NASA's 'mole' tried to dig into Mars. It didn't go as planned.

After its first attempt to penetrate the rust-colored Martian surface in 2019, NASA's “mole” sent a signal back to Earth. It was not good news. The mole is part of the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP³) on NASA's InSight lander, which touched down on Mars in 2018.

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Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin will soon begin selling tickets for rides on its space tourism rocket

Jeff Bezos’ space venture Blue Origin will soon begin selling tickets for rides on its space tourism rocket called New Shepard, the company announced in a video released on Thursday. “Guys, how exciting is this – come on!” Bezos says, with the billionaire featured prominently in the video.

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US Space Force scientist says 'human augmentation' is necessary in next decade

The chief scientist for the newly created US Space Force has said he thinks ‘human augmentation’ will be here sooner rather than later. Dr. Joel Mozer, speaking at an event at the Airforce Research Laboratory, said that it is ‘imperative’ that the US outdo its adversaries by leading in ‘human augmentation’ in military technology.

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Over 70% Of Men Say They'd Rather Cut Their Life Expectancy Than Ditch Meat, Poll Finds

More than 70 percent of men in Australia say they’d rather cut their life expectancy by up to 10 years than ditch meat. The data, commissioned by No Meat May, also found that 47 percent saw eating meat as a ‘masculine undertaking’.

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Analysis: How marketers could use voice-profiling to sell you more stuff

Marketers will soon be able to use AI-assisted vocal analysis to gain insights into shoppers' inclinations – without people knowing what they're revealing or how that information is being interpreted.

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This Duck Called "Long Boi" Is Going Viral For How Tall He Is

"Look at the size of this lad. Absolute unit."

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Club-goers take first bites of lab-made chicken

Singapore regulators in December approved in vitro cultured chicken, giving the world’s lab-developed meat industry its official commercial start. The company behind the poultry product, Eat Just, has since sold more than 200 servings of the poultry to 1880, a club in Singapore, and plans to expand to other restaurants on the island nation this year.

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Where Does a Candle Go When It Burns?

Just saying, maybe go easy with the candelabras.

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FTC warns it could crack down on biased AI

AI systems can lead to race or gender discrimination.

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Solar ‘campfires’ may heat the Sun’s atmosphere to scorching temperatures

New observations point to small solar flares as the heat source

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Egyptologists uncover rare tombs from before the Pharaohs

Egyptian archaeologists working on the Nile Delta have uncovered dozens of rare predynastic tombs dating to the period before Egypt's Pharaonic kingdoms first emerged more than 5,000 years ago.

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Science has fixed the worst part of psychedelic drugs usage for depression

Researchers in California have developed a technology that can find and test drugs that can have the same antidepressant effects as psychedelics— without the drug actually producing hallucinations. The breakthrough was made in a study on mice, not people.

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Bullied youths are much more likely to have violent fantasies, new study shows

About 97% of the most-bullied boys and 73% of the most-bullied girls have violent fantasies, according to a new study of 1,465 young people.

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New Beyond Burger 3.0 gets healthier and cheaper

The third version of the Beyond Burger stands further apart from animal meat.

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This Researcher Says AI Is Neither Artificial nor Intelligent

Kate Crawford, who holds positions at USC and Microsoft, says in a new book that even experts working on the technology misunderstand AI.

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A New CRISPR Tool Flips Genes On and Off Like a Light Switch

CRISPRoff can cause a gene to stay silent for hundreds of generations, even when its host cells morph from stem cells into more mature cells.

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The clockwork universe: is free will an illusion?

The long read: A growing chorus of scientists and philosophers argue that free will does not exist. Could they be right?

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Meet 5 of Australia’s tiniest mammals, who tread a tightrope between life and death every night

One mammal, the long-tailed planigale, can weigh less than a 10-cent coin. But it's ferocious, bringing down far larger prey with persistent, savage biting to the head and neck

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How Electric, Self-Driving Cars and Ride-Hailing Will Transform the Car Industry

The era launched by Henry Ford more than a century ago is coming to an end, and the big question is whether the U.S. can keep up with China in the new race. Welcome to the world of AutoTech.

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Farming Robot Kills 100,000 Weeds per Hour With Lasers

Carbon Robotics’ Autonomous Weeder is a smart farming robot that identifies weeds and then kills them using high-power lasers.

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Machiavellian parents seem more willing to give kids unnecessary ADHD medication

Incentives such as money and success, along with certain personality traits such as Machiavellianism, could make parents hypothetically more willing to give their children medication for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder when they dont need it.

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Military programs aiming to end pandemics forever

Bill Whitaker reports on the Pentagon projects that helped combat COVID-19 and may help end pandemics forever.

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Billions of smartphone owners will soon be authorising payments using facial recognition | ZDNet

New analysis shows that facial recognition and other biometric authentication technologies will increasingly help to keep mobile payments safe from fraudsters.

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Soon, the internet will make its own cat photos and then it won’t need us

Bleep bloop meow.

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Earth's axis has been shifted by climate change, study says

Scientists behind the study, said that melting glaciers have contributed to the shift observed in the 1990s.

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Moon landing by 2024 still possible, Nelson says at confirmation hearing

NASA still has a shot at landing astronauts on the moon by 2024, said Bill Nelson, President Joe Biden's choice to lead NASA, in a Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday.

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Fallout From Cold War Nuclear Testing Detected in U.S. Honey

The radiation found doesn't represent a health risk for humans, but it might impact bees

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Mars helicopter Ingenuity goes long distance in 3rd flight on Red Planet

Ingenuity is three for three on Mars.

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Research uncovers high risk to pregnant women from COVID-19

A study of more than 2,100 pregnant women across 18 countries worldwide has revealed that COVID-19 is associated with a higher risk of severe maternal and newborn complications than previously recognised.

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The good, the bad and the truly horrifying potential of CRISPR technology

This remarkable technology has the potential to eliminate all genetic disorders and is already delivering results that scientists say were unimaginable just a few years ago.

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World's First Wooden Satellite Will Launch By End Of 2021

When you think of creating an object that will travel 40,000 kilometers per hour (25,000 miles per hour) as it pushes up and out of the atmosphere...

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Elon Musk predicts human language will be obsolete in as few as five years

Neuralink chief says firm planning to connect device to human brain within 12 months

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The world's 'most powerful' tidal turbine is nearly ready to power on

Earlier this week, a company Orbital Marine Power successfully launched its latest tidal turbine. Once it’s connected to the European Marine Energy Centre off the Orkney Islands, the two megawatt O2 will have the capacity to generate enough energy to power 2,000 UK households annually, making it one of the world’s most powerful tidal turbines currently in use.

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Human-like intelligence in animals is far more common than we thought

Stories of clever animals abound, from pigs playing video games to monkeys trading mobile phones – now tests reveal that they don't merely act on instinct but can think flexibly, like us.

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NASA’s bold bet on Starship for the Moon may change spaceflight forever

"It is transformational to degrees no one today can understand."

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MIT researchers say you're no safer from Covid indoors at 6 feet or 60 feet in new study challenging social distancing policies

The CDC and WHO guidelines fail to factor in the amount of time spent indoors, which increases the chance of transmission the longer people are inside.

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Astronomers map asteroid’s 22m-year journey to Earth

Flight path of Kalahari’s six-tonne asteroid is first tracing of meteorite shedding rock to solar system origin

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'Creative' genes gave Homo sapiens edge over Neanderthals: study

Researchers have discovered a series of creativity-linked genes that may have given Homo sapiens a significant edge over Neanderthals, enabling them to avoid extinction.

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A black hole dubbed 'the Unicorn' may be galaxy's smallest one

Scientists have discovered what may be the smallest-known black hole in the Milky Way galaxy and the closest to our solar system - an object so curious that they nicknamed it 'the Unicorn.'

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In the tombs of Saqqara, new discoveries are rewriting ancient Egypt’s history

Seated in a yellow plastic laundry basket attached to two thick ropes, I was lowered into the earth. The light got dimmer, the temperature colder. A musty smell filled the air. The only sound was from the workmen above handling the ropes and yelling “shweya” — slowly.

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Elon Musk thinks NASA's goal of landing people on the moon by 2024 is 'actually doable'

Elon Musk thinks SpaceX can help NASA meet its ambitious goal of landing astronauts on the moon by 2024. “I think that can be done,” Musk said Friday, speaking after SpaceX launched the Crew-2 mission to orbit for a trip to the International Space Station.

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Study finds no excess germline mutations in children of Chernobyl survivors

A new study finds children whose parents were exposed to radiation at Chernobyl had no more germline mutations than normal.

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World entering ‘new epoch’ as solar set to become most economic generation source by 2030

By 2030, all of the world's solar resource will be economic in comparison to local fossil fuel generation, according to a new report from thinktank Carbon Tracker. Already around 60% of global solar generation is economic - with 15% of wind resource being economic - a figure expected to grow to more than 50% by 2030.

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Nasa's rover makes breathable oxygen on Mars

An instrument on Nasa's Perseverance rover on Mars has made oxygen from the planet's carbon dioxide atmosphere. It's the second successful technology demonstration on the mission, which flew a mini-helicopter on Monday. The oxygen generation was performed by a toaster-sized unit in the rover called Moxie - the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment.

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Mars Ingenuity helicopter successfully completes second, riskier flight

The NASA Ingenuity helicopter successfully completed its second flight on Mars Thursday, and it was even more challenging than the first. Ingenuity had a longer, higher-climbing flight, including an angled and sideways trek.

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More than one scribe wrote the text of a Dead Sea Scroll, handwriting shows

Using pattern recognition and AI techniques "opens new window" to ancient world.

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Researchers report possible solutions for hard-to-recycle plastics

Millions of tons of plastic end up in landfills every year. It's a big societal problem and an even larger environmental threat. In the United States, less than 9% of plastic waste is recycled. Instead, more than 75% of plastics waste ends up in landfills and up to 16% is burned, a process that releases toxic gases into the atmosphere.

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NASA extracts breathable oxygen from thin Martian air

NASA has logged another extraterrestrial first on its latest mission to Mars: converting carbon dioxide from the Martian atmosphere into pure, breathable oxygen, the U.S. space agency said on Wednesday.

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Clear evidence for a link between pro-inflammatory diets and 27 chronic diseases. Here’s how you can eat better

Our research provides clear evidence pro-inflammatory diets are linked to poor health, including heart attacks, bowel cancer and depression.

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Russia mulls withdrawing from the International Space Station after 2024

Senior officials are pessimistic about the station’s long-term future

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