Don't believe the comet conspiracy theories. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. It's only the third known object to visit our solar system from deep space, and at around 130,000 mph, it's also the fastest comet ever clocked. Early examinations noted the comet's gas coma-the cloud of sublimated debris formed as it passes near a star-experienced a " rapid brightening " compared to previously observed comets at similar distances from the sun. While earlier observations indicated 3I/ATLAS appeared red in color, additional analysis has led astronomers to note in a preprint study it's actually "distinctly bluer than the sun."

The study was published in Nature Communications. Producing flexible electronics consists of expensive tools and several scientific steps many times. Therefore, an easy and versatile fabrication strategy to support the increasing demand for flexible electroluminescence devices in technological and optical applications is needed. Ji Liu and researchers display an approach to fabricating flexible electroluminescence devices through multi-material 3D printing. They formulated ion conducting, electroluminescent and insulating inks suitable for 3D printing, which they could use to create facile, on-demand, flexible, and stretchable electroluminescent devices.

Tesla has slowly added more visualizations to the car display, showing what the car can detect and respond to in its environment. Tesla initially showed just road markings and some vehicles, but then slowly added more vehicle types, pedestrians and traffic cones. However, with the release of FSD Beta version 9, Tesla has drastically increased the amount of objects the car can visualize and interact with. The visualizations in the car aren't tied one-to-one with what the car is capable of detecting and using to make decisions. However, Tesla keeps visualizations and object detection closely coupled so that drivers have a good understanding of what the car can see.

A team of researchers working at Seoul National University has developed a soft robot chameleon that can change its colors in real time to match its background. In their paper published in the journal Nature Communications, the group describes their multi-layer skin design and possible uses for it. In the animal kingdom, many species change their appearance to prevent predators from seeing them--the chameleon is perhaps the most famous example. The famous lizard is able to change the colors of its skin to blend in with its surroundings. In this new effort, the researchers have attempted to match that ability with a robot chameleon.

IMAGE: An artificial skin attached to a person's knee develops a purple "bruise " when hit forcefully against a metal cabinet. Credit: Adapted from ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces 2021, DOI: 10.1021/acsami.1c04911 When someone bumps their elbow against a wall, they not only feel pain but also might experience bruising. Robots and prosthetic limbs don't have these warning signs, which could lead to further injury. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces have developed an artificial skin that senses force through ionic signals and also changes color from yellow to a bruise-like purple, providing a visual cue that damage has occurred.

Scientists from the Nanyang Technological University of Singapore have developed an AI-powered "electronic nose" that accurately assesses the freshness of meat. The system uses a barcode inserted in food packaging that changes color when it senses gasses emitted from rotting meat. A smartphone app then scans the barcode pattern to measure the freshness of the meat within 30 seconds. In tests on commercially-packaged chicken, beef, and fish samples that were left to age, the system predicted the meats' freshness with 98.5% accuracy. Co-lead author Professor Chen Xiaodong said the app could help consumers decide whether meat is fit for consumption better than a "best before" label: These barcodes help consumers to save money by ensuring that they do not discard products that are still fit for consumption, which also helps the environment.

Raise your hand if this sounds familiar: It's five minutes until your third-grader's distance learning class, but just as you're about to make sure she's dialed into her Zoom call, something comes up with your own work. Thirty minutes later, you finally head over to your daughter's room, only to find her sprawled on the floor watching her iPad. Meanwhile, her Chromebook--the one she uses for Zoom calls--is securely shut. Yes, she just missed another class, and you (bad parent!) let it happen. Keeping your kids on track while juggling your own obligations has to be one of the biggest challenges of distance learning, remote learning, virtual learning or whatever you want to call it.

The color-changing capabilities of chameleons have long bewildered willing observers. The philosopher Aristotle himself was long mystified by these adaptive creatures. But while humans can't yet camouflage much beyond a green outfit to match grass, inanimate objects are another story. A team from MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) has brought us closer to this chameleon reality, by way of a new system that uses reprogrammable ink to let objects change colors when exposed to ultraviolet (UV) and visible light sources. Dubbed "PhotoChromeleon," the system uses a mix of photochromic dyes that can be sprayed or painted onto the surface of any object to change its color -- a fully reversible process that can be repeated infinitely.

Two University of Washington professors described this phenomenon in a 2014 research paper. 'Accurate perception of surface reflectance poses a significant computational problem for the visual system,' professors Maria Pereverzeva and Scott O. Murray, who authored the study, explained. 'The amount of light reflected by a surface is affected by a combination of factors including the surface's reflectance properties and illumination conditions. Other factors, such as the amount of light reflected by a surface, the orientation of the surface and whether or not it's 3D can affect our lightness perception of a given image Optical illusions arrange a series of patterns, images and colors or play with the way an object is lit in order to trick our brains into thinking something is there – when it is not. When light hits our retina, it takes about one-tenth of a second for our brain to translate that signal into perception, reports Discovery News.

If you want to see the future of 3-D printing, ask Stefanie Mueller for a demo. A computer scientist at MIT, Mueller's work has involved projects like developing a laser-cutting system to make delicate, 3-D printed origami. Now, Mueller and a team at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab are introducing a new kind of 3-D printable ink that makes it possible to recolor 3-D objects after they've been printed. The method, called ColorFab, combines a 3-D printing interface and a special type of 3-D printable ink that changes colors when activated by light. Together, the system makes it possible to dynamically change and customize an object's appearance many times.