Amazon Can Make Just About Anything — Except a Good Video Game

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg, which is “based on interviews with more than 30 current and former Amazon employees, most of whom spoke under the condition of anonymity citing fears of litigation or career repercussions.” From the report: Mike Frazzini had never made a video game when he helped start Amazon Game Studios. Eight years later, he has…

Werner Herzog On Asteroids, Star Wars, and the ‘Obscenity’ of a City On Mars

78-year-old filmmaker Werner Herzog shared some interesting thoughts before the release of his new documentary on asteroids, Fireball: Visitors From Darker Worlds now available on Apple TV+. From Herzog’s new interview with the science site inverse: Herzog tells Inverse he’s less concerned than ever that a meteorite will destroy the Earth, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t still be worried about…

Clovis made stone tools for only around 300 years

The Clovis, some of North America’s earliest inhabitants, only made stone tools during a brief 300-year period from 13,050 to 12,750 years ago, new research shows. Source: https://earthsky.org/human-world/clovis-stone-tools-300-years…

Scientists Solve a Mystery By Firing a Laser at the Moon

“The moon is drifting away,” reports the New York Times. Every year, it gets about an inch and a half farther from us. Hundreds of millions of years from now, our companion in the sky will be distant enough that there will be no more total solar eclipses. For decades, scientists have measured the moon’s retreat by firing a laser at…

SpaceX completes test flight of Mars rocket prototype

SpaceX on Tuesday successfully completed a flight of less than a minute of the largest prototype ever tested of the future rocket Starship, which the company hopes to use one day to colonize Mars. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-08-spacex-flight-mars-rocket-prototype.html…

Languages will change significantly on interstellar flights

It’s a captivating idea: build an interstellar ark, fill it with people, flora, and fauna of every kind, and set your course for a distant star. The concept is not only science fiction gold, it’s been the subject of many scientific studies and proposals. By building a ship that can accommodate multiple generations of human beings (a generation ship), humans could…

Study finds the minimum number of Martian settlers for survival is 110

So you want to colonize Mars. Well, Mars is a long ways away, and in order for a colony to function that far from Earthly support, things have to be thought out very carefully. Including how many people are needed to make it work. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-06-minimum-martian-settlers-survival.html…