Elon Musk’s Neuralink Unveils Mind-Reading Implant that Could Be Ready for Humans by 2020

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Neuralink's chip implantation machine, which is designed to insert the company's N1 chip into people's heads with extreme precision. (Credit: Neuralink) He’s pioneered several multi-billion dollar companies, launched one of his cars into space, and now Elon Musk wants to hack your brain. On Tuesday night, the CEO and co-founder of Tesla and SpaceX lifted the veil of secrecy on a new venture, called Neuralink. The company launched in 2016 promising to create cutting-edge brain-machin ...read more

Human Wastewater Runoff is Killing Corals in the Florida Keys

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Corals stressed by heat and other environmental conditions can bleach, or kick out their life-giving algae companions. (Credit: sabangvideo/Shutterstock) It’s been said time and time again that climate change is killing coral reefs. Rising ocean temperatures cause bleaching, which damages huge chunks of coral ecosystems from Australia to the southern United States. But heat isn’t the only reason reefs are dying. Nitrogen runoff from human activities could be damaging corals ar ...read more

SpaceX Says It Knows Why Crew Dragon Exploded

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SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft opens its nose cone before docking with the International Space Station on March 3. (Credit: NASA) Almost three months after SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule blew up during a test on April 20, the results of the investigation place blame on a leak and a faulty valve. According to a report released by SpaceX, the “anomaly” in the test occurred about 100 milliseconds prior to ignition of the last thrusters. The leak let nitrogen tetroxide, a comb ...read more

Protests Resume in Hawaii With Start of Thirty Meter Telescope Construction

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Telescopes atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii. (Credit: EastVillage Images/Shutterstock) The Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) has had a tumultuous start. Set to be the world’s largest visible light telescope, construction was slated to begin in 2015 near the peak of Hawaii’s Mauna Kea. But protests over construction on a mountain considered sacred by some Native Hawaiians stalled the project and sent it back to the courts. As a result, the TMT had to restart the lengthy approval process. T ...read more

ISS Mouse Experiment Tests How the Body Adapts to Living on the Moon

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Japan's experiment module on ISS, called Kibo. (Credit: NASA) Astronauts living on the International Space Station spend hours working out every day just to avoid losing serious muscle mass and bone density in microgravity. But will such precautions be needed to live on worlds that are simply lower in gravity than Earth, like the moon and Mars? And what effect would such gravity have on growing children? These questions are almost entirely unanswered by science, but they're vital for humani ...read more

At STEM Competitions, Gender Norms Still Hold Girls Back

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Rachel Seevers shows off her jellyfish-inspired propulsion device at ISEF. (Credit: Chris Ayers, Society for Science & the Public) Seventeen-year-old Rachel Seevers waited nervously at the 2019 International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF). The high school senior was about to demonstrate a new kind of underwater propulsion system she’d created and tested in her parents’ basement. But no one came to talk to her. So, Seevers tried an experiment. She and a nearby male partici ...read more

The Canadians Who Got America to the Moon

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Canadian John Hodge, left, with astronaut Al Shepard and Flight Director Chris Kraft. NASA. There was nothing particularly different about February 20, 1959. For the workers at the A.V. Roe plant in Malton, Ontario, it was just another Friday working on cutting-edge aircraft before the chilly winter weekend. Then, out of nowhere that afternoon, the plant’s public announcement system crackled to life. A.V. Roe’s President Crawford Gordon’s angry voice addressed the workforce ...read more

Australopithecus Drank Breast Milk for Years to Survive Food Shortages

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An artist's depiction of Lucy, the world's most famous Australopithecus africanus. (Credit: Greg Grabowski/Shutterstock) In the savannah of southern Africa three million years ago, an early human species known as Australopithecus africanus roamed the tropical grasslands chomping on a diverse diet of fruits, leaves and roots. The hominins ate well when the land was ripe with bounty, but seasonal rains and lengthy dry spells meant food was often scarce. Now an international team of rese ...read more

Constant Confusion: New Studies Deepen Mystery of Universe’s Expansion

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Astronomers measured red giant stars to figure out a new measure of how fast the universe is expanding. (Credit: Norval Glover/University of Chicago) If you’re confused by modern cosmology, you’re not alone. Cosmologists themselves are confused, and two new results, using very different methods, add to their collective bewilderment. The results are measurements of how fast the universe is expanding, known as the Hubble constant. In recent years, astronomers keep finding strangely ...read more

NASA Bets on a Spacecraft that Can 3-D Print and Self-Assemble in Orbit

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Archinaut One will test 3-D printing spacecraft components, and then assembling them, in low-Earth orbit. (Credit: Made in Space, Inc.) Putting a satellite in space is news of the past, but launching a spacecraft that can 3-D print and self-assemble is a story of the future. NASA is now betting on the technology being ready for prime time as early as 2022. Last week, the space agency announced that they had awarded a $73.7 million contract to a startup company called Made In Space, Inc. ...read more

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