NASA’s new moon rocket, Artemis II, slowly makes its way to pad 39B, far right, at the Kennedy Space Center, Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux) Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved NASA has started to roll out Artemis, and there is quite the buzz on social media. […]
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In this week’s edition of The Prototype, we look at the booming space industry, better space weather forecasts, the first medical evacuation from space and more. To get The Prototype in your inbox, sign up here. SpaceX’s expected 2026 IPO could be an inflection point for the industry. AFP via Getty Images AST SpaceMobile CEO […]
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Most of the large animals that have walked the surface of Earth are no longer here. Why? Dan Mann thinks it’s because our recent climate has been too stable, at least when compared to the wacky ups and downs of the last ice age. Mann, a University of Alaska Fairbanks professor, presented his idea at […]
Read MoreAs I was driving down the highway one spring day eight years ago, I saw a shaggy, gray-black canine cruising along on the snowpack, right next to the road. Could it be one of the hardest animals to spot in Alaska, a wolf? Yes. I pulled over and stopped. The wolf padded along the treeline, […]
Read MoreMore than 35 years have ticked away since I turned my pickup left onto a North Pole road and noticed the clutch pedal remained on the floor. In a panic, I reached down with my mittened hand and pulled. The frozen plunger oozed back into position. Driving at minus 50 degrees Fahrenheit is not a […]
Read MoreMatthew Wooller couldn’t believe his ears after a California researcher rang his cellphone recently. The radiocarbon expert said a few of Wooller’s submitted fossils were from woolly mammoths that stomped the grasslands of middle Alaska thousands of years more recently than expected. “I was pretty much gobsmacked,” Wooller said. “But then the rational science side […]
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A few days ago, the forces beneath Alaska rattled people within a 500-mile radius: A magnitude 7 earthquake ripped under Hubbard Glacier. The earthquake’s main shock and aftershocks have revealed something else — a possible slash across the face of Alaska long buried by glacial ice, a feature that professionals speculated upon decades ago. Before […]
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Homer might not have French hens or turtle doves — and while you might occasionally see a “partridge,” you won’t find one in a pear tree — but there will be plenty of other birds to count this weekend. According to Kachemak Bay Birders count compiler Dave Erikson, this year marks the 126th annual National […]
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Alders, alders, everywhere. When you follow scientists in the Alaska wilderness, you’ll almost certainly get alder-snagged. In November, near Homer, alders grew considerately on Grewingk Glacier till, with space to maneuver ourselves and our heavy packs. A few days later, on Kodiak Island, the alders were a bit more rude. My fieldwork companion, University of […]
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Deep fake hoax false and ai manipulation social media on display. Searching on tablet, pad, phone or smartphone screen in hand. Abstract concept of news titles 3d illustration. getty A California judge dismissed a housing dispute case in September after discovering that plaintiffs had submitted what appeared to be an AI-generated deepfake of a real […]
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A research team at the University of Bonn has developed a promising new laundry filter that may help reduce one of the least visible forms of household pollution: synthetic fibers shed during washing. Filter-feeding fish inspire the concept, and unlike many cartridge-style filters that clog quickly, this design keeps fibers moving until they exit into […]
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Scientists have inched a step closer to solving an enduring mystery in physics — why the universe contains any matter at all — thanks to a newly combined analysis from two of the world’s leading neutrino experiments. By pooling nearly 16 years of measurements, the NOvA experiment in the United States and the T2K experiment […]
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In this quiet, peaceful time of year, with all the noisy birds flown south and all the scary bears in hillside dens, little things catch our attention. Like wires that move as if by magic. The late aurora scientist and interested-in-all-things guy Neal Brown once asked if I had written about why power wires sometimes […]
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We’ve all had the thought — wouldn’t it be nice if summer were just a little longer? Well, it might become a reality in the not-too-distant future. And, unfortunately, that’s not a good sign for our planet. According to a new study, climate change — primarily driven by human activities like burning coal for cheap […]
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This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Space.com’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. The nature of time has plagued thinkers for as long as we’ve tried to understand the world we live in. Intuitively, we know what time is, but try to explain it, and we end up […]
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The biological world is always expanding as research is constantly being done. Because of this, many findings often fall under the radar despite having the potential to change the world. Here are some of the most groundbreaking discoveries in biology from the past year. Slowing Huntington’s disease Scientists have found a way to slow the […]
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Students participating in Kachemak Bay Campus’ annual Semester By the Bay program gave presentations on their research conducted over the past months during a symposium hosted Friday at the college. Now in its 15th year, Semester By the Bay offers undergraduate students across the U.S. pursuing biological sciences degrees the chance to gain hands-on academic […]
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A recent breakthrough in battery technology suggests that body heat could one day replace traditional chargers for smartwatches and other wearables. Researchers from a university in South Korea, led by Professor Jang Sung-yeon, have developed a new ionic thermoelectric material capable of generating energy from the temperature difference between human skin and the surrounding environment. […]
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What if your brain could write its own captions, quietly, automatically, without a single muscle moving? That is the provocative promise behind “mind-captioning,” a new technique from Tomoyasu Horikawa at NTT Communication Science Laboratories in Japan (published paper). It is not telepathy, not science fiction, and definitely not ready to decode your inner monologue, but […]
Read MoreWhat happened Blue Origin Thursday launched its massive New Glenn rocket from Florida’s Cape Canaveral, carrying small twin spacecraft toward Mars as part of NASA’s Escapade mission. It was Blue Origin’s first NASA mission and only the second launch of the 321-foot New Glenn. Unlike the orbital rocket’s inaugural launch in January, its booster successfully […]
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The expansion of the universe may be slowing down rather than accelerating, according to a new study that challenges the Nobel Prize-winning theory of dark energy. “If confirmed, this would have profound implications for the fate of the universe,” said The Guardian. The study raises the possibility that “rather than expanding for ever, the universe […]
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Interplanetary dust laced with helium-3 that has settled on the sea floor has provided climate scientists with an urgently needed historical record of sea ice. That urgency stems from climatologists battling with understanding how the Arctic will respond to the worsening climate crisis. The amount of ice on the Arctic Ocean has depleted by more […]
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Earth just endured one of its most extreme wildfire years on record — and scientists say human-driven climate change is the cause. A sweeping new analysis, the State of Wildfires 2024–25 report, finds that human-driven global warming dramatically increased the intensity and scale of wildfires across the globe, in some regions making severe fire seasons […]
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Walking a storm-scoured Alaska beach, archaeologist Rick Knecht knelt to pick up a wooden figurine the size of his palm. He squinted at it and identified the piece as a doll that might have belonged to a little girl, one who had lived and died there centuries before. He handed it to Alice Bailey, who […]
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Imagine a particle so ghostly that over 100 trillion of them could pass through you every single second without you noticing anything at all. Spooky, right? Well, believe it or not, these particles, called “neutrinos,” not only exist, but they are so abundant that they are the second most common particle in the universe (after […]
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2024 may have been Earth’s hottest year in at least 125,000 years, according to a grim climate report published Wednesday (Oct. 29) that describes our world as “on the brink” and warns its “vital signs are flashing red,” with nearly two-thirds showing record highs. Last year had already been declared the hottest on record (those […]
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Just when you thought you’d seen everything in the boreal forest, a reader points out white whiskers sprouting from the ground. Chris Greenfield-Pastro of Fairbanks sent in photos of what she called “hair ice” blooming from the forest floor behind her house. In her images, delicate white lashes of ice curve from woody debris and […]
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About 60 years ago, Russian physicist Lev Artsimovich said nuclear fusion “will be ready when society needs it”. For decades, scientists have tried to recreate the fusion reaction that powers the sun, hoping to produce potentially unlimited clean energy. But recent advances in science and technology, and funding from tech companies desperate to power the […]
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This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Space.com’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Hurricanes are America’s most destructive natural hazards, causing more deaths and property damage than any other type of disaster. Since 1980, these powerful tropical storms have done more than US$1.5 trillion in damage and killed […]
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What happened Dinosaurs appear to have been thriving before a giant asteroid hit the Earth 66 million years ago, paleontologists working in New Mexico said Thursday in the journal Science. Experts have long debated whether the asteroid was the final blow to a dinosaur population already in decline or if it cut short a flourishing […]
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Some think it’s a no brainer: Scattering microscopic particles of sulfur into Earth’s atmosphere would reduce the amount of sunlight that reaches the ground, thereby cooling the planet. Indeed, this cooling might temporarily offset the progressing climate change — but a new study claims this type of intervention is likely to have several more unwanted […]
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