Curating the Internet: Science and technology micro-summaries for August 27, 2019

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Authored by @remlaps

Scientists find "extremely fast" technique to print living tissue; New polymers for vanishing gliders and parachutes; A shell that aims to combine the best of UNIX and Powershell; A smartphone app for detecting credit card skimmers; Imagining a lunar space elevator
Straight from my RSS feed
Whatever gets my attention

Links and micro-summaries from my 1000+ daily headlines. I filter them so you don't have to.

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  1. Scientists bioprint living tissue in a matter of seconds - Researchers from the Netherlands-based University Medical Center Utrecht and EPFL have developed an extremely fast technique for sculpting sophisticated shapes out of living tissue. The technique applies laser in order to harden targeted areas of a "hydrogel full of stem cells". It is not ready for real-world use yet, but it has potential uses in the creation of functional and personalized organs. More here, and here is a video:


  • Stealth glider made out of special polymer self-destructs in sunlight - Georgia Institute of Technology researcher, Paul Kohl, recently presented his work creating a new polymer for gliders and parachutes. The polymer is based on aldehyde, with other chemical additives for rigidity in the case of a glider, or flexibility in the case of a parachute. These mechanisms are devised so that the military can land men, sensors, or other equipment in a particular area at night time without lasting evidence of the method of transport, because the transportation device will self-destruct the next morning. So far, the effort has produced a glider with a six foot wing span that can carry up to 1 kilogram. The environmental impact of the residue that it leaves behind has not yet been assessed.

  • Introducing nushell - A new shell that is written in Rust combines classic UNIX pipelines and structured data like PowerShell to provide system and functional programming capabilities. I'm not sure what it gives you that you don't already have with find, sed, & awk, but there's something to be said for readability. reddit announce ; Here is an ebook ; h/t OS news

  • This Smartphone App Can Quickly Detect Invisible Gas Pump Card Skimmers - Card skimmers are easier to hide in gas pumps than ATMs because it just requires access to the pump via a widely available universal key. However, they pass data to their operator over Bluetooth, which is detectable. So, teams from the University of California San Diego and the University of Illinois have worked together to create the Bluetana application for that purpose. A quick search of "Google Play" did not find Bluetana, but it did find Skim Plus (beta), which claims to do the same thing. (Note: I don't know anything about Skim Plus, so download at your own risk.) Here is a Press Release on Bluetana. h/t Bruce Schneier

  • STEEM The Lunar Space Elevator. Crazy or Credible idea? - This post by @epicdave contains a short conceptual description of a space elevator, along with two videos (short and long versions). It notes that although an Earth based space elevator may be several decades away, a lunar implementation could be completed within 10 years. Because the lunar gravity is only 17% of Earth's, the lunar elevator can be built with existing materials and technologies. The lunar elevator would have to extend further into space, to a distance of about 100,000 km, which places it at higher risk from debris in space, so a maintenance cycle needs to be built into the design. Here is the short version of the video:

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