“Oobleck” still holds some surprises
Mixing corn starch and water in appropriate amounts produces a slurry that is liquid when stirred slowly but hardens when you punch it—a substance colorfully dubbed “oobleck.” (The name derives…
2026
Oldest octopus fossil found to not be an octopusÂ
Pohlsepia mazonensis, a visually underwhelming fossil from Illinois, fundamentally broke our understanding of cephalopod evolution. Described in 2000 and hailed as the oldest known octopus in the fossil record, the…
Robot birds deployed in Grand Teton National Park for sexy time
Spring is here, and that can only mean one thing: the return of robot birds. In Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park, rangers and conservationists are once again deploying specially designed…
Orion helium leak no threat to Artemis II reentry, but will require redesign
Apart from pesky issues with the spacecraft’s toilet and waste disposal system, most of the Artemis II mission has proceeded like clockwork. NASA has made few changes to the flight…
Clinical trial shows gene editing works for β-Thalassaemia, too
Almost as soon as researchers started exploring the capabilities of the CRISPR/Cas9 system, they recognized its potential use in targeted gene editing. But the intervening decades have seen slow progress…
“Negative” views of Broadcom driving thousands of VMware migrations, rival says
Amid customer dissatisfaction around Broadcom’s VMware takeover, rivals have been trying to lure customers from the leading virtualization firm. One of VMware’s biggest competitors, Nutanix, claims to have swiped tens…
Ugandan chimps split into two factions, then killed rivals
In the 1970s, the late Jane Goodall observed a community of chimpanzees in Gombe, Tanzania, breaking into two factions; the males in one group ended up killing all the males…
The gravity of their experience hasn’t quite set in for the Artemis II astronauts
On the home stretch of their nine-day mission, the four astronauts flying aboard NASA’s Orion spacecraft are just beginning to reflect on their experience of flying beyond the Moon. Their…
Samsung Galaxy phones now support Apple AirDrop. Here’s how it works.
For many years, iPhones and Android devices didn’t play nicely together. Sure, you can get files and data swapped between platforms, but it hasn’t been easy. Plus, you’d typically need…
Trump’s emergency orders pushing coal power are “illegal” as well as dumb
At one time, the US electricity grid ran mostly on coal. But coal-fired power plants have steadily been decommissioned. Power producers found the plants were too expensive to operate and…