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Sep 30, 2020

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine and leadership from NASA and SpaceX discuss the upcoming SpaceX Crew-1 mission

Posted by in category: space travel

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine and leadership from NASA and SpaceX discuss the upcoming SpaceX Crew-1 mission, which will be the first crew rotational flight of a U.S. commercial spacecraft to the International Space Station. Astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, and Shannon Walker of NASA and Soichi Noguchi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) are targeted to launch on Oct. 31 at 2:40 a.m. EDT aboard the Crew Dragon from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Sep 30, 2020

Stars Without Planets Are More Numerous Than You Might Think

Posted by in category: space

Not all stars harbor planets and here’s why.

Sep 29, 2020

Compact Nuclear Fusion Reactor Is ‘Very Likely to Work,’ Studies Suggest

Posted by in category: nuclear energy

A series of research papers renews hope that the long-elusive goal of mimicking the way the sun produces energy might be achievable.

Sep 29, 2020

NASA finally tracks down persistent ISS air leak that ‘appeared to grow in size’

Posted by in category: space

Houston, we have a leak location.

Sep 29, 2020

Genetic risk of developing obesity is driven by variants that affect the brain

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics, neuroscience

Some people are at higher risk of developing obesity because they possess genetic variants that affect how the brain processes sensory information and regulates feeding and behavior. The findings from scientists at the University of Copenhagen support a growing body of evidence that obesity is a disease whose roots are in the brain.

Over the past decade, scientists have identified hundreds of different genetic variants that increase a person’s risk of developing obesity. But a lot of work remains to understand how these variants translate into obesity. Now scientists at the University of Copenhagen have identified populations of cells in the that play a role in the development of the disease—and they are all in the brain.

“Our results provide evidence that outside the traditional organs investigated in obesity research, such as , play a key role in human obesity,” says Associate Professor Tune H Pers from the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research (CBMR), at the University of Copenhagen, who published his team’s findings in the internationally-recognized journal eLife.

Sep 29, 2020

Washington emergency responders first to use SpaceX’s Starlink internet in the field: ‘It’s amazing’

Posted by in categories: internet, satellites

SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet network has been used in the field by Washington state emergency responders in recent weeks.

Sep 29, 2020

Boston Dynamics’ robot dog takes an ‘evening stroll’ in Canada

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

Now that people can buy their own Boston Dynamics robots, we’ll have to get used to seeing them out and about.

Sep 29, 2020

Reevo Hubless Bike Is What Futuristic e-Bike Dreams Are Made Of

Posted by in categories: futurism, transportation

Electric bicycles have had the best year since ever, so for the average Joe and Jane, it might be somewhat difficult to come across an e-bike that is truly, instantly memorable. Reevo is one of those e-bikes.

Sep 29, 2020

Ask Ethan: Have We Finally Found Evidence For A Parallel Universe?

Posted by in category: cosmology

There’s some amazing science happening at the South Pole, but some very grandiose claims being made. What’s actually going on?

Sep 29, 2020

Why disordered light-harvesting systems produce ordered outcomes

Posted by in categories: chemistry, energy, nanotechnology, physics

Scientists typically prefer to work with ordered systems. However, a diverse team of physicists and biophysicists from the University of Groningen found that individual light-harvesting nanotubes with disordered molecular structures still transport light energy in the same way. By combining spectroscopy, molecular dynamics simulations and theoretical physics, they discovered how disorder at the molecular level is effectively averaged out at the microscopic scale. The results were published on 28 September in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

The double-walled light-harvesting nanotubes self-assemble from molecular building blocks. They are inspired by the multi-walled tubular antenna network of photosynthetic bacteria found in nature. The nanotubes absorb and transport light energy, although it was not entirely clear how. “The nanotubes have similar sizes but they are all different at the with the molecules arranged in a disordered way,” explains Maxim Pshenichnikov, Professor of Ultrafast Spectroscopy at the University of Groningen.