Say WOW

Suborbital space tourism finally arrives | FCC prepares to run public C-band auction | The big four in the U.S. launch industry — United Launch Alliance, SpaceX, Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman — hope to be one of two providers that will receive five-year contracts later this year to launch national security payloads starting in 2022. | China’s launch rate stays high | The International Space Station is the largest ever crewed object in space.

System can sterilize medical tools using solar...

Autoclaves, the devices used to sterilize medical tools in hospitals, clinics, and doctors’ and dentists’ offices, require a steady supply of pressurized steam at a temperature of about 125 degrees Celsius. This is usually provided by electrical or fuel-powered boilers, but in many rural areas, especially in the developing world, power can be unreliable or unavailable, and fuel is expensive. Now, a team of researchers at MIT and the Indian Institute of Technology has come up with a way……

This content is for Member members only.
Log In Register

Read More

Nagaoka Hyakuana Burial Mound in Utsunomiya, Japan

Burial mounds usually dating to the 3rd to 7th-centuries can be found across Japan. While several types exist, the most curious formation is known to archaeologists as yokoana-bo, or “sidelong hole-style tomb.” The Hundred Caves of Yoshimi is a notable example of this configuration. There is another “Hundred Caves” in Utsunomiya City, but it’s not as well-known or preserved. The Nagaoka Hyakuana Burial Mound is believed to be a familial tomb originally constructed during the early 7th-century. It consists of……

This content is for Member members only.
Log In Register

Read More

Language learning app Duolingo confirms it has...

Last week, we reported that popular language learning app Duolingo, with 500 million total app downloads​, was raising $35 million on a valuation of at least $2.21 billion — the latest chapter in what has become a long book on how e-learning and other education startups are raking in big audiences and significant funding, a byproduct of the Covid-19 pandemic driving more people indoors and on to screens for all of their interactions. (Fittingly, Duolingo’s details were part of……

This content is for Member members only.
Log In Register

Read More

Kalambo Falls in Zambia

In the Mbala district in Zambia, the Kalambo River forms the northern border of the country with Tanzania. Along the river is Kalambo Falls, a 725 foot (221 meters) high single-drop waterfall, making it the second-highest in Africa. Besides the stunning views, Kalambo Falls is an important archaeological site, with the earliest evidence of human habitation dating approximately 250,000 years ago until the present day. This makes Kalambo Falls one of the longest continuously inhabited areas in the world…….

This content is for Member members only.
Log In Register

Read More

Cryptocurrency exchange Liquid confirms hack

Cryptocurrency exchange Liquid has confirmed it was hacked, but that the scope of the incident is still under investigation. The company’s chief executive Mike Kayamori said in a blog post the attack happened on November 13. The hacker gained access to the company’s domain records, allowing the hacker to take control of several employee email accounts, and later compromised the company’s network. Kayamori said that while cryptocurrency funds are “accounted for,” the hacker may have accessed the company’s document……

This content is for Member members only.
Log In Register

Read More

DC opens holiday market Friday; city reminds...

Since the outbreak in March, the COVID-19 pandemic has been causing disruption on countless levels — and for many people, life-altering hardship. In addition to deaths and illness related to coronavirus, economic offshoots are being felt by lower-income people struggling to pay their rents, and small business owners that are trying to survive with fewer customers. In an effort to help small businesses, artisans and entrepreneurs reconnect with their customers, the slightly reconfigured 16th annual Downtown Holiday Market opens…

Read More

Greece: No police custody for migrant unaccompanied...

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece is abolishing the practice of holding asylum-seeker children and teenagers who arrive in the country without parents or guardians in protective police custody, the migration minister said Wednesday. The practice, which saw newly arrived unaccompanied minors held in police stations across the country sometimes for months at a time and often along with unrelated adults, has been widely condemned by rights groups. It has also led to judgments against Greece by the European Court…

Read More

Casa dei Crescenzi in Rome, Italy

Just past the ambitious, yet incongruous buildings along via Petroselli, sits an unusual house known as Casa dei Crescenzi. The house is remarkable in that it is a well-preserved example of a medieval home, one originally owned by Niccolò de Crescenzi, son of Crescenzio and Theodora. The house was constructed sometime during the 12th-century. Crescenzi built a small fortress here to guard the river harbors and access to the Aemilius bridge, where he levied tolls and made a small……

This content is for Member members only.
Log In Register

Read More

The Quest for Appalachia’s Wild Ginseng

This piece was originally published in Undark and appears here as part of our Climate Desk collaboration. Iris Gao keeps a ginseng root in her office. It’s fixed on black velvet with three other bleached-brown specimens, all of them twisty and otherworldly and protected by glass in a shadowbox frame. This particular root, says Gao, was more than 40 years old when it was plucked out of the Tennessee soil; you can tell because of the more than 40……

This content is for Member members only.
Log In Register

Read More

Bitcoin is rallying

Just in case you hadn’t heard, or are annoyed that folks aren’t writing about it: Bitcoin is rallying, up around 16% in the last week to a value of a little more than $18,000 as of this morning. Here’s a chart of its recent gains, via YCharts (note, it’s a tiny bit behind, so use the chart as a directional instead of absolute tool): What else is there to say about the rally? We could note that bitcoin miner……

This content is for Member members only.
Log In Register

Read More

Bhavik Nagda: Delving into the deployment of...

“Academia,” “government,” “industry” — Bhavik Nagda squinted closely as his professor pointed to each word on the diagram of the American economy’s core components. Between each word sprouted dozens of arrows, illustrating the complex interactions between the three institutions. “There were just so many arrows,” says Nagda, recalling the presentation during MIT’s Science Policy Bootcamp. “I was blown away. It gave a voice to the way I think about systemic issues and how America has built its economy.” A……

This content is for Member members only.
Log In Register

Read More

How to Recreate Your Lost Family Recipes,...

Michael Twitty was leading a conversation on African diasporic food when the woman he was speaking to broke into tears. Twitty, a food writer, historian, and historical interpreter, had just explained that the word for “eat” in Wolof, a West African language, is nyam. The woman, a Massachusetts resident from an African-American and Puerto Rican family, had a lingering memory of her mother and grandmother repeating the word “nyam” during meals. But she never knew that the word was……

This content is for Member members only.
Log In Register

Read More

STEM Week event encourages students to see...

Covid-19 has given the public a crash course in what it is like to be a medical researcher. The evening news displays graphs and charts describing case counts and statistical data, while the status of vaccine trials is front page news. Now, more than ever, the public is seeing how STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) fields are rising to the challenge of Covid-19. It is in this spirit that MIT and the Massachusetts STEM Advisory Council encouraged students……

This content is for Member members only.
Log In Register

Read More

SMART researchers develop gelatin microcarrier for cell...

Researchers from Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART), MIT’s research enterprise in Singapore, have developed a novel microcarrier for large-scale cell production and expansion that offers higher yield and cost-effectiveness compared to traditional methods, and reduces steps required in the cell retrieval process. Microcarriers are particles used in bioreactor-based cell manufacturing of anchorage-dependent cells. SMART’s newly developed dissolvable gelatin-based microcarrier has proven useful for expansion of mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs), a cell type of great current interest, as……

This content is for Member members only.
Log In Register

Read More

Dublin Writers Museum in Dublin, Ireland

This museum resides inside an 18th-century mansion in Dublin City Centre next to the Garden of Remembrance. The Dublin Writers Museum first opened in 1991, and is dedicated to the lives and works of some of the most renowned Irish authors. The various exhibits include books, letters, and portraits from well-known writers such as James Joyce, W. B. Yeats, and Samuel Beckett. A few objects on display are also world-renowned literary treasures. These include an 1804 edition of Gulliver’s Travels,……

This content is for Member members only.
Log In Register

Read More