If we're going back to the moon, we're going to need to learn how to deal with the dust.
U.S. President Donald Trump has made returning to the moon a priority, and China and India both have lunar landers in the works. The endeavor is difficult for myriad reasons, but one borders on the prosaic — moon dust.
Dust Bowl
The moon is a dirty place. Apollo astronauts reported returning to their lander covered in dust that smelled of spent gunpowder — astronaut Alan Bean even worried t ...read more
It has been proposed that woodpeckers and fungi might work together in a symbiotic relationship, with birds spreading fungi to new environments, and the fungi helping to soften the wood to make hole-boring easier. Although attractive, there has never been direct evidence supporting this hypothesis... until now! In this study, scientists show that woodpeckers cary specific species of fungi that are also found in holes made by woodpeckers. They went on to track the fungi growing in man-made ho ...read more
Researchers face a number of challenges when conducting a clinical study.1 Investigators spend considerable time and money recruiting and screening viable participants. If recruitment takes too long, important studies can get scrapped before they are even started. Once a study is underway, participants must sacrifice their own time to make clinic visits, which, for long-term studies, can reduce participant retention. Incorporating internet and mobile technologies into a study's design can r ...read more
As February was drawing to a close, heavy rains and melting snow led to extensive flooding in the central and southern United States that was easily visible to orbiting satellites.
The before-and-after animation above is a noteworthy example. The river running from top to bottom is the Mississippi, with Arkansa to the left and Tennessee to the right. Small portions of Missouri, Kentucky and Mississippi are visible as well. Click on the thumbnail at right to see the area covered ...read more
Exosuits may seem the stuff of anime and superhero movies, but the technology is actually used for assisting those who might need a boost to go about their daily lives.
These wearable technologies fit onto the body, usually the legs, much like a high-tech wetsuit. The exosuit is designed to provide supportive force to various points of the leg when needed, helping the user walk more easily and naturally.
Now, new research out of Harvard University published in Science Robotics shows th ...read more
It's still too early to give a definite thumbs up or thumbs down to promises of future driverless cars reducing private car ownership by acting as robot chauffeurs. But evidence from today's ride-hailing services suggests that Uber, Lyft and Waymo may only worsen traffic congestion by crowding roads with robot taxis in the near future.
The latest study from the Metropolitan Area Planning Council Research in Boston found that about 42 percent of ride-hailing pa ...read more
This month marks the 45th anniversary of Pioneer 10's passage through the asteroid belt. It was a key rite of passage in humanity's journey from this blue planet into the deep reaches of outer space. Unlike the crowded swarms of science-fiction movies, the real asteroid belt is overwhelmingly empty space. Still, nobody knew exactly what to expect. Would Pioneer 10 be pelted with dust-speck micrometeoroids? Was the asteroid belt a serious barrier to exploration?
As it turned out, the dust ...read more
Earlier this week, BuzzFeed published a detailed investigation of a prominent food psychologist who massaged and manipulated data to produce media-friendly results. You've probably heard of some of Cornell University professor Brian Wansink's studies. There was the one with the "bottomless" soup bowl that refilled itself while subjects ate, to study portion control; the one about characters on cereal boxes making eye contact with kids from grocery-store shelves; and so on. Se ...read more
The world's largest airplane is taking to the runway.
The massive Stratolaunch aircraft developed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen conducted a taxi test over the weekend in Mojave, California where the aircraft reached a speed of 46 miles per hour. With a wingspan of 385 feet, and powered by six Pratt & Whitney turbofan engines, the ungainly craft is meant to give rockets a ride to the stratosphere, where they will launch into orbit.
Gearing Up For Flight
The test follows earlie ...read more
