Planet

Earth has been trapping heat at an alarming new rate, study finds

The amount of heat trapped by Earth’s land, ocean, and atmosphere doubled over the course of just 14 years, a new study shows. To figure out how much heat the earth was trapping, researchers looked at NASA satellite measurements that tracked how much of the Sun’s energy was entering Earth’s atmosphere and how much was… Read more

Philanthropist MacKenzie Scott announces Series C investment in ordinary human beings

MacKenzie Scott, whose estimated fortune stands somewhere around $60 billion, announced via a Medium post today that she would be parting with a $2.7 billion portion of that wealth and distributing it to 286 groups, all of which are painstakingly named and linked at the end of her note. This third and latest gift brings… Read more

The best trailers of E3 2021

Guardians, vampires, rabbids, and lots of chaos The 2021 edition of E3 was perhaps the weirdest yet. After taking a year off due to the pandemic, the world’s biggest gaming event returned in a digital-only format. A lot of big names were still present — like Microsoft, Nintendo, and Square Enix — and there were… Read more

China’s Zhurong rover sends a selfie from Mars

China has released new images from its Zhurong rover, which began wheeling its way around Mars in late May. One of the photos is a lovely selfie of Zhurong posed next to its landing platform. The “touring group photo,” as the China National Space Administration calls it in a blog post, was taken with a… Read more

Netflix just announced a huge slate of anime series and films

Netflix’s expansion into anime continues. Today, the streaming service announced details for a number of exciting shows, ranging from a horror series with characters designed by Final Fantasy’s Yoshitaka Amano to the next chapter in the Gundam franchise to another Godzilla show. Here’s everything that was announced: Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway The headliner was the… Read more

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart Review: Fast and Furry-ous

Our Verdict Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart takes great advantage of the PlayStation 5’s SSD and offers creative third-person combat, but a second playable character doesn’t do much to change the formula. For + Fast level changes enabled by SSD + Grinding levels are particularly fun + Creative weapons for hectic combat + Plenty of… Read more

Razer’s Plastic Hunting Robot Aims To Clean up the Oceans

Home News (Image credit: Razer) The latest release from Razer, creator of some of the “most interesting” products ever to grace a desktop, is a partnership with ClearBot a marine waste cleaning enterprise with a prototype AI robot. The AI powered boat is designed to detect and collect some of the 11 million tons of… Read more

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is next-gen Uncharted by way of Pixar

Filed under: Games Review The PS5 gets a family-friendly blockbuster There were times during Rift Apart, the latest entry in the Ratchet & Clank series, when I felt like treasure hunter Nathan Drake. Buildings collapsed around me as I made my way through perfectly tuned action set pieces, and I’d manage to jump out of… Read more

Climate tech is about to fly commercial

A greenhouse gas-tracking technology is about to go commercial. Greenhouse gas detectors will soon take flight on an Alaska Airlines-run Boeing 737-9, in an effort to help federal scientists get even more information about how we’re changing the climate. The tools would measure concentrations of planet-heating pollution in the air, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric… Read more

NASA will send two missions to Venus for the first time in over 30 years

The agency has picked two new robotic missions to explore the hot hell-world of Venus, Earth’s neighbor and the second planet from the Sun, administrator Bill Nelson announced on Wednesday. The two missions, DAVINCI+ and VERITAS, were among four competing proposals under the latest round of NASA’s Discovery Program, which manages smaller planetary exploration missions… Read more

The Great Wings Rush

It was March 2020, and restaurants across the country were shutting down, setting up takeout windows, or doing whatever they could to absorb the shock of COVID. But it was Chuck E. Cheese, of all places, that had the foresight and steely clarity to see not just what the new era required, but what it… Read more

Climate change responsible for about a third of heat deaths, study says

Heat is a killer — and climate change is driving up its body count. On average, about 37 percent of heat deaths can be tied back to human-caused climate change, according to a new study in Nature Climate Change. The study looked at data from 732 places in 43 countries over a period of about… Read more

NASA’s Curiosity rover has captured amazing images of clouds on Mars

NASA’s Curiosity rover has captured images of clouds on Mars— as described in its blog post: “wispy puffs filled with ice crystals that scattered light from the setting sun, some of them shimmering with color.” According to NASA clouds are rare in the thin atmosphere of Mars, but usually form at its equator during its… Read more

NASA’s Mars helicopter had a midair brain fart

NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter ended its sixth flight test on Mars earlier than planned last week after bugging out mid-flight, the rotorcraft’s chief pilot wrote in a blog post on Thursday. The four-pound mini helicopter was aiming to fly farther than any of its previous excursions to test out its scientific reconnaissance capabilities, as the latest… Read more

TSMC: No Plans to Halt Ops as Second Employee Confirmed with COVID-19

Home News (Image credit: TSMC) Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. this week confirmed that a second worker has tested positive for the COVID-19 disease, but stressed that this would not affect its operations. As reported by Taiwan News. The company has completed disinfection of employee’s workspace, disinfected public areas, traced any contacts that the worker may have… Read more