Some 100,000 years ago, fifteen people, eight of them children, were buried on the flank of Mount Precipice, just outside the southern edge of Nazareth in today’s Israel. One of the boys still held the antlers of a large red deer clasped to his chest, while a teenager lay next to a necklace of seashells painted with ochre and brought from the Mediterranean Sea shore 35 km away. The bodies of Qafzeh are some of the earliest evidence we have of grave offerings, possibly associated with religious practice.
Although some type of belief has likely accompanied us from the beginning…
It’s finally happening. I’m sitting in front of the TV after a three-day of an excruciating wait. It looks like Starship is ready to launch and the excitement and exhaustion are palpable. From our different corners of the world, space enthusiasts (and everyone else we could drag in) watch in awe as the 394ft tall Goliath finally fights the dense layer that keeps us all breathing. Up, up it goes, defying all of our preconceptions about what was possible in our lifetime.
Like a perfectly coordinated dance, Starship’s newly developed Raptor engines manage to climb, roll, and — to everyone’s…
Due to kerosene-based jet fuel use, commercial aviation faces a variety of challenges. Although jets today are 80% more fuel-efficient per seat kilometer than those from the 1960s, there’s still no practical alternative mode of transport for long-haul flights. Worldwide, flights produced 915 million tons of CO2 in 2019, about 2% of the total human-induced emissions.
Several companies have begun looking for alternative and sustainable fuels that can reduce emissions and expand domestic energy sources, diversifying the supply and generating economic development in rural communities.
Much has been accomplished in the last decade with a wide array of organizations working…
A year ago, no-one would have been able to foresee how 2020 would leave an indelible mark on our collective memory. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on all areas of our lives, from how we work to how we communicate with each other. Throughout this experience, technology has played a big part in helping us cope and adapt to the new challenges.
We’re now approaching the end of the year, and alongside the hopes for a vaccine that can finally ease restrictions to movement, we’re looking at what 2021 will bring for the computing tech sector.
Several…
Drones are becoming increasingly popular. Over the past few years, these miniature pilotless aircraft have become indispensable for various businesses and government organizations due to their ability to increase efficiency and decrease workloads and production costs.
Because drones can be controlled by a remote or a smartphone app, they can reach remote areas easily. For example, throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, drones have been used to deliver groceries and medicines in several programs across the nation and the globe, illustrating the possibilities and potential for this technology.
The Drone Market Report 2020–2025 forecasts that “the global drone market will grow from…
Deepfakes are 21st Century Photoshopping. The name comes from the AI used to create them, deep learning — a process that involves neural networks called autoencoders. Deepfakes can place a person’s head on someone else’s body or create entirely fictional photos from scratch. Voices can also be deepfaked through what is called “voice clones” or “voice skins,” which are able to imitate a public figure’s speech.
Several people (and companies) have become victims of deepfake technology. In March 2019, a UK subsidiary of a German energy firm paid $235,230 (200,000 euros) into a Hungarian bank account after a call from…
The benefits of analytics applied to life science are manifested in the early detection of prescription and treatment patterns across the entire health system. With the help of digital technologies, companies can improve their R&D productivity, manufacturing capabilities, sales effectiveness, and compliance management.
Life science analytics capitalizes on big data to increase global collaboration based on highly accurate clinical research by standardizing trial data and validating its adherence. For example, analytics can help detect potential risks early and enable them to be proactively addressed.
The global life science analytics market is expected to witness high growth during the forecast period…
December 2015, Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 makes its successful return, the first-ever reusable rocket. Since then, recovering SpaceX rockets has become routine, but this hadn’t been the case during the early decades of spaceflight.
All rockets, satellites, and space probes until that day had been single-use items. The only objects that returned to our planet were human-carrying space capsules or sample canisters like Stardust (1999–2006) or Hayabusa (2005–2010), with the exception of the US Space Shuttle (1970s-2011) and the Soviet Union Buran (1980–1988), which had envisioned fully reusable yet too expensive and complex to operate spaceplanes.
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During the past few days, we’ve seen a Russian Soyuz rocket depart from Plesetsk Cosmodrome, a Chinese Long March 4B rocket lift off from the Taiyuan launch in Shanxi, and a SpaceX Falcon 9 leave Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Captivated by the sights, we rarely stop to think about the environmental costs of space flight.
The depletion of stratospheric ozone is a widely studied and immediately concerning phenomenon, however, there are limited studies about how emissions from rocket engines that use liquid propellants can result in more significant losses.
As space exploration becomes a tangible every-day reality, it’s becoming…
The first case of a person suffering from the COVID-19 virus was reported to the World Health Organization in December 2019. Since then, the pandemic has impacted economic activity worldwide and changed — perhaps permanently, the way we work and communicate with each other.
Very few people would have anticipated, earlier this year, that this would become the biggest crisis of our generation, one that would leave an indelible mark on our collective memory.
During the last months, we’ve learned more about the virus. We know, now, that the transmission of COVID-19 occurs through respiratory droplets when a person coughs…
Anthropologist & User Experience Designer. I write about science and technology. Robot whisperer. VR enthusiast. Gamer. @yisela_at www.yisela.com