Watch: SpaceX Rocket Detonated Mid-Flight During Test
A SpaceX rocket exploded over McGregor, Texas during a test flight Friday, though no one was injured in the incident.
A problem was detected during a test of a three-engine version of SpaceX’s F9R vehicle, the company said, and the flight’s termination system then automatically self-destructed, bringing the mission to a sudden end.
“Today’s test was particularly complex,...
FRIDAY 22. AUGUST 2014
Climate Change Could Happen Slower for the Next Decade, Study Says
Temperatures have risen more slowly in the past decade than in the previous 50 years and will continue to rise at a somewhat slower rate in the next decade, according to a new study, even as climate change continues to raise temperatures to unprecedented levels worldwide.
The study, published in the journal Science, explained the temporary slowdown in rising temperatures as a potential consequence...
Evidence of Absolutely Enormous Dead Stars Discovered
Astronomers have a pretty good idea about what the first stars in the universe must have looked like. Theorists say they should have been gigantic, weighing in at anywhere from 20 times the mass of the Sun all the way up to 100 Suns’ worth of material or more. These giants would have burned...
Juvenile Coral and Fish Know When a Reef Has Gone Bad
Baby coral and fish in the Pacific are able to detect both good and bad reefs, according to a Fiji-based study reported by the BBC. The study found that sea animals avoid reefs that do not give off the right chemical signals, because the failure to do so indicates that a reef is degraded.
According to the research, published in Science, when young coral and fish are presented with water samples...
THURSDAY 21. AUGUST 2014
Check Out the Freezing Cold Place Where Scientists Found Life
A subglacial lake 800 meters beneath the West Antarctic ice sheet has been discovered to contain “viable microbial ecosystems,” according to the National Science Foundation, which funded the project. The findings are the result of a 2013 drilling expedition in which researchers used a sterile, hot water drill to reach and collect samples from Lake Whillans, in the west part of the...
Quiz: Are You A Narcissist?
Check the answer in each pair that comes closest to describing you. Don’t leave any pairs blank; try to complete the survey in just a few minutes. The highest possible score is 40, the lowest is 0.
Are you a narcissist
Penguin Group
Excerpted from The Narcissist Next Door: Understanding the Monster in Your Family, in Your Office, in Your Bed—in Your...
The Evolution of a Narcissist
I was once a sociopath. I didn’t know it, and wouldn’t have cared much even if I had. It’s hard to say exactly when I crossed the line from incivility into social savagery, but it was probably the day I tried to clobber a strange man on the head with a boat.
In fairness, the boat was a toy (though it was a big one, made of heavy plastic). And in fairness too, I was only 4 years old. Still, I...
Scientists Discover Microbes in a Subglacial Antarctic Lake
The frozen desert of Antarctica is challenging enough for life — never mind conditions beneath that ice-bound mass. But NBC News reports that a recent discovery by scientists reveals the water beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet to be swarming with microbes.
The findings, published in Nature, reveal that a diverse microbe ecosystem of 4,000 distinct species exists in subglacial Lake Whillans,...
WEDNESDAY 20. AUGUST 2014
Humans and Neanderthals Were Actually Neighbors
Paleontologists know plenty about our nearest human cousins, the Neanderthals. They know that this highly successful species walked the Earth for some 300,000 years (we’ve been around for less than 200,000). They know the Neanderthals kept their caves surprisingly tidy; that they ate things other than raw meat; that they practiced recycling, wore jewelry...
TUESDAY 19. AUGUST 2014
Octopus Skin Has Inspired a New Type of Camouflage Sheet
Scientists have developed a color-changing device inspired by octopuses and their natural camouflaging techniques.
The research, carried out at the University of Houston and University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, looked at how the skins of octopuses, squid and cuttlefish can change color so rapidly. From there, researchers were able to design a heat-sensitive sheet that quickly changes...
MONDAY 18. AUGUST 2014
SUNDAY 17. AUGUST 2014
Black Holes? I’ll Take a Medium, Please
Scientists may have identified an intermediate-sized black hole for the very first time
SATURDAY 16. AUGUST 2014
Now We Know How This Giant, Earth-Bound Asteroid Is Held Together, We Can Learn How to Destroy It
An asteroid pointed toward Earth set to arrive in the year 2880 AD may not destroy all life as we know it after all, now that scientists know what’s likely not to work if we need to avert a collision.
Scientists at the University of Tennessee have discovered new cohesive forces that hold giant asteroids together, called van der Waals, that have brought scientists closer to understanding...
A Satellite Took Pictures of Another Satellite and Now It’s a GIF
Well, this is pretty meta
FRIDAY 15. AUGUST 2014
Pictures of the Week: Aug. 8 – Aug. 15
From the tragic death of Robin Williams and violent riots in Ferguson, Mo. to a balloon festival in Bristol and a dog show in Helsinki, TIME presents the best pictures of the...
This Robot Army Can Organize Itself
Scientists at Harvard University have created an army of over a thousand tiny robots that can communicate with each other to perform complex actions. The breakthrough could lay the framework for future robot brigades that collaborate to execute large tasks such as environmental cleanup.
The 1,024 simple bots, called Kilobots, are each only a few centimeters wide, but communicate with each other...
THURSDAY 14. AUGUST 2014
Japanese Farmers Just Got a New Pesticide: The Flightless Ladybug
Researchers in Japan have discovered a way to selectively breed flightless ladybugs to be used as a “biopesticide” — a natural alternative to chemical pesticides.
Ladybugs have long been considered natural pest-control for gardens and crops, but their ability to fly away encouraged many agriculturalists to instead rely on chemical pesticides that are harmful to the environment. After...
WEDNESDAY 13. AUGUST 2014
Open Wide: These Sinkholes Swallowed Vehicles Whole
The Pittsburgh woman who lost her sedan to a sinkhole on Tuesday is not alone, as this slideshow reveals. Whether that’s comforting or disconcerting is for her to...
Watch a High-Tech Satellite Get Launched Into Space
Updated 2:48 p.m. ET
A new satellite launched Wednesday is expected to provide imagery of Earth that is nearly 40% sharper than what’s currently available.
The new WorldView-3 satellite, worth a half-billion dollars and about the size of a small RV, will become the highest-resolution commercial satellite in space. DigitalGlobe, the company that funded its manufacture, said it will offer...
Robin’s Pain: The Mystery of Suicide—and How to Prevent It
Robin Williams was just one of 39,000 Americans who take their lives each year. The longstanding puzzle is why anyone arrives at so tragic a place. Increasingly, there are answers
Top Mathemathics Prize Awarded to a Woman For First Time
Iranian mathematician Maryam Mirzakhani wins the Fields Medal, considered the Nobel of math, and breaks into a male-dominated academic elite. All 52 previous winners of the award were men
TUESDAY 12. AUGUST 2014
Massive ‘Red Tide’ Threatens Florida Beaches
A toxic red tide, the biggest in nearly a decade, is threatening tourism and endangered manatees as it moves down the Florida coast.
The culprit is Karenia brevis, microscopic algae that explode in numbers when the conditions are right, usually in late summer or early fall.
“These kinds of blooms damage wildlife, people, tourism, everything,” Don Anderson, a senior scientist at the Woods Hole...
MONDAY 11. AUGUST 2014
Giant Waves Pose New Risk for Ships in Ice-Diminished Arctic
Monster waves should be added to the list of hazards faced by ship captains as they plot a course through the waters of the Arctic Ocean, according to a new study that reports observations of house-sized swells in seas that until recently were covered in ice year-round.
“Waves always pose a risk to working at sea,” study author Jim Thomson, an oceanographer at the University of...