Ad fraud exploits these automated systems to impersonate actual users and profit from the broadcast of ads to non-existent clients. Bots are just one of a range of tactics used to deceive ad networks and advertisers into paying them. As a result, marketers are stuck paying for ads that are shown to fake visitors. On the other hand, publishers will see an unusual rise in payments. Marketers will eventually…

E+T Magazine
Tackling the ocean’s dead zones

The rancid smell of rotten fish met New York City residents as they strolled along the Hudson River in December 2020. Walkers and environmental action groups reported hundreds of dead fish washing up on the river’s banks from Sleepy Hollow to Yonkers, or sightings of the sea life visibly suffocating in the city’s harbour. While there were multiple causes of the die-off, one significant factor is hypoxia – which is when the amount of oxygen dissolved in a body of water drops below a certain threshold. Without enough oxygen in the water, fish and many other forms of sea life may die en masse, leaving the surrounding area lifeless. Hypoxia (or anoxia, where there is no oxygen present in water at all) can happen naturally. There are certain areas of the ocean that contain low levels of oxygen…

E+T Magazine in Air Pollution
Rocket emissions can change the atmosphere’s composition, research finds

The space sector is on the rise, with companies like SpaceX, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic making large investments in commercial spaceflights, and organisations like Nasa continuing to power missions to space. However, the impact of such launches on the Earth’s atmosphere is still poorly understood. A team of researchers from the University of Nicosia in Cyprus set out to study the extent to which rockets' propulsion emissions can create significant heating and compositional changes in the atmosphere. To do so, the scientists investigated the heat and mass transfer and rapid mixing of the combustion byproducts for altitudes up to 67km into the atmosphere. The findings of the study, published in Physics of Fluids , showed that rockets can have a significant impact on the Earth’s atmosphere…

E+T Magazine in Space
Google faces lawsuit for misusing millions of people’s medical data

Google is facing the class-action lawsuit in the UK for allegedly using confidential medical records belonging to 1.6 million individuals “without their consent or knowledge”. DeepMind, the company’s artificial intelligence (AI) division, received the data in 2015 from the Royal Free NHS Trust in London for the purpose of testing a smartphone app called Streams, which aims to address the 25 per cent of deaths from acute kidney injuries that could be avoided through early detection. The app was subsequently used by the Trust on a discount basis. The Trust was sanctioned by the UK’s Information Commissioner's Office in 2017 after the data protection watchdog deemed the data-sharing deal illegal. At the time, Google avoided sanctions as the responsibility for the breach was placed upon the…

E+T Magazine in Computing
120,000 images of Amazon wildlife captured by camera traps

The Wildlife Conservation Society has contributed over 57,000 images of jaguar, puma, giant anteaters, tapirs, bears and hundreds of other species for a massive study on Amazon wildlife. The study, published in the journal Ecology , consists of more than 120,000 images taken in eight countries, representing the largest photo database to date of the Amazon’s staggering array of wildlife. The images show 289 species taken from 2001-2020 from 143 field sites. The images will allow conservationists to document the effects of habitat loss, fragmentation and climate change on different species that live in the Amazon. Jaguar captured in camera trap/ WCS Ecuador Image credit: WCS Ecuador The WCS images from Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru reveal playful…

E+T Magazine in Engineering with a Disability
Smart railways: on track to a digital future?

The new breed of digital trains – not to be confused with the airport shuttles that we have been riding for years, or the Docklands Light railway in London which travels on a confined track – will share the tracks with conventional driver-operated trains, in a much more complex environment. Trains are already an efficient method of moving people and goods around but can be 15 per cent more energy efficient when driven by an AI, be more punctual, and can carry 30-50 per cent more passengers or freight, by reducing spacing between trains, all on existing infrastructure. Rural public transport economics can also be transformed by making lines less expensive to operate and enhancing existing safety levels. The last few months have seen a flurry of announcements that, at first sight, might appear…

E+T Magazine in Railways
Ultra-powerful MRI scanners offer hope for people with Parkinson’s disease

Parkinson’s is a progressive brain disease that affects movement as well as damage motivation and cognition. These latter symptoms can have a major impact on a patient’s outcome, affecting their survival and general wellbeing, as well as the stress and costs for families. To understand the causes of these cognitive symptoms, the researchers used a new ultra-high strength ‘7T’ MRI scanner to measure changes in the brains of people with Parkinson’s disease, those with another brain disease known as progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), as well as people in good health. 7T refers to the strength of the magnetic field; most MRI scanners tend to be 3T or below. Patients with Parkinson’s disease and PSP are often treated with drugs such as L-DOPA, which compensate for the severe loss of dopamine…

E+T Magazine in Functional Safety
Asteroid-mining may be possible with Scar-e robot

The Space Capable Asteroid Robotic Explorer known as Scar-e is a six-legged robot capable of mining precious metals from asteroids. Designed by the Asteroid Mining Corporation (AMC) in partnership with Tohoku University in Japan, Scar-e could be the key to opening up the exploration of the solar system, in line with current trends in the launch services market, with a low-cost, highly functional, walking and climbing robot. Currently, the world is facing a shortage of precious metals, particularly those vital for the making of consumer electronics such as phones, laptops and cars, as well as battery and hydrogen technology, causing chaos in supply chains. With only a finite supply of them on Earth, people are increasingly looking to space to meet this increased demand. Enter Scar-e…

E+T Magazine in Space
Drax proposes major hydro power station in Scotland to stabilise energy grid

If approved, the new power station could be operational as soon as 2030 with construction work getting under way in 2024. It will involve removing around 2 million tonnes of rock from inside the Ben Cruachan mountain. The development would be the first newly constructed plant of its kind in the UK in more than 40 years and will provide low-carbon electricity storage capacity. Drax also operates its namesake power station in Yorkshire that has long been a testing bed for projects designed to reduce the UK’s carbon emissions, such as the introduction of carbon capture technology in its biomass reactors in 2019, and its stated goal to become the first “carbon negative” company by using that technology. The hydro project is expected to generate up to 600MW, more than doubling the current…

E+T Magazine in Power Conversion
Seven decades of royal technology

Although little is known about the Queen’s private life, there are enough clues to create the strong impression that she has been a keen user of contemporary technology throughout her reign. From the first computers to digital connectivity, from recording songs on a cassette recorder to running the Royal train on biofuel, from enjoying computer games to driving hybrid cars, the monarch has stayed in touch with technology trends for more than 70 years. Here we take the opportunity of her Platinum Jubilee to review some of the technologies the Her Majesty is known to have used through the decades, plus a few that we think might come to the rescue of the royal household from time to time. 1950s When the Queen and the late Prince Philip wed in 1947, post-war food rationing was still in place…

E+T Magazine in Engineering with a Disability
The bigger picture: FLEX Lunar Rover

From Californian company Venturi Astrolab, the FLEX vehicle displayed its prowess back in December by riding over the rugged California desert near Death Valley National Park during a five-day field test. The four-wheeled, car-sized vehicle was piloted during the tests by retired Canadian astronaut and Astrolab advisory board member Chris Hadfield, and MIT aerospace graduate student Michelle Lin. Image credit: , FLEX is designed for Nasa’s Artemis programme, aimed at returning humans to the Moon as early as 2025 and establishing a long-term lunar colony as a precursor to sending astronauts to Mars. It is designed as an all-purpose vehicle that can be driven by astronauts or remotely. Built around a modular payload system inspired by conventional containerised…

E+T Magazine in Space
Uganda government sued over digital ID system that excludes vulnerable groups

The Initiative for Social and Economic Rights, Unwanted Witness and the Health Equity and Policy Initiative have filed a lawsuit against the Ugandan government for a failure in the rollout of the national ID system, which has reportedly resulted in the exclusion of vulnerable groups from potentially life-saving services, Reuters has found. The three charities estimate that up to one-third of adults do not have a biometric ID card seven years after the system was introduced. The lack of a national ID has also prevented many Ugandans from opening a bank account, buying a mobile SIM card, enrolling in college, gaining formal employment and obtaining a passport. Most of those affected belong to poor and marginalised communities. The flawed rollout has also resulted in elderly people being unable…

E+T Magazine in Engineering with a Disability
Bizarre Tech: FishCare Mini, Owl Robot and Cura Light

FishCare Mini I spy with my little fisheye This Kickstarter campaign was last updated in June 2019, so it’s likely the product went down the toilet, like your goldfish after it kicked the bucket because you didn’t put the right protocols in place when you went on holibobs. However, this product was supposed to fix that. From TAE Fishcare (website no longer online), the FishCare Mini (beta version) was for you to “enjoy your holiday fish can be safe and sound in home” (not my words). This wee gadget was supposed to let you set up threshold values and give you real-time data of temperature, pH, and nitrate measurements. It would broadcast a visual alarm if the measured data was out of threshold values, and also send an alert SMS and email. What do you reckon the alarm would be like?…

E+T Magazine
After All: Tiny chapel shows the spirit that sank a huge cruiser

Bristling with gun turrets, radars and aerials, she looked like a giant porcupine stranded in the Sevastopol harbour. With her massive grey bulk reflected in the oily waters of the port, the battleship looked twice her size – enormous and ominously threatening. ‘Slava’ (Glory) was written along the starboard, close to the bow. It was 1987. I was on a Black Sea cruise on-board MS Tajikistan as an ‘entertainer’, i.e. enjoying a free cabin in exchange for some stand-up comedy (reading my own stories and poems). Sailing past Slava (later renamed Moskva), a 200m-long flagship of the Soviet (and later Russian) Navy, was one of the cruise’s undisputed highlights. Not in their wildest dreams could the passengers on board Tajikistan (including yours truly) have imagined that, 35 years on, Moskva…

E+T Magazine

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