the digest (Page 173)

Latest in the digest

The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration sent Tesla cease-and-desist letter claiming it had made "misleading statements" about safety.

US Gov: Tesla Made “Misleading” Safety Claims About Model 3

By Victor Tangermann

A Tesla hearse, converted from a 2018 Model S, is currently listed on a Norwegian classifieds website for the equivalent of about $208,000.

You Can Now Buy a Tesla Hearse for $200,000

By Kristin Houser

After being removed by Facebook, the event called "Storm Area 51" has been resurrected. Facebook claims it was a "mistake."

It’s Back: Facebook Resurrects “Storm Area 51” Event

By Victor Tangermann

Astronomers have discovered 39 massive ancient galaxies — and they could inform our understanding of everything from black holes to dark matter.

Science & Energy

Astronomers Discover an Entire Population of Ancient Galaxies

By Kristin Houser

During an episode of Joe Rogan's podcast, Bernie Sanders promised he'd tell the public about alien life if he was elected president.

Science & Energy

Bernie Sanders Tells Joe Rogan He’d Declassify Aliens as President

By Dan Robitzski

Most people would rather lose their job to automation than to another human, according to a newly published study out of Germany.

Most People Would Rather a Robot Steal Their Job Than a Person

By Kristin Houser

Hotel giant Marriott announced in April that it's planning to construct a 26-story skyscraper in New York City in just 90 days.

Robots and Machines

This Company Says It’ll Build an Entire Skyscraper in 90 Days

By Victor Tangermann

Astronomers just found the remains of a dead star, one of the oldest in the universe, buried inside of another still-living red giant.

Science & Energy

Scientists Just Found a Dead Star Lodged Inside Another Star

By Dan Robitzski

Canada is accepting proposals for ways to remove space junk, the dangerous bits of old satellites and rockets currently orbiting the Earth.

Canada Wants Your Help Cleaning up Space Junk

By Kristin Houser

AlterEgo lets people silently communicate with a digital assistant that gives them information, translates foreign language, or interacts with smart tech.

Robots and Machines

This Gadget Puts a Digital Assistant Inside Your Head

By Dan Robitzski

Russia's Ministry of Defense just released the first footage of its Sukhoi-S70 Okhotnik-B (Hunter-B) unmanned combat air vehicle taking flight on August 3.

Russia’s Top Secret Heavy Strike Stealth Drone Takes Flight

By Victor Tangermann

Subway has announced a partnership with Beyond Meat to test out a new sandwich called the Beyond Meatball Marinara Sub in participating restaurants.

Subway to Start Selling Meatless Meatball Marinara Subs

By Victor Tangermann

SpaceX's Ms. Tree boat was able to catch a Falcon 9's nose cone, thereby preventing the fairing from splashing down into the Atlantic Ocean.

Watch SpaceX Catch a Rocket’s Nose Cone With a Giant Net

By Kristin Houser

The US Army is Building a Supercomputer Inside a Storage Container

The US Army is Building a Supercomputer Inside a Storage Container

By Victor Tangermann

The Planetary Society's LightSail 2 has officially raised its orbit by just shy of two miles using its solar sail.

“Solar Sail” Spacecraft Climbs Two Miles of Orbit Using Sun Power

By Victor Tangermann

Engineers built a robot tail called Arque that could help people balance, lift heavy loads, or at least make VR games more immersive.

Prosthetics and Devices

Amazing Robot Tail Helps You Balance

By Dan Robitzski

The CDC has ordered a military germ lab to "cease and desist" all research involving high-level disease-causing materials after a failed safetly inspection.

CDC Shuts Down Military Germ Lab Due to Safety Concerns

By Kristin Houser

Uber and Lyft funded a traffic study that showed that ride-hailing apps are responsible for a big chunk of traffic in major cities.

Advanced Transport

Ride-Hailing Apps Make Traffic Worse — And Now They’re Admitting It

By Dan Robitzski

Scientists from the University of Leeds have created 2D gold — and they think it could improve everything from electronics to water purification systems.

Science & Energy

Researchers Create First-Ever “2D Gold,” Just Two Atoms Thick

By Kristin Houser

Astronomers Just Spotted One of the Biggest Black Holes Ever

Science & Energy

Astronomers Just Spotted One of the Biggest Black Holes Ever

By Victor Tangermann

Sony researchers have created an AI drummer that can listen to a song and produce a "musically plausible" kick drum beat for it.

Artificial Intelligence

Sony’s New AI Drummer Could Write Beats for Your Band

By Kristin Houser

If global temperatures reach two degrees Celsius about pre-industrial levels, 30,000 additional people will die in Chinese cities every year.

A Half-Degree Temperature Rise Will Kill 30,000 in China Per Year

By Dan Robitzski

Japan is putting nearly $1 billion into moonshot projects like cyborg tech, human hibernation, and recycling its industrial waste.

Japan Pledges $900 Million to Cyborg, Human Hibernation Research

By Dan Robitzski

A flying car created by Japanese electronics maker NEC Corp. and startup Cartivator just hovered 10 feet off the ground for a full minute.

Advanced Transport

Watch This Flying Car Nail Its Flight Demonstration

By Kristin Houser

After this weekend's mass shooting in Texas, the internet infrastructure company Cloudflare decided to cancel its service to the online forum 8chan.

Service Providers Shut Down 8Chan Over Mass Shooters’ Manifestos

By Dan Robitzski

Facebook has removed an event called "Storm Area 51" with some 2 million Facebook users who have RSVP'd, claiming it violated community standards.

Facebook Removes “Storm Area 51” Event

By Victor Tangermann

NASA has a major wild hog problem at its Kennedy Space Center, with upwards of 12,000 of the animals terrorizing the campus.

NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Is Infested With Feral Hogs. Really.

By Kristin Houser

A new study reveals that cosmic radiation is even more dangerous than we thought. Mice exposed to Mars-journey levels developed dementia-like symptoms.

Science & Energy

Mars-Journey Levels of Radiation Seriously Damaged Mouse Brains

By Dan Robitzski

Financial aggregation services are giving hackers everything they need to access and empty wealthy targets' bank accounts.

Science & Energy

Hackers Are Cracking Online Banking Sites to Steal Your Cash

By Dan Robitzski

Israeli lunar lander Beresheet crashed onto the surface of the Moon on April 11 spilling thousands of dehydrated "water bears" or tardigrades.

Science & Energy

Crashed Moon Lander Splattered Live Organisms Onto Lunar Surface

By Victor Tangermann

SpaceX has launched a SmallSat Rideshare Program, an initiative designed to let smaller satellite operators split the cost of launches.

SpaceX Debuts “Rideshare” Program For Launching Satellites

By Kristin Houser

In response to two mass shootings, Trump says social media companies should spot mass shooters before they commit and violent crimes.

Trump: Social Media Companies Should Spot Mass Shooters in Advance

By Dan Robitzski

A new CGI system can create a fully-rendered video game character based on a performer's motion capture data in real time.

Robots and Machines

Amazing Tech Turns You Into a CGI Character In Real Time

By Dan Robitzski

Israel believes soldiers might control the "tank of the future" using a joystick like the one that comes with an Xbox gaming console.

Robots and Machines

Israel Demos “Tank of the Future” Featuring Xbox-Style Controller

By Kristin Houser

Some Elon Musk followers are suggesting that the CEO's jokey Twitter feed could be his way of foreshadowing the debut of a new Tesla vehicle.

Elon Musk Fans Think His Meme Tweets Are Teasing a New Tesla

By Jon Christian

Franky Zapata's second attempt to cross the English Channel on his flying hoverboard was a success — and now he's turning his attention to his flying car.

Advanced Transport

Hoverboard Guy Crosses English Channel, Shifts Focus to Flying Car

By Kristin Houser

A deepfake answers the age-old question: "What would it look like if Keanu Reeves had the body of a child actor singing in an episode of 'Sesame Street?'"

Artificial Intelligence

Someone Deepfaked Keanu Reeves Into “Sesame Street”

By Dan Robitzski

CEO Elon Musk has tweeted that SpaceX's Starship prototype should be "almost ready to fly" in time for the company's August 24 update presentation.

Elon Musk: Starship Prototypes Could Be Ready to Fly This Month

By Kristin Houser

Columbia University's David Kipping thinks we could transform Earth's atmosphere into a planet-sized telescope he'd dubbed the "terrascope."

Science & Energy

Astronomer: We Can Use Earth’s Atmosphere as a Massive Telescope

By Kristin Houser

Chinese students are already interacting with AI teachers, and what they learn could affect the future of education on a global scale.

China’s AI Teachers Could Revolutionize Education Worldwide

By Kristin Houser

With new contracts awarded to weapons developers, the Army is pushing for new laser weapons capable of destroying drones and vehicles.

US Army Doubles Down on Directed Energy Weapons

By Dan Robitzski

Hong Kong protesters are reportedly shining high-powered laser beams at surveillance cameras to confuse facial recognition technology.

Facial recognition

Hong Kong Protesters Use Lasers to Block Facial Recognition Tech

By Kristin Houser

Now there's another lawsuit filed against Tesla after a driver died behind the wheel of an "Autopilot"-enabled car that crashed.

Tesla Slammed by Another Autopilot Crash Lawsuit

By Dan Robitzski

Researchers claim they have made significant progress in developing a blood test that can detect Alzheimer's up to 20 years before any symptoms appear.

Health & Medicine

New Blood Test Could Detect Alzheimer’s 20 Years Before Symptoms

By Victor Tangermann

The Pentagon has 25 mass surveillance balloons that can monitor and track individual vehicles as they travel across states.

The Pentagon Is Launching Mass Surveillance Balloons Over America

By Dan Robitzski

A team of researchers just 3D printed functional components of the human heart using a specialized printer that's capable of printing suspended hydrogels.

Researchers 3D Print Functional Components of Human Heart

By Victor Tangermann

In newly released documents, the FBI announced that Pizzagate and QAnon conspiracy theorists pose a domestic terrorism threat.

FBI: Conspiracy Theorists Are a Domestic Terrorism Threat

By Dan Robitzski

Scientists are growing the first human-monkey hybrid embryos in a Chinese laboratory, according to a new story in Spanish newspaper El País.

Science & Energy

Scientists Are Reportedly Growing Human-Monkey Embryos in China

By Kristin Houser

A new roach-like robot out of UC Berkely can withstand the weight of a person stepping on it and scuttle at a speed of 20 body lengths per second.

This Roach-Sized Robot Keeps Going Even After You Step on It

By Kristin Houser

Before his controversial gene-hacking research was condemned, He Jiankui wanted to open a designer baby clinic in China or Thailand.

Health & Medicine

That “CRISPR Baby” Scientist Wanted to Open a Designer Baby Clinic

By Dan Robitzski

The newly launched AI Bar system uses facial recognition technology to ensure bar patrons are served in the proper order.

Artificial Intelligence

This AI Scans Faces to Let Bartenders Know Who’s Next in Line

By Kristin Houser

Before we make first contact with any aliens out there, we should figure out whether we're willing to kill them to further our scientific knowledge.

Scientist: We Should Be Prepared to Kill Aliens

By Dan Robitzski

A new crypto platform called SpankPay wants to become the go-to payment service for porn and adult entertainment, circumventing more hostile financiers.

Science & Energy

Finally, Porn Is on the Blockchain

By Dan Robitzski

Physicists built a "mini-sun" that's helping them study solar winds and why the Sun occasionally ejects blasts of plasma into space.

Scientists Built a Ball of Plasma They Call a “Mini-Sun”

By Dan Robitzski

Lyft e-bikes are catching fire in San Francisco, prompting the company to pull the city's entire fleet untl it can figure out what's going on.

Advanced Transport

Lyft Suspends SF E-Bikes Because They’re Bursting Into Flames

By Kristin Houser

Andrew Yang says it's too late to stop some of the effects of climate change, and we should all migrate uphill to avoid floods.

Yang’s Climate Plan: “Start Moving Our People to Higher Ground”

By Dan Robitzski

An experimental HIV vaccine that showed promise in past studies is about to be tested on thousands of people from around the world.

Health & Medicine

Thousands of People Are About to Test an HIV Vaccine

By Dan Robitzski

Astronomers have found that a distant exoplanet is so drawn by the gravitational pull from its host star, it's being deformed into the shape of a football.

Science & Energy

Scientists Just Found a Hellish Exoplanet Shaped Like a Football

By Victor Tangermann

The Tesla Dog Mode feature has a serious flaw that is putting pets' lives in danger, but thankfully, the company is already working on a fix.

A Glitch in Tesla’s Dog Mode Is Trapping Pups In Hot Cars

By Kristin Houser

Researchers at DeepMind have found that their machine learning AI could alert medical health professionals of future kidney injury 48 hours early.

Artificial Intelligence

This “AI Doctor” Can Predict Acute Kidney Conditions 2 Days Early

By Victor Tangermann

MOZI 2, a solar-powered drone with a wingspan of 15 meters, just successfully completed its maiden flight, according to Chinese media reports.

This Strange Solar-Powered Drone Could Save You in a Disaster

By Kristin Houser

Jailed sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein reportedly met with prominent scientists for years to discuss his interest in eugenics and other fringe sciences.

Science & Energy

Sex Trafficker Jeffrey Epstein Obsessed With Eugenics, Cryogenics

By Dan Robitzski

A Denver beverage company is developing teas and coffees infused with psilocybin, the compound that gives "magic mushrooms" hallucinogenic properties.

Health & Medicine

This Startup Is Developing Tea, Coffee Infused With Psilocybin

By Kristin Houser

An experiment called BioRock is figuring out whether bacteria could turn space rocks into farmable soil for future off-world settlements.

Astronomers Want to Use Bacteria to Mine Space Rocks

By Dan Robitzski