We’ve all heard the stories about how dangerous hitchhiking is: you’ll be kidnapped, dismembered or, at best, forced to listen to a smelly person go on and on about their quest to find themselves on the open road. In this environment of inherent fear of hitching, then, it’s surprising that anyone would use that “dangerous” mode of transportation as a social experiment. But that’s exactly what a group of researchers set out to do with a robot made of junk.

HitchBot is a simple looking bot: its body is a bucket covered in solar panels, its appendages are pool noodles, and its LED display “face” is covered with a plastic cake protector. Its wears Wellington boots and rubber gloves, one of them with an upturned thumb to signal drivers that it’s looking for a lift. Its creators wanted to see whether Canadians would shuttle the little contraption from one end of the country to the other. It was an exercise in trust – both in humans and in technology.

HitchBot talks (often quoting Wikipedia articles) and is equipped with a friendly smile and a GPS tracker. It also has an integrated camera with which it takes photos and uploads them to its Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts. Along its journey, Hitchbot’s many generous transporters charged its batteries, took it to visit landmarks, and even invited it to a wedding. It seems that the friendly face was enough to convince plenty of humans to stop and pick up a device that some might consider dangerous.

Of course, part of the reason for HitchBot’s success might have been the international attention the project received before it even started. The world was curious to know just how well humans would interact with this unusual piece of technology, and the world was not disappointed. Although the team made backup HitchBots in case of theft or damage, the original bot made the journey on its own with just a few incidental bumps and cracks along the way.

The journey began on July 26, 2014 in Halifax, Novia Scotia. It spent the next 21 days traveling 6,000 kilometers (3700 miles) to Victoria, British Columbia. Along the way it hitched 19 rides and gathered the signatures and well-wishes of tons of people. After its long and eventful hitchhiking trip, HitchBot embarked on a plane ride home and held a party to celebrate the success of a truly one-of-a-kind experiment in trust between humans and robots.

The post Smiling, Talking Robot Hitchhikes Across Canada Unharmed first appeared on Gajitz.

A British robotics company has come up with the coolest way to showcase artificial body parts. A recent Smithsonian Channel special called “The Incredible Bionic Man” featured a walking, talking machine composed of some of the most advanced human prostheses.

Created by Shadow Robot, Co., the almost-$1 million bionic man sports some of the most high-tech prostheses in the world. Its hands are called i-LIMBs, made by Touch Bionics, whose product’s full wrist rotation and finger movement capabilities are some of the most modern in the world. The ankles and feet of the robot were made by BiOM of Bedford, Mass, and holding the metal guy in place was an exoskeleton dubbed ‘Rex,’ after REX, the New Zealand bionics company that created it.

But this bionic man was more than just a skeleton. It came equipped with a myriad of artificial organs – brain, lungs, pancreas, spleen, kidney and heart (complete with working circulatory system) were all present. The heart was the product of SynCardia Systems in Tucson, Ariz., and has been used in more than 100 heart transplants. And to top it off, quite literally, is the brain’s sophisticated chatbot program, an impressive feature that allows the robot to hold a conversation.

The post He, Robot: World’s First Bionic Man Breathes, Talks, Walks first appeared on Gajitz.

If you had to choose a picture that represents humanity to be eternally preserved, what would it be? Most likely it would be one of heartbreak, joy, devastation, awe or triumph. One man has spent five years examining this idea, and he has launched humanity’s best into space.

Trevor Paglen chose 100 images to represent humanity in his project The Last Pictures . They range from a photograph of ancient cave drawings to one of a massive dust storm. Whatever the subject, they’ve all been made digital.

Working with materials scientists at MIT, Paglen created an archive that could last billions of years. The pictures were engrained in an eternal-lasting disc that is encased in a gold-plated shell. The shell was launched in November 2012 along with the Echostar XVI communications satellite, which will orbit the earth forever. In geostationary orbit, no one can hear your existence.

The post Orbiting Photograph Collection Will Likely Outlast Humanity first appeared on Gajitz.

It’s hard enough to grow up on Earth, what with the social development, the awkward teen years and then trying to figure out what being a grownup really means. But the sciencey minds at VSauce took a very careful look at what it means to be an Earth-bound human…and what it would be like to be born outside the confines of our home planet. Namely, in outer space.

The long but very entertaining video goes into the specifics of how difficult it would be to conceive in space, the problems a human body would have developing in outer space, and (somewhat creepily) what a space child might look like. Radiation, isolation, decreased bone mass and an increased chance of dementia later in life are just some of the woes that await kids conceived and born in that vast area outside of our home planet.

The post What Would a Human Conceived + Born in Space Look Like? first appeared on Gajitz.