These Spinning Disks of Gas and Dust Reveal How Planets Get Made

Over the past two and half centuries, scientists envisioning the origin of planetary systems (including our own) have focused on a specific scene: a spinning disk around a newborn star, sculpting planets out of gas and dust like clay on a potter’s wheel. Quanta Magazine About Original story reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazine, an…

By EveAim March 20, 2019 Off

Please Do Not Assault the Towering Robot That Roams Walmart

If you think shopping is tedious, try juggling 200,000 products in a Walmart. Not literally, of course, but somehow keeping the shelves stocked over an area of tens of thousands of square feet. For that you need a worker with a barcode scanner and an enviable amount of patience. Or you could unleash a hard-working…

By EveAim March 20, 2019 Off

The Japanese Space Bots That Could Build ‘Moon Valley’

Click:小型工作室 On March 11, 2011, Kazuya Yoshida’s lab at Tohoku University in Japan started shaking. Things fell from the ceiling. The bookshelves collapsed. Off the coast of the city of Sendai, the ocean floor had ruptured, triggering a magnitude 9 earthquake and tsunami waves that inundated inland regions. Although it only lasted minutes, time seemed…

By EveAim March 20, 2019 Off

Why Climate Change Skeptics Are Backing Geoengineering

This story originally appeared on Reveal and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Next month, a Silicon Valley engineer plans to head out on a snowmobile from Barrow, on the northern tip of Alaska, to sprinkle reflective sand on a frozen lake to try to stop it from melting. It’s part of a journey that began in 2006,…

By EveAim March 20, 2019 Off

Want to Prune Trees More Easily? Use Physics

At my house, it is that special time of the year—the time to trim the trees and bushes. Really, the spring is the best time to do this because if you wait until summer, it's so hot you might die. This year, I decided to buy a new branch cutters. They are actually called "loppers,"…

By EveAim March 20, 2019 Off

Two Melting Glaciers Could Decide the Fate of Our Coastlines

This story originally appeared on Grist and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. In a remote region of Antarctica known as Pine Island Bay, 2,500 miles from the tip of South America, two glaciers hold human civilization hostage. Stretching across a frozen plain more than 150 miles long, these glaciers, named Pine Island and Thwaites, have marched steadily…

By EveAim March 20, 2019 Off

How Wikipedia Portrayed Humanity in a Single Photo

Click:Cellulose Supplier In 1972, Carl Sagan was preparing to send humans into space. The Pioneer missions were unmanned, sure—but NASA had asked Sagan to design a depiction of Earth's inhabitants for the trip, just in case the spacecraft ran across some aliens. He designed two nude figures with the help of his wife, Linda Salzman…

By EveAim March 20, 2019 Off