Asteroid dust in Chicxulub crater seals deal on dino extinction

Scientists examined rock cores taken from the Chicxulub crater in Mexico, site of the asteroid impact that triggered dinosaur extinction, and found iridium, a telltale sign of asteroids. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/asteroid-dust-iridium-chicxulub-crater-dinosaur-extinction…

Microsoft’s Big Win in Quantum Computing Was an ‘Error’ After All

In a 2018 paper, researchers said they found evidence of an elusive theorized particle. A closer look now suggests otherwise. From a report: In March 2018, Dutch physicist and Microsoft employee Leo Kouwenhoven published headline-grabbing new evidence that he had observed an elusive particle called a Majorana fermion. Microsoft hoped to harness Majorana particles to build a quantum computer, which promises…

Corporate Trolls? A Covert, Pro-Huawei Influence Campaign on Social Media

“Huawei, the crown jewel of China’s technology industry, has suffered from a sustained American campaign to keep its equipment from being used in new 5G networks around the world,” reports the New York Times. Now they’ve identified “a covert pro-Huawei influence campaign in Belgium about 5G networks.” [Alternate URL here] It began when trade lawyer Edwin Vermulst was paid to write…

How to spot an alien megastructure: The new search for Dyson spheres

Intelligent extraterrestrials may have built vast solar power plants around their host stars. The hunt for their telltale glow is hotting up Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24933190-800-how-to-spot-an-alien-megastructure-the-new-search-for-dyson-spheres/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…

10 Years After Its Discontinuation, Some Fans Still Love Microsoft’s Zune Mp3 Player

“It was weird to own a Zune in 2005,” remembers a new article in the Verge. “It is even weirder to own a Zune in 2021 — let alone 16 of them. And yet, 27-year-old Conner Woods proudly shows off his lineup on a kitchen table.”
They come in all different colors, shapes, and sizes, and each can be identified by that…

Curiosity rover spots signs of ancient megafloods on Mars

We already know that Gale Crater on Mars used to hold a lake or series of lakes a few billion years ago. Now, NASA’s Curiosity rover has found evidence for ancient giant floods that washed through the region as well. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/megafloods-gale-crater-mars-life-curiosity-rover…

Electric! Astronomers find sprites in Jupiter’s atmosphere

Scientists with NASA’s Juno mission say they have detected sprites or elves – electrical phenomena above thunderstorms on Earth – in the clouds of Jupiter for the first time. Unlike the red-colored earthly ones however, the Jovian ones are blue. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/sprites-or-elves-in-jupiters-atmosphere-lightning-juno…

Evidence of broadside collision with dwarf galaxy discovered in Milky Way

Nearly 3 billion years ago, a dwarf galaxy plunged into the center of the Milky Way and was ripped apart by the gravitational forces of the collision. Astrophysicists announced today that the merger produced a series of telltale shell-like formations of stars in the vicinity of the Virgo constellation, the first such “shell structures” to be found in the Milky Way….

Do ripples on the surface of the sun tell us that a flare is coming?

Flares from the sun are some of the nastiest things in the solar system. When the sun flares, it belches out intense X-ray radiation (and sometimes even worse). Predicting solar flares is a tricky job, and a new research paper sheds light on a possible new technique: looking for telltale ripples in the surface of the sun minutes before the blast…

Satellites discover new penguin colonies from space

Satellite images have revealed 11 previously unknown emperor penguin colonies in Antarctica, identified by telltale reddish-brown guano stains the birds leave on the ice. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/satellite-new-emperor-penguin-colonies-from-space…