A crack on the Antarctic ice shelf grew dramatically in late 2020 into 2021. Scientists are watching to see if the rapidly accelerating crack will cause the shelf to rip apart before Antarctica’s sunlit summer season – going on now – comes to an end. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/iceberg-brunt-ice-shelf-antarctica-break-off…
Tag: october
NASA “mole’s” attempts to dig into Mars failed. What’s next?
The mission team for NASA’s InSight lander called off its attempts to try to dig deeper into Mars with the heat probe known as “the mole.” Meanwhile, the rest of the mission gained an extension to December 2022. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/nasa-calls-halt-to-attempts-by-insight-mole-to-dig-into-mars…
6 space missions to look forward to in 2021
Here are some of the space missions to keep an eye out for in 2021. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/6-space-missions-2021-artemis-chandrayaa3-jameswebb…
Windows 10 Bug Corrupts Your Hard Drive On Seeing This File’s Icon
An unpatched zero-day in Microsoft Windows 10 allows attackers to corrupt an NTFS-formatted hard drive with a one-line command. Bleeping Computer reports: In August 2020, October 2020, and finally this week, infosec researcher Jonas L drew attention to an NTFS vulnerability impacting Windows 10 that has not been fixed. When exploited, this vulnerability can be triggered by a single-line command to…
WhatsApp Clarifies It’s Not Giving All Your Data To Facebook
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: WhatsApp has published a new FAQ page to its website outlining its stances on user privacy in response to widespread backlash over an upcoming privacy policy update. The core issue relates to WhatsApp’s data-sharing procedures with Facebook, with many users concerned an updated privacy policy going into effect on February 8th will…
Tonight is New Year’s Eve in the Julian calendar
Happy Julian New Year! January 13, 2021, marks the last day of the year in the old-style Julian calendar. Why, and what happened when the calendars switched. Source: https://earthsky.org/tonight/julian-calendar-new-years-eve…
Record number of billion-dollar disasters in U.S. in 2020
Last year, the U.S. experienced a record-smashing 22 weather and climate disasters that killed at least 262 people and injured scores more. Damages exceeded $1 billion each and totaled approximately $95 billion for all 22 events. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/record-number-billion-dollar-disasters-us-2020…
Journalists Scrutinize QAnon’s Role in Capitol Hill Mob — And Its Hosting Infrastructure
On Thursday Axios tried to assess QAnon’s role in the mob that stormed America’s Capitol building:
Adherents of the QAnon conspiracy theory, who imagine a vast deep-state cabal of pedophiles arrayed against Trump, have for years insisted that a moment of reckoning for their enemies is imminent. QAnon believers have largely accepted that Trump is waiting for the right time to bring…
DoorDash Is Hiking Customer Fees To Pay For a Law It Helped Write
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: In the months since a coalition of app-based gig companies successfully passed Prop 22 in California, exempting themselves from reclassifying their workers as employees, DoorDash has been silently passing costs onto consumers. The company-funded Yes on Prop 22 campaign claimed that not passing the ballot initiative would result in higher prices for consumers,…
Planetary trio – Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury – low in west at dusk
For the first time since October 2015, sky watchers will have the chance to view a planetary trio, or 3 planets all bunched up together on the sky’s dome. Two are Jupiter and Saturn, fresh from their much-viewed December conjunction. The 3rd planet is elusive Mercury. Source: https://earthsky.org/tonight/planetary-trio-low-in-west-at-dusk…