Astronomers have taken the first ever image of a black hole, which is located in a distant galaxy. It measures 40 billion km across – three million times the size of the Earth – and has been described by scientists as “a monster”. The black hole is 500 million trillion km away and was photographed by a network of eight … Read More
The Future Is AI And The US Is Falling Behind
The Trump administration has done little to support artificial intelligence research, experts say. Now, the top members of a House subcommittee are calling for a plan to maintain American leadership in AI. As the White House idled, China implemented a national plan that is propelling its AI research and implementation. Now, the two countries are in a race to reap … Read More
Jim Bridenstine Just Voted In As NASA Administrator
50-49. Unbelievable. A climate change denier. No space background. No science background. He has also spoken out on the House floor criticizing the Boy Scouts of America’s decision to allowed LGBTQ members. He does have some administration experience — managing a small museum in Tulsa. But now he has a staff of 17,000 and a budget of nearly $19 billion (not to … Read More
The Cambridge Analytica Angle, Explained
The Cambridge Analytica scandal is suddenly a major problem for Facebook. On Tuesday, the Federal Trade Commission opened an investigation into how Cambridge Analytica, ostensibly a voter-profiling company, accessed data about 50 million Facebook users, according to The Wall Street Journal. It’s not alone: The GOP-controlled Senate Commerce Committee demanded answers from Facebook on Monday, as did Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat of Oregon. The social giant’s stock … Read More
Self-Driving Uber Hits And Kills Pedestrian In First-Of-Its-Kind Accident
I had my doubts about the technology. I didn’t think it is there yet, and this proves it. Uber has halted testing of its autonomous vehicles across North America, the company announced, after a woman was struck and killed by one of its self-driving cars in Tempe, Ariz. early Monday. The moratorium on testing includes San Francisco, Phoenix, Pittsburgh and Toronto, Uber … Read More
This is torn from the blog of John Bambenek, a security analyst and Republican candidate for Illinois State Senate, about his conversations with Guccifer 2.0 (G2). The post is entitled MY CONVERSATIONS WITH GUCCIFER 2.0 & THE SURPRISING ELECTION INFLUENCE OPERATIONS. As attention turns to threats facing 2018’s midterm elections, we’re learning hard lessons from what went down in 2016. (Plus, … Read More
Space X Launches
BREAKING: SpaceX’s massive Falcon Heavy rocket blasts off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. pic.twitter.com/onXcW9Kloo — NBC News (@NBCNews) February 6, 2018 This is insane…. BREAKING: SpaceX successfully lands two Falcon Heavy boosters simultaneously after rocket launch – https://t.co/kdrUxk2XiK pic.twitter.com/0JV8xRciqm — NBC News (@NBCNews) February 6, 2018 The rocket is built by SpaceX, the game-changing company helmed by … Read More
Meanwhile, Aliens Have Visited Earth
Maybe it’s a sign of the stressful times, but a New York Times report about UFOs barely registered as a blip on the public radar (pun intended). I mean, this is not a National Enquirer report — this is the NEW YORK TIMES. And the story is one about how there has been a “black ops” area of the Department … Read More
When Worlds Collide
Some 130 million years ago, in a galaxy far away, the smoldering cores of two collapsed stars smashed into each other. The resulting explosion sent a burst of gamma rays streaming through space and rippled the very fabric of the universe. On Aug. 17, those signals reached Earth — and sparked an astronomy revolution. The distant collision created a “kilonova,” … Read More
The Great American Solar Eclipse Day
Although I am not in the path of the 100% eclipse, we will have about 96% coverage here in Winston-Salem. Almost no clouds as I write this at 11:40 a.m. Around 1:15 p.m. Eastern time, the total solar eclipse will first reach Oregon’s coast. Then it will race for the next 90 or so minutes over 13 more states: Idaho, … Read More
Is WikiTribune The Answer To “Fake News”?
Nieman Lab: Good things can happen when a crowd goes to work on trying to figure out a problem in journalism. At the same time, completely crowdsourced news investigations can go bad without oversight — as when, for example, a group of Redditors falsely accused someone of being the Boston Marathon bomber. An entirely crowdsourced investigation with nobody to oversee … Read More
SpaceX Explosion at Cape Canaveral
JUST IN: Dramatic video captures SpaceX explosion at Cape Canaveral. https://t.co/YQHFmbkfXr pic.twitter.com/AdbA8HCDQS — ABC News (@ABC) September 1, 2016 Nobody hurt, but obviously a setback.
New Planet Discovered Around Nearest Star
…. and it might be a habitable planet. As astronomy news goes, this is HUGE! The planet, called Proxima Centauri b or just Proxima b (exoplanets are given their star’s name plus a lower case letter in order of discovery, starting with “b”), orbits Proxima every 11.2 days. It has a mass of no less than 1.3 times the Earth’s, … Read More
Great Perseids This Week, Weather Permitting
This year’s Perseid meteor shower may have a rare outburst on the night of Thursday, Aug. 11 into the 12th, with lots of easy-to-spot activity as the earth plows through a denser than usual part of the stream, creating as many as 200 shooting stars an hour. So even if you’re not patient enough to wait for the normal every-minute-or-so … Read More
No, Greta Van Susteran Is Not The “Smart” One At Fox News
Why did they wait until NOW to release these? pics taken in 2015 and we pay their salaries in tax dollars https://t.co/hhXxrfsWEr — Greta Van Susteren (@greta) June 1, 2016 The last paragraph of the article she links to: Though the encounter took place more than 10 months ago, New Horizons is still beaming flyby data home, and likely won’t … Read More