Lifeboat Foundation

European industry hands over a key piece of hardware for America’s next-generation astronaut capsule.

Scientists just further confirmed what has long been believed: that there’s a supermassive black hole scientists named Sagittarius A* at the center of our Milky Way galaxy. This mind-blowing 1.5-minute video zooms in from a wide view of the night sky into the tiny little area where the latest telescopic observations were just made.

In a paper published on October 31st, 2018, scientists at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) detailed how they used the GRAVITY interferometer and the four telescopes of the Very Large Telescope (VLT) to create a virtual telescope that effectively has a diameter of 427 feet (130m).

Continue reading “Zoom Into the Black Hole at the Center of the Milky Way” »

It might sound counterintuitive for a car company to make a product that serves as an alternative to cars.

But that’s exactly what General Motors is doing.

GM has designed two electric bicycles and plans to sell them beginning in 2019.

Continue reading “General Motors unveils electric bicycles that will arrive in 2019” »

An ambitious effort to sequence the genome of every complex organism on Earth was officially launched on 1 November in London.

“Variation is the fount of all genetic knowledge,” says project member and evolutionary geneticist Jenny Graves of La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia. “The more variation you have the better — so why not sequence everything?”

The Earth BioGenome Project aims to sequence the genomes of the roughly 1.5 million known animal, plant, protozoan and fungal species — collectively known as eukaryotes — worldwide over the next decade. The initiative is estimated to cost US$4.7 billion, although only a small proportion of that money has been committed so far.

One part publicity stunt, one part solid planning ahead.

A mammoth dig is underway that is expected to unearth 60,000 skeletons from a 230-year-old cemetery in London.

The bones of 1,200 people have so far been exhumed from the burial ground near Euston Station to make way for the new high-speed railway between the capital and Birmingham.

Recently released photos of the major dig show archaeologists clearing thick clay from coffins and brushing dirt from remains.

Continue reading “Mass dig of 60,000 skeletons from 230-year-old cemetery set to expose London’s secrets” »

Scientists have created the coldest spot in the universe, giving them the opportunity to study the universe’s rare fifth form of matter.

The Kepler Mission introduced us to a dazzling array of solar systems.

• By Michael D. Lemonick on November 2, 2018

Peanuts, rugby ball, bagels and spheres — now that’s an odd menu!