From Around the Web

NASA and SpaceX target Halloween for first Crew Dragon launch with astronauts 0
- From Around the Web, Space
- September 30, 2020
NASA and SpaceX confirmed the specific launch date for the first crewed mission of the Crew Dragon spacecraft.

By David Aragorn
“Ultra-hot Jupiter” exoplanet where iron turns to gas discovered 0
- From Around the Web, Space
- September 30, 2020
The first results from ESA’s Characterising Exoplanet Satellite (Cheops) exoplanet mission has revealed one of the hottest and most extreme planets orbiting another star. Located 322 light years away in the constellation of Libra, WASP-189 b is an ultra-hot Jupiter with a temperature so high that iron boils into a gas.

By David Aragorn
NASA’s New Mars Rover Is Ready for Space Lasers 0
- From Around the Web, Space
- September 30, 2020
Perseverance is one of a few Mars spacecraft carrying laser retroreflectors. The devices could provide new science and safer Mars landings in the future.

By David Aragorn
Proposed Venus Balloon Mission Could Detect Life By 2022 0
- From Around the Web, Space
- September 29, 2020
Two researchers advocate sending a quick mission to Venus to try and quell debate over whether our sister planet’s middle atmosphere does in fact harbor some sort of microbial life.

By David Aragorn
Scientists Sequence Y Chromosome DNA of Denisovans and Neanderthals 0
- Ancient Archeology, From Around the Web
- September 29, 2020
The genomes of our closest relatives, Neanderthals and Denisovans, have been sequenced and compared with that of modern humans. However, most archaic individuals with high-quality sequences available have been female. In new research, a team of geneticists from the United States, China and Europe has sequenced the paternally inherited Y chromosomes from three Neanderthals and two Denisovans; comparisons with archaic and modern human Y chromosomes indicated that, similar to the maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), the human and Neanderthal Y chromosomes were more closely related to each other compared with the Denisovan Y chromosome; this result supports the conclusion that interbreeding between early Homo sapiens and Neanderthals replaced the more ancient Denisovian-like Y chromosome and mitochondria in Neanderthals.

By David Aragorn
NASA wants your help to work in the dark 0
- From Around the Web, Space
- September 29, 2020
NASA is awarding up to $5 million in prizes for technology that will provide power storage and management on the Moon.

By David Aragorn
Bionic eye brain implant could help blind people recognise people and objects 0
- From Around the Web, Science & Technology
- September 29, 2020
This new vision system, called Gennaris, bypasses damage to the optic nerves

By David Aragorn
A ‘lake’ on Mars may be surrounded by more pools of water 0
- From Around the Web, Space
- September 29, 2020
New radar data add to evidence of water under Mars’ south pole, but it’s not “a slam dunk yet”

By David Aragorn
We May Finally Know What Life on Earth Breathed Before There Was Oxygen 0
- Earth Mysteries, From Around the Web
- September 28, 2020
Billions of years ago, long before oxygen was readily available, the notorious poison arsenic could have been the compound that breathed new life into our planet.

By David Aragorn
Computer System Predicts what a Person is Thinking and Displays it as an Image 0
- From Around the Web, Science & Technology
- September 26, 2020
A group of researchers from the University of Helsinki, Finland, have developed a technique based on EEG data, brain-computer interface technology, and artificial intelligence capable of predicting what a person sees by interpreting brain signals generated at the moment of seeing.

By David Aragorn