FILE PHOTO: Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit, with a rocket underneath the wing of a modified Boeing 747 jetliner, prior to its takeoff on a key drop test of its high-altitude launch system for satellites from Mojave, California, U.S. July 10, 2019. REUTERS/Mike Blake (Reuters) – Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit company aborted its first attempt to
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WASHINGTON — NASA and SpaceX officials said after a final pre-launch review they had no major issues about the upcoming Demo-2 commercial crew launch beyond one over which they have no control: the weather. NASA concluded a launch readiness review May 25 for the Demo-2 mission, the final pre-launch review for a mission that will
Oil-storage tanks are seen from above in Carson, California, April 25, 2020 after the price for crude plunged into negative territory for the first time in history on April 20. Robyn Beck | AFP | Getty Images Oil prices rose on Tuesday on clear signs that producers are sticking to commitments to cut crude supply
Jeremy Wade of River Monsters shares his dream of getting the catch of a lifetime: Nessie, from Scotland’s Loch Ness, also known as the Loch Ness Monster. Though he has fearlessly caught deadly piranhas and sharks from the Congo to the Amazon, he still considers Nessie the prize catch of all prize catches. The famous
I see far more research articles than I could possibly write up. This column collects the most interesting of those papers and advances, along with notes on why they may prove important in the world of tech and startups. In this edition: a new type of laser emitter that uses metamaterials, robot-trained dogs, a breakthrough
Implantable nanophotonic probe based on an optical switch array for optogenetic neural stimulation. Credit: Aseema Mohanty, Columbia Engineering A new chip-based device that can shape and steer blue light could significantly reduce the size of the light projection components used in emerging applications such as augmented and virtual reality, autonomous vehicles, optogenetics and even trapped-ion
China is targeting a July launch for its ambitious plans for a Mars mission which will include landing a remote-controlled robot on the surface of the red planet, the company in charge of the project has said. Beijing has invested billions of dollars in its space programme in an effort to catch up with its
Einstein on Einstein Hanoch Gutfreund & Jürgen Renn Princeton Univ. Press (2020) Albert Einstein admitted in his final essay, ‘Autobiographical sketch’, that fellow physicists opposed his quest to unify the general theory of relativity with quantum mechanics. But he took comfort from philosopher Gotthold Lessing’s dictum: “The search for truth is more precious than its
FILE PHOTO: Sir Richard Branson stands on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange ahead of the start of trading in Virgin Galactic in New York, Oct. 28, 2019. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid (Reuters) – Billionaire mogul Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit company aborted its first attempt to launch a rocket into space from the belly of
Updated 5:00 p.m. Eastern. WASHINGTON — Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne failed to reach orbit in its first launch attempt May 25, with the mission “terminated” moments after the rocket’s release from its aircraft. The company’s “Cosmic Girl” aircraft, a modified Boeing 747, took off from the Mojave Air and Space Port in California at 2:56 p.m.
One of the biggest technology takeaways of the last couple of months has been that organizations need confident, wide-ranging digital strategies to stay afloat, and Facebook — in its wider bid to build products to serve businesses — is taking note. In the same week that the social network doubled down on business tools for
The inevitable has happened: microplastics have now found their way to Florida’s Birds of Prey. This finding is unfortunate and significant as birds of prey are yardsticks of a functioning ecosystem. Researchers from the University of Central Florida Julia Carlin and Linda Walters confirmed and quantified the presence of microplastics in terrestrial and aquatic birds
As Earth formed from the disk of matter swirling around the Sun (artist’s impression), hydrogen moved into what would become the planet’s core. Credit: Gregoire Cirade/SPL Geology 25 May 2020 The core might contain Earth’s biggest reservoir as a result of hydrogen moving into the early planet’s centre. Earth’s core might contain most of the
Raytheon and a Northrop Grumman/Ball Aerospace team designed competing sensor payloads for the Next-Gen OPIR geosynchronous satellites. WASHINGTON — Two sensor payloads for the U.S. Space Force’s new missile warning satellites have passed a key design review. One of them will be selected for the first Next-Generation Overhead Infrared satellite scheduled to launch in 2025.
In the last two months, oil has hit two very different first-of-its kind milestones. In April West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. oil benchmark, plunged below zero and into negative territory for the first time on record. Meanwhile May is shaping up to be WTI’s best month ever, going back to the contract’s inception in 1983—an
Tiphaine Kouadou is a PhD student who is supposed to finish her dissertation this year and Mattia Walschaers is a CNRS research scientist. Both work in the multimode quantum optics group at the Laboratoire Kastler Brossel (LKB) in Paris, France, which is affiliated with Sorbonne Université, CNRS, ENS Université PSL, and Collège de France. This
Compared to other tech firms, enterprise companies have held up well during the pandemic. If anything, the problems enterprises were facing prior to the economic downturn have become even more pronounced; if you were thinking about moving to the cloud or just dabbling in it, you’re probably accelerating that motion. If you were trying to
The Air Force sent the report to congressional committees May 21 and notified them the next day that what they had received was not the final version. WASHINGTON — A Department of the Air Force report sent to Congress last week proposing changes to Space Force acquisition programs was an “initial version” and not the
[embedded content] Snow in some parts of Antarctica is turning green from blooms of algae thriving in the snow. Green snow algae grow mostly on Antarctic coastlines, in areas where it is warmer. In order to survey the extent of the algal bloom, Andrew Gray, Matthew Davey, and his colleagues from the University of Cambridge did a study to estimate
FILE PHOTO: The remains of cars that were burnt during the bushfire season, are piled up in the community of Wytaliba, New South Wales, Australia January 27, 2020. REUTERS/Jorge Silva SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia on Monday began the first hearings of a powerful inquiry into the causes of catastrophic bushfires that swept across the country,
A man scans an Alipay QR code to get e-vouchers at a store on March 27, 2020 in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province of China. Shang Zeyang | China News Service | Getty Images Like most businesses around the world, start-ups are encountering challenging times as the coronavirus hurts business sentiment and dries up funding. Small- and medium-sized
The latest Physics World trivia quiz has been set by Sam Illingworth, a senior lecturer in science communication at the University of Western Australia Colourful creation: the spot painting prepared for the Beagle 2 space mission (Courtesy: European Space Agency) 1 What was the name of the physicist in Hergé’s Tintin comics? A. Professor Calculus
It all started with the dream of growing a rose on Mars. That vision, Elon Musk’s vision, morphed into a shake-up of the old space industry, and a fleet of new private rockets. Now, those rockets will launch NASA astronauts from Florida to the International Space Station — the first time a for-profit company will
Hello Nature readers, would you like to get this Briefing in your inbox free every day? Sign up here Bumble bee (Bombus terrestris) worker damages a plant leaf. Bee-inflicted leaf damage leads to accelerated flowering and might have implications for the phenological synchrony of plants and pollinators.Hannier Pulido, De Moraes and Mescher Laboratories When pollen
NASA has selected three companies to begin development of lunar landers that could return astronauts to the surface of the moon as soon as 2024. The program makes use of public-private partnerships, rather than conventional contracts, to fund these efforts. What are the next steps in developing these landers? Why are partnerships the best approach
Oil production in Azerbaijan Vostok Google has pledged to stop building customized artificial intelligence (AI) tools that help oil and gas firms to extract fossil fuels worldwide. The pledge came after a Greenpeace report on Tuesday highlighted how Google, Microsoft, and Amazon use AI and warehouse servers to help the likes of Shell, BP, and
NASA has added five American companies — Blue Origin, Ceres Robotics, Sierra Nevada Corporation, SpaceX and Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems Inc. — to the pool of vendors that will be eligible to bid on proposals to provide deliveries to the surface of the Moon through the agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative. News release: https://go.nasa.gov/2Xr4MK9
Working from home isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, and a slew of companies just announced longer-term initiatives to make their remote work practices either extend or permanent. That means for some it’s the perfect time to take their at-home videoconferencing setup even further, so we’re going to take a closer look at various core elements
Authorities recently found a Catahoula mix on the side of a road in Texas, where the dog was seen guarding another dog’s body. The Kingsville-Kleberg Health Department Animal Control & Care Center reported that the dog, who they named ‘Guardian,’ was standing beside the dead body as though it was protecting it. When Animal Control Officers tried to approach the two,
WASHINGTON — Italian space company D-Orbit will launch its first cubesat deployer in June on an Arianespace Vega, paving the way for an upgraded deployer in December on a SpaceX Falcon 9 capable of in-space maneuvers, a company official said May 21. Bruno Carvalho, D-Orbit’s vice president of business development, said the company hopes to
On the move: time sequence of the electron distribution of the molecule 1,3-cyclohexadiene after it is excited by a light pulse. (Courtesy: SLAC) Scientists in the US and UK are the first to observe electrons rearrange their positions in molecules during the early stages of a light-driven chemical reaction. They did so by firing ultrashort
The global pandemic has halted travel, shunted schools online and shut down many cities, but the future of college-town America is an area of deep concern for the startup world. College towns have done exceedingly well with the rise of the knowledge economy and concentrating students and talent in dense social webs. That confluence of
Nicholas Herrmann seeks out lizards living by small streams in Costa Rica during the first year of his PhD.Credit: William Eldridge In February, two colleagues and I began a study of several hundred lizards in southern Florida to identify traits that determine which individuals succeed in new environments. I hoped the project would make up
WASHINGTON — While both the president and vice president plan to attend the Demo-2 commercial crew launch, there will be far fewer people attending the first American human orbital spaceflight in nearly a decade than once expected. The White House announced May 22 that President Donald Trump will go to the Kennedy Space Center for
A gull flies over a deserted Millennium Bridge near to St Paul’s Cathedral in London on April 13, 2020. Glyn Kirk | AFP | Getty Images The coronavirus pandemic and associated lockdowns have resulted in a significant fall in worldwide carbon emissions, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change. The
A species of parchment tubeworm can exude slime that can glow a blue hue that lasts for days. Predators can get this sticky mucus with a blue glow on them if they tread upon these tubeworms. Such luminescence is produced by many algae, bacteria, and higher animals. However, the light they produce does not last very
Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the Extra Crunch series that recaps the latest OS news, the applications they support and the money that flows through it all. The app industry is as hot as ever, with a record 204 billion downloads and $120 billion in consumer spending in 2019. People are now spending three hours and 40
Join us for a live webinar at 3–4 p.m. BST/10–11 a.m. EDT on 18 June 2020 exploring how to choose the right sensor and packaging for cryogenic thermometry installation Want to take part in this webinar? This webinar will cover helpful, practical tips on how to choose the right type of sensor and packaging for the
NASA gave the green light on Friday to next week’s launch of two astronauts aboard a SpaceX vessel — the first crewed space flight from US soil in nine years and a crucial step towards ending American dependence on Russian rockets. Top officials at the US space agency and Elon Musk’s company had been meeting
SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus particles imaged using an electron microscope.Credit: NIAID/National Institutes of Health/Science Photo Library Brazil’s researchers have a battle on their hands. The country has the world’s third-highest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases, with more than 300,000 infections and 20,000 deaths. Scientists there have to fight not only the coronavirus, but also the government’s anti-science
WASHINGTON — Virgin Orbit says that it’s ready for its first orbital launch attempt, scheduled for May 24, while acknowledging potentially long odds of successfully placing a payload into orbit. Company executives said in a May 23 media call that final preparations for the inaugural LauncherOne mission are proceeding, with a “green board” and no
KOLKATA/DHAKA (Reuters) – A powerful cyclone that tore through India’s eastern state of West Bengal this week has caused a damage of 1 trillion rupees ($13 billion) to infrastructure and crops, state officials said. A man walks with his bicycle under an uprooted tree after Cyclone Amphan made its landfall, in South 24 Parganas district,
IBM confirmed reports from over night that it is conducting layoffs, but wouldn’t provide details related to location, departments or number of employees involved. The company framed it in terms of replacing people with more needed skills as it tries to regroup under new CEO Arvind Krishna. “IBM’s work in a highly competitive marketplace requires
Animals, particularly prey that avoid predators, construct a map of their environments in their minds, navigate with this map to stay in safe areas while avoiding more dangerous ones; this is what scientists call “landscape of fear.” We, as humans, particularly influence this “landscape” because we have the propensity and ability to kill almost everything.
John Horton Conway was one of the most versatile mathematicians of the past century, who made influential contributions to group theory, analysis, topology, number theory, geometry, algebra and combinatorial game theory. His deep yet accessible work, larger-than-life personality, quirky sense of humour and ability to talk about mathematics with any and all who would listen
SDA wants information on “potential launch solutions” for its first 30 satellites to be deployed in low Earth orbit. WASHINGTON — The Pentagon’s Space Development Agency is designing a network of satellites in low Earth orbit and anticipates the first 30 spacecraft will be ready to launch by 2022. The agency issued a “request for
An aerial drone view of a crude oil storage facility on April 23, 2020 in Cushing, Oklahoma. Tom Pennington | Getty Images Oil prices edged higher on Thursday after data showed U.S. crude inventories fell again, easing concern about a supply glut, though lingering fears over the global economic fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic capped
This image, obtained with the Very Large Telescope’s SPHERE instrument, shows the disc around the young AB Aurigae star, where astronomers have spotted signs of planet birth. Close to the centre, in the inner region of the disc, is the twist (very bright yellow) that scientists believe marks the spot where a planet is forming.
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