Micro stories - small news bits too small to have their own thread

[Transhumanist]

MIT's Robot Cheetah Now Jumps While Running, So Walls Won't Protect You

MIT has already demonstrated that its incredibly nimble and fast robot cheetah can run free without the need for cables or safety tethers. But now it’s not only able run down its prey out in the open, it can also jump without losing its stride. So when the robot uprising eventually happens, ducking behind a wall isn’t going to help you. Thanks, MIT!

This video actually shows the robot cheetah clearing obstacles just over 15-inches tall while running, and without the need for a single cable tether while it’s being tested outside the lab. MIT claims this is the first four-legged robot that can run and jump over obstacles autonomously, so if it’s chasing you down an alley, you can forget about knocking over trash cans to slow it down.

Super scary!!!

This is from September of 2014, it needed the tether cable then:

MIT's Super-Stealthy Robot Cheetah Can Run You Down | Business Insider

 

[SvenSvensonov]

Google showing off stuff I don't care about

We'll agree to disagree here, I'm very exited about some of Google's new projects!

Project Jacquard Hands-On: Google's ATAP is Putting Sensors In Fabric

Roaming around the floor of Google I/O we got our hands on one of the prototypes from ATAP, Google’s DARPA-like experimental lab. It’s called Project Jacquard, and it’s nice n’ soft. It’s a fabric that can control your phone.

Jacquard is about weaving touch sensor technology into fabrics. Using conductive thread it’s possible to weave a mesh that looks not unlike the matrix of sensors under your touchscreen. But because it’s just simple thread it can be manufactured at scale and woven on industrial equipment. In other words they should be able to make a lot of it, cheaply and easily. While you can see the grid pattern of the touch sensor in the photo up top, we were told that it can be made to be totally seamless, so you don’t even know it’s there.

In their demo area ATAP had some woven into a tablecloth that was connected to different devices. It worked basically just like a touchpad. On a computer screen you could see a visualization of what the fabric perceived. It could sense multiple fingers dragging, tapping, swiping, and it even did a good job sensing different levels of pressure. I was also able to tap to turn on some Philips Hue bulbs. Swiping up/down adjusted the brightness, and swiping left and right changed the bulbs’ colors. You can use it to play/pause/skip tracks on your phone’s music player. They said it might even be possible to make a whole shirt out of the stuff, where the shirt acts as a micro-controller with various sensors (accelerometers, gyroscopes, pressure sensors, heart rate monitors, etc) attached.

While they told us us that to start out the primary goal is to control smartphones with it, one could imagine some fun scenarios. A swipable pillow on your couch to adjust lighting or your entertainment system. A robot teddy bear that responds to your kid’s touch. A bed sheet that acts as an sleep (or s*x) tracker. Pants that could control your phone—you could literally butt-dial someone!

 

[SvenSvensonov]

Neat time lapse of NASA assembling the space shuttle engine, the RS-25

NASA’s RS-25 rocket engine powered the space shuttles and four of them will be used to power the core stage of NASA’s new Space Launch System (SLS), the launch vehicle that’ll bring humans to deep space missions like landing on asteroids and Mars. This two minute time lapse video shows how NASA assembles it.

You can read more about the RS-25 here. NASA writes:

In this two-minute time-lapse video, see how a powerhouse of a rocket engine, the RS-25, is assembled by team members from Aerojet Rocketdyne at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. Four RS-25 engines will power NASA’s new rocket, the Space Launch System, on missions to deep space, including to an asteroid and ultimately to Mars.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Super scary!!!

No, this is super scary

 

[SvenSvensonov]

This Tiny Self-Folding Robot Will Destroy Itself When Its Job Is Done

Not content with creating a robot cheetah that can run and jump over obstacles at astonishing speeds, researchers at MIT have also developed this incredibly tiny origami robot that can not only fold itself, it can also walk, swim, and then destroy itself when it’s no longer needed.

The tiny robot, made from a magnet and pieces of PVC sandwiched between layers of polystyrene or paper, can go through its entire circle of life without the need for cable tethers or wires of any kind.

When the flat structure is first placed on a heating element, the layers of PVC contract, causing it to fold itself into a pre-defined shape wrapped around a magnet. That cubic neodymium magnet trapped inside the folded robot actually serves as its motor. When exposed to an external oscillating magnetic field, the magnet starts to vibrate inside. And thanks to the off-balance design of the tiny folded robot, it’s actually able to walk—or move forward, at least—on its tiny set of legs.

The robot can also be steered through water, and is actually able to float when that external magnetic field is strong enough. And when it successfully accomplishes a mission, it can steered towards a tank of acetone where everything but the magnet will completely dissolve away, leaving little evidence of its presence.

It could one day be a valuable tool for spies, once the researchers figure out how to add and power useful sensors on board. And if made even smaller, it could probably even be directed around the inside of the human body, performing medical tasks before being directed to the stomach where the body would naturally break it down.

 

[SvenSvensonov]

This Is How NASA Tests Its Spacecraft-Saving Parachutes

How do you test the parachutes that will save spacecraft as they tumble towards the surface of a planet from the reaches of space? In the world’s largest wind tunnel, of course.

This is a view inside the giant wind tunnel at NASA Ames Research Center (which might be the biggest, but not necessarily the prettiest). Measuring 80 feet tall and 120 feet wide, here it’s being used to test the parachute that will be used to NASA’s InSight mission to Mars. Insight—Interior Exploration Using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport—will set off to Mars in March 2016 and (hopefully) touch down on Mars September 2016. Fortunately, it looks like the landing should be a soft one.

 

[SvenSvensonov]

Nordic Stronk!

How Did The Ancient Vikings Make This Super-Strong Sword?

When we look at the history of new technologies, we tend to think of only our most recent past. But more than a thousand years ago, blacksmiths succeeded in making a set of ultra-strong swords — that are tricky to re-create even today.

After reading about the technology behind the legendary swords of Damascus, Kinja-userFormless-One reminded us of another set of famous, very old swords — swords that were also a technological marvel of the time:

Consider this: making Damascus is not the only lost art of ancient weapon smiths. The Vikings also had swords made of crucible steel, known as Ulfberts (because that was the name stamped onto all of them, in accordance with Nordic tradition). This was before the 10’th century. Crucible steel wouldn’t be seen again until basically the dawn of the industrial revolution. This is big, because crucible steel is springier and tougher all around than Damascus and anything else from the time— Ulfberts were, materially speaking, the best swords ever made up until that point. Were they as sharp as Damascus? Probably not, but there is a limit to how sharp a sword really needs to be once you realize that they aren’t knives. Swords have a biomechanical advantage over knives because of their length— you can accelerate the tip of the weapon so fast and effortlessly that if they hit unarmored or lightly armored flesh, you can count on it cutting whether it is made of bronze, crucible steel, or Damascus. Thus, the advantage of crucible steel and other stiff-yet-springy steels that came around in the Renaissance period gave them durability and strength that you really want in a weapon. Those weapons were made to compete in an arms vs armor race where stabbing was often how you attacked a man in plate, that didn’t really happen in the middle east where Damascus comes from. In context, the weapons that came out of Europe were perfect for European warfare. The weapons made in India and the middle east were perfect for Indian and middle eastern warfare. And the two styles of warfare rarely came into contact during that time, except to some degree in Eastern Europe where there was contact with the Ottoman Turks.

A recent NOVA documentary featured swordsmiths from today attempting to re-create the Ulberfht swords, using modern techniques — a feat they did manage, but not without plenty of trouble along the way.

 

[SvenSvensonov]

A two part, longer story:

Part 1

The Incredible Calculations That Keep Google's Project Loon Aloft

When we last checked in on Project Loon—Google’s moonshot project to blanket the world with internet-packing weather balloons—one had just circumnavigated the globe in a very quick 22 days. I just attended a talk at Google I/O and got some more info about some of the challenges the team faces in making this wild-*** project happen.

First off, if you need a refresher on what Project Loon is, here ya go. You should check out our other coverage of it, too.

Now then. We learned today that the team names their balloons after birds. For example, one we heard about today was called Ibis. This gives them an easier way to remember and reference one, should it be keep coming up.

These balloons float at altitudes up to 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) and travel as fast as 324 km/h (201 miles per hour). That’s about as fast as a peregrine falcon can dive, which is nuts. As you might imagine, keeping track of a fleet of these things is rather challenging. So, just like NASA, Project Loon built a mission control.

Mission control conjures images of a bunch of people crowded into a semi-circular room staring at monitors and such. Loon’s mission control system is more of an online thing. Not only does it work on standard computers, but the flight engineers who monitor the balloons 24/7 can get all the data they need on smartphones and tablets, too.

Just like with airplanes, if a mission control system detects that a balloon is about to enter another airspace, it will needs to send a message to the air traffic control in the new area so they can coordinate. With the system Google has designed, though, this detecting and alerting happens automatically.

The team has an advanced system to monitor the balloon’s health. Too much pressure inside and it bursts. Too little it could lose buoyancy. So they need to be able to monitor the amount and pressure inside the balloon. This is largely dependent on the ambient temperature, which is actually very hard to measure when it’s that high. Radiation from the sun can really screw up the data. So they have had to outfit the balloons with sensors in different locations so they can get a real look at the temperature regardless of the common variables they encounter. This data is crunched server-side which gives the flight engineers information they can act on.

They also need to keep track of the state of their batteries. The balloons have solar panels that charge during the day, but of course they need to run at night, too. There are a ton of different variables that affect battery life. Differences in temperature and load level (say if they’re running the onboard heaters, etc.) can dramatically impact the battery’s health. Solar is tricky, too. Unlike the solar panels on your house, during peak hours solar hours the balloon actually casts a shadow on the solar panels which causes a dip in how much energy can be generated. This makes a Batman insignia-shaped wave when you look at it on a chart.

 

[SvenSvensonov]

Part 2 - continued from above.

Then, of course, there’s all the navigational data, which is almost certainly the hardest to work with. Since Loon is dependent on the wind to travel, the team gets publicly available weather data from NOAA. They then make three-dimensional wind maps that can predict the direction of the wind at different altitudes. You can see this cube-shaped model above. They refresh their data from NOAA data every 6 hours, but they have to make 16-day models out of that. That is just a tremendous amount of data. Luckily Google isn’t exactly hurting for server power.

With the data gathered from Loon, the team created a program called the Crazy Simple Planner which helps them predict a trajectory to help point the balloon to where they want it to go. It’s very visual and very easy to interpret the data through that lens. Or it’s easier, anyway. Nothing about this stuff looks remotely easy.

They also understand that sh*t happens. As anyone who has planned a camping trip knows, weather doesn’t always line up with the predictions. There’s wind-noise and other complications. So they have other programs that run contingency calculations to help them estimate where balloons will end up. They used advanced simulations to help them do this, like the one you see above. You can try a lot of different things in sim pretty easily. Moving thousands of balloons around the globe, not so much.

All this adds up to a program that’s knocking off some pretty major achievements. Not only did a Loon balloon manage that trip around the globe 11 days faster than was predicted, but another balloon managed to land within 500 meters (547 yards) of its targeted landing spot after an extremely long 12,000+ mile flight. A balloon did that with no propulsion—just rising and falling to ride the different wind currents. Pretty amazing.

The Project Loon team acknowledged that they still have a long way to go before they’re able to make uninterrupted internet access available to every human on the planet, but it’s incredible how far they’ve come in just a couple years. Hopefully they’ll continue ramping things up, andthe hilarious UFO scares will continue in perpetuity.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Has the mystery of Star Wars BB8 droid been solved? | Daily Mail Online

• BB-8 moved in all directions on stage at Star Wars Celebration in Anaheim
• Director JJ Abrams said a real robot and not CGI was used in the film
• Audience were mesmerised by the droid but it's a mystery how it works
• New patent reveals how floating 'mast' allows robot to roll

It may look like CGI in the trailer, but the droid that will join R2-D2 in the forthcoming Star Wars film - The Force Awakens - is very much real.

However, how BB-8 works has been shrouded in mystery - until now.

Experts claim to have discovered a patent that shows exactly how the smart droid was able to be made as a real robot.

JJ Abrams, the film's director, confirmed that a real robot was used during filming, but did not reveal how it works.

Now, Spanish fans claim to have found out its secret.

They tracked down a patent given to Disney which, they say, reveals the secret of the rolling robot.

The patent shows a 'magnetic spherical balancing robot drive' that the Spanish fans say looks 'suspiciously similar to BB-8.'

The droids main body contains 'a drive system that always keeps a relative position with respect to the sphere,' the website says.

'The system uses omni wheels to make the sphere roll in any direction. Each of those wheels is connected to a motor.

The robot uses sensors (gyroscopes and accelerometers) to determine its position and dynamics.

The drive system can be maneuvered using a remote controller. The base plate acts as a counterweight, keeping the center of gravity close to the ground. That keeps the wheels' traction on the inner shell of the body.'
'So far,' the researchers write, 'pretty similar to the Sphero.'

The Sphero, a commercially available toy, was developed by a firm which worked with Disney to build the official unit, has yet to reveal any details about it, though they are allowing fans to sign up for BB-8 updates.

'The main difference we find with the Sphero is the dynamic mast described by the patent,' the authors explain.

There is also a control system that keeps everything in balance, making sure the mast is always in vertical position.
'This, if you think about it, makes the whole mechanism behave like a miniature Segway.

'The arm can rotate and, according to the patent, magnetically interact with an external element.

'That means BB-8's head is most likely controlled via magnetic interaction.

'Magnets at the end of the mast and roller magnets at the base of the head.'

The question of how the robot roll has captivated Twitter users.

question that's got Twitter talking, with a user named Jock tweeting: BB8? BBGREAT more like and Jimmy Wong in LA saying: 'HOW DOES BB-8 WORK. It's so coooool.'

Joshua Harris, a teenager from Oxford said: '#BB8 is one of the few things in life that makes me want to understand engineering, while Video editor Ron Dot Org tweeted: 'This is the part of the #StarWars event today that really blew my mind. #BB8 is not cgi. AT ALL'.

BB-8's body is a spherical ball that allows it to move in any direction, but it also has a completely free-moving head that doesn't fall off, leaving applauding spectators wondering how it works.

Speaking about filming the movie, JJ Abrams said: 'There were a lot of discussions about how having a CGI BB-8 could be so much easier for shooting.

But we talked originally about it would be better for the film, for the actors, for the sets and the look of it if it were performed.'
He confirmed that BB-8 was 'built and puppeteered' in the film, but no strings were visible when the beeping, chirping droid rolled on stage, leading experts to speculate that it must be controlled by at least one remote control.

The robot's body is likely to be a large robotic ball, like a big version of the Sphero, Mashable's Andrew Tarantola speculated.

The toy by Orbotix is controlled by a smartphone app using a Bluetooth connection and allows users to make it go in any direction – much like the new droid.

Professor Will Stewart, a Fellow of The Institution of Engineering and Technology in London, told MailOnline that the walking globe is easy to achieve – 'we could build one if we had the budget'.
'It's related to the default egg-race-style self-propelled double wheel device or the walk-in-balloon which anyone can try,' he said, referring to a zorb, which humans walk inside and push against the side to move along.

But the real mystery is how the robot's head can move independently but stay on top of the free-rolling ball.

It's possible that magnets are involved to 'stick' the droid's head to its body, but it would require remarkable control by a human operator to make sure it's head stayed on top of the body – and the stage performance seemed effortlessness.

It could be that the droid's head is a separate robot with its own set of remote controls, enabling it to 'look' around.

It may be able to stay upright easily by depending on a gyroscope that tells it which way is up and use an accelerometer to monitor motion, much like many smartphone games.

Magnets may still be used to keep the head in contact with the body.

Professor Stewart said: 'The floating 'head' is probably on rollers magnetically bound through the plastic ball to the 'driving' robot inside.'

He explained that rare earth magnets are very strong and light and the robot's 'movements are consistent with this, such as a tendency to move in the direction of travel.'

'The inside and head could be wirelessly linked but given that this robot is radio controlled rather than autonomous…I suspect that head and body are just independently radio controlled.'

 

[SvenSvensonov]

An Inside Look at the Construction of NASA's Next Mission to Mars

Preparations for NASA’s next mission to Mars are kicking into high gear. And the technology the space agency is building for the Martian lander slated to launch in 2016 is enough to make science fiction fans foam at the mouth.

The mission, Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport(InSight for short) is going to be the very first devoted to studying the interior structure of the Red Planet. Exploring Mars’ deep subsurface will shed light on how the planet has evolved geologically over time, but InSight could also offer clues about Earth’s future and the evolution of rocky planets at large. Mars, roughly half the size of Earth, lost all of its core heat eons ago, which in turn caused tectonic activity to grind to a halt. In the distant future, something similar will happen on the blue marble, and our rapidly-aging little brother might show us what to expect.

According to NASA, the technical capabilities of InSight represent a critical step toward amanned mission to the Red Planet, which the space agency hopes to ship off in the 2030s. Let’s have a look at some of the components of the geologically-minded craft now under construction by Lockheed Martin.

Solar arrays on InSight are deployed in this test inside a clean room at Lockheed Martin Space Systems.

A top view of InSight’s cruise stage, which has its own solar arrays, thrusters, and radio antennas.

In this photo, the back shell of InSight is being lowered onto the mission’s lander. InSight’s back shell, along with a heat shield, together comprise an aeroshell which will protect the lander from burning up as it plunges into Mars’ upper atmosphere.

The heat shield, under construction.

The most important part of InSight—the science deck, containing all the tools necessary to carry out plenty of awesome sciencing. Or so we think. All we know so far about this oversized motherboard is that the large circular component is a covering that’ll protect InSight’s seismometer—a device used to record earthquakes, volcanic activity, and other types of below ground motion—after the instrument is placed on the Martian ground.

WTF is this?! Oh, it’s the guts of the lander, being assembled by Lockheed Martin engineers in a clean room. Rad, I was worried somebody let Doc Brown loose on the premises.

And of course, no space mission would be complete without a big-*** parachute to make the landing extra soft, amirite?

 

[SvenSvensonov]

Open-Source Cyborg Hand is Making Prosthetics More Accessible Than Ever

A generation ago, getting a prosthetic limb fitted usually amounted to a having a heavy, nearly useless hunk of plastic and metal tacked onto your body. But bionic hands such as this one illustrate just how quickly that’s all changing.

HACKberry, brainchild of the Japanese company exii, wants to become a game changer for those in need of a new arm, and it’s doing a good job convincing us it’s got the chops. The bionic limb, whose blueprints and source code are freely available, has a smartphone for a brain and uses camera batteries to power itself. Most of the device is comprised of 3D printed parts that can be taken apart and swapped out. By encouraging transparency and openness in all aspects of development, exii hopes to garner the attention of the maker community and encourage faster innovation.

Among the hand’s more impressive features are its ductile wrist and fingers, which allow the wearer to make unusually expressive movements (Jaime Lannister, your sword-wielding days cometh!), pick up small objects, leaf through magazines, and even tie shoes. Although the model isn’t yet for sale, the current prototype cost exii roughly $300 USD to produce. Even if a future version hits the market with a price-tag several times higher, it’d still be a steal compared with most cutting-edge prosthetics.

It’s also about as futuristically cool looking as can be.

 

[Transhumanist]

Open-Source Cyborg Hand is Making Prosthetics More Accessible Than Ever

A generation ago, getting a prosthetic limb fitted usually amounted to a having a heavy, nearly useless hunk of plastic and metal tacked onto your body. But bionic hands such as this one illustrate just how quickly that’s all changing.

HACKberry, brainchild of the Japanese company exii, wants to become a game changer for those in need of a new arm, and it’s doing a good job convincing us it’s got the chops. The bionic limb, whose blueprints and source code are freely available, has a smartphone for a brain and uses camera batteries to power itself. Most of the device is comprised of 3D printed parts that can be taken apart and swapped out. By encouraging transparency and openness in all aspects of development, exii hopes to garner the attention of the maker community and encourage faster innovation.

Among the hand’s more impressive features are its ductile wrist and fingers, which allow the wearer to make unusually expressive movements (Jaime Lannister, your sword-wielding days cometh!), pick up small objects, leaf through magazines, and even tie shoes. Although the model isn’t yet for sale, the current prototype cost exii roughly $300 USD to produce. Even if a future version hits the market with a price-tag several times higher, it’d still be a steal compared with most cutting-edge prosthetics.

It’s also about as futuristically cool looking as can be.

If I'm not mistaken, this is what you do for a living, right Svenson? Any chance the military or civilian contractors will open source their software?

 

[SvenSvensonov]

If I'm not mistaken, this is what you do for a living, right Svenson?

Correct.

Any chance the military or civilian contractors will open source their software?

Parts are being open sourced, such as simulator software, but much of the control software is being developed "in house" and under strict guidance. I can't give any updates on projects I'm involved in though; that information is classified as 1.4(e).

HAPTIX STARTS WORK TO PROVIDE PROSTHETIC HANDS WITH SENSE OF TOUCH

Despite recent advances in technology for upper-limb prostheses, artificial arms and hands are still unable to provide users with sensory feedback, such as the “feel” of things being touched or awareness of limb position and movement. Without this feedback, even the most advanced prosthetic limbs remain numb to users, a factor that impairs the limbs’ effectiveness and their wearers’ willingness to use them. In a step toward overcoming these challenges, DARPA has awarded prime contracts for Phase 1 of its Hand Proprioception and Touch Interfaces (HAPTIX) program.

As part of DARPA’s commitment to help restore full and natural functionality to wounded Service members and veterans, and in support of the White House brain initiative, HAPTIX seeks to create a prosthetic hand system that moves and provides sensation like a natural hand. Sensory feedback, especially from the hand, is vitally important for many functions, and HAPTIX seeks to create a sensory experience so rich and vibrant that users would want to wear their prostheses full time. By restoring sensory functions, HAPTIX also aims to reduce or eliminate phantom limb pain, which affects about 80 percent of amputees.

Speeding development of vastly improved upper-limb prostheses has become a national priority. President Obama referred to DARPA’s numerous advanced prosthetics programs in his 2015 State of the Union address last month when he said the U.S. government is interested in “creating revolutionary prosthetics, so that a veteran who gave his arms for his country can play catch with his kids again” (see video atow.ly/IyJMJ).

“The ultimate goal for HAPTIX is to create a device that is safe, effective and reliable enough for use in everyday activities,” said Doug Weber, DARPA program manager. “DARPA is partnering with scientists at the Food and Drug Administration to help develop standards for verifying safety and quantifying benefits of this new class of advanced technologies. We hope to streamline the process of validating technologies that can help our military Service members and veterans who have been injured while serving our country.”

DARPA is evaluating several distinct technical approaches in Phase 1. Those that prove successful would continue into Phase 2, which would integrate selected technology components into a complete HAPTIX test system. The agency plans to initiate take-home trials of a complete, FDA-approved HAPTIX prosthesis system within four years.

The name HAPTIX is a play on the word haptics, referring to the sense of touch. The program plans to adapt one of the prosthetic limb systems developed recently under DARPA’s Revolutionizing Prosthetics program to incorporate interfaces that provide intuitive control and sensory feedback to users. These interfaces would build on advanced neural-interface technologies being developed through DARPA’s Reliable Neural-Interface Technology (RE-NET) program.

Where appropriate, HAPTIX teams intend to leverage commercially available technologies such as intramuscular electrodes and lead technologies developed initially for cardiac pacemakers and now used in several modern implantable medical devices. The program also plans to test advanced microelectrode array and nerve cuff electrode technologies that have been developed over the past two decades with support from the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Veterans Affairs and DARPA.

DARPA is working with teams led by the following institutions:

• Case Western Reserve University
• Cleveland Clinic
• Draper Laboratory
• Nerves Incorporated
• Ripple LLC
• University of Pittsburgh
• University of Utah
• University of Florida

To help the performers more quickly and cost-effectively conduct their research, DARPA is providing prosthetics simulation software for testing designs. The software includes a variant of the DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC) Simulator from the June 2013 Virtual Robotics Challenge, which helped to expedite the initial design and evaluation of semi-autonomous robots that could aid in emergency response efforts.

“The DARPA Robotics Challenge Simulator was a big help for DRC and we immediately saw how adapting its virtual testing environment could benefit HAPTIX research,” Weber said. “The simulator will enable rapid and low-cost development of the HAPTIX technology and also provide amputees with a realistic experience for learning to use their physical prosthesis.”

From http://www.darpa.mil/NewsEvents/Releases/2015/02/08.aspx

 

[SvenSvensonov]

Stunning Footage Captures Never Before Seen Deep Ocean Creatures

In the Internet age, it’s easy to tell yourself you’ve seen it all. But while you’ve probably consumed a lifetime’s worth of cat videos, explosion gifs, and Hitler-vs-dinosaur action sequences at this point, the natural world’s still got plenty of surprises in store.

Including, it turns out, a plethora of fascinating creatures that lurk in the barely-explored deep ocean off the coast of Puerto Rico.

For the first time ever, a collection of strange, beautiful, and totally-alien looking creatures that live some 10,000 feet below the ocean’s surface are saying hello to humanity. The video footage shown below was caught by a remotely operated vehicle on a unique, crowd-sourced exploration supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Researchers were able to watch the footage in real time and offer their expertise through an Internet chatroom. Basically, Twitch for science.

Oceans cover two thirds of our planet’s surface, and yet we’ve only explored five percent of them. It’s mind boggling to imagine that scientists might discover life on another world before we fully come to appreciate what lives beneath the waters of this one.