The IEA and climate negotiators want to set a target for shifting the economy to run on electricity. If one form of energy becomes the cheapest, most secure, and cleanest, you’d probably adjust your economy to use more of it, right? That’s one of the ideas underpinning a report…
It wasn’t obvious at the time, but the US uncoupled carbon emissions and GDP growth. One argument that often comes up about climate change is that fossil fuels are good because they powered economic growth that has left most people better off overall. And, to an extent, that has…
Also: Spooky action at the LHC, Ice Age psychoactive use, yeast for building homes on Mars, and more. It’s a regrettable reality that there is never enough time to cover all the interesting scientific stories we come across. So every month, we highlight a handful of the best stories…
Blue Origin seeks FAA approval for up to 50 New Glenn launches and 50 booster landings per year. Welcome to Edition 9.13 of the Rocket Report! This week, SpaceX celebrated the first orbital launch of its new Starship rocket. I’m not sure many people, at least those outside of…
A physical model show that iron dust and sulfuric acid create the right properties. Venus is shrouded in a veil of mystery. The yellowish “lower haze” at the bottom of its atmosphere was discovered by the Venera and Pioneer Venus probes in the 1970s. These spacecraft were some of…
With Crew-13, Jessica Watkins became the first Black woman to lead a mission into space. A four-person crew rocketed into orbit Thursday from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, heading for a six-month expedition on the International Space Station. Riding a Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft, the four…
Adding in a second neural network that guesses the identity of hidden pieces was key. Deep Blue took down Garry Kasparov at chess in 1997, AlphaGo beat Lee Sedol at Go in 2016, and poker bots have been beating professionals for years. But one classic game called Stratego held…
Hot, nutrient water might have lasted for over 5 million years after the impact. About 66 million years ago, the Chicxulub asteroid smashed into Earth, kicking up tsunamis and dropping hot debris that annihilated non-avian dinosaurs and many other species. But not everything it left in its wake was…
It’s possible to send electrical signals right through human tissues. Most implants like pacemakers and insulin pumps work in isolation. To help them coordinate with each other, a team of Georgia Tech researchers built a networking system that sends signals through body tissue instead of antennas and radio waves.…
Intended to help with biosecurity, it works with a popular AI protein design tool. AI-based tools seem to be causing security threats on a nearly daily basis, in part because we’ve been slow to recognize potential threats. One area where we seem to be ahead of the game, however,…
