Playing detective on a galactic scale: Huge new dataset will solve multiple Milky Way mysteries

How do stars destroy lithium? Was a drastic change in the shape of the Milky Way caused by the sudden arrival of millions of stellar stowaways? Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-11-galactic-scale-huge-dataset-multiple.html…

What If the Government Ran a Social Network?

A publicly-funded social network run by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation “has been proposed as one possible response if Facebook and Google limit services in Australia when the mandatory news code becomes law this year,” reports the Guardian: Facebook has warned it will block Australians from sharing news if the landmark plan to make digital platforms pay for news content becomes law….

Motley Fool: AMD ‘Isn’t Done Hammering Intel Yet’

The Motley Fool writes:
AMD held just under 18% of the CPU market at the end of 2016 before Ryzen arrived. The latest third-party estimates suggest that the chipmaker now controls close to 37% of the market. Other reliable estimates from the likes of video gaming platform Steam also suggest that AMD has been consistently chipping away at Intel’s CPU dominance. And…

College President Resigns After 712 Students Test Positive For Covid-19

CNN reports: The president of the State University of New York at Oneonta has resigned, as the school grapples with hundreds of reported Covid-19 cases within the university since the beginning of the semester… SUNY Oneonta has reported 712 student cases of Covid-19 since residence halls opened on August 17… The resignation of the sitting president of SUNY Oneonta comes after…

Venus flyby on the way to Mercury

On Saturday, October 20, 2018, the BepiColombo space probe set off on its journey to Mercury from the European spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. The 6.40 meters high and 4.1 tons heavy BepiColombo space probe consists of two spacecraft: the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO), which was constructed by the European Space Agency, ESA, and the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO), which was…

A New Theory Asks: Could a Mask Be a Crude ‘Vaccine’?

Iwastheone shares a report from The New York Times: As the world awaits the arrival of a safe and effective coronavirus vaccine, a team of researchers has come forward with a provocative new theory: that masks might help to crudely immunize some people against the virus. The unproven idea, described in a commentary published Tuesday in the New England Journal of…

Can Firefox Be Saved?

“Even with another infusion of cash from Google, you have to wonder just how long Firefox will survive as a viable, mainstream web browser,” argues ZDNet contributing editor Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols:
I’ve been using Mozilla’s Firefox browser since it was still in beta. In 2004, for a while, it was my favorite web browser. Not because it was open-source, but because it…

Ceres’ bright spots come from salty water below

The mysterious bright spots on Ceres caused a sensation when the Dawn spacecraft first spied them in 2015. Now, they’re known to be salt deposits from a recent or ongoing percolation of briny water from a large reservoir in Ceres’ interior. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/bright-areas-dwarf-planet-ceres-salty-water-below…

Google Maps Is Coming To Apple Watch, Adding CarPlay Dashboard Support

Today, Google announced that Google Maps for iOS will be adding both an Apple Watch app and support for CarPlay Dashboard, increasing the likelihood that Apple users will reconsider Google’s potential contribution to their walks and rides. VentureBeat reports: Google Maps for Apple Watch appears to be a very stripped-down version of the iPhone app, offering users step-by-step directions and estimated…

1.5% of All Americans Have Been Infected With Coronavirus – 5 Million Cases

Confirmed coronavirus cases in the U.S. hit 5 million on Sunday, reports the Associated Press, “by far the highest of any country…” “The failure of the most powerful nation in the world to contain the scourge has been met with astonishment and alarm in Europe.”
Perhaps nowhere outside the U.S. is America’s bungled virus response viewed with more consternation than in Italy,…