It's not only speech recognition and smart home appliances, AI is doing all kinds of jobs for us. It's suited to jobs that involve lots of numbers. AI can calculate and decipher patterns at the speed of electricity. This is why asking it to search for planets around other stars has been so fruitful. By assessing data from the Kepler telescope, the technology has discovered something that we didn't.


The funny part is, we already knew about seven of the eight worlds orbiting Kepler 90. The name comes from the telescope that discovered it. The AI found the extra one, and it so happens that it is in the same spot as the Earth, 3rd one out. Named Kepler 90i, out of alphabetical order to its neighbours, the wonky roll call goes to show how new our technology and understanding is.



This Earthly planet is around a third bigger than our own. Because of the differences in the star's output and orbital range of the system, Kepler 90i is expected to be around the same temperature as Venus. That's a rock melting 400 degrees or more. This means that it is unlikely to be anything like the Earth up close, but it does tell us a lot about what kind of worlds are out there.


But how do we know all this? Tiny fluctuations in light and gravity induced wobbles of stars are the tell tale signs of planets. Being able to detect these things at great distances is difficult. Extremely receptive giant mirrors are the key. These capture the light required to determine the give-away changes in positioning and brightness.


Together with the number crunching smart computers, able to see the patterns we miss, the telescopes and space scientists are opening the book of the cosmos and turning its pages with ever increasing velocity. We are always only moments away from another discovery, and it can only be a matter of time before we find something like the Earth.

Data science? It's in everything. This is what you need to know

Read more about this discovery.


What would you call a planet if you discovered one? I'm looking forward to reading your comments.

There have been many advances in biological materials over the past few years, but when obtaining the control required to create them in sufficiently complicated structures, the uses of the technology have been limited. Now however, a team of scientists have demonstrated the use of bacteria in 3D printer ink to create two distinct structures.


One of the 3D printed materials can be used to remove pollutants, having uses in the environmental sector. The other material can be used to create cellulose, which is used in the medical industry. These living materials are the first of many which utilise complicated three dimensional geometries in their structure.


What next? Bacteria is famous for having remarkable properties. They can be found in almost any environment, finding food and energy and creating a huge amount of various molecules in the process. The exact way bacteria interact with their environment can also be altered genetically, meaning that nature's palette is at our fingertips.


Medicine and technology as a whole stand to benefit from this emerging new technology, even the food industry can benefit with special materials designed to make edible molecules and ingredients. The applications of this technology stand to change the way we synthesise molecules on factory scales. Bacteria can create enzymes, proteins, salts, chalks, and long chain polymers and now that it's possible to accurately place them within complex geometries, the consistent and predictable aspect to this technology can be applied.


The main issue with recent struggles in this advance has been forcing the bacteria to remain immobile within the biomateirals. Fixing them into place using the 3D printing required specialist molecules that could hold the cells appropriately. This new technology grants scientists full control over the spatial alignments of individual cells, making this the beginning of a very exciting time in material science.


Want to know more?
Read the scientific paper on this subject.

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