Space solar power stations or satellites could someday beam energy down to Earth or to remote space mining operations. Credit: NASA Harnessing the sun’s energy with orbital space power stations and beaming the power to Earth has been a science fiction dream ever since Isaac Asimov wrote a 1941 short story called “Reason.” But the idea has never quite gotten off the ground despite decades of intermittent interest and research for the United States and other countries ...read more

Cmdr. Scott Smith, from Hartford, South Dakota, delivers remarks during the establishment ceremony for Unmanned Undersea Vehicle Squadron (UUVRON) 1. UUVRON 1 was originally a detachment that fell under commander, Submarine Development Squadron 5. Credit: U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Amanda R. Gray The U.S. Navy has taken another step forward in deploying swarms of underwater drones for both scientific and military purposes. This past week, the ...read more

Full moon photographed from Earth. (Credit: Gregory H. Revera/wikimedia, CC BY-SA) The dream of a human habitat in orbit about the moon came a step closer on Sept. 27, when NASA and the Russian space agency (Roscosmos) signed up to a common vision for future human exploration. The project, a follow-up to the International Space Station (ISS), involves a facility placed in orbit somewhere between the Earth and the moon – a region known as cis-lunar space. Seen as a stepping-stone on the wa ...read more

(Credit: By Norma Cornes/Shutterstock) As it turns out, chimpanzees don’t need to see in order to do, no matter what the old mantra might lead you to believe. A common belief among researchers is that chimps need to watch other members of their communities use tools before they can pick the behavior up. In a study published in PeerJ in September, researchers from the University of Birmingham, and the University of Tübingen challenged this belief and checked to see if it would h ...read more

(Credit: Shutterstock) Eating is one of the great pleasures of life. But eating too much places people at risk for chronic illnesses and shortens life expectancy. Seven of 10 Americans are overweight or obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Being overweight is so common, people don’t recognize when they’ve crossed the belt line; only 36 percent of overweight/obese people think they weigh too much, says a recent Gallup poll. People want to feel healthy ...read more

You should never bring a knife to gunfight, or try to beat a bird with ant repellant. That’s how the expression would go if a wood tiger moth coined it, anyway. Other animals are lucky if they have the resources to make just one poison. But this moth is the first species known to make two different chemical weapons that target different predators. The moth, Arctia plantaginis, lives throughout the Northern Hemisphere. Its wings are bright and boldly patterned, a tactic tha ...read more

This animation of GOES-16 weather satellite images shows three hurricanes in the Atlantic between Sept. 16 and 26, 2017: Jose, Maria and Lee. (Source: RAMMB/CIRA SLIDER) It has been nine days since Hurricane Maria blasted ashore in Puerto Rico with 150 mile per hour winds, ravaging the entire island and leaving residents without electricity, food and water. Today, thousands of containers of desperately needed supplies are sitting in ports and warehouses on the island, waiting to ...read more

This real-time 3D visualization includes flight path and numerous other data points that are important for pilots to know. (Credit: Screenshot, U-SAFE livestream) Showcasing technology that could help usher in the era of commercial drones, the first phase of New York’s 50-mile long drone test corridor took place Thursday at Griffiss International Airport in Rome, New York. Using NASA-led research, the Unmanned Aircraft System Secure Autonomous Flight Environment (U-SAFE) is ...read more

Climbers on the shear granite face of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. You can see areas where fresh (white) rock is exposed that likely experienced a recent rockfall. Image: Erik Klemetti, September 2012. The last few weeks have seen multiple rockfalls at Yosemite National Park in California, one of which produced a fatality to a climber on the iconic vertical wall. Yesterday, another rockfall that was ten times bigger than the fatal one earlier in the month occurred that injured a park vi ...read more