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Dec 3, 2018

Women have been written out of science history – time to put them back

Posted by in category: science

Uncovering forgotten history can help explain why science still has a masculine bias today.

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Dec 3, 2018

Monster black hole merger detected

Posted by in categories: cosmology, physics

Laser labs sense gravitational waves from a black hole collision at least five billion light-years away.

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Dec 3, 2018

What Happens When Two Black Holes Collide?

Posted by in category: cosmology

On September 14, 2015, signals from one of the Universe’s most mind-boggling, powerful events produced the tiniest signal in a pair of detectors, one in Louisiana and one in Washington state. They’d detected two already-wild objects, black holes, slamming into one another.

You’re probably familiar with black holes as cosmic vacuum cleaners, but they’re a little bit more complex than that. One core takeaway of Einstien’s theory of gravity is that heavy enough things actually change the shape of the space around them, and gravity is how we experience this warping. Black holes are regions of space so small and massive that they carry a point-of-no-return, an “event horizon” beyond which space is so warped that every path that anything could travel leads to the black hole’s middle. Nothing, not even light, can escape.

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Dec 3, 2018

Awesome photos of Soyuz launch from space, as ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst congratulates Russian space agency Roscosmos and all international partners for a flawless launch of #Soyuz MS-11

Posted by in category: space

“Welcome to space, David, Anne and Oleg!” Docking is set for 17:36 GMT (18:36 CET).


“Welcome to space, David, Anne and Oleg!”

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Dec 3, 2018

Billions of nanoplastics accumulate in marine organisms within six hours

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, nanotechnology

A ground-breaking study has shown it takes a matter of hours for billions of minute plastic nanoparticles to become embedded throughout the major organs of a marine organism.

The research, led by the University of Plymouth, examined the uptake of by a commercially important mollusc, the great scallop (Pecten maximus).

After six hours exposure in the laboratory, billions of measuring 250nm (around 0.00025mm) had accumulated within the scallop’s intestines.

Continue reading “Billions of nanoplastics accumulate in marine organisms within six hours” »

Dec 3, 2018

Revealed: the first ever picture of the sun’s north pole

Posted by in category: futurism

The sun has a north pole but no spacecraft has ever photographed it. Now the European Space Agency has cleverly pieced a together picture of it using other images.

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Dec 3, 2018

Transformer Toy — Optimus Prime

Posted by in category: futurism

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Dec 3, 2018

A startup is about to test a ‘gas station in space’ that could one day refuel satellites

Posted by in categories: energy, satellites

Fuel is heavy. And when launching a satellite into space, the amount of fuel you give it determines how long it can stay operational. That is, unless you can refuel at a space gas station.

The news: Startup Orbit Fab is scheduled to launch an experiment to the International Space Station on board a SpaceX Dragon cargo mission tomorrow at 1:38pm EST. Its goal is to test the company’s method of fluid transfer in space. It’ll be launched alongside other scientific experiments to be performed by astronauts on board the station in collaboration with the ISS US National Lab.

The challenge: Refueling and repairing satellites in space requires some expert wrangling, as well as well as the launch of large quantities and types of fuel into orbit. Also, pumping new fuel into a satellite doesn’t work in microgravity the way it does on Earth. Fluids are harder to measure and float around their tanks unpredictably.

Continue reading “A startup is about to test a ‘gas station in space’ that could one day refuel satellites” »

Dec 3, 2018

Amazon is ramping up tests of cashierless stores, a move that could see the futuristic tech launched in Whole Foods

Posted by in categories: food, futurism

  • Amazon is testing out its cashierless technology in bigger stores, The Wall Street Journal reports.
  • Amazon’s cashierless checkout tech tracks the items that shoppers take from shelves and charges them automatically.
  • The Journal reports Amazon could roll the tech out to Whole Foods.

Amazon is testing out its cashierless checkout technology in bigger stores — with one eye on Whole Foods, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Sources told the Journal that Amazon is testing out the futuristic tech — which tracks and charges for the items shoppers take from the shelves — in Seattle, in a space formatted like a large store.

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Dec 3, 2018

Researchers Just Overcame a Key Barrier to Fusion Power

Posted by in category: energy

U.K. researchers say a new exhaust system brings practical fusion power one step closer.

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