‘It was wonderful’: Eviation’s Alice electric airplane wins praise after its first flight test

After years of on-the-ground development, Eviation’s all-electric Alice airplane quietly took to the air here this morning for its first test flight. Test pilot Steve Crane guided the nine-passenger aircraft, powered by two 640-kilowatt electric motors, through its takeoff from Grant County International Airport in Moses Lake, a facility in Eastern Washington’s high desert that’s often used for testing innovations in aviation.

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'Forever Chemicals’ Found in Every Umbilical Cord Blood Sample in Global Study

“Forever chemicals,” or perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), have made quite a few appearances in the news cycle lately. These thousands of manufacturing chemicals leach into the food and water supply, making it nearly impossible to avoid absorption into the human body. Once in the body, they don’t go away—hence the name “forever chemicals”—and can cause a host of health concerns, from thyroid disease and cancer to liver damage and fertility issues.

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First person to ever be treated with CRISPR-based HIV gene therapy

A new gene-editing therapy for human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV) is being tested on individuals

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Is it finally time for a permanent base on the moon?

The Artemis mission is NASA's initial step to create a lunar outpost—but are we really ready to establish long-term bases beyond Earth?

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Bam! NASA spacecraft crashes into asteroid in defense test

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A NASA spacecraft rammed an asteroid at blistering speed Monday in an unprecedented dress rehearsal for the day a killer rock menaces Earth. The galactic grand slam occurred at a harmless asteroid 7 million miles (9.6 million kilometers) away, with the spacecraft named Dart plowing into the small space rock at 14,000 mph (22,500 kph).

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People who suffer sleep deprivation become less generous, according to new research

What determines how generous a person you are? Could it be how much money you have? How kind you are? Or maybe it comes down to your values. These all seem reasonable assumptions, but a new study from Berkeley University suggests something that feels as trivial as how well you’ve slept lately can also affect how willing you are to help other people on any given day. It found sleep deprivation leads to a reduction in generosity.

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Rocket Report: SpaceX fires up seven Raptors; SpinLaunch raises big funding round

Welcome to Edition 5.11 of the Rocket Report! Apologies for the lack of a report last week, but I was on assignment with the crew of the forthcoming Polaris Dawn mission. The upside is that this week's edition is extra-long—running to 2,500 words.

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Harvard investigation reveals social media as the new frontier of climate deception and delay

A new Harvard University investigation commissioned by Greenpeace Netherlands, reveals rampant use of greenwashing and tokenism by the largest car brands, airlines and oil and gas companies in Europe to exploit people’s concerns about the environment and spread disinformation online.

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Water in asteroid dust offers clues to life on Earth

Specks of dust retrieved by a Japanese space probe from an asteroid some 300 million kilometres from Earth have revealed a surprising component: a drop of water, scientists said Friday. The discovery offers new support for the theory that life on Earth was seeded from outer space.

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NASA gears up to deflect an asteroid

The U.S. space agency will launch a spacecraft next month on a mission to slam into an asteroid in October, and scientists are hopeful the impact will create a small crater that could help them learn how to better defend against future threats.

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Parkinson’s breakthrough can diagnose disease from skin swabs in 3 minutes

A new method to detect Parkinson’s disease has been determined by analysing sebum with mass spectrometry. The study, published today in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, have found that there are lipids of high molecular weight that are substantially more active in people suffering from Parkinson’s disease.

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DART asteroid-smashing mission 'on track for an impact' Monday, NASA says

"At this point, I can say that the team is ready. The ground systems are ready, and the spacecraft is healthy and on track for an impact on Monday."

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Archaeologists discover the earliest use of Opium

The oldest documented instance of opium use in antiquity was uncovered by Israeli researchers who found traces of the drug in ceramic items from the 14th century B.C.E.

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Flies on food isn’t just a nuisance. It’s dangerous to your health

Trigger warning: don’t read this when you’re eating. The common house fly could pose a health risk if it lands on your food.

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A New Baby Island Has Just Been Born In The Pacific Ocean

Boom! And just like that, a new island was born.

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NASA’s Earth Observatory spots newly birthed island in the Pacific

NASA has spotted a newly birthed island out in the Pacific Ocean. The island is the result of a series of eruptions from a volcano situated in the Home Reef, a seamount in the Central Tonga Islands. NASA says the seamount repeatedly oozed lava and ejected plumes of ash and smoke starting on September 10. Eleven hours after the eruptions began, though, the space agency began to notice the new island.

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‘Deaths of despair’ are rising. It’s time to define despair

A sense of defeat, not mental ailments, may be derailing the lives of less-educated people in the United States.

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Guy Who Invented the Word "Metaverse" Building His Own Metaverse

Neal Stephenson, the science fiction icon who first coined and popularized the term "metaverse," is pausing his literary career to build his own. 

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The controversial embryo tests that promise a better baby

Some companies offer tests that rank embryos based on their risk of developing complex diseases such as schizophrenia or heart disease. Are they accurate — or ethical?

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Percentage of Latinos who have no religious affiliation surges

The percentage of Hispanics in the U.S. who identify as atheist or agnostic grew in the past 12 years.

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Updated climate models are clouded by scientific biases, researchers find

Clouds can cool or warm the planet's surface, a radiative effect that contributes significantly to the global energy budget and can be altered by human-caused pollution. The world's southernmost ocean, aptly named the Southern Ocean and far from human pollution but subject to abundant marine gases and aerosols, is about 80% covered by clouds. How does this body of water and relationship with clouds contribute to the world's changing climate?

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This environmentally friendly quantum sensor runs on sunlight

Quantum sensors often rely on power-hungry lasers to make measurements. A new quantum magnetometer uses sunlight to measure magnetic fields instead.

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Humans may have started tending animals almost 13,000 years ago

Remnants from an ancient fire pit in Syria suggest that hunter-gatherers were burning dung as fuel by the end of the Old Stone Age.

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If you had to name a probe for Uranus, what would you call it?

Uranus always seems to be the butt of the joke, but this icy planet is actually one that scientists hope to dive deeper into in the future. In fact, many are already pushing for more missions to probe Uranus and learn more about the planet. That’s why some folks, like the people behind Twitter account @ExploreIGO, are trying to push for missions by coming up with a Uranus probe name.

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Vast Space to develop artificial-gravity space station

Vast Space, a Southern California startup founded by cryptocurrency billionaire Jed McCaleb, plans to establish an artificial-gravity space station in low Earth orbit. McCaleb envisions a future where millions of people are living throughout the solar system. Since other companies are helping to reduce launch costs, McCaleb thinks the next important step will be creating large structures where people can live and work in space.

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World's oldest heart found in prehistoric fish

Researchers have discovered a 380-million-year-old heart preserved inside a fossilised prehistoric fish. They say the specimen captures a key moment in the evolution of the blood-pumping organ found in all back-boned animals, including humans. The heart belonged to a fish known as the Gogo, which is now extinct.

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Assassination drones and bioweapons: The future of warfare?

Futurist Marc Goodman explains how science fiction has caught up to reality in modern warfare.

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Research Highlights: Pathogenic Fungus On Infected Dead Female Flies Fools Male Flies To Mate

The recognition species concept is an idea that a species is characterized by a unique fertilization system that restricts gene-flow with other species.

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AI climate negotiators can debate 100 years worth of policy in seconds

A simulation consisting of 27 AIs representing different regions in climate negotiations is part of a competition to find out which policies and incentives could have the best chances of success

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Scientists discover that it takes 10 ants to form a stable raft

Ants prefer not to make a collective raft when on water. However, once there are 10 insects near each other, the so-called Cheerios effect pushes them together and is too strong to counteract

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Blue Origin’s rocket exploded, but the capsule escape system worked a charm

One minute and four seconds after the launch of an uncrewed flight of Blue Origin's New Shepard launch system on Monday, September 12, the rocket suffered an anomaly. Explosive footage shows the New Shepard capsule's solid rocket escape system fire up to safely eject the capsule away from the rocket's first stage.

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NASA is planning a permanent moon base. What will it take to build it?

The US wants to build a long-term human outpost on the moon by around 2030. Here is all the tech that will be needed, from a space station in lunar orbit to a way to avoid 'space hay fever'

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Europe's Energy System Is a Scam Against Its Own People

"The UK doesn't need Russian gas, doesn't need Texan LNG, it doesn't need to import anything."

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Low-calories sweeteners might not be as good for us as we thought

Some artificial sweeteners disrupt the microbes in our gut—possibly in ways that increase the risk of weight gain, diabetes, and heart disease.

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Vitamin D doesn't prevent COVID-19, other respiratory infections, studies find

The findings from 2 large clinical trials—one in the UK and one in Norway—discount the notion that vitamin D supplements protect against COVID-19 or other respiratory-tract infections.

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Blood test spots multiple cancers without clear symptoms, study finds

Doctors hail new era for cancer screening as major research shows effectiveness of Galleri test

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Mysterious diamonds came from outer space, scientists say

Diamond, dwarf planet, asteroid, solar system, space, microscopy, microanalysis

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People who play video games tend to have superior sensorimotor decision-making skills, study finds

Video games can get a bad rep as being a time waste, but can they actually have positive effects on brain functioning?

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The big idea: should we drop the distinction between mental and physical health?

A few months ago, I was infected by coronavirus and my first symptoms were bodily. But as the sore throat and cough receded, I was left feeling gloomy, lethargic and brain-foggy for about a week. An infection of my body had morphed into a short-lived experience of depressive and cognitive symptoms – there was no clear-cut distinction between my physical and mental health.

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Physicists Just Entangled A Pair of Atomic Clocks Six Feet Apart

Few things in the Universe keep the beat as reliably as an atom's pulse.

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Airbus canceled all of Qatar's A350 airliner orders in a rare move as the battle over paint issues continues

Aviation giants Airbus and Qatar have been at odds for over a year after the carrier grounded over 20 A350 jets due to airworthiness concerns.

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Cancer breakthrough is a ‘wake-up’ call on danger of air pollution

Scientists have uncovered how air pollution causes lung cancer in groundbreaking research that promises to rewrite our understanding of the disease. The findings outline how fine particulates contained in car fumes “awaken” dormant mutations in lung cells and tip them into a cancerous state. The work helps explain why so many non-smokers develop lung cancer and is a “wake-up call” about the damaging impact of pollution on human health.

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SPECULOOS discovers a potentially habitable super-Earth

A first planet, LP 890-9b (or TOI-4306b), the innermost in the system, was initially identified by NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), a space mission dedicated to the search for exoplanets orbiting nearby stars. This planet, which is about 30% larger than the Earth, completes an orbit around the star in just 2.7 days. The ULiège researchers used their ground-based SPECULOOS (Search for habitable Planets EClipsing ULtra-cOOl Stars) telescopes to confirm and characterise this planet, and also to probe the system in depth for other planets that might have been 'missed' by TESS.

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How Tiangong station will make China a force in the space race

China’s Tiangong space station is almost complete. Here’s what it means for the country's rise as a space superpower.

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How the Inside of a Black Hole Is Secretly on the Outside

Mysterious “islands” help to explain what happens to information that falls into a black hole

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Doomscrolling linked to poor physical and mental health, study finds

The tendency to be glued to bad news can spark a ‘vicious cycle’ that interferes with our lives, researcher says

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'Doomsday' glacier,' which could raise sea level by several feet, is holding on 'by its fingernails,' scientists say

The Thwaites "doomsday" glacier is eroding along its underwater base. Scientists now say it has the capability of retreating much faster than it has in the past decade.

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Nobel Prize winner Gregg Semenza retracts four papers

A Johns Hopkins researcher who shared the 2019 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology has retracted four papers from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) for concerns about images in the articles.

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Scientists make major breakthrough in race to save Caribbean coral

Scientists at the Florida Aquarium have made a breakthrough in the race to save Caribbean coral: For the first time, marine biologists have successfully reproduced elkhorn coral, a critical species, using aquarium technology. It’s a historic step forward, and one they hope could help revitalize Caribbean ecosystems and could pay humans back by offering extra protection from the fury of hurricanes.

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How Coca-Cola, Unilever, and Others Delay Action on Plastic

When a huge plastic producer like Coca-Cola says it’s working to solve the plastic crisis, what does that really look like? An investigation published Friday by Bloomberg documents how one initiative in Ghana was used by some of the world’s biggest plastic producers to battle against threats of plastic bans, while failing to deliver on some of its key promises.

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