“NASA’s twin Voyager probes keep making discoveries in interstellar space,” reports Space.com The Voyager mission has detected a new type of “electron burst,” which will provide insights into the mechanisms of flaring stars, a new study reports. The bursts occur when cosmic ray electrons — fast-moving particles from far beyond the solar system — are pushed by shock waves generated by…
Tag: university of iowa
A Quarter of the Alexa Top 10K Websites Are Using Browser Fingerprinting Scripts
An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: A browser fingerprinting script is a piece of JavaScript code that runs inside a web page and works by testing for the presence of certain browser features. In an academic paper published earlier this month, a team of academics from the University of Iowa, Mozilla, and the University of California, Davis, has analyzed…
What is a derecho? An atmospheric scientist explains these rare but dangerous storm systems
The derecho in the U.S. East on June 3, 2020, killed 4 people and left a million without power. A Colorado derecho on June 6 had winds in excess of 100 mph. Europe, Asia and South America also have derechos. Here’s what scientists know about them. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/what-is-a-derecho-storm-system…
TRACERS heliophysics mission enters Phase B
NASA has approved the Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites (TRACERS) mission to proceed to Phase B, which marks the transition from concept study to preliminary flight design. The satellites, led by the University of Iowa (UI) and managed by Southwest Research Institute, are set to launch in late 2023. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-06-tracers-heliophysics-mission-phase.html…
Coronavirus quarantine useful lessons for future space travel?
Understanding isolation’s effects on regular people, rather than those certified to have ‘the right stuff,’ will help prepare us for the future, whether another pandemic or interplanetary space travel. Source: https://earthsky.org/human-world/coronavirus-quarantine-useful-lessons-for-future-space-travel…
Today in science: Launch of Explorer 1
Can you believe it’s been 62 years since the United States launched its 1st satellite? Explorer 1 advanced the space race between the US and the Soviet Union. It led to the discovery of the Van Allen radiation belts. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/launch-of-explorer-1-jan-31-1958…
Last known appearance of Homo erectus was in Ngandong, Java
New research shows that Homo erectus, an ancestor of human beings, lived as recently as 108,000 to 117,000 years ago in Ngandong, on the Indonesian island of Java. Source: https://earthsky.org/human-world/homo-erectus-latest-date-ngandong-java…
Doctors Are Turning To YouTube To Learn How To Do Surgical Procedures
Some doctors say that medical students and residents are turning to YouTube to fill in gaps in their training. The video-sharing platform hosts tens of thousands of surgery-related videos, and the number keeps climbing every year. CNBC reports: CNBC found tens of thousands of videos showing a wide variety of medical procedures on the Google-owned video platform, some of them hovering…