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Your WIRED daily briefing. Today, a Tesla/SpaceX 'pusher pod' has set a new hyperloop speed record, Samsung has permission to test autonomous vehicles in the USA, a new paper casts doubt on a CRISPR embryo gene fix and more and more.
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SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has revealed that the company's own 'pusher pod' – a powered vehicle used to get unpowered pods moving down the track during a recent pod design contest – has set a new hyperloop speed record (BBC News). Musk wrote: "We took the SpaceX/Tesla Hyperloop pusher pod for a spin by itself a few days ago to see what it could do when not pushing student pods (some need a push to get going, e.g. passive maglev). Got up to 355 km/h (220 mph) before things started 🔥. Kind of like racing with a tugboat. Maybe able get past 500 km/h (about half speed of sound) next month with a few tweaks or maybe tiny pieces". Earlier this week, German student team WARR Hyperloop was announced as the winner of Sunday's SpaceX Hyperloop Pod competition after successfully accelerating their prototype pod to 324kph on the same test track.
Samsung has received permission to begin testing autonomous vehicles on the road in California (The Verge). This US approval follows the company's moves to begin testing self-driving cars in Korea, where it has been developing self-driving software, currently in use with cars made by Hyundai – even though Samsung itself owns almost 20 per cent of Renault Samsung Motors. It's thought that the company's US testing project will also involve working with third-party carmakers, rather than developing dedicated autonomous vehicles in-house.
A paper published on the bioRxiv preprint server has called into question results published last month by a US team that reported using CRISPR to successfully repair a gene defect in human embryos (Nature). Shoukhrat Mitalipov and his team at Oregon Health and Science University's said that, in 41 embryos created with sperm that had a mutant MYBPC3 gene, it was replaced with a copy of the normal maternal gene after the mutated sequence had been cut out by a CRISPR enzyme. However, the new paper by six geneticists, developmental biologists, and stem cell researchers says that the reported results leave uncertainty over what actually happened, and suggests that the embryos could have failed to uptake any paternal DNA in the first place.
A new study by researchers from the British Antarctic survey has found that even a 1 degree rise in sea temperatures can have a radical effect on ocean life (Science). The team created small warm zones off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula by putting encased electric heating elements into the water, configured to raise a thin layer of surrounding water either 1 or 2 degrees above ambient temperature. Above the 1 degree heated boxes, one single species of moss animal, Fenestrulina rugula, dominated the highly localised ecosystem, while overall species diversity was halved. At a temperature increase of 2 degrees, a few other creatures also showed increased numbers, including seaworm Protolaeospira stalagmia, with radical alternations to the range of creatures seen at normal ambient temperatures.
While much of the world has been captivated by the potential of Elon Musk's proposed hyperloop vacuum magnetic levitation system for relatively small-scale capsule transportation, the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation has revealed a design for a maglev train capable of speeds up to 4,000kph (The Register). The corporation says it has over 200 relevant patents to build the train system and proposes a network of tubes running between above-ground pylons, pumped out to a near vacuum to allow a levitating bullet train to reach supersonic speeds. The corporation says that short intercity hops will run and 1,000kph, routes between urban centres at 2,000kph and long haul freight services at 4,000kph, although the network would be a costly proposal to build, even with funding from the Chinese government.
From DDoS attacks to data manipulation, new cybersecurity regulations to organised fraud, businesses and consumers alike are faced with ever greater levels of security threats. Get inside knowledge on the developing threat landscape at WIRED Security 2017, returning to London on September 28.
On September 21, an experiment will blast into orbit in an attempt to find a treatment for a very specific ailment: urinary tract infections (UTIs) in space (WIRED). By learning more about the way the Escherichia coli bacterium, and its response to antibiotics, is affected by microgravity, researchers hope to improve the health of astronauts on long-term missions. "The EcAMSat payload system will permit determination whether the resistance of a dangerous bacterium to an important antibiotic increases in microgravity (MG) and whether a gene called rpoS controls it," says AC Matin, professor of Microbiology and Immunology at Stanford University, and lead author of the study. The research has been published in the journal Life Sciences in Space Research.
If you're fed up with the drudgery of hand-painting battle armor onto your 3D printed orcs and elves, then clear off some space on your work desk: XYZprinting has announced a table-top 3D printer that spits out whatever figurine, model or toy you desire in full, vibrant colour (WIRED). The da Vinci Color printer uses ink cartridges to drop pigment onto each layer of plastic filament as it prints. The machine prints at a resolution of 100-400 microns, so the lines where two colours meet can get a little blurry when viewed close up, but the output is generally pretty impressive. Since the da Vinci Color is the first machine of its kind, it's not cheap. The printer alone costs $3,500. Beyond that, you have to buy four ink cartridges (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) for $65 each, and you need special filament that works with the ink, which costs $35 per roll.
The next film in the mainline Star Wars saga, The Last Jedi, will feature a dark side twin of cute Resistance droid BB-8, named BB-9E (Hollywood Reporter). Revealed during the 'Force Friday' pre-Christmas Star Wars toy reveal event by robot ball-maker Sphero, BB-9E has a black paint job and a different head shape, but otherwise closely resembles its spherical sibling. The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson commented on Twitter: "Just be thankful we didn't stick with his obscenely adorable on set nickname, BB-H8".
Sega has announced that the next 3D Sonic the Hedgehog game, Sonic Forces, will launch on November 7 for Windows PCs, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One (Rock, Paper, Shotgun). The game is set to combine both 3D and side-scrolling environments, and will allow players to create their own anthropomorphic animal avatars to race through Sonic's world. The game follows in the wake of the blue blur's 2D return to form in Sonic Mania, which Sega has just – very promptly – patched on PC to resolve a launch issue that prevented offline play and warn users of the presence of DRM.
Bungie has premiered the dark, funny and riotously explosive live action trailer for Destiny 2, directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts (Kong: Skull Island) and starring Nathan Fillion as Cayde-6 (The Verge). The trailer sets the scene for the new instalment of the multiplayer FPS franchise and showcases some blazing in-game action. The game comes to Xbox One, PS4 and Windows PCs on September 6. Meanwhile, Vogt-Roberts says that he hopes to bring the same sense of an authentic game universe to his forthcoming Metal Gear Solid film project.
The Performante is the Huracán Lamborghini always wanted to build. Sharp, focused, extrovert and technically intriguing, it’s a welcome return to form for the former tractor makers. Here, at last, is a genuine rival to the Ferrari 488 GTB and the new McLaren 720S.
Amazon's Alexa voice assistant is replacing the web interface with an AI that sells customers whatever they want, whenever they need it. In this issue, WIRED looks at Jeff Bezos' masterplan and what Amazon's next move is. You can also read about Korea's mega bot; the ultimate gear guide; pastry hacks; African architecture; how to disrupt the death industry; lab-grown diamonds and more. Out in print and digital. Subscribe now and save.
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This article was originally published by WIRED UK
