30 articles from SATURDAY 3.9.2022

NASA Calls Off Artemis I Moon Launch For a Second Time: Here’s Why

For the second time this week, NASA called off the launch of Artemis I on Saturday morning due to technical issues. The launch was originally planned for Aug. 29, but will now need to be rescheduled again due to a fuel leak. Saturday’s launch was canceled when rocket operators sent a command to fill the rocket’s tank, and an alarm went off that there was a hydrogen leak. The launch...

The art of debating taught me to see another view – it’s a skill that brings people together

After moving from South Korea I struggled to fit in. But I began to see a new way of understanding empathy through debatingWhen I moved from South Korea to Australia at the age of eight, I learned the worst part of crossing language lines was adjusting to live conversation – to its rapid, layered rhythms and many about-faces. Once spun out, the best I could do was wait for a topic change or long...

Nasa calls off Artemis 1 moon rocket launch for second time after fuel leak

It was not immediately clear if space agency will be able to make fixes in time to meet next backup launch date of MondayNasa called off its latest attempt to launch the groundbreaking Artemis 1 moon rocket on Saturday after failing to stem a fuel leak discovered during tanking. It was the second time in five days that technical issues had kept the spacecraft on the launchpad.Mission managers...

Oldest human or just another ape? Row erupts over 7m-year-old fossil

Remains from Chad desert provoke rancorous dispute over whether species was earliest to walk uprightIt is a dispute that has taken a long time to reach boiling point. Seven million years after an apelike creature – since nicknamed Toumaï – traversed the landscape of modern Chad, its means of mobility has triggered a dispute among fossil experts. Some claim this was the oldest member of the...

Climate change measures are a lot more popular than Americans think

Elke Weber became a research psychologist with cross-training in business so that she could investigate how individuals approach financial risks. But a chance opportunity at her first faculty job, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the late 1980s, threw her together with agricultural economists trying to understand if or how local farmers thought about climate change.

Call it trivial, but we still need to master the art of small talk | Yvonne Roberts

Four minutes of idle chat with a stranger could lead to new connections, a study by economists findsThe golden rule of small talk, as anyone who has worked behind a bar can testify, is don’t say what’s on your mind. Rule two, avoid any reference to politics, religion, money, death, health and sex. The price of a pint and the weather are safe bets, and can be discussed in idle chat night after...

Nasa to crash $330m spacecraft into asteroid to see if impact can alter course

Space agency to cause collision with Dimorphos to test if it can avert sci-fi fears of catastrophic impact with EarthIn a few weeks, Nasa controllers will deliberately crash their $330m Dart robot spacecraft into an asteroid. The half-tonne probe will be travelling at more than four miles a second when it strikes its target, Dimorphos, and will be destroyed.The aim of this kamikaze science mission...

Californians asked to conserve power amid brutal heat wave

Californians sweltering in the West's lengthening heat wave were asked to reduce air conditioning and cut other electricity use again during critical hours Friday and again Saturday to prevent stress on the state's electrical grid that could lead to rolling blackouts.

Artificial intelligence can be used to better monitor Maine's forests, study finds

Monitoring and measuring forest ecosystems is a complex challenge because of an existing combination of softwares, collection systems and computing environments that require increasing amounts of energy to power. The University of Maine's Wireless Sensor Networks (WiSe-Net) laboratory has developed a novel method of using artificial intelligence and machine learning to make monitoring soil...