Science

This elephant figured out how to use a hose to shower

And the hose-showering behavior was “lateralized,” that is, Mary preferred targeting her left body side more than her right. (Yes, Mary is a “left-trunker.”) Mary even adapted her showering behavior depending on the diameter of the hose: she preferred showering…

For the second time this year, NASA’s JPL center cuts its workforce

“This reduction is spread across essentially all areas of the Lab including our technical, project, business, and support areas,” Leshin wrote. “We have taken seriously the need to re-size our workforce, whether direct-funded (project) or funded on overhead (burden). With…

There are some things the Crew-8 astronauts aren’t ready to talk about

Once the leak stabilized, the astronauts closed the hatch and began repressurizing the airlock. “Getting the airlock closed was kind of me grabbing her legs and using her as an end effector to lever that thing closed, and she just…

Air quality problems spur $200 million in funds to cut pollution at ports

“We’re essentially creating a microgrid at the port,” she said. Improving the air for disadvantaged communities The Clean Ports funding will also be a boon for people like Garcia, who live near a US shipping port. Shipping ports are notorious…

Russia: Fine, I guess we should have a Grasshopper rocket project, too

Like a lot of competitors in the global launch industry, Russia for a long time dismissed the prospects of a reusable first stage for a rocket. As late as 2016, an official with the Russian agency that develops strategy for…

How a stubborn computer scientist accidentally launched the deep learning boom

So in 2006, Nvidia announced the CUDA platform. CUDA allows programmers to write “kernels,” short programs designed to run on a single execution unit. Kernels allow a big computing task to be split up into bite-sized chunks that can be…

Research monkeys still having a ball days after busting out of lab, police say

If you need any inspiration for cutting loose and relaxing this weekend, look no further than a free-wheeling troop of monkeys that broke out of their South Carolina research facility Wednesday and, as of noon Friday, were still “playfully exploring”…

Space policy is about to get pretty wild, y’all

The global space community awoke to a new reality on Wednesday morning. The founder of this century’s most innovative space company, Elon Musk, successfully used his fortune, time, and energy to help elect Donald Trump to president of the United…

DNA shows Pompeii’s dead aren’t who we thought they were

People have long been fascinated by the haunting plaster casts of the bodies of people who died in Pompeii when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 CE. Archaeologists have presented certain popular narratives about who these people might have been and…

Rocket Report: Australia says yes to the launch; Russia delivers for Iran

North Korea tests new missile. North Korea apparently completed a successful test of its most powerful intercontinental ballistic missile on October 31, lofting it nearly 4,800 miles (7,700 kilometers) into space before the projectile fell back to Earth, Ars reports. This solid-fueled,…