Tuesday, November 17, 2015
DigitalLife: Missouri S&T researcher bakes asteroids to find wa...
DigitalLife: Missouri S&T researcher bakes asteroids to find wa...: A Missouri University of Science and Technology researcher is cooking up something new in the lab – baking meteorites to learn how to prod...
Missouri S&T researcher bakes asteroids to find water
A Missouri University of Science and Technology researcher is cooking up something new in the lab – baking meteorites to learn how to produce water and other easily evaporated compounds from asteroids.
Dr. Leslie Gertsch, an associate professor of geological engineering at Missouri S&T, hopes to find a sustainable way for near-Earth objects (NEOs) like asteroids and comets to produce consumable materials in space instead of pushing them up from the Earth’s surface.
To investigate the possibility of this industrialization for space travel, Gertsch heats real and artificial meteorites in a vacuum chamber to simulate the conditions of space. When gases are released from the samples, they are collected and analyzed.
“This is one of the processes called in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) – collecting resources from NEOs, or the moon or Mars, and making useful things like spacecraft fuels and propellants,” says Gertsch. “Some NEOs contain up to 22 percent water locked within minerals. Our job is to predict how much water we can actually get out of them in space.”
Gertsch’s project, titled “Laboratory Demonstration and Test of Solar Thermal Asteroid ISRU,” is one of 11 university-led proposals funded by NASA as $500,000 Early Stage Innovation Research Grants. The funding is provided for the study of innovative early-stage technologies that address high-priority needs of America’s space program. She collaborates on the project with NASA Kennedy Space Center, NASA Glenn Research Center, Colorado School of Mines, the University of Hawaii and Integrated Concurrent Systems Associates Inc.
“This is an interdisciplinary project. Our researchers have backgrounds in planetary geology, meteoritics, mineral processing, chemical engineering, mechanical engineering, mining engineering and astrophysics, among others,” says Gertsch. “ISRU like this will reduce payload needs and boost planetary exploration. This work could change the way we view space travel.”
NASA’s Early Stage Innovation grants are part of the agency’s Space Technology Research Grants Program. This program is designed to accelerate the development of technology that supports NASA’s future science and exploration needs as well as those of other government agencies and the commercial space sector.
Monday, November 16, 2015
10 Top Trends Driving The Future Of Marketing
Marketers are constantly looking into the future, trying to predict the next big trend, be it for their brands or their clients. Naturally, marketers are preoccupied with questions like: What is the next big campaign? How can we turn our client into the “next big thing”? What is the next hot trend going to be in retail? Etc. Everyone wants to the answers. Knowing this, what do some of the top minds in marketing predict for their own futures? A recent article by Jeff Beer on Fast Company Create collected 25 future trends that will change the marketing landscape five years from now based on top innovators in marketing and advertising. After reading this, I started to ponder what I saw as the top trends driving marketing.
Here are the 10 trends that I think are going to have the biggest impact on the future of marketing.
1. Mobile is going to become the center of marketing. From cell phones to smartphones, tablets to wearable gadgets, the evolution of mobile devices is one of the prime factors influencing the marketing world. As the focus is shifting to smaller screens, brands will be able to strike up a more personalized relationship with their customers by leveraging the power of mobile.
2. Transparency will dictate brand-customer relationships. Currently, customers are seeking more engagement from brands. This trend will continue with customers becoming more demanding in their expectation of transparency. Genuine brands – the ones that “walk the talk” and create real value – will be rewarded. This means brands that still haven’t made their customer dealings transparent are headed to a future of doom.
3. The need for good content will not slow down. Ever. Content, particularly visual content, will rule the roost in the online marketing world, evolving into various forms and disrupting the conventional marketing models. Moreover, the speed at which a brand can create amazing content will play a part in their success.
4. User-generated content will be the new hit. The power of user-generated content will surpass branded content as brands begin to relinquish control of their own brands’ marketing to their customers. From online reviews, to social media posts and blogs, this means there will be a strong need for brands to create a positive impact in their consumers’ minds. In response to this model of content production, content co-creation between brands and consumers will become a popular trend.
5. Social will become the next Internet. Social will become an integral part of the “broader marketing discipline.” As its impact grows stronger, most brands will fully transition their marketing efforts to social channels. As such, social has the full potential to become not just one of the channels but the channel.
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