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The skies were clear as the VISTA X-62A — a one-of-a-kind training aircraft built by Lockheed Martin on an F-16 platform — soared over the Mojave Desert. The cockpit of the high-tech jet is littered with expensive and highly sensitive avionics that enable pilots to perform their missions. But the designers could have crammed in even more technology if it were not for the two pilot seats. Their wish might come true in the not-so-distant future. That’s because this was not your regular sortie.

The training jet was recently reported to have flown 17 hours entirely operated by an artificial intelligence (AI) system, which could open the floodgates for completely autonomous jet fighters and drones. This is the first time that an AI has flown a tactical aircraft for this long.

The VISTA X-62 is perhaps the most powerful and versatile training jet in the world. It’s essentially an upgraded F-16D with Block 40 avionics installed, but with a lot of room for installing and trying out different hardware quickly and easily, that mimics the flight controls of other aircraft, enabling the aircraft itself to act as its own ground simulator. Those who’ve flown the X-62 describe it as a Swiss army knife that they can use to attach lots of different things to the airplane.

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The number of active fires recorded in the Brazilian Amazon in August-September 2022 was the highest since 2010, according to an article published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution. Besides the record number of fires (74,398), the researchers found they were due not to extreme drought, as in 2010, but to recent deforestation by humans.

“The idea of publishing our findings came up when we analyzed data provided free of charge by the Queimadas program,” said Guilherme Mataveli, first author of the article. ‘Queimadas’ in Portuguese means burnings, and he was referring to the forest monitoring service run by the National Space Research Institute (INPE). Mataveli is currently a postdoctoral researcher in INPE’s Earth Observation and Geoinformatics Division.

The number of fires typically rises every year in August and September, when the weather favors fire in about half of the Amazon. “But the surge in the number of fires in 2010 was due to an extreme drought event that occurred in a large part of the region, whereas nothing similar occurred in 2022, so other factors must have been to blame,” Mataveli said.

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AUSTIN (KXAN) — A newly confirmed layer of the Earth could give scientists a better understanding of plate tectonics and could help them better predict earthquakes, according to research published by the University of Texas.

The work, published in the scientific journal Nature Geosciences, was led by Junlin Hua, a post-doctoral student at UT Austin. Hua began his research while attending Brown University.

“Earthquakes (are) directly the cause of plate tectonics,” Hua said. Plate tectonics is the movement of the plates that make up the Earth’s crust. “It’s just kind of like a boat, like traveling on water.”

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Norovirus is sometimes referred to as the stomach flu, but it is not related to the influenza virus. Rather, it is a highly contagious virus that typically causes gastrointestinal symptoms like diarrhea, vomiting, nausea and stomach pain. Mild fever and aches are possible, too.

Just a few virus particles are enough to make someone sick, and they spread easily via hands, surfaces, food and water. An infected person can transmit the virus for days after they’re feeling better, potentially even up to two weeks, according to the CDC.

Regionally, the Midwest had the highest average test positivity rate for norovirus as of Saturday, at over 19% — higher than any other week in the last year.

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Oddly enough nearly 50 percent of the trees near the abomb blast in japan survived 😀

In the city of Nagasaki, there are dozens of hibaku trees, or “A-bomb trees” that show scars from the heat and blast of the atomic bombing 74 years ago. People in the city see the trees as eyewitnesses of the attack and take extra care of them.

The two oak trees in Sachiko Yamashita’s garden have long gashes all the way down their trunks. These are the physical scars of the 1945 bombing.

Sachiko’s husband Torasaburo looked after the trees until his death five years ago. When the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, Torasaburo was away from home for military service. The bomb killed his four younger brothers and turned his home to ash. The only things left for him were the two oak trees.

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