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
Older doesn’t mean better.
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
Pictures just won’t do these places justice.From Popular Mechanics
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
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
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
Expert-tested essentials for hunting deer, elk, ducks, birds, and beyondFrom Popular Mechanics
Six-packs. For your six-pack. From Popular Mechanics
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
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The Boss’s blood alcohol level was one quarter of limit for driving
A department of natural resources officer also died after suffering a “medical emergency” at the scene, officials say.
Event condemned as ‘barbaric, cruel, senseless and environmentally terrorising money grab’
Employees also claim that Barack Obama and his family craved privacy while in executive mansion
Former House speaker previously referred to Texas senator as ‘Lucifer in the flesh’
Jasmine Johnnae Clifton allegedly spent funds at more than 20 stores
