the digest(Page 157)

Latest in the digest

Self-driving company Cruise has unveiled driverless SUV-sized car called "Origin" that's been designed from the ground up to never have a driver.

Advanced Transport

This Functioning Driverless Car Has No Driver’s Seat

By Victor Tangermann

In April, Japan will launch the Space Domain Mission Unit to protect its space-based assets, according to an Associated Press story.

Japan Is Launching Its Own Space Defense Unit

By Kristin Houser

A team of researchers wants to make use of nuclear waste by converting it into extremely long-lasting diamond batteries that could power medical devices.

New Technique Turns Nuclear Waste Into “Diamond Batteries”

By Dan Robitzski

Four newly-discovered sharks use their fins to crawl across coral reefs — and can also walk across short stretches of dry land.

Sharks Are Evolving to Walk on Land

By Dan Robitzski

Rolls-Royce is eyeing two building sites for its first mini nuclear power stations called "small modular reactors" (SMR) in Wales and northern England.

Rolls-Royce Is Building Tiny Nuclear Reactors

By Victor Tangermann

A biological anthropology professor has written a book suggesting that it's not extraterrestrials piloting UFOs, but time-traveling humans from the future.

Professor: UFOs May Be Time-Traveling Humans From the Future

By Kristin Houser

Rand Paul's bizarre tweet suggests that we're not creating climate change on Earth, but perhaps we should be on Mars or some exoplanet.

Senator: Climate Change Is Fake. Also, Let’s Terraform New Worlds

By Dan Robitzski

The U.S. Space Force caused a social media frenzy by tweeting out a photo of its utility uniform nametapes on camouflage uniforms.

Space Force Unveils Camouflage Uniform, Sparking Twitter Frenzy

By Kristin Houser

After announcing plans to temporarily stop production of the 737 Max airliner in December, Boeing confirmed that production was officially on hold to CNN.

Advanced Transport

Boeing Officially Halts Production of 737 Max Airliner

By Victor Tangermann

Astrobiologist Samantha Rolfe has published an essay explaining how invisible aliens could already be living on Earth — and how they might have gotten here.

Science & Energy

Astrobiologist Explains How Invisible Aliens Could Live on Earth

By Kristin Houser

SpaceX tested its Crew Dragon spacecraft's in-flight abort system on Sunday, blowing up a Falcon 9 rocket in the process.

Watch a SpaceX Rocket Explode in Mid-Flight

By Victor Tangermann

NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Doug Hurley got to ride a Tesla Model X to the launch pad as part of a SpaceX pre-launch rehearsal over the weekend.

SpaceX Says It’ll Drive Astronauts to Launchpad in Tesla Model X

By Victor Tangermann

A research facility that studies how cadavers decompose had a break in of hungry feral cats, which actually gave forensics experts new insights and tools.

Science & Energy

Feral Cats Break Into Research Facility, Eat Human Cadavers

By Dan Robitzski

In a statement, Tesla stated that a petition about unintended acceleration crash reports "is completely false and was brought by a Tesla short-seller."

Tesla Blames Crash Reports on Short-Seller

By Victor Tangermann

Astronomers have built a new model that could answer lingering questions about Betelgeuse — by positing that it was once two stars.

Science & Energy

Giant Star Betelgeuse May Have Eaten a Smaller Companion

By Kristin Houser

A small Michigan town is spending $3,400 on a Nasal Ranger, a bizarre-looking device it hopes will help it sniff out illegal marijuana plants.

Smelly Town Buys Bizarre Device to Sniff out Marijuana Plants

By Kristin Houser

The NHTSA said Friday that it's thinking about launching an investigation over a petition citing issues over Teslas accelerating suddenly.

Government Might Investigate Teslas Accelerating Unexpectedly

By Victor Tangermann

European Space Agency (ESA) scientists have figured out a way to produce oxygen from Moon dust. The team just opened up their own "prototype oxygen plant."

Science & Energy

Scientists Say They’ve Found a Way to Make Oxygen From Moon Dust

By Victor Tangermann

A children's hospital being constructed in Dublin might implement facial recognition security cameras. The reasoning? To prevent babies from being stolen.

Facial recognition

Hospital: We Need Facial Recognition to Catch Baby Snatchers

By Dan Robitzski

The blob, a patch of warm water in the Pacific Ocean, caused the deaths of an estimated one million seabirds, according to a new study.

Pacific Ocean’s Warm “Blob” Killed a Million Seabirds in One Year

By Kristin Houser

In a series of tweets on Thursday evening, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk revealed some more details of his greater plans to colonize Mars.

Elon Musk Says He’ll Put A Million People on Mars By 2050

By Victor Tangermann

YouTubers from "The Hacksmith" have made great progress on their half scale Tesla Cybertruck, drifting around a snowy parking lot in their latest video.

Advanced Transport

Watch This Adorable Mini Cybertruck Drift in the Snow

By Victor Tangermann

First Major Food Brand Adds Carbon Footprint Labels to Products

By Kristin Houser

A housing developer has a plan to bring affordable housing to San Francisco: pack people into tiny underground sleeping pods.

This Developer Wants to Pack Renters Into Tiny Underground Pods

By Kristin Houser

Researchers have built a flying robot drone called PigeonBot that features real pigeon feathers in an effort to understand the kinetics of birds' flight.

Scientists Made a Drone Fly Better Using Real Pigeon Feathers

By Victor Tangermann

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) compared facial recognition tech to the dystopian sci-fi series "Black Mirror" during a House committee meeting.

Facial recognition

AOC Warns That Facial Recognition Is “Real-Life ‘Black Mirror'”

By Kristin Houser

Over 20,000 people have offered to become Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa's flight companion on his trip around the Moon and "life partner."

20,000 Apply to Be Billionaire’s Girlfriend, Get Free Moon Trip

By Victor Tangermann

Vanderbilt University law student Ramon Ryan argues in a new paper that the FCC's approval of over 30,000 planned SpaceX satellites could've been unlawful.

Researcher: SpaceX Satellite Plans Break US Environmental Law

By Victor Tangermann

An experimental NASA program is tinkering with the idea of building a Mars or Moon base out of living mushrooms that astronauts would grow onsite.

NASA Wants to Grow a Moon Base Out of Mushrooms

By Dan Robitzski

A piece of astronaut Christina Koch's helmet fell off during an ISS spacewalk on Wednesday, forcing her to rely on her partner Jessica Meir for light.

Piece of Astronaut’s Spacesuit Falls Off During Spacewalk

By Kristin Houser

Scientists sequenced the entire giant squid genome, revealing new hints into how the unusual creature reached its huge size and developed a complex brain.

Researchers Finally Sequence Giant Squid’s Entire Genome

By Dan Robitzski

Silicon Valley startup Mojo Vision unveiled a working AR prototype of the Mojo Lens today, what it claims to be "the world’s first true smart contact lens."

Prosthetics and Devices

Startup Unveils Working Prototype of AR Contact Lens

By Victor Tangermann

Researchers from UCLA have identified six shape-shifting G objects orbiting the black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy.

Science & Energy

Strange Shape-Shifting Objects Found Near Milky Way’s Black Hole

By Kristin Houser

An international team of astronomers have found new evidence of a second exoplanet orbiting Proxima Centauri, called Proxima c.

Science & Energy

Scientists Find Evidence of Second Planet Orbiting Closest Star

By Victor Tangermann

The U.S. Army is developing tech that uses facial recognition software to identify targets from up to .5 kilometers away, even in the dark.

Artificial Intelligence

Army Developing Tech to ID Terrorists in the Dark From .5 KM Away

By Kristin Houser

Harvard Law Journal has published a bold — but entirely constitutional — plan to save democracy by creating 127 tiny new states.

Harvard Plan Suggests Adding 127 States to the United States

By Kristin Houser

Scientists working with DARPA developed a living concrete, teeming with bacteria, that resembles Jell-O. It can grow and regenerate itself when it breaks.

Science & Energy

Scientists Create “Living Concrete” That Can Heal Itself

By Dan Robitzski

Trump is displeased that Apple refused to give the FBI backdoor access into iPhone security, but the company already sends lots of data to law enforcement.

Trump Demands That Apple Give Government Access to iPhones

By Dan Robitzski

Swiss watchmaker H. Moser & Cie. has partnered with Surrey NanoSystems — the company behind Vantablack — to create a watch that looks like a black hole.

This Vantablack Watch Costs $75,000

By Victor Tangermann

17 children and nine adults are being treated for minor injuries today after a jet approaching LAX dumped a bunch of jet fuel over an elementary school.

Boeing 777 Dumps Fuel on California Schoolchildren

By Victor Tangermann

A new report has found that Grindr, Tinder, and other dating apps have been covertly selling users' sensitive information to third-party companies.

Researchers: Grindr and Tinder Are Selling Your Personal Data

By Kristin Houser

For the second time, LIGO researchers detected gravitational waves given off by a merging pair of neutron stars, but the collision challenges their models.

Science & Energy

Scientists Detect Epic Neutron Star Collision

By Dan Robitzski

Tesla is selling a new T-shirt featuring an image of the glass that was shattered during the company's Cybertruck unveiling in November.

New Tesla Merch Pokes Fun at Cybertruck Unveil Fail

By Victor Tangermann

A team of researchers confirmed that climate change is indeed making wildfires worse after analyzing 57 peer-reviewed papers published since 2013.

Research: Climate Change Is Indeed Making Wildfires Worse

By Victor Tangermann

Many of San Francisco's recently opened robot restaurants are already going out of business, as pointed out by a new Business Insider story.

San Francisco’s Robot Restaurants Are Going out of Business

By Kristin Houser

China's world record, "alien-hunting" telescope, FAST, became fully operational on Saturday, quadrupling the amount of the universe astronomers can examine.

Science & Energy

China Finally Boots Up Colossal Alien-Hunting Radio Telescope

By Dan Robitzski

On opposite side of the Earth's core lie two massive, mysterious blobs of ultrahot ancient rock that have scientists locked in a decades-long disagreement.

Science & Energy

Geologists Baffled By “Massive Anomalies” at Edge of Earth’s Core

By Dan Robitzski

A new documentary will follow Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa as he hunts for a "life partner" to join him on a trip around the Moon in 2023.

Billionaire Seeks “Life Partner” to Join Him on SpaceX Moon Trip

By Kristin Houser

A journalist crashed Segway's new S-Pod into a wall at CES 2020, bringing an end to the self-balancing electric wheelchair's demonstration.

Advanced Transport

Segway’s New Vehicle Crashes Into Wall During CES Demo

By Kristin Houser

MIT released a massive report about the university's ties to Jeffrey Epstein. Along with publishing the report, MIT also suspended engineer Seth Lloyd.

MIT Suspends Another Professor for Epstein Ties

By Dan Robitzski

In a video uploaded to Twitter by Elon Musk, a Tesla Model 3 can be heard talking to pedestrians, the newest feature Musk has announced for the Tesla.

Elon Musk Says Teslas Will Talk to Pedestrians

By Victor Tangermann

The U.S. Department of Energy will build the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC), a cutting-edge particle collider, at New York's Brookhaven National Laboratory.

DOE: New York Will Be Home to a New Particle Collider

By Kristin Houser

Spanish startup Novameat has unveiled its latest product: Steak 2.0, a plant-based steak it says is the "most realistic" yet.

This Meaty-Looking “Steak” Is Made From Peas and Seaweed

By Kristin Houser

According comments he made on a post that outlined his New Year's resolutions on Facebook, Zuckerberg revealed that he hunts wild boar with bow and arrow.

Mark Zuckerberg Says He Hunts Wild Boar With a Bow and Arrow

By Victor Tangermann

A study of mass mortality events involving feral pigs could yield insights that help Australia repair its ecosystem after its devastating brushfires.

Science & Energy

15 Tons of Rotting Feral Pigs May Help Save Australian Ecosystem

By Kristin Houser

On Wednesday, the Australian government began its plan to shoot down 10,000 wild camels that were threatening local communities in their hunt for water.

Australian Snipers Are Shooting 10,000 Camels From Helicopters

By Dan Robitzski

A new report suggests that the U.S. military might be holding on to more footage of a mysterious 2004 "unidentified aerial phenomenon" UFO encounter.

US Military Admits It Has Secret Footage of UFO Incident

By Victor Tangermann

SpaceX hopes to prove that NASA astronauts will be safe aboard Crew Dragon by deliberately destroying a Falcon 9 rocket soon after launch.

SpaceX Is Going to Blow up a Falcon 9 Rocket Just After Launch

By Kristin Houser

A team of German researchers have finally solved the mystery of a mysterious seismic humming first discovered in November 2018: an underwater volcano.

Science & Energy

Scientists Find Source of Bizarre Worldwide Humming Noise

By Victor Tangermann

Surveillance vendor Special Services Group has created a truly bizarre collection of tech for cops — including a spy camera hidden in a tombstone.

This Company Sells Cops a Spy Camera Hidden Inside a Tombstone

By Kristin Houser

The Radcliffe Wave is an unbroken stream stars and stellar nurseries 9,000 light-years long — and it may be the biggest structure in the Milky Way.

Science & Energy

Wave of “Stellar Nurseries” May Be Our Galaxy’s Biggest Structure

By Kristin Houser

The eight "mighty mice" NASA sent to space have returned to Earth from the ISS, potentially bringing with them insights on humans avoiding muscle loss.

NASA’s Super-Muscular Mice Return to Earth From Space

By Kristin Houser

In a letter to Senators, Ring confirmed at least four instances of employees abusing their power to watch customers' video footage.

Amazon Employees Were Watching Ring Footage For Fun

By Dan Robitzski

Two stars that make up the binary system called V Sagittae some 1,100 light years away are going to collide in an enormous explosion around 2083.

Science & Energy

These Two Stars Will Collide in a Spectacular Explosion

By Victor Tangermann