the digest (Page 159)

Latest in the digest

During Thursday's debate, Bernie Sanders suggested cutting the military's bloated budget and putting it towards a more important fight: climate change.

Bernie Sanders: Spend Money on the Climate Instead of Weapons

By Dan Robitzski

Malls are giving their Santa villages digital upgrades in the hopes of luring parents — and their money — away from online shopping.

Mall Santas Are Using Gimmicks to Court Instagram Parents

By Kristin Houser

NASA just released an image of a "cosmic candy cane" in the center of the galaxy. The unusually shaped cloud is likely linked to active star formation.

Science & Energy

Scientists Discover “Cosmic Candy Cane” in Milky Way Galaxy

By Dan Robitzski

Watch a Jet Wing Pilot “Jetman” Hover Over a Lake

Advanced Transport

Watch a Jet Wing Pilot “Jetman” Hover Over a Lake

By Victor Tangermann

A Russian YouTube channel built a knock-off version of Tesla's Cybertruck and then drove it around the streets of Moscow.

Russians Troll Elon Musk With Knockoff Cybertruck

By Kristin Houser

Tech giant Apple reportedly has a secret team working on satellite-based wireless data beaming technology, according to Bloomberg.

Apple Is Reportedly Working on Secret Satellite Tech

By Victor Tangermann

An Army research center patented bizarre boots that generates electricity every time a soldier takes a step, giving them a new way to power their gear.

The Army Wants to Generate Electricity Inside Soldiers’ Boots

By Dan Robitzski

Ocean acidification is literally eating away at sharks' skin, destroying the layer of tiny scales that helps them swim and hunt.

Our Acidic Oceans Are Eating Away at Sharks’ Skin

By Dan Robitzski

A major investigation reveals two terrifying truths: your phone is constantly tracking and sharing your location, and you have no control over it.

Phone Location Tracking Is Way Worse Than We Thought

By Dan Robitzski

Engineers taught an artificially intelligent robot to cook and serve hot dogs by training it in a virtual setting and then an actual grill.

Finally, a Smart Robot That Can Cook and Serve Us Hot Dogs

By Dan Robitzski

Researchers at North Carolina State University are exploring if drones can be used to monitor the growth of Christmas trees in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Farmers Could Use Drones to Grow Better Christmas Trees

By Victor Tangermann

Engineers built a soft robotic bug capable of surviving harsh punishment like being flattened, stomped, and folded. It's creepy, but a huge step forward.

This Robotic Bug Was Designed to Survive Swatting

By Dan Robitzski

The Moon’s surface could electrocute future astronauts as they plan to visit areas hit by very little charge-negating sunlight.

Moon’s Surface Could Electrocute Astronauts, Scientists Warn

By Victor Tangermann

According to a Wednesday tweet, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has its doubt that the company's upcoming computer upgrade option will be worth $2,000.

Elon Musk: $2,000 Tesla Computer Upgrade Not Worth It

By Victor Tangermann

The internet has a shockingly large environmental impact, and data centers are giving off an increasing amount of carbon emissions. Something has to give.

In the Face of Climate Change, the Internet Is Unsustainable

By Dan Robitzski

China says its HL-2M tokamak should be operational in 2020, and the “artificial sun” could potentially make nuclear fusion a viable energy option on Earth.

Science & Energy

China Expects Its “Artificial Sun” to Be Operational in 2020

By Kristin Houser

British startup StandardToilet has designed a productivity toilet that's intentionally made to be uncomfortable thanks to its 13-degree slope.

Startup Invents Uncomfortable Toilet to Boost Productivity

By Victor Tangermann

If companies are given free rein to scrape the ocean floor for precious minerals, entire undiscovered ecosystems will be snuffed out.

This Plan to Mine the Ocean Floor May Erase Whole Ecosystems

By Dan Robitzski

CIMON-2, the new version of the International Space Station's (ISS) bizarre, spherical robot assistant, should be better at picking up on emotional cues.

The International Space Station’s Robot Got an Emotional Upgrade

By Dan Robitzski

Scientists built a bizarre, tiny circuit that changes as electricity flows through it that they say could help them construct an artificial brain.

Scientists: Tiny Silver Wires Demonstrate “Brain-Like” Properties

By Dan Robitzski

Department store Bloomingdale's incorporated robots into its 2019 holiday window displays — and the whimsical scenes could foreshadow the future of retail.

Robots Decorate Trees, Perform Carols in Store’s Holiday Display

By Kristin Houser

Russia is pouring big money into quantum research in a bid to catch up to other world leaders' quantum computer programs.

Quantum Physics

Russia Desperately Wants a Quantum Computer

By Dan Robitzski

NASA recently spotted yet another gigantic storm on Jupiter's south pole, bringing the total count up to seven swirling vortices.

Science & Energy

Check Out This Hypnotic Array of Colossal Storms on Jupiter

By Dan Robitzski

A group is developing an AI to finished Ludwig van Beethoven's 10th symphony, which the composer was writing when he died in 1827.

Artificial Intelligence

An AI Is Completing Beethoven’s Unfinished Symphony

By Kristin Houser

NASA is sending Boeing's Starliner passenger spacecraft to the International Space Station early Friday morning from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

This Week, Boeing Will Try to Dock Its Space Taxi With the ISS

By Victor Tangermann

Unless it's particularly old, your car is likely spying on you, sending an unsettling amount of information about you and your behavior to the manufacturer.

Advanced Transport

Cars Are Secretly Spying on Us

By Dan Robitzski

New York-based research and design company Lars Buro has come up with the "Cybunker," a "hi-tech depot" or "off-grid residence" for you and your Cybertruck.

Advanced Transport

Check Out the “Cybunker,” a Post-Apocalyptic Cybertruck Garage

By Victor Tangermann

Amazon is full of third-party merchants selling food and other stuff they found in the garbage. It turns out it's not hard to sneak through the system.

Scammers Are Selling Dumpster-Dived Food on Amazon

By Dan Robitzski

A team of researchers have created an AI that is able to come up with a recipe for "perovskite" that could one day be used to create spray-on solar cells.

Scientists Are Working on Spray-On Solar Panels

By Victor Tangermann

Former NASA engineer Mark Rober is back with a new-and-improved Glitter Bomb Trap 2.0, an upgrade to his rigged package for "porch pirates."

NASA Alum Upgrades Glitter Stink Bomb for “Porch Pirates”

By Kristin Houser

Google fired a fifth employee who had been trying to organize the comapny's workforce, though the tech giant denies that was the root issue.

Google Reportedly Fires Fifth Worker For Organizing Unionization

By Dan Robitzski

Urban flight company Skyryse has shown off what it calls the "world's most intelligent helicopter" — a modified self-flying helicopter.

Advanced Transport

Watch the First Commercial Self-Flying Helicopter Take Off

By Victor Tangermann

Newly discovered "cocoons" of gaseous carbon around young galaxies could help solve the mystery of how the element spread throughout the universe.

Science & Energy

Strange “Cocoons” Surround These Young Galaxies

By Kristin Houser

NASA just released a new image, the clearest yet, of 2I/Borisov, the second ever interstellar visitor we've seen enter our solar system.

Science & Energy

NASA Releases New Image of Interstellar Visitor

By Dan Robitzski

New research reveals that Mars auroras — the Red Planet's version of the Northern Lights, are far more common than previously thought.

Science & Energy

Majestic Auroras Sweep the Martian Sky Almost Every Day

By Dan Robitzski

Starting in January, Boeing will halt production on its 737 MAX passenger jets, two of which recently crashed, killing everyone on board.

Advanced Transport

Boeing to Halt Production of Disaster-Prone 737 MAX Jet

By Kristin Houser

Thousands of engineers have been designing and working on a gigantic intergovernmental radio telescope network called the Square Kilometer Array (SKA).

Science & Energy

Africa Unveils Massive Alien-Hunting Antenna Network

By Victor Tangermann

A car in the U.K. exploded because its driver sprayed an "excessive" amount of flammable air freshener in the vehicle and then lit a cigarette.

Advanced Transport

A Driver Used so Much Air Freshener His Car Literally Exploded

By Kristin Houser

New Orleans is the latest city to be targeted by ransomware hackers, but after a weekend-long emergency response, it seems to be back to normal.

New Orleans Declares State of Emergency Due to Hackers

By Dan Robitzski

A proposed NASA space telescope called HabEx would use a gigantic sail to filter out the light from distant stars while hunting new exiplanets.

Science & Energy

Scientists Want a Giant Folding Space Telescope to Find Earth 2.0

By Dan Robitzski

The ESA is launching a space telescope called CHEOPS (Characterising Exoplanets Satellite) on Tuesday to study distant planets.

Science & Energy

Europe is Launching a Planet-Hunting Space Telescope Tomorrow

By Victor Tangermann

A driver used his Tesla dashcam footage to prove a police officer was wrong in issuing him a ticket for failure to signal at an intersection.

Tesla Owner’s Dashcam Footage Proves Cop Wrong

By Kristin Houser

A new survey of the center of the Milky Way challenges what astronomers have long thought about how stars formed in the region.

Science & Energy

Astronomers May Have Been Wrong About The Milky Way’s History

By Dan Robitzski

The Venezuelan government is now paying people to start using its official altcoin by airdropping crypto to public employees, retirees, and the military.

Here’s Why Venezuela Is Giving Retirees Free Altcoins

By Dan Robitzski

A hundred lights that have appeared and disappeared in the night sky over the past 70 years could be signs of the existence of aliens.

Newly Discovered Blinking Space Lights Could Be Signs of Aliens

By Kristin Houser

Ad Astra CEO and former NASA astronaut Franklin Chang Diaz is building a plasma rocket engine that he thinks is our best bet to send people to Mars.

A Former NASA Astronaut Is Building a Plasma-Powered Mars Rocket

By Dan Robitzski

A team of legal representatives of those whose money disappeared with bitcoin CEO Gerald Cotten's death have sent a letter seeking an exhumation.

They Might Dig Up Body of Bitcoin CEO to See If He’s Really Dead

By Victor Tangermann

Watch YouTubers Build a Functional Half-Scale Cybertruck, Because Why Not?

Advanced Transport

Watch YouTubers Build a Functional Half-Scale Cybertruck, Because Why Not?

By Victor Tangermann

For the first time, NASA built a complete map of the surface of a neutron star, giving astronomers a new resource as they try to understand the cosmos.

Science & Energy

Stare Into the Brutal Maw of This Barbarous Neutron Star

By Dan Robitzski

Nonprofit New Story has unveiled the first 3D-printed houses in what will eventually be a community boasting 50 of the unique homes.

These Adorable 3D-Printed Houses Could Solve Homelessness

By Kristin Houser

Scientists just spotted MAMBO-9. The ancient galaxy's light just reached Earth after a 13 billion year-long journey through space.

Science & Energy

Scientists Spot One of the Most Distant Galaxies Ever: MAMBO-9

By Dan Robitzski

The Milky Way might be home to two black holes and not just one — and researchers have a plan for detecting Sagittarius A*'s "hidden friend."

Science & Energy

Our Galaxy Might Have — Two! — Black Holes at Its Center

By Kristin Houser

The AI research firm AI Now called for the ban of untested and biased technologies like facial recognition and emotion-detecting algorithms.

Facial recognition

Report: Facial Recognition Should Be Banned From Everyday Life

By Dan Robitzski

Russia is launching a center devoted to monitoring meteors, comets, and asteroids to ensure they don't collide with Earth.

Science & Energy

Russia Is Working on Its Own Plan to Blow up Killer Asteroids

By Kristin Houser

Chinese company Futurus's new heads-up display screen for cars takes advantage of the entire windshield and not just a small part of it.

Advanced Transport

A Startup Wants to Turn Your Car’s Windshield Into a Giant Screen

By Kristin Houser

For the last six months, a highly-automated dairy farm has been floating off the coast of the Netherlands, providing city slickers with fresh milk.

35 Cows Live on a Floating Dairy Farm Staffed by Robots

By Dan Robitzski

In a filing with the California Air Resources Board, Tesla said Cybertruck will be a “Class 2B-3” medium-duty vehicle, rated for a payload of 3,500 pounds.

Tesla: Cybertrucks Could Weigh Up To 10,000 Pounds

By Victor Tangermann

A true mad scientist bred 97 different kinds of broccoli and mapped their DNA. The verdict? all of them were "delicious."

A Researcher Grew 97 Kinds of Broccoli and Sequenced Their DNA

By Dan Robitzski

A viral video uploaded on Wednesday by college student Erica Church shows her physics professor David Wright jovially pull off some amazing tricks in class.

Adorable Physics Prof Finally Gets His Viral Moment of Fame

By Victor Tangermann

Geneticist George Church created an FAQ for his in-development DNA dating app to address comparisons to the notorious eugenics movement.

Geneticist Says His DNA Dating App Isn’t Really Eugenics

By Kristin Houser

NASA researchers have created a "treasure map" detailing where they believe water ice exists just below the surface of Mars.

NASA Releases “Treasure Map” for Water Ice on Mars

By Kristin Houser

New radar maps and digital models reveal a massive underground valley beneath Greenland, including a thousand-mile-long "Dark River."

Science & Energy

Scientists Discover “Dark River” Under Greenland

By Dan Robitzski

The rats that survive eradication attempts could have sickly offspring — or they could produce "super rats" that are even harder to kill.

Our Attempts to Kill Rats Are Making Them Evolve at Super Speed

By Kristin Houser

Tesla's general counsel, Jonathan Chang, left the company last week. That makes three lawyers and 16 executives to leave Tesla this year.

Tesla’s Top Lawyers Keep Leaving

By Dan Robitzski