One in two sun-like stars in our galaxy has a sub-Neptune exoplanet, a world between the size of Earth and Neptune, says Jacob Bean, an exoplanet astronomer at the University of Chicago and co-leader of two planned exoplanet observations outlined in a recent NASA announcement. Astronomers still know little about the formation and composition of these plentiful worlds. Are they rocky Earth-like planets that grew a little larger and acquired a thick atmosphere?...

A single cowhide results in ten footballs, each constructed of four panels and a single piece of lace woven through 16 holes (don’t tell us you really thought it was pigskin?). Competing manufacturer Baden claims that the area around the spine and shoulders of the cowhide are ideal for football construction (lower-grade models use the rest of the cow). A total of 120 official Super Bowl balls have been made in the two weeks preceding the big game....

The correlation here is false, of course, and that’s precisely why the study was published. New York physician Franz Messerli noticed the correlation and published the study to show how p-values–a statistical tool that nearly all medical studies employ to prove the veracity of the causal relationships they describe–can be seriously flawed. P-values essentially measure the probability that a given result will be as “extreme” as the observation if indeed there is no real correlation....

The 2022 iPad The 2022 iPad is a substantive update over the previous version of Apple’s entry-level tablet, bringing it more in line with the mid-tier iPad Air. This new 10th-generation model—available in blue, pink, silver, or yellow—has a 10.9-inch “Liquid Retina” display, which is .7-inches larger than the 9th-generation iPad due to its much smaller bezels. Apple has also integrated the tablet’s Touch ID fingerprint reader into the power button and replaced its aging Lightning charging port with the now-standard USB-C port....

But social media and smartphone app companies think they may have the solution to our reading aversion. From Silicon Valley heavyweights to bookworm-run startups, efforts to bring fiction to our smartphones are proliferating. While reading a book in Facebook Messenger or “chat fiction” on Snapchat might seem strange, silly, or tedious, each new initiative is pushing up against the boundaries of the book cover. Last year, James Patterson, one of the most commercially-successful authors of all time (Forbes pegged his 2016 income at $95 million), and his team approached Facebook about adapting one of his forthcoming novel to its messaging app....

In September, the Army plans to test several of these technologies at Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona. How, exactly, the counter-drone systems will stop the UAVs remains to be determined. Posted publicly in early May 2021, the formal request is buried in a sea of jargon. It comes from the Joint Counter-Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Office, and it’s for information about “Low-Cost Ground-Based Aerial Denial and Handheld (or Dismounted) Solutions to inform the Joint communities in response to the emerging Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) threats....

“Dogs are our closest companions,” she says. “They’re not closely related to us [as a species], but they live with us, they work with us, they take care of our children and our homes. So investigating different aspects of the dog-human bond, I thought, would help me understand human evolution and human origins.” From disarming looks to alarming barks, Burrows and her team at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh investigate the ways dogs have evolved to express themselves in order to earn the title of “man’s best friend....

If anyone could have completed a quadruple axel at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, it would have been Hanyu, says Sarah Ridge, a biomechanist at Brigham Young University. “The thing about him is that he’s built for this perfectly”—and has the skills and talent to match. Landing the quadruple axel in the future, she adds, is not out of the question for Hanyu. A quadruple jump requires a grueling four full revolutions in the air....

Instead of a desert, the region was covered by a vast river system that flowed up through present-day Morocco and Algeria. Strangely, paleontologists have found very few fossils of the plant-eating dinosaurs that roamed much of the world at the time. Rather, many of the fossils they have identified belonged to flesh-eating dinosaurs, flying reptiles called pterosaurs, and ancestors of modern crocodiles. “It was arguably the most dangerous place in the history of planet Earth because it was home to so many different kinds of predators in all shapes and sizes,” says Nizar Ibrahim, a paleontologist at the University of Detroit Mercy....

The hawk-eyed Galaxyclub.nl blog today spotted the fact that Samsung’s own developer page makes mention of the Galaxy S7 Edge. And it’s still up if you’re quick about it. After heading to this page, simply click on Look and make your way down to the Edge section. Mentions of the S7 Edge can be seen near “Edge Screen Style” underneath “Overlay Panel.” As well as under “Edge Single Plus Mode” where Samsung lists which devices are supported....

Have you ever wondered how naval crews determine their location while out at sea? These days, most sailors use a Global Positioning System—commonly known as “GPS”—to navigate ships. GPS uses a series of satellites orbiting the earth to send a unique signal to a GPS device sitting on or near the earth’s surface. To calculate the location, a GPS device must be able to read the signal from at least four satellites....

Concept Billboards Design collective NAS-DRA has a concept for parasite drones that flutter about cities, attaching themselves to billboards and using sunlight during the day to feed the plants embedded in the drone’s wings. Like a flower in reverse, the wings of these drones will fold completely around a billboard at night, protecting people below from the ads and filtering the air. It’s a beautiful concept and commentary on both pollution and public space, it all seems a bit more ambitious than technology currently allows....

The Unmanned Aerial System for Fire Fighting, which could really use a catchier name, is made to start helpful fires. The Forest Service, more than anyone else in the business of preserving forests, enumerates the many benefits of prescribed burns: Reduces hazardous fuels, protecting human communities from extreme firesMinimizes the spread of pest insects and diseaseRemoves unwanted species that threaten species native to an ecosystemProvides forage for gameImproves habitat for threatened and endangered speciesRecycles nutrients back to the soilPromotes the growth of trees, wildflowers, and other plants...

In early April, writer Jen Miller urged New York Times readers to start a coronavirus diary. “Who knows,” she wrote, “maybe one day your diary will provide a valuable window into this period.” During a different pandemic, one 17th-century British naval administrator named Samuel Pepys did just that. He fastidiously kept a diary from 1660 to 1669—a period of time that included a severe outbreak of the bubonic plague in London....

The Adaptive Deployable Entry and Placement Technology (ADEPT) shield would pop open like an umbrella to help a landing spacecraft to slow down and keep cool while it’s streaking through a planet’s atmosphere. Made of carbon fiber supported by rigid ribs, the structure would conveniently stow away, compacted, on a spacecraft until needed. NASA recently tested a miniature ADEPT device “under conditions akin to entering the Martian atmosphere.” Here, a 21-inch nozzle on the left blows hot air over the small vehicle....

H. inexpectatus is now the world’s largest parrot, though it’s been extinct for some 16 million years. Researchers from Australia and New Zealand found its leg bones in the St Bathans Fauna, a sedimentary area in the South Island that’s chock full of fossils from the late Early Miocene period from 16-19 million years ago. By analyzing the length and composition of the bones, they figured out that the parrot was likely up to a meter (that’s 3....

Natural Layers Visitors ascend through the ecosystems on a series of gradual ramps. The skyscraper’s design lacks the vertical beams and horizontal concrete slabs typically found inside a building, so these gradients also provide an element of structural support. Synched Climates Ecosystems flow gently into one another, thus avoiding the climate-control nightmare of, say, going from African savanna straight into an Antarctic glacier. Instead, similar climates, such as a jungle and a swamp, abut one another....

The Starry Station’s looks are the most notable thing about it, immediately evoking some of the Kubrickian, retro sci-fi sleekness of 2001: A Space Odyssey, combined with the cuteness of EVE from Wall-E. It’s clearly something you’re meant to show off, much in the same vein as the Nest Learning Thermostat — the home appliance as conversation piece. The $350 device is the first product from a new startup called Starry (founded from the ashes of Aereo, a briefly famous company that streamed live broadcast TV via tiny antennas, before being killed in a contentious Supreme Court ruling)....

The 2022 United In Science report published on Tuesday puts a focus on the gap between aspirations, promises, and the reality of what is really happening. The report warns that without significantly more ambitious action, the socioeconomic and physical impacts of man-made climate change will become increasingly devastating. These ambitious actions include civic investment like climate-inclusive city planning in urban areas and developing better Multi-Hazard Early Warning Systems (MHEWS) that allow governments and communities to better respond to weather events....

Many viewers of the private company’s launch livestream beg to differ, however, noting the LauncherOne rocket system’s wholesale failure to reach its low Earth orbital goal to deliver its nine payloads. In fact, Ars Technica described Virgin Orbit’s mishap as not only wholesale communications and logistical failures, but a “devastating launch failure” setback. Some financial analysts even argue that the event could portend the beginning of the end for the financially struggling subset of billionaire Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic enterprise....