Ants with lots of workers tend to put less energy into making them armored. The trade-off between quality and quantity is a fundamental economic dilemma. Now, a team of British, American, and Japanese researchers describes how it applies to biology, as well. They have discovered that this dilemma most…
Chris Wright declared an energy “emergency” in the Pacific Northwest. SEATTLE—The last coal-fired power plant in Washington state was set to go cold at the end of the year. It would then switch to natural gas, cutting carbon emissions in half. The shutdown had been in the works for…
South Korean rocket startup Innospace is poised to debut a new nano-launcher. Welcome to Edition 8.23 of the Rocket Report! Several new rockets made their first flights this year. Blue Origin’s New Glenn was the most notable debut, with a successful inaugural launch in January followed by an impressive…
DiskSat’s design offers “a power-to-weight ratio unmatched by traditional aluminum satellites.” Four small satellites rode a Rocket Lab Electron launch vehicle into orbit from Virginia early Thursday, beginning a government-funded technology demonstration mission to test the performance of a new spacecraft design. The satellites were nestled inside a cylindrical…
They were infected by roundworm, whipworm, and microscopic protozoans called Giardia duodenalis. It probably sucked to be a Roman soldier guarding Hadrian’s Wall circa the third century CE. W.H. Auden imagined the likely harsh conditions in his poem “Roman Wall Blues,” in which a soldier laments enduring wet wind…
Once researchers turn to LLMs, paper counts go up, quality does not. There have been a number of high-profile cases where scientific papers have had to be retracted because they were filled with AI-generated slop—the most recent coming just two weeks ago. These instances raise serious questions about the…
Engineers at JPL are certifying the Perseverance rover to drive up to 100 kilometers. When the Perseverance rover arrived on Mars nearly five years ago, NASA officials thought the next American lander to take aim on the red planet would be taking shape by now. At the time, the…
“A calorie-neutral, drug-free, low-cost, readily available tool for when we need a boost in performance.” If you’re human, you’ve probably hollered a curse word or two (or three) when barking your shin on a table edge or hitting your thumb with a hammer. Perhaps you’ve noticed that this seems…
New method uses no freezing technology or refrigeration equipment—just water and a vacuum. Physicists at the University of Amsterdam came up with a really cool bit of Christmas decor: a miniature 3D-printed Christmas tree, a mere 8 centimeters tall, made of ice, without any refrigeration equipment or other freezing…
Major research institution dismissed as a source of “climate alarmism.” On Tuesday, the head of the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought, announced that a major climate research center will be “broken up.” The National Center for Atmospheric Research, or NCAR, is a significant contributor to research on…
