Science

Raytheon and Palantir each won $8.5 million contracts to design ground station prototypes WASHINGTON — Raytheon announced June 28 it is teaming with seven aerospace and data analytics companies to develop a ground station for the U.S. Army that can process data from air and space sensors. Raytheon and Palantir in January were selected to

A “heat dome” over western Canada and the US Pacific northwest sent temperatures soaring to new highs, triggering heat warnings from Oregon to Canada’s Arctic territories on Sunday. More than 40 new temperature highs were recorded in British Columbia over the weekend, including in the ski resort town of Whistler. And the high pressure ridge

Many of us hang on to keepsakes from loved ones who have died, and new research suggests that this habit is deeply human – and thousands of years old. The newly published study on this subject focuses on ‘deliberately deposited objects’ or ‘problematic stuff’ – items dug up by archaeologists that wouldn’t normally be there

In 2018, scientists made a discovery that could change our understanding of the dusty, dry red ball that is Mars. Radar signals bounced from just below the planet’s surface revealed a shining patch, consistent with nothing so much as an underground pool of liquid water. Subsequent searches turned up even more shiny patches, suggesting a

The United Nations calculated that extreme weather events resulted in 15,000 deaths and resulted in economic losses of US $170 billion in 2020. Storms, floods, and droughts can be catastrophic for people and the environment, but are these events on the rise? We asked 4 experts in climate science ‘Are extreme weather events becoming more

An exceptionally rare and critically endangered fungus, known as the tea-tree fingers, is rapidly losing its grip on the Australian mainland. Just off the coast, however, its finger-like tendrils are still clinging to life. On French Island, several kilometers from the Mornington Peninsula in the country’s southeast, scientists and volunteers have now discovered the largest

More than 120,000 years ago in the Levant, Homo sapiens lived side-by-side with a type of ancient human we didn’t know about – until now. That’s according to new fossil evidence of this human uncovered by archaeologists – fragments of ancient skull and jaw bones, and teeth, which seem to fit both Neanderthal and Homo

Life currently has a sample size of just one. Without an alien or two to expand the boundaries of biology, Earth’s evolutionary history sets the limits on whether we can expect other planets to spawn complex critters like, well, us. Given many life forms owe a great debt to the oxygen in our atmosphere, it’s

While grumbling skies and spectacular displays of air-splitting light can be a thrilling experience to witness, thunderstorms can also do an awful lot of damage. From igniting massive wildfires to causing flash flooding, damaging hail, and even tornadoes ,this wild weather can destroy homes and businesses and take lives. Thunderstorms that roil across the Southern

Col. Eric Felt: ‘Operating spacecraft beyond geosynchronous Earth orbit poses unique challenges’ WASHINGTON — A new report published by the Air Force Research Laboratory suggests the U.S. Space Force has to prepare for a day when the moon and the volume of space around it could become the next military frontier.  “A Primer on Cislunar

When you’re as tiny as a European robin, crossing the continent for the winter is no small feat. We now know its secret to keeping on track over vast distances – an innate ability to harness the weirdness that sits at the heart of quantum physics. Long hypothesized as means by which animals might sense

Over 3.5 million dead and counting. Long-term health problems, livelihoods destroyed and a long way yet to go. This is the age of COVID-19. Was it simply a natural disaster, part of living in a fast-paced, globalized world? Or can we identify preventable mistakes? The key is the term “natural disaster“: it’s a misnomer. Disasters

Venus may be a toxic hell-planet, but new evidence suggests it might have more in common than Earth than we realized. Scientists have just found evidence that Venus’ crust could have tectonic blocks that rub together, not dissimilar to broken blocks of pack ice. It’s not entirely like Earth’s plate tectonics, but the discovery does

In normal times, it’s easy to assume that desert plants will weather tough periods. These hardy organisms evolved to survive bouts of prolonged heat and dryness, after all. They can take it. These are not normal times, though. A new study analyzing over 30 years’ worth of satellite imagery captured over southern California reveals that

Have you ever chatted with a friend about buying a certain item and been targeted with an ad for that same item the next day? If so, you may have wondered whether your smartphone was “listening” to you. But is it really? Well, it’s no coincidence the item you’d been interested in was the same

WASHINGTON — A NASA-funded smallsat mission to Mars that lost its ride last year may get new life through a partnership with Rocket Lab. Rocket Lab announced June 15 it won a contract from the Space Sciences Laboratory (SSL) of the University of California Berkeley to begin design work on a new version of the

Drone footage has captured the social lives of southern resident killer whales like never before, and their friendships look surprisingly similar to our own. Tracking a single pod of 22 killer whales for 10 days, researchers observed a complex web of relationships, including close friendships. Resident killer whales live their whole lives in the same

Fear is a common response to darkness, especially in children, and now scientists think they might have figured out the brain mechanisms behind it,  mechanisms that work in a couple of areas of the brain in particular. The amygdala section of the brain is responsible for processing emotion and regulating our fear response, and a

As we gain greater ability to peer deeper and deeper into the Universe, we’ve been finding something very surprising: Supermassive black holes millions to billions of times the mass of the Sun, before the Universe was even 10 percent of its current age. This is quite the cosmological conundrum. Given what we know about the

One of the key steps to mitigating climate change is to better understand the multitude of factors that affect our planet’s temperature – and a new study reveals the important role that ocean microbes play in the process. Microbes are responsible for most of Earth’s naturally produced methane, a key greenhouse gas that contributes to

MacArthur Genius and MIT professor Linda Griffith has built an epic career as a scientist and inventor, including growing a human ear on a mouse. She now spends her days unpacking the biological mechanisms underlying endometriosis, a condition in which uterus-like tissue grows outside of the uterus. Endometriosis can be brutally painful, is regularly misdiagnosed

TAMPA, Fla. — SES has expanded its partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS), enabling satellite customers to connect directly to its cloud-based applications. According to SES, it is the first satellite operator to pass technical and business reviews for directly connecting with AWS cloud services, without going through a virtual private network (VPN). The company

Even predators can’t stay awake all the time. But sharks, those sleek hunters of the deep, don’t exactly advertise when they’re taking a power nap. A strange behavior has given them up, though. Marine biologists have discovered that sharks ‘surf’ ocean currents in a conveyor belt configuration, allowing them to take turns resting. The revelation

Very rarely is anything completely still. All normal matter in the Universe is made of humming particles, minding their own business and vibrating at their own frequencies. If we can get them to slow down as much as possible, the material enters what is known as the motional ground state. In this state, physicists can

Despite us having mapped and categorized so much of mammal biology already, there are still new surprises lying in wait. Now, scientists have found two new types of glia – a type of support cell – in mouse brains. Glial cells are usually thought of as the support act in the brain and the spinal cord, adding

In the far reaches of the Universe, a supermassive black hole is throwing a tantrum. It’s blowing a tremendous wind into intergalactic space, and we’re seeing the storm light from 13.1 billion years ago, when the Universe was less than 10 percent of its current age. It’s the most distant such tempest we’ve ever identified,

It’s not just seeds that are being stashed away at the poles – scientists are also preserving stacks of ancient ice for future research, and the oldest ice in the Alps region has now been successfully extracted, ready for storage in Antarctica. What makes saving and storing this ice so important is the climate history

TAMPA, Fla. — British maritime surveillance venture Horizon Technologies has ordered two more cubesats from AAC Clyde Space, which will operate them after securing their launches next year. The satellites will listen for signals from ships operating clandestinely, helping customers that include the U.K.’s National Maritime Information Centre (NMIC) tackle piracy and other illegal activities. They will

The tipping point for irreversible global warming may have already been triggered, the scientist who led the biggest-ever expedition to the Arctic warned on Tuesday. “The disappearance of summer sea ice in the Arctic is one of the first landmines in this minefield, one of the tipping points that we set off first when we