the digest (Page 152)

Latest in the digest

Rats across the country are turning to cannibalism and eating their young as a result of the coronavirus outbreak.

Expert: Coronavirus Forcing Rats to Cannibalism, Infanticide

By Victor Tangermann

A research team failed to find a widely-accepted dark matter particle candidate in the Milky Way galaxy, causing a stir among disagreeing astrophysicists.

Shocking Research Threatens Our Understanding of Dark Matter

By Dan Robitzski

NASA spotted a "dragon" in a image taken by University of Arizona's HiRISE camera attached to NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Science & Energy

NASA Spots “Dragon” in Stunning Mars Orbiter Image

By Victor Tangermann

In an entertaining video, a caffeine enthusiast picks up a Starbucks coffee with his drone — to the bemusement of a barista.

Watch This Madlad Pick Up a Starbucks Coffee Using a Drone

By Jon Christian

Elon Musk revealed why the Model 3 has a cabin-facing camera above the rearview mirror: to make sure that "robotaxi" passengers don't vandalize the car

Elon Musk Reveals Reason for Mysterious Cameras Inside Teslas

By Victor Tangermann

Astronomers think that a bizarre exoplanet called TOI-849b is the stripped core of a gas giant that for some reason or another lost its atmosphere.

Science & Energy

Bizarre Exoplanet Might Be a Gas Giant That Lost its Gas

By Dan Robitzski

Whistleblower Edward Snowden has a grim prediction for the future: world leaders will exploit the pandemic to claim new power and not relinquish it later.

Snowden: Governments Will Use the Coronavirus to Seize More Power

By Dan Robitzski

A spectacular new view of the Pillars of Creation, released by NASA, shows the iconic cosmic image in a new light: in infrared.

Science & Energy

NASA Releases Breathtaking Infrared Image of Pillars of Creation

By Victor Tangermann

Robot delivery service company Starship Technologies is seeing a massive opportunity to grow amid the coronavirus outbreak.

Self-Driving Vehicles

Demand for Autonomous Delivery Bots is “Expanding Exponentially”

By Victor Tangermann

A new study predicts that climate change will kill so many oceanic organisms this decade that the entire ecosystem could fall apart.

New Study Predicts the Ocean Ecosystem Will Collapse This Decade

By Dan Robitzski

Researchers have created a mutant bacterial enzyme that can break down plastic bottles for recycling in only a couple of hours.

This “Mutant Enzyme” Can Break Down Plastic Bottles in Hours

By Victor Tangermann

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday that encourages the mining of resources in space and on the Moon.

Trump Signs Executive Order Encouraging Moon, Asteroid Mining

By Victor Tangermann

According to a Newsweek report, researchers found a bizarre deep sea organism off the cost of Western Australia. And it's an absolute mammoth.

Science & Energy

“UFO-Like” Sea Creature Made up of “Millions of Clones”

By Victor Tangermann

When the pandemic hit, researchers working in Antarctica had a particularly difficult time finding a safe way to make their way home.

Science & Energy

The Pandemic Stranded Them in the Worst Place: Antarctica

By Dan Robitzski

This Site Lets a Barber Tell You How to Cut Your Hair via Webcam

By Victor Tangermann

An unexpectedly large hole in the ozone layer formed over the Arctic because of an unusually cold winter and an extreme polar vortex.

A New Hole Is Forming in the Ozone Layer Over the Arctic

By Dan Robitzski

Scientists are colliding electrons with their antimatter counterparts, positrons, in order to hunt and study a subatomic particle called the Z' boson.

Physicists Are Crashing Matter into Antimatter to Hunt a New Boson

By Dan Robitzski

In Basalt, Colorado, a neighborhood built its own virtual power plant, letting them generate — and share — clean energy as needed.

A Colorado Neighborhood Runs on a Self-Reliant, Clean Energy Grid

By Dan Robitzski

A Baseball Team Is Filling Its Stadium With 500 Robot Spectators

A Baseball Team Is Filling Its Stadium With 500 Robot Spectators

By Victor Tangermann

Zoox just laid off all of the contractors it had working as safety drivers for its self-driving cars because of California's shelter-in-place rule.

Self-Driving Vehicles

Self-Driving Car Company Lays Off All Its Human Safety Drivers

By Dan Robitzski

YouTube science channel The Action Lab used driving simulator BeamNG.drive to show what it would be like to drive on various heavenly bodies.

Advanced Transport

Here’s What It Would Be Like to Drive on Different Planets

By Jon Christian

Coronavirus Conspiracy Theorists Are Setting 5G Towers on Fire

Coronavirus Conspiracy Theorists Are Setting 5G Towers on Fire

By Victor Tangermann

Scientists Are Spying on Google Searches to Track the Coronavirus

Science & Energy

Scientists Are Spying on Google Searches to Track the Coronavirus

By Dan Robitzski

Ukrainian authorities say a forest fire is causing radiation levels to spike in the area of Chernobyl, a nuclear power plant that melted down in 1986.

A Fire at Chernobyl Is Releasing Large Amounts of Radiation

By Jon Christian

A four-year-old tiger at the Bronx Zoo in New York City called Nadia has tested positive for COVID-19, while six other large cats are exhibiting symptoms.

A Tiger Just Tested Positive For COVID-19

By Victor Tangermann

NASA's Juno spacecraft took this dramatic image of Jupiter's "tumultous northern regions" during a close flyby on February 17, 2020.

Glorious NASA Photo Shows “Thin Bands” Running Across Jupiter

By Victor Tangermann

CNN reports that the coronavirus has shut down production of Corona beer in Mexico, where the government suspended non-essential businesses last week.

Coronavirus Forces Corona Beer to Shut Down Production

By Jon Christian

$Eight years after it was shared online, a highly-controversial proof claiming to verify the abc conjecture is going to be published in an academic journal.$

Science & Energy

Mathematicians Are Shocked That This Paper Got Published

By Dan Robitzski

According to seismologists, this drastic reduction in the hustle and bustle of people living their lives is causing the Earth to literally move less.

Science & Energy

The Earth is Standing Still During the Pandemic. Literally.

By Victor Tangermann

Xenobots mark a major step forward in biological robots. The tiny, short-lived creatures are designed in a virtual world then 3D printed with living cells.

Scientists Are Printing Living “Xenobots” out of Biological Cells

By Dan Robitzski

SpaceX's latest prototype dubbed "SN3" collapsed during a pressurized cryogenic fuel test Thursday night, as footage uploaded by NASASpaceFlight shows.

Watch SpaceX’s Latest Starship Prototype Crumple Like a Can

By Victor Tangermann

NASA built an autonomous robot named BRUIE that may be able to hunt for signs of life on distant ocean worlds like Europa.

Science & Energy

Here’s the Robot NASA Wants to Use to Hunt Aliens on Ocean Worlds

By Dan Robitzski

A video shows a Boston Dynamics Spot Mini robodog put on a show while wearing a pair of basketball shorts and a hoodie. It's a hell of a show.

Watch a Robodog Twerk in a Baggy Hoodie and Basketball Shorts

By Victor Tangermann

A video uploaded by Helsinki-based 3D artist Kimi Talvitie on Wednesday attempts to recreate SpaceX Starship's arachnoid landing legs.

Elon Musk Praises Video of Starship’s Arachnoid Landing Legs

By Victor Tangermann

To get consumers to change their attitudes toward fossil fuels, experts suggest covering gas pumps with the same warnings we see on cigarettes.

Climate Experts Suggest Tobacco-Like Warnings on Gas Pumps

By Dan Robitzski

Zoom, the increasingly-popular video conferencing program, has extremely flawed cybersecurity in place. Companies like SpaceX have already banned it.

Science & Energy

Experts Warn That Hackers Can Use Zoom to Take Over Your Computer

By Dan Robitzski

Korean pop star Kim Jae-joong did what everybody on the internet agreed not to do: make an off-flavor April Fools joke about the coronavirus.

K-Pop Star Makes Terrible April Fools Joke About Having Coronavirus

By Victor Tangermann

In 2015, a international team of astronomers watched a white dwarf star gobbling up the planets in its very own system like a mother devouring its young.

Science & Energy

Star Blasts Own Planets Into Shattered Corpses, Devours Remains

By Victor Tangermann

Elon Musk announced his renewed efforts to supply hospitals around the country — and internationally — with ventilators amid the coronavirus outbreak.

Elon Musk is Shipping Free Ventilators to Hospitals Worldwide

By Victor Tangermann

New research on a bizarre nuclear reaction could explain why some stars explode like gigantic stellar thermonuclear bombs.

Science & Energy

Poison in the Hearts of Stars Can Make Them Explode

By Dan Robitzski

SpaceX has released an early version of a user manual for its Starship, a rocket that's meant to one day ferry up to 100 passengers to the Moon and beyond.

SpaceX Starship “User Guide” Details Private Cabins, Common Areas

By Victor Tangermann

Researchers say they've built a system that can translate brain signals directly into text — allow users to think text directly into a computer.

Neuroscience and Brain

Scientists Debut System to Translate Thoughts Directly Into Text

By Jon Christian

On Monday, General Electric factory workers staged a mass walk-off to compel the company to start mass-producing medical ventilators.

Robots and Machines

GE Workers Protest: We Want To Build Ventilators, Let Us Build Ventilators

By Dan Robitzski

This guy took a relatively clear, awesome photograph of the ISS — the International Space Station — right from his backyard.

International Space Station

This Guy Took a Photo of the ISS from His Backyard

By Foster Kamer

The crew of a nuclear missile-equipped submarine belonging to the Russian Navy is in quarantine over concerns they have been exposed to the coronavirus.

Russia Quarantines Nuclear Sub Crew After Coronavirus Exposure

By Victor Tangermann

Just because you're holed up at home for the time being doesn't mean you can't help out with important scientific research.

Science & Energy

Astronomers Call on Quarantined Citizens to Hunt for Galaxies

By Dan Robitzski

Elon Musk-led space company SpaceX signed a contract with NASA on Friday for supplying the Gateway, a space station orbiting the Moon, with cargo.

NASA Hires SpaceX to Supply Lunar Gateway Space Station

By Victor Tangermann

With companies operating remotely than ever, bosses, managers, and executives are flocking to spy with disturbingly-invasive workplace surveillance tech.

Your Bosses Are Trying To Spy On You Now More Than Ever

By Dan Robitzski

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has decided to suspend its enforcement of environmental laws indefinitely in light of the ongoing pandemic.

Trump Suspends Enforcement of EPA Laws, Because ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

By Victor Tangermann

UK prime minister Boris Johnson downplayed the coronavirus pandemic for weeks. Now he says that he's tested positive for it.

UK Prime Minister Who Downplayed Coronavirus Now Has It

By Jon Christian

With large gatherings banned — and ill-advised anyway — eSports may be the best way to scratch your competitive itch for the time being.

Goddamn, I Guess We Need to Get Into eSports Now

By Dan Robitzski

Mexican protesters shut down the border with the United States, complaining that American travelers are spreading the deadly COVID-19 pandemic.

Mexican Protesters Complain That Americans Are Spreading COVID-19

By Jon Christian

On Thursday, the US surpassed all other countries in the world to have the highest number of coronavirus cases. And it's not a good look.

The US Now Has the Most Coronavirus Cases in the World

By Victor Tangermann

As climate change renders parts of the world inhospitably hot, the best move may be to dig down and build underground cities.

Experts: We Should Hide From the Apocalypse in Underground Cities

By Dan Robitzski

Canadian artist Julie Laurin recently started a livestream of tardigrades — eight-legged micro-animals also known as "water bears" — on Twitch.

Science & Energy

This Livestream of Tardigrades on Twitch is Oddly Soothing

By Victor Tangermann

According to a new report by Broadband Now, many cities in the US are experiencing internet slowdowns during the ongoing coronavirus outbreak.

It Isn’t Just You: The Internet Is Actually Super-Slow Lately

By Victor Tangermann

British technology maker Dyson has announced it has designed a new ventilator called the "CoVent" in just ten days to help treat coronavirus patients.

Vacuum Maker Dyson Designed a New Ventilator in Just 10 Days

By Victor Tangermann

The Great Barrier Reef just suffered its third mass coral bleaching event in three years, forcing authorities to make grim predictions for its future.

Meanwhile, The Great Barrier Reef Had a Horrible Bleaching Event

By Dan Robitzski

The U.S. Space Force is scheduled to conduct its first launch on Thursday afternoon. It's expected to deliver the final part of a new communication network.

The US Space Force Is About to Finally Leave the Planet

By Dan Robitzski

Tesla CEO and billionaire Elon Musk is still hoping to reopen one of his electric car company's Gigafactories for ventilator production.

Elon Musk: NY Gigafactory Will Reopen to Produce Ventilators

By Victor Tangermann

After revisiting 34-year-old data. NASA made a shocking discovery: Uranus is leaking its gassy atmosphere out into space.

Science & Energy

NASA Data Shows Something Leaking Out of Uranus

By Dan Robitzski

New data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope details the "quasar tsunami," a cosmic storm of such terrifying size that it can tear apart an entire galaxy.

Science & Energy

Behold the “Quasar Tsunami,” Which Can Kill an Entire Galaxy

By Jon Christian

The coronavirus pandemic has been a challenge for schools. But once teachers work out the kinks, remote education could revolutionize how we learn science.

Scientists: Remote Education Could Transform How We Teach Science

By Dan Robitzski

Politico reports that the Justice Department may charge people who spread the deadly virus intentionally with terrorism charges.

Spreading COVID-19 on Purpose? You Could Be Charged With Terrorism.

By Jon Christian