UPS reserves 125 Tesla semi-trucks, largest public pre-order yet

United Parcel Service Inc said on Tuesday it is buying 125 Tesla Inc all-electric semi-trucks, the largest known order for the big rig so far, as the package delivery company expands its fleet of alternative-fuel vehicles.

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2021 preview: We will find out if microplastics are harming our cells

Despite mounting evidence that we eat, drink and breathe microplastics it still isn't clear if they enter our bodies and cause harm, but in 2021 we should get some answers

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The Air Force Is Building a Spacecraft That Will Beam Solar Power to Earth

This is some real sci-fi stuff.

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How Does Space Travel Affect Natural Aging?

Growing older can take a serious toll on the body. Bones become brittle, muscle shrinks, the immune system loses strength, and age-related ailments like arthritis can set in. More serious complications like declining cognitive function and heart disease can also take hold as the later years of life progress.

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Primordial black holes and the search for dark matter from the multiverse

Astronomers are studying black holes that could have formed in the early universe, before stars and galaxies were born. Such primordial black holes (PBHs) could account for all or part of dark matter, be responsible for some of the observed gravitational waves signals, and seed supermassive black holes found in the center of our Galaxy and other galaxies

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Here’s what we know about the signal from Proxima Centauri

An enigmatic radio signal from the direction of Proxima Centauri, the Sun’s nearest stellar neighbor, has set the internet ablaze with rumor and speculation. It could turn out to be the real deal — a calling card from another civilization. More likely, it’s much ado about nothing.

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Asteroids Crashing Into Dead Stars are Helping Explain Where the Universe's Missing Lithium Went

What happened to all the lithium? The question has stumped astronomers for decades. While cosmologists have successfully predicted the abundance of the other light elements from the Big Bang, lithium has always come up short. Now, a team of astronomers may have found the reason: lithium-rich asteroids are smashing into white dwarves.

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Ohio State study: 30% of student athletes have heart damage linked to COVID-19

In a study published in September, researchers from Ohio State University found that out of more than two dozen athletes from the university who tested positive for COVID-19, 30% had cellular heart damage and 15% showed signs of heart inflammation caused by a condition known as myocarditis.

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Florida professor predicts Amazon rainforest collapse by 2064

The world's largest rainforest ecosystem, the Amazon, will collapse and largely become a dry, scrubby plain by 2064 because of climate change and deforestation, a University of Florida scientist predicts.

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Meatless meat is going mainstream. Now Big Food wants in.

Companies are pledging to sell you more plant-based meat and dairy to fight climate change (and cash in on a growing trend).

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A New Population of Blue Whales Was Discovered Hiding in the Indian Ocean

The whales in the group seem to sing a unique song.

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Sleepy dormice are losing their cozy tree hollows

These epic hibernators rely on old-growth forests, which are rapidly disappearing throughout Europe—but one temporary solution is helping.

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Japan is developing wooden satellites to send into orbit by 2023 in an effort to cut down on space junk

Space junk is becoming a growing concern amongst experts, who say it poses an environmental hazard — especially if it burns up on re-entry.

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For young Californians, climate change is a mental health crisis too

Growing up amid wildfires and polluted air, California's young are seeing firsthand the effects of climate change. The risk they face is not only physical, but also psychological and emotional.

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Like Titan, Pluto’s atmosphere is hazy, but for a different reason

Simple organic ices dominate, rather than bigger organic molecules.

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Humans relax, we can tax the robots

The government must reckon with the impact of artificial intelligence on human employment by amending the tax regime.

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Fatal skin disease in dolphins linked to climate crisis

It is the first-time ever that scientists have been able to attribute a cause to the condition, known as “freshwater skin disease”, since it first appeared 15 years ago in bottlenose dolphins

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Why You Should Talk to Yourself in the Third Person

Evidence suggests that there are real benefits of talking to yourself in the third person—in your head, not out loud.

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A New Therapy to Prevent People With SARS-CoV-2 From Getting Sick Just Started Trials

Scientists in the UK have just recruited the first participants in the world to be part of a new long-acting antibody study.

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Elsevier Wants To Stop Indian Medics, Students And Academics Accessing Knowledge The Only Way Most Of Them Can Afford: Via Sci-Hub And Libgen

Last month Techdirt wrote about some ridiculous scaremongering from Elsevier against Sci-Hub, which the publisher claimed was a "security risk". Sci-Hub, with its 85 million academic papers, is an example of what are sometimes termed...

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Researchers map DNA from ice-age wolves in bid to trace origin of dogs

A dog laid to rest with care some 7,000 years ago, the now-fossilized bones adorned with a necklace of elk teeth. Near Lake Baikal in southern Siberia, the bodies of dogs were given proper burials by the humans who loved them.

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The Top Ten Dinosaur Discoveries of 2020

Paleontologists uncovered a great deal about the “terrible lizards” this year

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The poison found in everyone, even unborn babies – and who is responsible for it

Chemicals called PFAS and PFOS – known as forever chemicals – are in the blood of virtually every person on the planet.

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A Scary Amount of Nutrition Science Has Deep Ties to The Processed Food Industry, Study Reveals

The food industry has their fingers all over our nutrition research. According to a new analysis, one out of every eight leading, peer-reviewed studies on nutrition is tied to business.

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Fusion energy device sets a record by running for 20 seconds

A Korean fusion device has set a record by running for 20 seconds at 180 million degrees.

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Mercury crossing the face of the sun

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We’ve Got Depression All Wrong. It’s Trying to Save Us.

New theories recognize depression as part of a biological survival strategy.

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Quantum philosophy: 4 ways physics will challenge your reality

Quantum mechanics is strange. A philosopher explains just how strange, and what it means for reality.

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Could Carbon Dioxide Be Turned Into Jet Fuel?

A team at Oxford University has reverse engineered fuel from the greenhouse gas—but so far just in the lab.

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How to Revive a Dead Language

Although it was the language of sacred texts and ritual, modern Hebrew wasn't spoken in conversation till the late nineteenth century.

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Researchers use origami to solve space travel challenge

WSU researchers have used the ancient Japanese art of paper folding to possibly solve a key challenge for outer space travel—how to store and move fuel to rocket engines.

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Researchers find hydrogen-supported life beneath glaciers

Using years of data collected from ice-covered habitats all over the world, a Montana State University team has discovered new insights into the processes that support microbial life underneath ice sheets and glaciers, and the role those organisms play in perpetuating life through ice ages and, perhaps, in seemingly inhospitable environments on other planets.

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Ivory from a 16th century shipwreck reveals new details about African elephants

In 2008, miners off the coast of Namibia stumbled upon buried treasure: a sunken Portuguese ship known as the Bom Jesus, which went missing on its way to India in 1533. The trading ship bore a trove of gold and silver coins and other valuable materials. But to a team of archaeologists and biologists, the Bom Jesus’ most precious cargo was a haul of more than 100 elephant tusks — the largest archaeological cargo of African ivory ever discovered.

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Physicists build circuit that generates clean, limitless power from graphene

A team of University of Arkansas physicists has successfully developed a circuit capable of capturing graphene's thermal motion and converting it into an electrical current.

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The International Space Station is now home to the world's 1st commercial airlock

The International Space Station is now sporting a shiny new piece of hardware. On Monday (Dec. 21), the first commercial airlock ever sent to the International Space Station (ISS) was attached to its exterior. The new structure is a bell-shaped airlock that is designed to transfer payloads and other materials from inside the station out into the vacuum of space.

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Chernobyl fears resurface as river dredging begins in exclusion zone

Scientists warn of threat of nuclear contamination from work on giant E40 waterway linking Baltic to the Black Sea

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Climate Cost of Organic Meat Is Just as High as Conventionally Produced Meat

Advocates for eco-friendly, plant-based diets hailed a study published last week that revealed the climate cost of organic meat production is as high as that of conventionally produced animal products.

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Food futurology: What will we be eating 10 years from now?

Within the next decade, trend forecaster Dr Morgaine Gaye predicts we will have moved beyond the current protein craze, be eating food made from ‘the biggest ingredient of the future’, and variety will play a greater role in all things fruit and veg.

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The thymus as key to healthy pregnancies

How the immune system adapts to pregnancy has puzzled researchers for decades. An international team of researchers, including scientists from IMBA – Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences – has now discovered that important changes in the thymus occur in order to prevent miscarriages and gestational diabetes. The results are published in the journal Nature.

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Another new coronavirus variant found in Nigeria, says Africa CDC

Another new variant of the novel coronavirus seems to have emerged in Nigeria, the head of Africa’s disease control body said on Thursday, cautioning more investigation was needed.

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Video Taken By Pilots Of What Could Be The Elusive Los Angeles Jet Pack Guy Emerges

Flight school pilots were on a training flight off the coast when they were surprised to see what appeared to be a guy in a jet pack whizzing by.

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A tale of two launch vehicle programs

There was no clearer set of contrasts between how SpaceX and NASA approach launch vehicle development than the dueling tests the two performed in early December of Starship and Space Launch System, respectively. It was hard to miss the Dec. 9 test flight of SpaceX’s Starship SN8 prototype, the first time the vehicle flew more than a couple hundred meters off the pad. It soared into the Texas sky propelled by its three Raptor engines...

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Aliens Likely Annihilated Themselves Through Progress, Suggests New Extraterrestrial Research

There are many people who strongly believe that aliens are real and they are living somewhere far from the blue planet, Earth. But a new scientific study suggested that such civilizations destroyed themselves through progress.

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Nasa's Mars rover and the 'seven minutes of terror'

The US space agency (Nasa) has released an animation showing how its one-tonne Perseverance rover will land on Mars on 18 February. The robot is being sent to a crater called Jezero where it will search for evidence of past life. But to undertake this science, it must first touch down softly. The sequence of manoeuvres needed to land on Mars is often referred to as the "seven minutes of terror" - and with good reason.

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New study identifies greatest risk factors of mortality from COVID-19

Hospitalized COVID-19 patients have a greater risk of dying if they are men or are obese or have complications from diabetes or hypertension, according to a new study conducted by University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) researchers. In a study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, the researchers evaluated nearly 67,000 hospitalized COVID-19 patients in 613 hospitals across the country to determine link between common patient characteristics and the risk of dying from COVID-19.

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How Elon Musk, Blue Origin, and the US could set up the first extraterrestrial government

A murder in the Arctic could provide legal precedent for extraplanetary laws

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The aroma of distant worlds: New evidence that spices, fruits from Asia had reached the Mediterranean earlier than thought

Asian spices such as turmeric and fruits like the banana had already reached the Mediterranean more than 3000 years ago, much earlier than previously thought. A team of researchers has shown that even in the Bronze Age, long-distance trade in food was already connecting distant societies.

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Organic meat production just as bad for climate, study finds

The cost of the climate damage caused by organic meat production is just as high as that of conventionally farmed meat, according to research. The analysis estimated the greenhouse gas emissions resulting from different foods and calculated how much their prices would need to rise to cover the harm they cause by fuelling the climate emergency.

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Space holding company Voyager to acquire Nanoracks, which added an airlock to the space station

Voyager Space Holdings’ fourth acquisition in a little over a year since it was established is a majority stake in the parent company of Nanoracks, a space services and hardware specialist that has sent more than 1,000 missions to the International Space Station. “Nanoracks is a game changer for us in terms of adding some pretty significant capability in space,” Voyager Space Holdings CEO Dylan Taylor told CNBC.

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Kindness is Scientifically Proven to Make You Happier

How to make someone’s day and make your own life better.

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