“After so many decades of the buildup of high-speed clutter in the form of spent rocket stages, stray bolts and paint chips, solid-rocket-motor slag, dead or dying satellites and the scattered fragments from antisatellite tests—all of which could individually damage […]
Aluminum particles stay in the atmosphere when the satellites burn up on reentry. “Wooden satellites would burn up without releasing harmful substances into the atmosphere or raining debris on the ground when they plunge back to Earth.” | learn more
I didn’t give the ancients enough credit until I read this: “But long before Magellan, it was obvious to observant sailors that the Earth is round. If you sail towards something tall, like a mountain, you will see the top […]
“Since 1950, the world has created 6.3 trillion kilograms of plastic waste — and 91 percent has never been recycled even once, according to a landmark 2017 study published in the journal Science Advances.” | learn more
From Paul Kedrosky: “It’s a big planet and so a lot of weird things that shouldn’t happen, happen all the time. As I like to remind people, on a planet with 7.5 billion people, a billion-to-one longshot potentially happens seven-ish […]
Slow down–this does not mean aliens exist. However, it does signal the building blocks of Earth life may have come from space. “Named hemolithin, the new protein contains iron and lithium and may play an important role in seeding life […]
“Inside Senior Planet, the tech-savviest retirement community of seniors on earth.” | learn more
“A Russian Soyuz rocket carrying a new U.S.-Russian crew to the International Space Station failed during its ascent Thursday (Oct. 11), sending its crew capsule falling back toward Earth in a ballistic re-entry, NASA officials said.” Now seems like a […]
“They found evidence of one in New Zealand, a 60-million-year-old fossil encased in an ultra-hard sedimentary rock. Scientists estimate the bird weighed about 220 lbs (100 kg) and stood just shy of 6 feet (1.77 meters)—pretty hefty for a penguin.” | learn […]
Einstein derisively called quantum entanglement “spooky action at a distance.” Since his time, the phenomenon has been pretty well documented. Now, researchers in China have achieved entanglement over the longest distance yet, from the Earth all the way to orbit. […]