Hard-Won Pandemic Gains – Scientific American

Building on lessons learned from SARS-CoV-2, pandemic preparedness has taken on renewed urgency Credit: Scientific American Health & Medicine, April/May 2022 Advertisement The COVID pandemic is by no means over. Despite plunging case numbers in the U.S. as of this writing, many countries in the world are still experiencing peak infection rates. And it is … Read more

Eugene Parker, Namesake of NASA’s Sun-Touching Spacecraft, Dies at Age 94

Eugene Parker, the pioneering astrophysicist whose name graces NASA’s Parker Solar Probe mission, died Tuesday (March 15) at age 94. Parker’s work focused on understanding the sun. In a key contribution to the field, he proposed that the sun produces a phenomenon called solar wind, a steady stream of charged particles that flows off the sun and across … Read more

Another search for Planet 9 comes up empty

A theorized huge, ninth planet beyond the orbit of Neptune once again wasn’t found in a new survey of the solar system‘s outer reaches. Astronomers scanned a large portion of the sky using the 6-meter Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) in Chile to search for Planet 9. The quest came up empty, according to the scientists … Read more

This tech startup’s Flex modular moon rover for astronauts could lead to Mars cars

Modular moon rovers could reduce the costs of surface exploration of the moon and, potentially, human Mars excursions, a California-based space-tech startup envisions. The start-up, called Venturi Astrolab, announced the development  of its Flexible Logistics and Exploration (Flex) rover on March 10. The rover, the company said in a statement will “enhance lunar and planetary … Read more

Nikon D7500 review | Space

The D7500 is Nikon’s second-best DX body DSLR packed with the professional quality components seen in the flagship DX camera, the D500. The D7500 is one of the best DX bodies they’ve ever made with it likely to be one of the last DX DSLRs produced as everything slowly turns mirrorless. In size and stature, … Read more

A Small Cut in World Military Spending Could Help Fund Climate, Health and Poverty Solutions

Carlo Rovelli and Matteo Smerlak The world’s military expenditure has nearly doubled since 2000. It now amounts to about $2 trillion per year, more than half of which is from NATO countries. Now, with the war raging in Ukraine, countries are rushing to increase their budgets even more; Germany, for instance, recently announced a roughly … Read more

Artemis 1 moon rocket rollout: Meet the NASA machine doing the heavy lifting

When NASA rolls its Artemis 1 moon mission out to the launch pad today (March 17), most eyes will be on the giant rocket gearing up for its first-ever flight. But the machine carrying it deserves some attention, too, for it’s a marvel in its own right. On Artemis 1, NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) … Read more

Where Are Genitals Represented in the Brain?

Paracelsus, the German-Swiss physician and alchemist, asserted in the sixteenth century that he knew how to create a “little man”—or homunculus—by placing human semen in a sealed vessel packed with horse manure that was then nurtured with blood to gestate. The recipe was no more useful than the ones for turning base metals into gold, … Read more

NASA’s Artemis 1 moon megarocket rolls out to the launch pad today and you can watch it live

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida — The first mission in NASA’s Artemis moon program is set to roll out to the launch pad today (March 17).  More than 50 years after NASA landed the first humans on the moon with Apollo 11, the agency is gearing up to launch its next human lunar missions as part of … Read more

There’s a Weird Link Between Living Near Green Spaces And Risk of Stroke

Green areas give you more than just a place to stretch your legs – they can also affect your chances of suffering a stroke, according to a new study that linked having green spaces close by with a 16 percent reduction in stroke risk.   For the purposes of the research, the nearby green spaces … Read more