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Recommended Stories

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    But first, scientists need to see if it's ready.

  • The USPS's New Mail Truck Is Expected to Be Delivering Mail by 2023

    The Postal Service just decided it's time to get weird.

  • After losing launch competition, Blue Origin delays New Glenn rocket’s first flight until late 2022

    Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture says it’s targeting the fourth quarter of 2022 for the first flight of its orbital-class New Glenn rocket — which marks a major schedule shift. The company had previously planned to conduct its first New Glenn launch from Florida by the end of this year, although it was becoming increasingly clear that timeline wouldn’t hold. In a blog posting, Blue Origin said its team “has been in contact with all of our customers to ensure this baseline meets their launch needs.” Blue Origin noted that the updated timeline follows the U.S. Space… Read More

  • Why a Whiskey’s Age Isn’t Everything

    Older doesn’t mean better.

  • Human genome sequencing rises to the next level of diversity and accuracy

    Twenty years after the first human genome sequence was published, an international research team has kicked the sequencing game to the next level with a set of 64 reference genomes that reflect much higher resolution and more genetic diversity. Since the Human Genome Project completed the first draft of its reference genome, decoding the human genetic code has been transformed from a multibillion-dollar endeavor into a relatively inexpensive commercial service. However, commercial whole-genome sequencing, or WGS, often misses out on crucial variations that can make all the difference when it comes to an individual’s health. “As a metric, 75% of… Read More

  • NASA backs concepts for deep-drilling Mars rover and interstellar-object probe

    The latest crop of NASA-backed concepts for far-out space exploration includes “borebots” that could drill as far as a mile beneath the Martian surface in search of liquid water, and a nuclear-powered spacecraft that could intercept interstellar objects as they zip through our solar system. Researchers in Washington state are behind both of those ideas. The borebots and the interstellar-object checker are among 16 proposals winning Phase I funding from the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program, or NIAC. For more than two decades, NIAC (which started out as the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts) has backed early-stage projects that could… Read More

  • Scientists Just Figured Out How to Turn Your Body Into a Battery

    Imagine charging your Apple Watch with ... yourself.

  • Paleontologists use fossilized teeth to flesh out ancient tale of earliest primates

    The shapes of fossilized teeth from 65.9 million-year-old, squirrel-like creatures suggest that the branch of the tree of life that gave rise to us humans and other primates flowered while dinosaurs still walked the earth. That’s the claim coming from a team of 10 researchers across the U.S., including biologists at Seattle’s Burke Museum and the University of Washington. In a study published by Royal Society Open Science, the team lays out evidence that an ancient group of primates known as plesiadapiforms must have emerged before the mass-extinction event that killed off the dinosaurs. (Technically, modern-day birds are considered the… Read More

  • These Sharpeners Made Our Knives Cut Like New

    Because if it’s not a sharp knife, it’s not a good knife.

  • Stoke Space raises $9.1 million to create a new breed of reusable upper-stage rockets

    Stoke Space Technologies, the Renton, Wash.-based company founded by veterans of Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture, has attracted $9.1 million in seed investments for extending rocket reusability to new frontiers. The first goal will be to develop a new kind of reusable upper stage, Stoke co-founder and CEO Andy Lapsa said. “That’s the last domino to fall in the industry before reusability is commonplace,” Lapsa told GeekWire. “Even right now, I think space launch is in a production-limited paradigm.” Rocket reusability is the watchword, to be sure — not only at Blue Origin, where Lapsa was an award-winning rocket… Read More

  • The Ultimate Hunting Gear Guide

    Expert-tested essentials for hunting deer, elk, ducks, birds, and beyondFrom Popular Mechanics

  • A Self-Taught Math Genius Wrote This Riddle While Serving Time in Prison. Can You Solve It?

    Christopher Havens got his number theory problem published in a college-level mathematics magazine.

  • Six Great Smart Notebooks to Increase Your Productivity

    Prefer pen and paper to a smartphone or tablet? These smart notebooks will let you take notes the old-fashioned way and easily digitize them.From Popular Mechanics

  • How to Do a Reverse Image Search

    Here's the sneaky way to find out where practically any picture came from.

  • Breathe Easier With One of These 10 Best Humidifiers

    An evaporative or ultrasonic humidifier will defend you from winter’s dry air.

  • 10 Low-Calorie Beers That Are High In Deliciousness

    Six-packs. For your six-pack. From Popular Mechanics

  • Surreal Destinations You Wouldn’t Think Are in America

    Pictures just won’t do these places justice.From Popular Mechanics

  • Rooster kills Indian man during banned cockfight

    A man was killed by a rooster with a blade tied to its leg during an illegal cockfight in southern India, police said, bringing focus on a practice that continues in some Indian states despite a decades-old ban. The rooster, with a 3-inch knife tied to its leg, fluttered in panic and slashed its owner, 45-year-old Thangulla Satish, in his groin last week, police inspector B. Jeevan said Sunday. According to Jeevan, Satish was injured while he prepared the rooster for a fight.

  • 'No smoking gun,' 'We are all Mohammed bin Salman,' say crown prince supporters

    DUBAI (Reuters) - "No smoking gun," pro-government Saudi commentators concluded in response to a U.S. intelligence assessment that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had approved the operation to capture or kill journalist Jamal Khashoggi. A few minutes after the report was released, many Saudis flooded Twitter with the hashtag saying, "We are all Mohammed bin Salman." Saudi Arabia, one of Washington's closest Arab allies, officially dismissed what it called the "negative, false and unacceptable assessment in the report pertaining to the kingdom's leadership", according to a statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

  • Jamal Khashoggi: Biden will take no action against MBS after intelligence report finds Saudi leader responsible for murder of journalist

    The State Department is due to announce is response to the killing soon