Scientific American Endorses Joe Biden For Its First Presidential Endorsement In 175 Years

goombah99 shares a report from The Washington Post: Four years ago, the magazine flagged Donald Trump’s disdain for science as “frightening” but did not go so far as to endorse his rival, Hillary Clinton. This year, its editors came to a different conclusion. “A 175-year tradition is not something you break lightly,” editor in chief, Laura Helmuth told The Washington Post…

The 61 Books Elon Musk Has Recommended on Twitter

Entrepreneur magazine writes:
Although his days are presumably filled with Tesla, SpaceX, cyber pigs and lots and lots of tweeting, it seems Elon Musk also finds the time to make reading part of his routine. The billionaire businessman is known for sharing (and oversharing) all his recommendations and thoughts on Twitter, so it’s no surprise that books are part of that. Most…

Follow the Perseverance rover in real time on its way to Mars

Keep track of NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance is right now, on its journey through space towards its February 18, 2021 landing on Mars. This web app shows you where spacecraft is right now. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/follow-perseverance-rover-real-time-mars-journey-app…

Silicon ‘Sandwiches’ Make For Lightweight, High-Capacity Batteries

A team at Clemson University has come up with a new design that overcomes some of the problems with incorporating silicon into lithium-ion batteries, “enabling them to demonstrate a lightweight and multipurpose device that could be used to power satellites and spacesuits,” reports New Atlas. From the report: Scientists have been investigating the potential of silicon in lithium-ion batteries for a…

Can This Company Build Self-Charging Batteries From Radioactive Nuclear Waste?

Heart44 writes:
There is a lot of C-14 radioactive waste from graphite rods that is expensive to store. This graphite can be converted to C-14 diamonds covered in C-12 diamonds. C-14 has a half-life of 5,700 years, so such batteries would last a long time and are supposedly safe. Sounds like an April fool but… New Atlas considers the possibilities: …what you…

Boeing and NASA Target December For Second Try at Uncrewed Orbital Demonstration Flight

NASA and Boeing have provided some updates around their Commercial Crew plans, which aim to get Boeing’s CST-100 spacecraft certified for regular human flight. From a report: The CST-100 and Boeing’s Commercial Crew aspirations hit a snag last year with a first attempt of an uncrewed orbital flight test, which did not go to plan thanks to a couple of software…

CERN experiments announce first indications of a rare Higgs boson process

At the 40th ICHEP conference, the ATLAS and CMS experiments announced new results which show that the Higgs boson decays into two muons. The muon is a heavier copy of the electron, one of the elementary particles that constitute the matter content of the Universe. While electrons are classified as a first-generation particle, muons belong to the second generation. The physics…

Perseverance, newest Mars rover, to launch July 30

NASA is targeting 7:50 a.m. EDT on Thursday, July 30, 2020, for the launch of its Mars 2020 Perseverance rover on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/watch-launch-newest-mars-rover-perseverance-july30-2020…

Hybird Solar Converter Harvests Both Sunlight and Heat At 85% Efficiency

Engineers have developed a new type of hybrid solar energy converter, which uses energy from the Sun to create both electricity and steam. The device reportedly has high efficiency and runs at low cost, allowing industry to make use of a wider spectrum of solar energy. New Atlas reports: The device looks like a satellite dish, with a small device suspended…