Enlarge / SpaceX launches its 25th mission on Saturday, lifting above the particular fog. (credit: SpaceX) By most measures, the Saturday morning launch of a previously flown Falcon 9 rocket seemed fairly pedestrian. After all, SpaceX had already launched 24 rockets this year, so adding one more Starlink satellite mission on top was no big […]
Enlarge / With extra-wide tracks and a bunch of other clever features, the Benthic Rover II can roam the seafloor for years at a time. (credit: Madison Pobis | MBARI) The Benthic Rover II is the size of a compact car, although it rocks fat treads, making it more like a scientific tank. That, along […]
Enlarge (credit: Humphreys et. al.) It is now relatively trivial to determine the order of amino acids in a protein. Figuring out how that order translates to a complicated three-dimensional structure that performs a specific function, however, is extremely challenging. But after decades of slow progress, Google’s DeepMind AI group announced that it has made tremendous […]
Enlarge / Frontline workers of the Medical Center of Aurora gather in front of the hospital for a COVID-19 memorial in Aurora, Colorado, on July 15, 2021. (credit: Getty | Denver Post) More states are activating crisis standards of care, and at least two have expanded access to COVID-19 vaccine booster doses as the delta […]
Enlarge / As the Crew-3 mission ascends, a Falcon 9 rocket with a Starlink payload awaits its turn on a nearby launch pad in Florida. (credit: SpaceX) Welcome to Edition 4.23 of the Rocket Report! After a one-week hiatus, this report returns with a superfluity of news. There’s a lot to cover, from exciting news […]
Johns Hopkins University researchers discovered precisely how spiders build webs by using night vision and artificial intelligence to track and record every movement of all eight legs as spiders worked in the dark. Ovid’s Metamorphoses speaks of the orb-weavers, said to be descendants of Arachne, a figure in Greek mythology who wove beautiful tapestries and […]
Enlarge / Head of pork tapeworm. (credit: Getty | Michael J Klein) On a night that seemed like any other, a perfectly healthy 38-year-old man in Massachusetts fell from his bed amid a violent seizure at 4 am. The commotion woke his wife, who found her husband on the floor, shaking and “speaking gibberish.” He […]
Enlarge / A mining operation inside the Arctic Circle. (credit: BeyondImages / Getty Images ) As the world warms, countries with holdings in the Arctic are increasingly eyeing the region for development and use. As Ars reported last July, the frigid polar zone might be open to increased shipping, as it remains free of ice […]
Enlarge / An eastbound manifest freight swoops through an S curve in Lombard Canyon, just east of Toston, Montana, on September 11, 2011. The tracks here snake along the Missouri River between Toston and Lombard. (credit: Mike Danneman / Getty Images ) With the rapid pace of development in electric vehicles, we will likely get […]
SpaceX/NASA’s Crew-3 mission finds a way through the November weather, launching only 46 hours 30 minutes after Crew-2 splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico. [credit: Trevor Mahlmann ] Finally afforded serene skies and fair seas, SpaceX successfully launched four more astronauts for NASA on a Falcon 9 rocket Wednesday night. Flying atop a once-used […]