The active Martian water cycle, i.e., the presence of shallow water and soluble perchlorate salts in the Martian soil, enables the production of hydrogen fuel and life-support oxygen on Mars through electrolysis of perchlorate brines. A team of scientists at Washington University in St. Louis has demonstrated an approach to …
Read More »CallRail’s Lead Center
When the COVID lockdowns began in March, Google local business profiles saw a massive drop-off in directions requests and a corresponding spike in local calls and website clicks (61% increase in calls). Since that time, call volumes fluctuated but, according to CallRail, have now stabilized at levels that are 27% …
Read More »Autonomous Landing System
The margin for error in space exploration is tiny. Even an unassuming rock or a bit of sloped terrain can topple a robotic explorer, and what if there’s no one within millions of miles to flip it right-side-up again? NASA is developing a new precision landing system called Safe …
Read More »DJI’s New OM 4 Gimbal
With the OM 4 smartphone gimbal ($149), DJI continues to impress with its ability to innovate. When I first reviewed the Osmo Mobile 2, its features were impressive, but it was a massive device to have to carry just to improve your smartphone photography. With the Osmo Mobile 3, …
Read More »Solar System’s Heliosphere
May Be Smaller and Rounder than Previously Thought The heliosphere is a giant magnetic bubble that contains our Solar System, the solar wind and the solar magnetic field. Outside the heliosphere is the interstellar medium — the ionized gas and magnetic field that fills the space between stellar systems in …
Read More »Immune System of Humans
Other Mammals Could Struggle to Fight Extraterrestrial Microorganisms In a new study published in the journal Microorganisms, a team of researchers from the UK, the Netherlands and Germany tested how mammalian immune cells responded to peptides containing two amino acids that are commonly found in carbonaceous meteorites. The immune response …
Read More »Our Solar System Shows
Scientists Find a ‘Mirror Image’ of Our Solar System While scanning the skies, humanity has identified thousands of exoplanets orbiting distant stars. However, very few of them are at all similar to Earth. Now, the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Göttingen reports a newly discovered exoplanet could …
Read More »Scientists Find Link between Immune System, Memory and Structure of Brain
In two separate studies, researchers have demonstrated that both the structure of the brain and several memory functions are linked to immune-related genes. The thickness of the cerebral cortex is correlated with the epigenetic profile of immune-related genes. Image credit: University of Basel. The body’s immune system has a number …
Read More »Solar System’s Heliosphere Much More Compact, Rounded than Previously Thought
Many stars show tails that trail behind them like a comet’s tail, supporting the idea that our own Solar System has one too. However, new evidence from NASA’s Cassini, Voyager and Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) missions suggests that the trailing end of the Solar System may not be stretched out …
Read More »Android surpasses Windows as the most-used operating system worldwide
It was just a few weeks ago when web analytics firm StatCounter predicted Android would overtake Windows as the most popular operating system online. Well, it didn’t take long. The latest numbers from StatCounter show Android with a narrow lead over Windows. After less than nine years, Google’s open source …
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