Tag: material

Moon and Lion’s Heart rise mid-evening January 29 and 30

These next few nights – January 29 and 30, 2021 – use the moon to find Regulus, the Heart of the Lion in the constellation Leo. After the moon drops out of the evening sky, use the Big Dipper to star-hop to Regulus and Leo. Source: https://earthsky.org/tonight/moon-regulus-at-mid-evening-in-january…

The Highest Resolution Photos Ever Taken of Snowflakes

Photographer and scientist Nathan Myhrvold has developed a camera that captures snowflakes at a microscopic level never seen before. Smithsonian Magazine reports: Myhrvold, who holds a PhD in theoretical mathematics and physics from Princeton University and served as the Chief Technology Officer at Microsoft for 14 years, leaned on his background as a scientist to create the camera. He also tapped…

Facebook Looks To Take its Fight With Apple To Court

A long-simmering public dispute between Facebook and Apple has neared a boiling point. The Information: With the aid of outside legal counsel, Facebook for months has been preparing an antitrust lawsuit against Apple that would allege the iPhone-maker abused its power in the smartphone market by forcing app developers to abide by App Store rules that Apple’s own apps don’t have…

Unique solar system views from NASA sun-studying missions

Though they focus on the star at the center of our solar system, three of NASA’s Sun-watching spacecraft have captured unique views of the planets throughout the last several months. Using instruments that look not at the Sun itself, but at the constant outflow of solar material from the Sun, the missions—ESA and NASA’s Solar Orbiter, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, and…

A CubeSat will test out water as a propulsion system

Novel propulsion systems for CubeSats have been on an innovative tear of late. UT has reported on propulsion systems that use everything from solid iodine to the Earth’s own magnetic field as a way of moving a small spacecraft. Now, there is a potential solution using a much more mundane material for a propellant—water. Source: https://phys.org/news/2021-01-cubesat-propulsion.html…

What You Should Known Before Leaking a Zoom Meeting

The Intercept’s Nikita Mazurov warns that Zoom has digital watermarks that could expose sources working with journalists or government officials. An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from the report: Many users may not realize it, but Zoom has the capability to insert both video and audio watermarks into a meeting. The video watermarks are readily perceptible to meeting participants. When enabled,…

Spotify’s Big Bet On Podcasts Is Failing, Citi Says

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: Spotify’s multimillion-dollar bet on podcasting may not be working out, Citi analysts wrote in a note to clients Friday. “The cadence of Premium gross additions (through 3Q20) and app download data (through 4Q20) do not show any material benefit from recent podcast investments (that began in 2019),” the analysts wrote. The firm downgraded…

New study finds polyester fibers throughout the Arctic Ocean

A new study has found that pollution from microplastics is widespread in the Arctic Ocean, and 92% of those particles are minuscule synthetic fibers from our clothes. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/polyester-fibers-arctic-ocean-microplastic-pollution…

A charge-density-wave topological semimetal

Topological materials are characterized by unique electronic and physical properties that are determined by the underlying topology of their electronic systems. Scientists from the Max Planck Institutes for Microstructure Physics (Halle) and for Chemical Physics of Solids (Dresden) have now discovered that (TaSe4)2I is the first material in which a charge density wave induces a phase transition between the semimetal to…