Facebook's 2.2-billion active users use the platform for sharing all kinds of things: Engagements. Group plans. Political misinformation. Cat photos. But as researchers reported this week, the words you post in your status updates could also contain hidden information about your mental health. In research described in this week's issue of the Proceedings of the […]
Shhhh. Someone in the Federal government wants to keep a secret. Someone—though no one is saying who—does not want you to know that the Federal government is panicked about climate change. They should be. A new government report—1,600 pages, two and a half years of work, hundreds of authors, 13 participating agencies—warns that by the […]
On Sunday, the DNA testing company 23andMe revealed a new genetic analysis that it says will tell its customers if they have an elevated risk of developing the most common, and preventable, form of diabetes. The report—which has not been cleared by the FDA and is not intended to diagnose type 2 diabetes—arrives as the […]
To help cure the planet’s ailments, Zhen Dai suggests antacid. In powdered form, calcium carbonate—often used to relieve upset stomachs—can reflect light; by peppering the sky with the shiny white particles, the Harvard researcher thinks it might be possible to block just enough sunlight to achieve some temperature control here on Earth. Dai’s work calls […]
Between this past Christmas and New Year’s Day, Brian Metzger realized he had his home to himself—no emails coming in, no classes to teach—and maybe, just maybe, the glimmer of an answer to one of astronomy’s most stubborn mysteries. He chased hard after the lead, worried a little error could unravel everything or that someone […]
On Thursday, Darpa gathered roboticists in the Louisville Mega Cavern, in Kentucky, and gave them a mission: Design robots to navigate a grueling subterranean course of tunnels and caves, some of the most unforgiving environments on Earth. They’re calling it the Subterranean Challenge, but you may as well call it the Death to All Robots […]
I don't know much about making movies or the special effects involved, but I can imagine a scene from the 1970s during the creation of the first Star Wars movie. In one scene, they need to show an escape pod traveling away from a rebel blockade runner with the runaway droids R2-D2 and C-3PO. Things […]
Oh, you think you are pretty awesome with the basketball trick shots? Well, maybe you are—but can you score with a shot from an airplane as it flies by? That's what we have here with the Harlem Globetrotters (although it seems like Dude Perfect might have done this too). For me, this is a classic […]
This weekend, SpaceX began what is slated to be its busiest week ever by successfully launching its largest payload to date: a communications satellite dubbed TelStar 19V. Perched atop the company’s Cape Canaveral launch pad, a shiny new Falcon 9 rocket roared to life at 1:50 am Eastern on Sunday morning, lighting up the predawn […]
On Monday, November 26th, following a six-month journey across hundreds of millions of miles of deep space, NASA's InSight spacecraft will arrive at Mars in suitably dramatic fashion, hitting the top of the planet's atmosphere at 12,300 miles per hour—several times faster than a speeding bullet—shortly before 12:00 pm PST (3:00 pm EST). If all […]