Chinese space station in Argentina is a ‘black box’

When China built a military-run space station in Argentina’s Patagonian region it promised to include a visitors’ center to explain the purpose of its powerful 16-story antenna. The center is now built — behind the 8-foot barbed wire fence that surrounds the entire space station compound. Visits are by appointment only.

Continue reading...

A.I. Could Worsen Health Disparities

In a health system riddled with inequity, we risk making dangerous biases automated and invisible.

Continue reading...

Lost Opportunity: After a 15-Year Odyssey, NASA's Trailblazing Mars Rover Approaches Its End

Mired in dust on the afternoon of June 10, 2018, NASA’s Opportunity rover received a final command from Earth. Take a photo of the sun, the Deep Space Network sang in code. Send telemetry. The rover’s cameras could barely see through all the swirling dust, which had been blown aloft by a planet-spanning storm. The sky was darkening, and Opportunity’s batteries, powered by sunlight, were draining. The reply was grim. The last transmitted image showed solar radiation was one fortieth its pre-storm level.

Continue reading...

The 500-Year-Long Science Experiment

In 2014, microbiologists began a study that they hope will continue long after they’re dead.

Continue reading...

Scientists Have Detected an Enormous Cavity Growing Beneath Antarctica

Antarctica is not in a good place. In the space of only decades, the continent has lost trillions of tonnes of ice at alarming rates we can't keep up with, even in places we once thought were safe. Now, a stunning new void has been revealed amidst this massive vanishing act, and it's a big one: a gigantic cavity growing under West Antarctica that scientists say covers two-thirds the footprint of Manhattan and stands almost 300 metres (984 ft) tall.

Continue reading...

Will 3D printed human skin make animal testing for cosmetics obsolete?

Back in 2015, L’Oréal announced that it was experimenting with printing human skin tissue on which to test its cosmetics. The French beauty giant – which owns Lancôme and Maybelline, among many others – was the first beauty conglomerate to announce such intentions. The same year, L’Oréal partnered with Organovo, a San Diego-based start-up that designs and creates functional human tissues using bioprinting technology.

Continue reading...

Exclusive: FBI Warned Law Enforcement Agencies of Threat Posed by Non-Existent 'Pro-Choice Extremists'

A domestic terrorism briefing the FBI gave to law enforcement agencies in 2017 warned them about the threat of “pro-abortion extremists.” That would be fine, except—as the FBI’s own briefing materials subsequently admit—violent pro-abortion extremists barely exist, and in no universe do they constitute an organized domestic terror movement. The existence of this briefing was uncovered by Property of the People, a government transparency group that uses Freedom of Information Act requests to shed light on the workings of the government.

Continue reading...