Enlarge (credit: Wikipedia ) It’s a question I’m sure was keeping you up at night: can you make an object spin with a sound wave? The answer, generally speaking, used to be no. Now, though, mechanical engineers have taken a look at what their colleagues who play with lasers can do , and having seen […]
Enlarge / KYIV, UKRAINE – FEBRUARY 28: A mother tends to her baby under medical treatment in the bomb shelter of the pediatric ward of Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital on February 28, 2022 in Kyiv, Ukraine. (credit: Getty | Chris McGrath ) The World Health Organization on Wednesday said Russia is in violation associated with international […]
Enlarge (credit: Sean Hannon) Giant methane plumes from fossil fuel extraction and transportation are losing the industry millions of metric tons of methane—at high costs for the climate, society, and even the industry’s pocketbooks. Although methane emissions are relatively low compared to CO2 emissions, each ton has a whopping 30 to 80 times the relative warming […]
Enlarge / A Soyuz rocket launches in 2020 carrying nearly three dozen OneWeb satellites into orbit. (credit: OneWeb) Russia has taken the extraordinary step of placing multiple demands on OneWeb and its government ownership prior to a planned launch of satellites Friday aboard a Soyuz rocket. The mission, to loft 34 broadband communications satellites into […]
Enlarge / A technician works on the Orion spacecraft, atop the SLS rocket, in January 2022. (credit: NASA) NASA Inspector General Paul Martin serves as an independent watchdog for the space agency’s myriad activities. For nearly the entirety of his time as inspector general, since his appointment in 2009, Martin has tracked NASA’s development of […]
(credit: .imelda / Flickr) One of the more disturbing aspects of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus is its ability to readily hop between a variety of species, ranging from domesticated animals like cats and mink to wild deer. This creates a potential risk. While spreading in other animals, the virus can pick up mutations that make it […]
Enlarge / A Maxar satellite image shows the buildup of Russian vehicles and helicopers on an airfield in Belarus prior to the invasion of Ukraine. (credit: Maxar Technologies) Update, 10 am EST, 3/1/2022: On Tuesday, Mykhailo Fedorov, the vice prime minister and minister of digital transformation of Ukraine, confirmed that his country is seeking the […]
Humans have lived aboard the International Space Station for more than two decades. (credit: NASA) NASA’s senior official for human spaceflight operations said Monday that the US space agency continues to operate the International Space Station as usual with its partners, including Russia. “Our operations are nominal,” said Associate Administrator for Space Operations Kathy Lueders. She acknowledged […]
Enlarge / A metal ladle is used to serve takeout Chinese food from a plastic container, Lafayette, California, December 25, 2021. (credit: Getty | Gado) Medical experts are calling out a rotten batch of news articles that wrongly claimed spoiled leftover Chinese food caused a teen to develop a life-threatening infection within hours, which led […]
Enlarge / The burial mask of Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamen recovered from the boy king’s tomb. (credit: Hannes Magerstaedt/Getty Images) Among the many items recovered from King Tut’s tomb was a dagger made of iron, which is a material that was rarely used during Egypt’s 18th dynasty. That iron likely came from a meteorite, and a […]