Posts

Star Wars jokes aside, rumors circulating in the underbelly of the Internet are saying that we haven’t seen any new pics of Ceres because NASA is trying to hide evidence of alien life. That’s ridiculous for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that NASA scientists planned this temporary blackout period years ago. We talked to Dawn mission scientist Marc Rayman about the radio silence, and he explained it all has to do with the spacecraft’s crazy path to the asteroid belt....

Since the moon has a much thinner atmosphere than Earth, it’s difficult to judge both the distance and size of faraway landmarks as there’s a lack of perspective from the horizon. Trees or buildings on Earth offer hazy but helpful points of reference for distance, but such an illusion is impossible on the moon. Additionally, without an atmosphere to scatter light, the sun’s bright rays would skew the visual and depth perception of an astronaut on the moon, making it a real challenge to get around the vast, unmapped terrain....

Dyson’s vision sounded surreal. He predicted a future in which children could bioengineer pygmy dinosaurs and adults could power their homes with electricity-generating trees. Over the last eight years, however, the world has slowly moved towards Dyson’s vision. Today’s biotech is stranger than most of us could have imagined only a few years ago. New companies are using microbes to brew chemicals. They’re engineering flowers to change colors. They’re making designer pets....

This year, without any known interference in its previously spotless record, the probe experienced a glitch in its attitude articulation and control system (AACS), the system which keeps its antennae pointed towards Earth. Confused about its position in space, the muddled probe began sending back inaccurate telemetry data through an onboard computer that had ceased functioning years earlier, corrupting the correct data. Although NASA engineers were recently able to fix the issue by commanding the system to revert back to its previous computer, Voyager’s slip begs the question: Is it time to retire one of the agency’s oldest, farthest-traveling space probes?...

On January 26, 1700, deep below the northeast Pacific, two pieces of Earth’s crust abruptly gave way, ending a centuries-long deadlock. The massive earthquake sent a wall of water rushing inland. By the time the shaking stopped and the water settled, the coastline had been transformed. In some places, the land had plummeted by more than a meter, while the flood of sediment turned coastal marshes into mudflats. “It’s probably pretty wild, right?...

The 30 percent ITC for solar energy will extend for three years, when it will start decreasing incrementally until it’s at 10 percent in 2022. And for the wind industry, the package extends the PTC for 2016, declining incrementally each year until 2020. Fortune reports that the extension could lead to an increase of solar installations in the “U.S. by 54 percent through 2020,” and the credit for wind power might just keep America’s wind boom blowing afterall....

While peer-reviewed studies on the science behind the “Mile Cry Club” are few and far between, scientists across fields from film to psychology to medicine have taken interest in the topic. And while they haven’t identified a definitive cause, researchers think it’s likely a combination of oxygen deprivation, dehydration, and stress. As planes ascend to their cruising altitudes, air pressure drops–that’s why our ears pop–to levels equivalent to the outside air pressure you’d experience while hiking through the mountains in the Swiss Alps (6,000-8,000 feet above sea level)....

Google Cardboard is of course the search company’s smaller-budget version of upcoming VR headsets like Facebook’s Oculus Rift and HTC’s Vive. It relies on taking an ordinary cardboard box, or other rigid type of paper, and folding it according to Google’s free pattern to form a holster for your smartphone to lay in landscape orientation (horizontally). The holster also contains two separate viewports for your eyes, simulating a virtual reality experience by making your smartphone’s screen appear bifocal, though this only works through select media, namely Google’s Cardboard app....

A new study, published in the journal BMC Medicine, attempts to rectify that. The authors found that thousands of people have experienced physical harm from alcohol consumption in Germany alone, even though many of them have never imbibed a single drop. Figuring out exactly how much harm other people’s drinking causes is tricky. Prior studies have calculated literal dollar costs to society, while others have looked at interpersonal or emotional issues caused by alcohol....

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that the Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA vaccine, BNT162b2, is now cleared for emergency use in children aged 12 to 15. For the US, this is the latest step toward keeping case counts down and returning to normalcy. In a statement, the FDA announced that it made this decision after carefully evaluating Pfizer and BioNTech’s Phase III Clinical trial data for the aged 12 to 15 cohort which was released on March 31....

“Right now we have a global supply chain in crisis,” says Patrick Penfield, a professor of supply chain practice at Syracuse University. “We’ve just never ever seen anything of this magnitude impact us before.” Nissan said it will be making 500,000 less vehicles due to the chip shortage. General Motors has had to interrupt some of its pickup truck production due to lack of semiconductor chips and has even been parking thousands of vehicles that are completed but still don’t have the needed chips....

Oh right, Hulu. When Hulu was first made available in March of 2008, the video service provided a way for many users to watch recent television shows online and—more importantly—legally. The site was an important first step in getting popular channels on-board with the idea of putting their shows on the Internet. In 2008, Hulu was not just novel in what it made available, but how much it costed users compared to traditional television....

Accounting is an ancient profession. Sumer, the earliest known Mesopotamian civilization, had a positional numbering system, so there was no need for placeholders. A subsequent empire, Babylon, had different demands, so its number-crunching class used two empty wedges to represent a sum like 507. Across the world, the Mayan civilization came up with its own solution to a similar problem, placing a shell where modern mathematicians might place a 0....

The SR/S is a street bike with a top speed of 124 mph and a city range of 161 miles in its most basic configuration. It’s also the first bike from Zero with a full fairing—the injected-molded plastic components on the front, sides, and belly that make it more aerodynamic. This new feature isn’t all about efficiency at all costs; instead it offers a more comfortable ride. Using a fairing just to maximize its aerodynamic qualities could, if taken to the extreme, be ridiculous....

The modern means of communication can boost emotional and psychological well-being in similar ways to in-person mingling. A 2013 Cyberpsychology study found that video chatters expressed a higher rate of emotional bonding than those who talked on the phone or texted. (The format was beaten out only by in-person meetups.) It seems the more immersive our experiences with others are, the more prone we are to bond. The reason, says Alan Teo, an associate professor of psychiatry at Oregon Health and Science University, is likely that some 80 percent of human communication is nonverbal....

The site, which researchers believed could have been a stone circle many times larger than the nearby Stonehenge site, was thought to contain up to 100 buried stones. Instead, the Neolithic site two miles northeast of Stonehenge once comprised of timber posts, built before Stonehenge by the same people, according to BBC. The researchers have found that the circle was not up for very long though, and was soon taken down....

A new study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health in December 2022 finds that 12.7 percent of cases of childhood asthma in the United States could be due to gas stoves in the home. The researchers from the US and Australia estimate 650,000 people under 18 could be affected. Gas stoves can produce and emit dangerous levels of carbon monoxide, methane, benzene, and nitrogen dioxide, especially if they are used in poorly ventilated spaces and aren’t properly maintained....

Here are 16 options for you to choose from, all on sale this Green Monday for an extra 20 percent with code GREEN20. Bibb Home Reversible 2-Tone Down Alternative Comforter (Silver/Grey/King) You can sleep comfortably at the end of every tiring day with this down alternative comforter. It’s hypoallergenic for breathability and it features a reversible design that lets you “make the bed” in a snap. Usually retailing for $59, you can get it on sale for $31....

Video call apps for your smartphone let you share your face with anyone, anywhere, for free. All you have to do is maintain a strong connection: Download the latest version of your favorite video call app, use it on the strongest available cellular or Wi-Fi network, and shut down any other apps that might steal valuable bandwidth. Even if you already follow this general advice, you may not be aware of all the behind-the-scenes features within free programs like Zoom, FaceTime, Google Duo, Skype, Facebook Messenger, and Snapchat....

The unusually large diamond, which was revealed at a new exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City last week, is about the size of an almond in its shell. It was likely formed more than 415 miles underground, beneath a part of the inner Earth called the transition zone. The stone surfaced in May 2018 in Botswana’s Orapa mine, and was found by the Okavango Diamond Company....