Mining the deep ocean
More than 13,000 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, a more-than-70-ton machine trundled like a tank on its caterpillar tracks for a tenth of a mile—sucking up potato-sized…
2026
We keep finding the raw material of DNA in asteroids—what’s it telling us?
On Monday, a paper announcing that all four DNA bases had been found on an asteroid sparked a lot of headlines. But many of the headlines omitted a key word…
DOGE goes nuclear: How Trump invited Silicon Valley into America’s nuclear power regulator
Last summer, a group of officials from the Department of Energy gathered at the Idaho National Laboratory, a sprawling 890-square-mile complex in the eastern desert of Idaho where the US…
Once again, ULA can’t deliver when the US military needs a satellite in orbit
For the fourth time in a little more than a year, the US Space Force needs to send up a new satellite to replenish the military’s GPS navigation network. And…
Widely used Trivy scanner compromised in ongoing supply-chain attack
Hackers have compromised virtually all versions of Aqua Security’s widely used Trivy vulnerability scanner in an ongoing supply chain attack that could have wide-ranging consequences for developers and the organizations…
Perseverance’s radar revealed ancient subsurface river delta on Mars
When NASA’s Perseverance rover landed in Jezero Crater in 2021, its primary mission was to scour the remnants of a dried-up Martian lakebed for signs of ancient life. Scientists have…
NASA wants to know how the launch industry’s chic new rocket fuel explodes
For more than 60 years, nearly every large rocket used some combination of the same liquid and solid propellants. Refined kerosene was favored for its easy handling and non-toxicity, hydrazine…
Monte Verde site gets a new date, but the big picture doesn’t change
A landmark site in the peopling of the Americas is several thousand years younger than we thought. While that means very different things about the site itself, it doesn’t change…
Cloud service providers ask EU regulator to reinstate VMware partner program
A trade association of cloud service providers (CSPs) filed an antitrust complaint today with the European Union’s European Commission (EC) over Broadcom’s shuttering of VMware’s CSP partner program this year.…
‘Dune’ tried to warn us against AI
Even the biggest fans of Dune know that Frank Herbert’s classic sci-fi epic quickly veers into the fantastical. Giant subterranean sandworms measuring 1,500 feet long; a narcotic that fuels interstellar…