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A Japanese billionaire and his production assistant have safely returned to Earth after spending nearly 12 days in space filming and posting videos online about their experience. Yusaku Maezawa, who made his fortune as an online fashion retailer, and Yozo Hirano, his videographer, landed with cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin of the Russian federal space corporation Roscosmos … Read more
Famed for their swift longboats and bloody incursions, Vikings have long been associated with brutal, over-the-top violence. Between the eighth and 11th centuries, these groups left their Nordic homelands to make their fortunes by trading and raiding across Europe. Particularly infamous is the so-called “blood eagle”, a gory ritual these warriors are said to … Read more
Billions of birds die each year from collisions with tall glass buildings, communication towers and power lines – a gobsmacking toll that’s expected to increase as cities grow outwards and upwards. A recent study suggests there could be a way to fix our deadly mistakes – by installing ‘acoustic lighthouses’ that blast white noise … Read more
The much-delayed launch of the James Webb space telescope will go ahead on December 24, NASA and the company overseeing the launch confirmed on Saturday. The project, begun in 1989, was originally expected to deploy the instrument – which will be the largest and most powerful telescope ever to be launched into space – in the early … Read more
The picturesque and remote Faroe Islands sit in the North Atlantic, between Norway and Iceland, around 200 miles (322 kilometers) northwest of Scotland. Today, almost 54,000 people live on the archipelago, but it seems the first inhabitants arrived a lot earlier than previously thought. From the earliest archaeological structures on the Faroes, we know … Read more
Refresh 2021-12-19T14:26:21.267Z Landing day for Japanese space tourists Billionaire entrepreneur Yusaku Maezawa (left), cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin (center) and video producer Yozo Hirano (right) are scheduled to launch toward the International Space Station on Dec. 8, 2021. Hirano will participate in health-related research during and after the mission. (Image credit: CPK/Roscosmos) It’s landing day for Japanese … Read more
The first proper footage from the eagerly-awaited “Halo” TV series on Paramount Plus has arrived, the live-action adaptation of the famous first-person shooter Xbox games. One of the flagship franchises for Microsoft’s Xbox, “Halo” is a military-style, sci-fi/fantasy video game series that focuses on the experiences of Master Chief John-117, one of a group of … Read more
One of the biggest cosmological mysteries is why the universe is made up of way more matter than antimatter, essentially why we exist. Now, a team of theoretical physicists says they know how to find the answer. All they need to do is detect the gravitational waves produced by bizarre quantum objects called Q balls. Every … Read more
Letters to the editor from the August 2021 issue of Scientific American — Read more on ScientificAmerican.com
A Japanese billionaire and two colleagues will return to Earth from the International Space Station on Sunday (Dec. 19), and you can watch the whole thing live. A Russian Soyuz spacecraft carrying Yusaku Maezawa, along with spaceflight participant (and video producer) Yozo Hirano and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin, is scheduled to touch down on the … Read more