Our Future In Space: Of Biology, Physics, and A Whole Lot of Different Stuff Thrown In

Yes, I know that's a very old quote, and perhaps some of you might see it as hackneyed or cliched. But all that is fine, because I'm about to discuss some pretty serious stuff with you guys here. In the next decade, Mars One will be sending manned missions to the Red Planet. No, I'm not a PR guy for Mars One, but neither do I believe that it is a scam of any sorts, any more than the moon landing was purportedly a hoax. Donations only fund their further development of resources, not get them a fancy Rolex from your favourite watch shop. Crowdfunding and not-for-profit anyone? Anyway, the reason I mention Mars One is that it came up in a conversation with a friend. He said, in a very cynical tone, that he pities those astronauts. Well, for my part, I believe they deserve a bit of respect for this intrepid venture, leaving behind all creature comforts at planet Earth, never to return again. Y'all might not know this, but I have a bit of a fascination with space travel, in particular space colonization. I was wondering how I could possibly do anything with this fancy, being a biotech student and all. It just so happens that one fine day, a guest speaker at our college delivered a lecture on diabetic retinopathy, and in particular, a pathway with a hitherto unspellable name (sounds like kinunirin) caught my attention. This pathway is supposedly associated with generation of free radicals as well as apoptosis. If we can inhibit this pathway, or destroy any potential free radicals, we can potentially extend human lifespan. Now to put things in perspective, some points you might consider.

Role of a biotechnologist/astrobiologist

It is often said that doctors and people involved in the life sciences carry the biggest burden on their heads, i.e., that to help sustain healthy human life. If a medical procedure were to be developed that put astronauts in suspended animation for days or even months on end, while drugs and biomedical devices leech the body of all toxins, free radicals, extra adipose tissue, etc. would be delivered continuously to these astronauts, they probably wouldn't be grandpas by the time they arrive on an exoplanet. The role of us biotechnologists is to work with doctors to develop such a procedure by the turn of the decade, and pass on the knowledge to future crew members. This would eliminate the need for generation ships and a struggle with your identity.

Role of a physicist

So many theories have been proposed regarding the universe, each as amazing as the other. However, the physicist's job here is not to formulate theories, but to develop methods of harnessing minerals from asteroids and other celestial bodies that may well lie in our journey to our next home, as well to develop a clean and renewable fuel. If this can be done, most of the problems faced by manned missions can be solved. To solve the issue of zero gravity, special shoes can be developed, that are interfaced to powerful electromagnets docked below the main ship.

Food  

In order to better adapt to changing living conditions, astronauts' diet will be more plant-based than ever. That means, we'll have to say goodbye to a lot of stuff, including ruminant cheese. However, with major advancements in biotechnology, it may be possible to hydroponically grow biofortified plants with some of the characteristics of our contemporary food. Soybean for example, can be engineered so that the soymilk becomes more fit for production of butter and cheese. A good alternative to your everyday milk sausage would be tofu, mashed potatoes, baked beans, and toast. Now don't get me wrong. I'm not a vegan advocate. Hell, I can't imagine life without chicken. However, the benefits of raising poultry and livestock onboard a space craft, are far outweighed by all the associated diseases, and the fact that such a thing is not profitable from a utilitarian standpoint. Superfoods and nutritional supplements will become the norm, and it will be the prerogative of microbiologists to carefully culture probiotic organisms.

These are just some of the ideas in my head for a potential mission to say, Europa. More on this on a later post. Cheerio!

Download Torrents In the Cloud: Offload Torrents To MEGA and AWS with A Simple Script

Hey guys, Charioteer Mode back with another awesome tutorial. Since Hive.im closed its doors to free users, and Baidu started acting erratic when leeching torrents, here is a new, novel method to download torrents directly to your AWS or MEGA cloud drive. The only limiting factor here is your storage plan. I'd recommend you sign up with MEGA (mega.nz) before proceeding to the first step.

1. Create a Heroku account.



Heroku is a service for deploying apps in the cloud. Among other things, with a premium account, you will have enough juice to mine cryptocurrencies. However, we're focusing on the free tier here, which also gets a hell lotta work done. After filling up all the details and clicking on 'Create Free Account', click on the verification link in your email.

2. Deploy Torrent-Cloud to Heroku

Go to https://github.com/jpillora/node-torrent-cloud, scroll down to the 'Deploy to Heroku' button, and click it. You will be led to a page on which you will have to specify a new domain name for your 'app' (Heroku works as app modules).

1. In MEGA_EMAIL, type your MEGA email.

2. In MEGA_PASS, type your MEGA password.

When you click create, you will have a brand new app (actually the Torrent-Cloud javascript) running in a new URL, connected to your MEGA cloud. It should look something like this:

I've blacked out my domain name because I don't want people spamming my cloud storage with random shit and filling it up.

FAQ:

1. After I refresh the page, or close the tab and reopen the app, it gives me a bunch of errors at the bottom, and the webpage looks totally different. What do I do?

Solution: No problem, just go to your dashboard in Heroku, and change the domain name, and then use the app with the new URL. Although I suggest you constantly keep the Torrent-Cloud app tab open.

2. Will this affect my leeching downloads?

Solution: No, although leech speed may be decreased.

3. My speed decays to 0 B/s after a couple of MBs. Why?

This can happen due to one of two reasons:

1. You have run out of data on your cloud storage or

2. It's loading the next buffer. Buffer size for torrents on Torrent-Cloud is 50 mb.

4. What cloud services are supported?

Currently, only MEGA and AWS (Amazon Web Services) are supported. Also, since this is a depreciated repository, it is not likely to be updated in the future.

5. Can I mine bitcoins/litecoins/Dogecoins with the free tier of Heroku?

Short answer: no. Long answer: Free tier access gives you only 512 mb RAM in the cloud, which is worser than that of even the cheapest PC available today. It would take decades to mine a few satoshi with an i5 standard gaming rig, so unless you are an immortal being who can live for millenia, mining bitcoins is not possible in the free tier of Heroku. Invest a little money though, and you can get good results, sometimes within 24 hours.

Thank you!