In Russia's Space Graveyard, Locals Scavenge Fallen Spacecraft for Profit
Author: Vishay Singh
A Sour Taste in Your Mouth Means You're More Likely to Take Risks
(Credit: In The Light Photography/Shutterstock) Tired of playing it safe? Go suck a lemon! No, really. A new paper published in Scientific Reports says tasting something sour is linked to more risk-taking behavior in people. Researchers from the University of Sussex in England recruited 168 volunteers from both the United Kingdom and Vietnam. The team gave them a taste of just one of various solutions that fell into the five main taste groups of humans: bitter, salty, sour, sweet and the ...read more
Have You Accepted Your Research Mission Yet?
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Google Decides Not to Renew a Military AI Contract
The U.S. military logo for Project Maven, also known as the Algorithmic Warfare Cross-Functional Team. Credit: U.S. Department of Defense Google recently bowed to employee protests by deciding to wind down involvement in a U.S. military initiative called Project Maven next year. The Pentagon project focuses on harnessing deep learning algorithms–specialized machine learning technologies often described as “artificial intelligence”–to a ...read more
Striking imagery shows American Airlines Flight 1897 flying through a hellish storm as it's battered by hail
Satellite imagery and flight tracking show the plane trying to evade a storm that ultimately destroyed its nose and smashed the windshield Two views from the GOES-16 weather satellite show powerful storms boiling up over Texas and New Mexico. An infrared view is on the left, and visible imagery is on the right. The path of American Airlines Flight 1897 — which was struck by hail and forced to make an emergency landing — is included. Please click to watch the ...read more
The Moon's Gradual Retreat is Lengthening Earth Days
(Credit: NASA) Do you ever feel like there just isn’t enough time in the day? Well, the moon agrees with you — it’s actively slowing the Earth’s rotation, stretching out the length of our days little by little. A study published on June 4 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says that days on Earth lasted just 18 hours some 1.4 billion years ago, and that we can thank the moon’s gradual retreat for our ever-lengthening day. It’s believed t ...read more
Science Explains Why East Coast NFL Teams Get Crushed In Night Games
(Credit: flickr/Ed Yourdon) The first ever Monday Night Football game kicked off in September 21, 1970, launching the NFL into prime time American TV. But it’s also a night that Hall of Fame New York Jets quarterback Joe Namath would probably rather forget. The legendary passer threw three interceptions that night in Cleveland against the Browns in a game that was plagued by “blunders, a record number of penalties, (and) shocking lapses” from the defense. Namath can now take s ...read more
You're Drawing Lightning Wrong
If you draw lightning bolts like this, you’re doing it all wrong. (Credit: Shutterstock) How do you draw lightning bolts? If you draw them as zigzags, similar to the image above, and Harry Potter’s famous scar, then you’re wrong. A 19th century photographer named William Nicholson Jennings had this wild theory that lightning isn’t depicted accurately in paintings. But how to prove it? Technology, of course! Jennings looked to photography to prove his theory cor ...read more
Researchers Get a Peek at How Other Animals See the World
A household scene as viewed by various pets and pests. Human eyesight is roughly seven times sharper than a cat, 40 to 60 times sharper than a rat or a goldfish, and hundreds of times sharper than a fly or a mosquito. (Image courtesy of Eleanor Caves) Animals have us beat in basically every test of sensory perception. Bats bounce ultrasonic waves to locate prey, and bears can smell a carcass from miles away. But our abilities are respectable in one category: visual acuity. A study pub ...read more
Kīlauea Eats an Entire Bay and Lake in Hawaii
Lava entering the Pacific Ocean where Kapoho Bay used to be. Seen on June 5, 2018. USGS/HVO. It almost sounds like the plot to a monster movie, but over the last few days, the lava flows from the Leilani Estates fissure eruption have eaten an entire bay (see above). What was known as Kapoho Bay is no more as lava from Fissure 8 poured into the bay, covered tide pools and has now converted the whole area into a peninsula jutting out over a kilometer into the Pacific Ocean. In the process, t ...read more