Science

WASHINGTON — NASA needs to ensure that commercial space stations are ready before the International Space Station is retired to avoid a “space station gap” with geopolitical consequences, industry officials and other advisers warn. NASA’s low Earth orbit commercialization strategy calls for the development of one or more commercial space stations by late this decade,

The magnificently long, spined tails of ancient dinosaurs are unlike anything that’s alive today. New research suggests that they elegantly swished side-to-side while their owners walked, and enthusiastically wagged when they ran. It took around 80 million years for the bird lineage of dinosaurs to lose such lengthy tails, which they did in line with

While quantum computers are already here, they’re very much limited prototypes for now. It’s going to take a while before they’re fulfilling anything close to their maximum potential, and we can use them the way we do regular (classical) computers. That moment is now a little nearer though, as scientists have got three entangled qubits operating together on

Microplastics are everywhere. Even what should be untouched wildernesses – the icy plains of Antarctica, the crushing depths of the deepest ocean chasms – has been polluted by our garbage. So it’s no surprise that we ingest plastic, too; it’s been found in our feces, probably as a result of eating from plastic containers. But a

Cracks are appearing on the International Space Station (ISS), and retired NASA astronaut Bill Shepherd says they’re a “fairly serious issue.” After Russian cosmonauts spotted the cracks on the station’s Zarya module, Vladimir Solovyov, flight director of the Russian segment of the ISS, publicly revealed the discovery in August. The cracks don’t pose a danger to astronauts

The unusually large hole that opened up in the ozone layer over the Arctic last year seems to have been triggered by record-breaking winter temperatures in the North Pacific ocean, according to new analysis. The huge hole, which encompassed nearly the entire ozone layer overhead, closed in early spring, but there’s a chance it could

The Space Force and the National Reconnaissance Office lead a “program integration council” to coordinate efforts by multiple agencies NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The U.S. Space Force has an acquisitions arm called the Space Systems Command. A separate Space Rapid Capabilities Office that procures classified systems reports to the chief of the Space Force. The

Scientists are working on rechargeable, glow-in-the-dark plant life that could one day replace some of the inefficient, energy-intensive electric lights that we currently rely on for modern-day living. The technology works through embedded nanoparticles that sit near the surface of leaves. A charge from an LED light lasting 10 seconds is enough for the plant

A tabletop gravitational wave detector based around a piece of ringing quartz has recorded two mysterious signals in its first 153 days of operation. It’s unclear exactly what these signals are; they could be from a number of phenomena. But one of those phenomena is exactly what the detector is designed to pick up –

Sleep is one of the most vital things a human does, but millions of us don’t do enough of it. Some of the distractions that prevent us from getting enough sleep are obvious. Others are less so, remaining mysterious and debated – even if they’ve probably been disrupting human shut-eye for thousands of years. In

Four SpaceX tourists returned to Earth safely on Saturday after spending three days in space, successfully concluding the first orbital mission in history with no professional astronauts on board. The SpaceX Dragon capsule, whose heat shield allowed it to withstand descent, was slowed down by four large parachutes before splashing into the Atlantic Ocean off

Over 35 countries, including the world’s largest carbon emitters, are falling short of their commitments to curb climate change, according to a bleak new analysis – with the exception of one lone African nation. The report found few countries are on track to cut carbon emissions and limit runaway climate change to 1.5 °C Celsius

When you know you’re being watched by somebody, it’s hard to pretend they’re not there. It can be difficult to block them out and keep focus, feeling their gaze bearing down upon you. Strangely enough, it doesn’t even seem to really matter whether they’re alive or not. In new research, scientists set up an experiment

One of the challenges in using commercial infrastructure is that the ground control systems developed for military satellites can’t talk to commercial antennas WASHINGTON — The ground stations and tracking antennas the U.S. military relies on to communicate with its satellites — known as the Satellite Control Network, or SCN — are decades old and

Apart from the global catastrophe that killed off most of the dinosaurs, some experts think almost all the mass extinctions in Earth’s history were followed by a proliferation of microbes in rivers and lakes. After the Permian extinction event 252 million years ago – the largest mass extinction event in Earth’s history – there appears

Physicists have created the first-ever atomic vortex beam – a swirling tornado of atoms and molecules with mysterious properties that have yet to be understood. By sending a straight beam of helium atoms through a grating with teeny slits, scientists were able to use the weird rules of quantum mechanics to transform the beam into a whirling

Dogs often seem uncannily shrewd about what we’re trying to tell them. A handful of recent studies offer surprising insights into the ways our canine companions are hard-wired to communicate with people. The most recent of those studies, published last week in the journal Scientific Reports, found that dogs can understand the difference between their owners’ accidental

For 900 years, scholars and stargazers have sought to explain a bright cosmic object that briefly lit up the skies above China and Japan in 1181 CE. A new study may have solved the mystery at long last. The nebula Pa 30 – named Parker’s Star, one of the hottest in the Milky Way – and the

As well as the local and immediate threat to life and property they present, bushfires can also have far-reaching, long-lasting consequences for the rest of the planet, as was the case with the huge Australian bushfires of the summer of 2019/2020. A new study combining satellite data with measurements in the field reveals one of

We live in fake times. Reality is as prevalent as it ever was, of course, but it’s becoming harder to find all the time. Perhaps nowhere is this phenomenon more unsettling than in the weird world of ‘deepfakes’ and other computer-generated faces of people who don’t actually exist (yet look uncannily like the real thing). Scientists

WAILEA, Hawaii — Two years after the close approach of a Starlink satellite with a European Space Agency satellite alarmed some in the space industry, SpaceX says it’s working closely with a wide range of satellite operators to ensure safe space operations. In September 2019, ESA announced it maneuvered an Earth science satellite called Aeolus

Ancient New Zealand has been home to an incredible array of absurdly large birds. This has included a waist-high parrot, nicknamed Squawk-zilla (Heracles inexpectatus) – the largest parrot ever known on Earth, possibly hunting for flesh around 20 million years ago. Two-meter-high flightless Moa also made their home there, along with their predator, Haast’s Eagles

By disrupting the thermodynamic equilibrium of liquids, physicists have made them behave quite differently from how they do in nature – managing to coax liquids into straight-sided squares and hexagons, and patterns of lattices. This is not just fascinating for its own sake, but could help us better understand how liquids behave under different conditions

Two polished stone balls shaped about 5,500 years ago – linked to a mysterious practice almost unique to Neolithic Britain – have been discovered in an ancient tomb on the island of Sanday, in the Orkney Islands north of mainland Scotland. Hundreds of similar stone balls, each about the size of a baseball, have been

Gravitational wave interferometers such as LIGO are deeply impressive feats of engineering, honed over years to measure the barely-detectable ripples in space-time generated by massive cosmic objects. But the cosmos has given us another tool with which we might be able to detect elusive gravitational wave signals. These are a type of dead star named

Levels of molecular hydrogen (H2) in the atmosphere have surged in modern times due to human activity, according to new research. When scientists analyzed air samples trapped in drilled cores of Antarctica’s ice, they found atmospheric hydrogen had increased 70 percent over the course of the 20th century. Even as recent air pollution laws have

It is the elephant in the genomics room: can extinct species be resurrected? One bioscience firm insists they can, announcing Monday its intent to use emerging technology to restore the woolly mammoth to the Arctic tundra. New company Colossal, capitalizing on a partnership with a Harvard geneticist, said its species “de-extinction” effort has the potential

WASHINGTON — NASA confirmed Sept. 14 that one its astronauts, Mark Vande Hei, will remain on the International Space Station until next March, setting an American spaceflight duration record in the process. The agency announced that Vande Hei, along with Russian cosmonaut Pyotr Dubrov, had their six-month stays on the station extended by another six

There’s nothing better than a nice exfoliation to clean your parrot self after a long day. Apparently, that holds true even if you’re a parrot with only half a beak. Biologists have discovered that Bruce – a disabled New Zealand kea (Nestor notabilis) at the Willowbank Wildlife Reserve in Christchurch – has been using tiny

Sound waves don’t always hit our ears directly – they can also bounce off other objects and the walls of the space that we’re in, which is why listening to a band play in a cavernous cathedral is a different experience to listening in a small music club. Now scientists have developed a technique for