Hypersonic Jet Could Cross the Atlantic in 30 Minutes (Someday)

 Posted on July 8, 2023  |  3 minutes  |  448 words  |  Arica Deslauriers

How'd you like to travel from New York to London in less than an hour? One imaginative inventor has developed a concept plane that could take passengers across the pond in just 30 minutes — at least in theory. The aircraft concept, dubbed the Skreemr, is the brainchild of Charles Bombardier, an engineer and inventor who writes about his futuristic prototype designs in the Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail. Bombardier's latest design describes a passenger aircraft that can travel at 10 times the speed of sound, or just under 8,000 mph (12,348 km/h). [Read More]

Irrational Partying: Happy Pi Day!

 Posted on July 8, 2023  |  3 minutes  |  471 words  |  Trudie Dory

3.141592 … wait, what comes next? Doesn't matter — for the purposes of today's date, the first three digits of pi are the important ones. Today, 3/14, is Pi Day, the math nerd's holiday celebrating the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. Pi, also written as the Greek letter π, is an irrational transcendental number. That means it can't be written as a fraction, and its decimal places continue, well, forever. [Read More]

James Webb Space Telescope will glide to its deep-space parking spot today

 Posted on July 8, 2023  |  2 minutes  |  366 words  |  Mittie Cheatwood

Today's the day: Nearly a month after launch, the James Webb Space Telescope will arrive at its deep-space celestial destination on Monday (Jan. 24). Webb will be orbiting Earth-sun Lagrange Point 2 (L2), which is about 930,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers) away from our planet. Here, the spacecraft can use a minimum of fuel to orbit thanks to its alignment with the sun and Earth. NASA will not be broadcasting from mission control during the burn, as the agency did for some previous key milestones. [Read More]

Near-Death Experiences Explained by Science

 Posted on July 8, 2023  |  4 minutes  |  782 words  |  Mittie Cheatwood

Near-death experiences are often thought of as mystical phenomena, but research is now revealing scientific explanations for virtually all of their common features. The details of what happens in near-death experiences are now known widely—a sense of being dead, a feeling that one's "soul" has left the body, a voyage toward a bright light, and a departure to another reality where love and bliss are all-encompassing. Approximately 3 percent of the U. [Read More]

Nitrogen Contamination Found in California Water

 Posted on July 8, 2023  |  2 minutes  |  418 words  |  Patria Henriques

One in 10 people living in a productive agricultural area of central California is at risk for nitrate contamination in their drinking water, according to a new report. The report detailed the levels and of sources of nitrate contamination in the Tulare Lake Basin, which includes Fresno and Bakersfield, and the Salinas Valley. Nitrogen in organic and synthetic fertilizers has dramatically increased crop production in California in recent decades. However, excess nitrate in groundwater has been linked to thyroid illnesses, reproductive problems and some cancers. [Read More]

Photos: New archaeological discoveries in northern Iraq

 Posted on July 8, 2023  |  2 minutes  |  347 words  |  Mittie Cheatwood

Kurdistan archaeologyAn archaeologist working in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq has made several discoveries, including life-sized human statues and the remains of an ancient temple. The artifacts were found accidentally by villagers and were collected during fieldwork. The finds date back more than 2,500 years to the "Iron Age," a time when several groups, such as the Urartians, Assyrians and Scythians, vied for control of the area. This image shows the region's hilly environment. [Read More]

Salmonella Hides Its Tail to Stay Invisible to Immune System

 Posted on July 8, 2023  |  4 minutes  |  785 words  |  Fernande Dalal

You'd be hard-pressed to find someone to say something good about Salmonella, a pervasive family of bacteria that sickens more than a million people each year in the United States. But as bad as Salmonella's reputation is, the bug is certainly good at something: infecting us and causing misery. And now, scientists have discovered part of the reason why the bacteria are so talented at this: They've learned how to, quite literally, hide their tails and avoid detection by the immune system. [Read More]

Trial Begins for Witchcraft Torture Killing

 Posted on July 8, 2023  |  3 minutes  |  622 words  |  Patria Henriques

A man named Eric Bikubi is on trial for the torture death of Kristy Bamu, a 15-year-old boy who Bikubi believed was practicing witchcraft. Magalie Bamu, Kristy's sister and Bikubi’s girlfriend, is charged as an accomplice. The pair is accused of beating Kristy and two of his siblings with sticks, a hammer, metal bars and other tools in their London, England, apartment on Christmas day in 2010. Prosecutor Brian Altman said, " [Read More]

US Air Force Used Bears to Test Bombers

 Posted on July 8, 2023  |  2 minutes  |  230 words  |  Mittie Cheatwood

The B-58 Hustler was the pride of the U.S. Air Force during the Cold War. The first bomber capable of hitting Mach 2 (twice the speed of sound), it was designed to drop nuclear weapons into the Soviet Union in the era before intercontinental missiles took over that task. But the bomber's ejection capsule had some design flaws — an entire flight crew was killed in one test flight, according to io9. [Read More]

When Your Body Needs Nourishment, Your Brain Eats First

 Posted on July 8, 2023  |  3 minutes  |  594 words  |  Trudie Dory

Even if you're a generous person who believes in sharing, helping the needy and spreading wealth, your brain is a selfish glutton. Sometimes your body will find itself in a real pickle: Both your brain and your muscles need to work hard, but you just can't handle running both systems at once. New research published today (Oct. 20) in the journal Scientific Reports lends support to the idea that the brain chooses to prioritize itself. [Read More]