US Navy is Liable for Mass Software Piracy, Appeals Court Rules

The United States Navy is liable for a mass copyright infringement. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit sided with the German software company Bitmanagement, which accused the Navy of copying software without permission. Bitmanagement claimed more than $500 million in damages, but the final amount has yet to be determined. From a report: The dispute started when the US…

Is this the world’s tiniest reptile?

Meet the nano-chameleon, a new contender for the title of world’s smallest reptile Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/nano-chamelion-smallest-reptile…

EU Law Requires Companies To Fix Electronic Goods For Up To 10 Years

Companies that sell refrigerators, washers, hairdryers, or TVs in the European Union will need to ensure those appliances can be repaired for up to 10 years, to help reduce the vast mountain of electrical waste that piles up each year on the continent. Euronews reports: The “right to repair,” as it is sometimes called, comes into force across the 27-nation bloc…

What’s the coldest Earth has ever been?

Our planet’s history includes episodes of cold so extreme that glaciers reached sea level in equatorial regions. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/whats-coldest-earth-has-ever-been…

US Drops Digital Tax Demand, Opening Door To Global Deal

The U.S. has dropped a key demand in negotiations over digital taxation of technology companies such as Alphabet’s Google and Facebook, lifting a barrier that had raised transatlantic trade tensions and prevented an international deal. From a report: Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told her counterparts at a virtual meeting of Group of 20 finance officials that the U.S. is no longer…

World’s first video of a space-time crystal

A German-Polish research team has succeeded in creating a micrometer-sized space-time crystal consisting of magnons at room temperature. With the help of the scanning transmission X-ray microscope Maxymus at Bessy II at Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin, they were able to film the recurring periodic magnetization structure in a crystal. Published in the Physical Review Letters, the research project was a collaboration between…

Life from Earth could temporarily survive on Mars

Some microbes on Earth could temporarily survive on the surface of Mars, finds a new study by NASA and German Aerospace Center scientists. The researchers tested the endurance of microorganisms to Martian conditions by launching them into the Earth’s stratosphere, as it closely represents key conditions on the Red Planet. Published in Frontiers in Microbiology, this work paves the way for…

What is the Milky Way?

When someone says “Milky Way,” do you think of the starry pathway across our sky, or of the great pinwheel-shaped galaxy in space? Both are correct! Source: https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/what-is-the-milky-way-galaxy…

Volkswagen CEO Says He’s Not Scared of Apple

Volkswagen’s CEO Herbert Diess isn’t intimidated by Apple, even though the tech company potentially has an electric car on the way. From a report: “The car industry is not a typical tech sector that you could take over at a single stroke,” Diess said in an interview with German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “Apple will not manage that overnight.” For years,…