Science

All systems go for Thursday rollout of NASA’s Artemis 1 moon mission

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The rollout for NASA’s Artemis 1 mission is right on track for this Thursday (March 17), agency officials said today (March 14).  In just a few days, NASA’s immense Crawler-Transporter 2 vehicle will carry the agency’s Space Launch System (SLS) megarocket and Orion spacecraft on a 4-mile (6.4 kilometers) journey to Pad 39B at NASA’s … Read more

A Man Had a Stroke. Three Months Later His Tongue Turned ‘Hairy’ And Dark

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A man in his 50s presented to doctors in India a black, hairy tongue after suffering a stroke, according to a report by JAMA Dermatology. The man had left-sided weakness from a stroke three months prior and was put on a pureed diet, doctors said in the report published Wednesday. A thick, black coating had covered most … Read more

Russian invasion of Ukraine: How it’s affecting Europe’s space plans

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The European Space Agency (ESA) Council will meet on Wednesday and Thursday (March 16 and March 17) in Paris for its 306th session. On the agenda: “Implications of the current geopolitical situation on ESA’s activities.” That situation is the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, which could end up having a significant impact on spaceflight and … Read more

NASA astronaut returning to Earth on Russian spacecraft March 30 despite Ukraine invasion

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Geopolitical tensions won’t keep an American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts from returning to Earth together as planned this month. NASA’s Mark Vande Hei and cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anton Shkaplerov have long been scheduled to come home from the International Space Station aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft on March 30. And that remains the … Read more

Relive some top SpaceX highlights from its 1st 20 years (video)

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SpaceX celebrated its 20th anniversary Monday (March 14) with a short video showcasing Starman, Starship and company innovations in orbit and beyond. “Today we celebrate the founding of SpaceX and 20 years of accomplishments by this incredible team — here’s to creating a future that we can all get excited about,” the California-based company tweeted … Read more

Popular Health Claims, Such as a Woman’s Fertility Dropping at Age 30, Are Wildly Overblown

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Why do fitness device makers claim you need to take 10,000 steps every day? Do you also really need to drink eight glasses of water daily? The scientific basis for popular health claims is often thin. A piece in the New York Times, for example, notes that the idea of 10,000 steps was based more … Read more

Contagions Worse Than COVID Will Prevail If Neglect of Global Public Health Continues

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After Omicron comes pi in the Greek alphabet. And then rho, sigma, tau…. Before SARS-CoV-2 finishes its grand tour through the Greek alphabet, the global public health establishment should do what it should have done long before this coronavirus emerged. It must put in place the basic health systems needed to detect new outbreaks and … Read more

SNL’s Pete Davidson will fly to space next week with Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin

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Actor Pete Davidson will reach the final frontier next week, if all goes according to plan. The “Saturday Night Live” star and five other people are scheduled to fly to suborbital space aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard vehicle on March 23, company representatives announced today (March 14). Liftoff is targeted for 9:30 a.m. EDT (1330 … Read more

Russia’s War in Ukraine Sends Tremors into the Arctic

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Diplomatic tensions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are affecting the farthest reaches of the Northern Hemisphere. Seven of the Arctic Council’s eight members — all except Russia, which currently holds the council’s rotating chairmanship — have agreed to boycott future meetings. The boycott, announced earlier this month by the U.S., Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway … Read more

2 giant blobs in Earth’s mantle may explain Africa’s weird geology

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Deep within Earth’s mantle, there are two giant blobs. One sits under Africa, while the other is almost precisely opposite the first, under the Pacific Ocean. But these two blobs are not evenly matched.  New research finds that the blob under Africa extends far closer to the surface — and is more unstable — than … Read more