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“The human brain has 100 billion neurons, each neuron connected to 10 thousand other neurons. Sitting on your shoulders is the most complicated object in the known universe,” observes physicist Michio Kaku. The neocortex, observed Carl Sagan is where “matter is transformed into consciousness.” Located deep in the brain’s center, the subcortex, the most evolutionarily ancient part of our brain, processes everything from our basic senses to long-term memories.

“Most Perfectly Organized Part”

Noble Prize laureate Roger Penrose suggest that the human brain and its cerebral cortex, the folded gray matter that covers the first couple of millimeters of the outer brain like wrapping paper, is more complex than our Milky Way Galaxy. “If you look at the entire physical cosmos,” Penrose says, our brains are a tiny, tiny part of it. But they’re the most perfectly organized part.”

Starbucks is aiming to capitalize on the rising demand for electric vehicle infrastructure by installing fast chargers at up to 15 coffeehouses this summer, along a 1,350-mile route from Colorado to Washington.

The project, a pilot program with Volvo Cars, aims to build one DC charging station on each 100-mile segment of the western route.

Why install chargers at Starbucks? The coffeehouse chain is betting that it can score business from electric vehicle owners while they wait for their cars to charge — a process that can take a while, depending on the battery and strength of the charger.

ULA remains confident that its Vulcan Centaur rocket will make its first launch this year while Blue Origin is pushing back the first flight of New Glenn.


WASHINGTON — United Launch Alliance remains confident that its Vulcan Centaur rocket will make its first launch this year while Blue Origin is pushing back the first flight of its New Glenn vehicle.

During a panel at the Satellite 2022 conference March 22, Tory Bruno, chief executive of ULA, said that he expected the first launch of the Vulcan “later this year,” but did not offer a more specific schedule.

That schedule is driven by the completion of testing of the BE-4 engine that powers the first stage of Vulcan and delivery of the first flight units from Blue Origin. “The engine is in great shape,” Bruno said. “It is performing better than I anticipated.”

USPS has been criticized for not ordering more EVs.


The United States Postal Service announced its initial order of 50,000 next-generation delivery vehicles, 10,019 of which will be battery-electric vehicles. It’s a notable number considering the agency’s resistance to calls for increasing the number of EVs in its future delivery fleet.

Originally, the postal service said it would purchase 165,000 next-generation mail trucks, only 10 percent of which will be battery-electric vehicles. President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats urged the agency to increase the number of EVs, but USPS determined there was no legal reason to change its plans.

Now, the postal service says it will increase its initial order of EVs from 5,000 to 10,019, determining it “makes good sense from an operational and financial perspective.”

Rodolfo Salas, chief of paleontology at Peru’s National University of San Marcos, said that the whale was a “sea monster.”

“The most incredible thing is that the skull is in a very good state of preservation, it has complete teeth; it was a first-order predator, at the top of that time that fed on fish penguins; a sea monster just as they imagine it and we think it is a new species,” Salas said.

The “Ocucaje Predator,” as the researchers dubbed it, was about 55 feet long and used its massive, powerful teeth to feed on tuna, sharks and schools of sardines.

A Chinese company has announced the construction of a new supersonic jet that is designed to travel from China to New York in just 60 minutes.

The company behind the project is Space Transportation, and according to its announcement, the company will be building a “rocket with wings” that will be much cheaper than the rockets used to take satellites into low-Earth orbit, while also being much faster than a commercial plane. Space Transportation has posted a demonstration video to its website, and the showcases four individuals getting aboard the jet that then orientates vertically and then launched.