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Testing Astronaut Health in 30 Seconds of Weightlessness

UC Davis researcher Rich Whittle joined an international team aboard a parabolic flight to study how microgravity affects blood flow to protect astronauts during long-duration space missions.

Aug 5 • 11:00 AM EDT • Health • engineering.ucdavis.edu

Google Assistant will disappear from your phone next month

It’ll be Gemini or nothing on Android from September 4th.

Aug 5 • 7:12 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com

SpaceX's science fiction dreams come with an astronomical bill

SpaceX shares fell as much as 11% in overnight trading despite the company delivering an earnings beat on Tuesday.

Aug 5 • 6:07 AM EDT • Science • businessinsider.com

Jays Lose To Astros

Blue Jays 2 Astros 7 Not a good night. The Jays lost the game and Trey Yesavage came out the game with, what the Jays are calling left knee discomfort. It looked like more than discomfort. He was warming up for the third inning, and his left knee seemed to buckle on two warm up […]

Aug 5 • 12:18 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

The Beauty Of Settled Science

Commenters convinced me I made a subtle mis-step in my framing of Psychology Research Is Mostly Fine. My framing emphasized that social priming studies had failed to replicate, but that many other subfields of psychology hadn’t. This naturally led commenters to point to failed replications in other subfields. Although none of these were as bad as social priming, few or none were entirely problem-free. Instead of emphasizing the difference between social priming and other subfields, I should have emphasized the difference between settled science and novel research. Here are some of my favorite psychology findings: The brain is sculpted by reinforcement learning, and a key driver of this learning is a prediction-error-based algorithm located in the nucleus accumbens and implemented through dopamine. Psychedelic drugs exert their effects through 5-HT2A receptors, pointing to a role for these receptors in some sort of construct like the balance between priors and new evidence. Certain cognitive functions are localized to certain brain areas (for example, impulse control to the frontal lobes; linguistic structure to Broca’s area, linguistic meaning to Wernicke’s area. But injure one of these areas, or render a certain function useless (eg a blind person having no more use for their visual cortex), and these mappings can gradually shift - suggesting that neurons are general-purpose compute whose specialization is a contingent fact about convenience and efficiency rather than a necessity. Most personality traits and general capabilities are about 50% genetic and 50% random, with little role for family environment or childhood history, with a few notable exceptions like partisan preference. Recent research complicates this story, but the further you go from this basic picture, the gnarlier the chains of indirect causation you require. Neurons fire together in “brain waves”, whose exact frequency corresponds with the character of consciousness; These divide neurons into natural subpopulations and linked graphs. The gamma rhythm corresponds surprisingly well to items in conscious awareness. GABA receptors seem to be involved in something like relaxation. By hitting different GABA receptors in different ways, you can modulate the exact type of relaxation you produce. Hitting GABA-A directly is too powerful and can cause dangerous levels of sedation, but allosteric modulation of GABA is an incredibly fruitful strategy that underlies drugs from benzos to barbituates to alcohol. If you know your GABA-A subunits, you can target specific subtypes of relaxation; for example, Ambien hits GABA-A1 and induces sleep. Memory divides somewhat fuzzily into bins of immediate-sensory, short-term, and long-term, with separate retrieval and storage functions, and separate systems for declarative vs. procedural learning. These can be harmed selectively, usually by hippocampal injury, so that some patients can remember their life stories but not form new long-term memories, or learn new skills like bike-riding but not new facts. The exact substrate of memory is unclear but seems to involve new synaptic connections between neurons in at least some way. The ability of modern psychology and psychiatry to treat mental illness is real but limited. SSRIs work for half or slightly fewer than half of patients; antipsychotics work with extreme side effects; benzodiazpines work but produce addiction and tolerance in many (not all) people. Most supplements are stuck in Poor Quality Study Replication Crisis Hell, but melatonin and l-theanine stand out as especially promising. Psychotherapy works with moderate effect size, but (with a few exceptions) seems to be more about the relationship with the provider than the details of the therapy itself. Mental hospitalization can sometimes defuse immediate crises but work less well than mental hospitals would like, with some studies showing overall negative effects. Schizophrenia is mostly genetic, but risk also increases with prenatal infection (especially rubella) and obstetric complications; there is suggestive evidence for roles of social stress and drug use (with psychedelics and marijuana making things worse, and nicotine if anything making things better). Bipolar and schizophrenia are so closely linked on a pathophysiological level that it seems like they might be the same disease; on the clinical level, they do seem to follow two separate courses/prognoses but can sometimes surprise clinicians by eg someone who seemed condemned to permanent schizophrenia unexpectedly recovering. The brain’s native reinforcement learning algorithms cash out in the phenomena of classical and operant conditioning; different reinforcement schedules reinforce at different levels, which can be exploited by bad actors to make especially compelling products (eg slot machines). None of these are immune to doubt. A few are speculative; one or two are genuinely unorthodox. But they’re all a step above one p = 0.049 paper that might not replicate. If they get overturned, they’ll be overturned by the same sort of genuine scientific shift that replaced Ptolemy with Copernicus or Lamarck with Darwin, not some sort of sordid discovery about someone entering random numbers into a spreadsheet. In 2008, Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote about The Beauty Of Settled Science: If you only care about scientific issues that are controversial, you will end up with a head stuffed full of garbage. The media thinks that only the cutting edge of science is worth reporting on. How often do you see headlines like “General Relativity still governing planetary orbits” or “Phlogiston theory remains false”? So, by the time anything is solid science, it is no longer a breaking headline. “Newsworthy” science is often based on the thinnest of evidence and wrong half the time—if it were not on the uttermost fringes of the scientific frontier, it would not be breaking news. Scientific controversies are problems so difficult that even people who’ve spent years mastering the field can still fool themselves. That’s what makes for the heated arguments that attract all the media attention. Worse, if you aren’t in the field and part of the game, controversies aren’t even fun. Don’t be embarrassed to read elementary science textbooks, either. If you want to pretend to be sophisticated, go find a play to sneer at. If you just want to have fun, remember that simplicity is at the core of scientific beauty [...] A steady diet of science news is bad for you: You are what you eat, and if you eat only science reporting on fluid situations, without a solid textbook now and then, your brain will turn to liquid. Psychology isn’t centrally the new paper in Annals Of Recently-Breaking News saying that an n=5 study showing that large portion sizes increase support for terrorism. Psychology is centrally ideas like brain waves, GABA receptors, reinforcement learning, twin studies, and connectionism. People who think differently are worrying too much about BREAKING NEWS!!!, and should stop. The key distinction isn’t “recent research in social psychology” vs. “recent research in cognitive/bio/behavioral psychology”, as my essay last week unfortunately implied. It’s recent research in general vs. the deposit of settled science, battle-tested hypotheses, and carefully-earmarked speculation. And part of the reason social priming in particular was such a disaster was that it defied that heuristic, building itself up over hundreds of studies until it approached or even entered the pantheon of settled science - before collapsing (5-HTTLPR was also sort of like this). This isn’t a claim that settled science is always right - Freud was “settled science” for a long time - just that there’s an intuitive distinction between the level of credence you should have in the existence of power posing vs. the existence of Broca’s Area. (I compounded this error by calling the last post “Psychology Research Is Mostly Fine”, which suggested I was talking about the new research rather than the settled science. I actually meant to distinguish between research-psychology-the-field vs. clinical-psychology-aka-therapy, but this framing unintentionally pushed against the point I wanted to make) Some commenters on the previous article understood this point, but challenged its weight. It’s very cool, they said, to know how many neurons are in which brain lobe, but the main way that Psychology affected their lives was through bad clickbait studies used to buttress dumb policies; some p = 0.049 study says that exposure to microaggressions makes minorities’ brains shrivel into raisins, and now their company has to implement punitive DEI or be sued for hazardous work conditions. I won’t dispute this as an accurate description of how the sausage gets made, but it’s worth examining the trains of thought that connect this observation to a campaign against psychology in general: The dumb woke psychology was wrong and bad, and I don’t have good heuristics for distinguishing dumb woke psychology from other psychology, so I’m going to assume it’s all wrong and bad. The dumb woke psychology was wrong and bad; it seems useful to punish/discredit psychology as a whole to assist my campaign against it, so for propaganda purposes I will try to discredit psychology as a whole. To people in the first camp, my response is: come on, your heuristics aren’t that bad. “Microaggressions makes minorities’ brains shrivel up like raisins” is in the woke category; “the hippocampal theta rhythm seems to be associated with both memory and pathfinding, suggesting an unexpected yet surprisingly compelling relationship between the two” is in the not-woke category, don’t play dumb here. To people in the second camp, my response is: deliberately exaggerated propaganda campaigns are bad and this is a confession, not an excuse. Inability to view science through anything but a political lens was what got us into this problem; doubling down on it is a temporary solution but a recipe for permanent disaster. If you pronounce entire fields of science to be acceptable collateral damage in your campaign against bad political actors, you will alienate not just scientists but patients, clinicians, and general lovers of truth. Instead, you can say the thing you mean - that woke partisans shouldn’t try to occupy and exploit the otherwise-noble science of psychology for their own political gain - and wage the same campaign with a halo rather than a comic-book-villain goatee. From the font of oracular wisdom that is Weird Sun Twitter: [ Vessel Of Spirit@VesselOfSpirit i love you all conditionally but i love the good part of you unconditionally. even if it becomes a very small part 2:11 AM · Jan 22, 2015 1 Reply · 5 Reposts · 29 Likes ](https://x.com/VesselOfSpirit/status/558084551772471298) This is how I feel about psychology1, too, but with a touch more optimism. The good part of psychology is enormous, a hoard of endless treasures. You just have to look past the headlines! 1 To play devil’s advocate - should one always be so magnamious? Astrology? Phrenology? These seem different in that their entire orientation was flawed from the start; they didn’t simply fail to find the correct constellation-personality connections, the whole project of searching for connections between constellations and personality was doomed from the start. More difficult might be asking the same question about education research, which is notoriously bad. I don’t know enough about education research to know if there’s some settled science of correct and enlightening results lurking in the background beyond the day-to-day froth of poorly-conducted and politically-motivated studies. I think if it’s 90% bad, 10% good, it’s correct to call it bad as a compact way of communicating a useful truth; I think psychology is better than that, but admit it’s a tough judgment call.

Aug 4 • 5:33 PM EDT • Science • astralcodexten.com

T-Mobile’s $0-down financing plan bundles taxes and fees

No payment required at checkout.

Aug 4 • 12:07 PM EDT • Technology • theverge.com

MrBeast Sales Slow, Angel Stock Falls, MUBI and Neon Look for Hits, and Will an NBA Franchise Set a Sales Record?

(Welcome to the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a newsletter on the entertainment industry and business strategy. I write a weekly Streaming Ratings Report and a bi-weekly strategy column, along with occasional deep dives into other topics, like today’s article. Please subscribe.) You probably remember egg prices spiking a few years ago. This led to a lot of debate between the pro-market/pro-competition/antitrust/Neo-Brandesian crowd and the center/center-right/center-left/abundance/libertarian crowd over the cause, whether it was the avian flu outbreak or whether industry consolidation led to price fixing, using avian flu as a convenient cover. Basel Musharbash wrote a whole investigation at BIG looking at it. Well, two years later, we have our answer: it was price fixing. The Justice Department found proof, via emails, of price fixing. Indeed, just the threat of an investigation brought prices down two years ago: I bring this up because at least half a dozen of my favorite political writers and pundits, who were skeptical about price fixing at the time, haven’t written any mea culpas on this issue. It’s really dispiriting and makes it much, much harder to trust their work on other issues. If you take a hard stand on an issue, then you get it wrong, you need to explain how and why you got it wrong. Or update your priors. This is how epistemological bubbles are formed! All of which is to say, it’s time for another installment of “What I Got Right, What I Got Wrong”. Last issue, I mostly focused on the “wrong” side of the equation, so today’s is a bit more balanced, but with one big mea culpa (though I still stand by my original concerns). Let’s dive right in! Subscribe CORRECTION: UFC Didn’t Release Subscriber Data (But Seems to Have Bragged About It Internally) In my analysis of the viewership of UFC Freedom 250, I wrote... “Paramount has also released datecdotes bragging about their subscriber numbers. Earlier this year, they claimed that the first UFC fight on Paramount+ brought in 1 million subscribers.” Well, that datecdote did not come from a PR rep, but from great reporting from James Faris at Business Insider. The actual quote was this: “Paramount’s flagship streaming service generated about a million new subscribers on the day of its first-ever UFC event, Paramount product chief Dane Glasgow told employees in a town hall on Tuesday morning, three staffers who attended the meeting told Business Insider.“ This wasn’t the biggest goof in the world; even Faris emphasized to me that this is more a “clarification” than a correction. Still, it sounds like, internally, the folks at Paramount were very happy about this result—and I’m guessing they were happy with this news getting out—even though the gains didn’t last through the quarter, dropping to 700K adds. RIGHT: MrBeast’s Struggles Continue... I’m very skeptical about MrBeast’s burgeoning media “empire” and, in particular, its $5 billion valuation, as I wrote earlier this year and last year. Sure enough, according to Business Insider, regarding its “booming” consumer products division_:_ “US sales volume grew 13% year-over-year in 2025, following a 33% leap the previous year, according to a presentation deck dated May 2026....A February 2025 investor deck viewed by Business Insider showed Feastables’ net revenue more than doubled in 2024 from 2023, to $215 million, and was forecast to grow 74% in 2025, to $375 million.” [Emphasis mine.] If you told investors that you projected 74% growth but delivered 13%,1 that’s not ideal. But it’s not just MrBeast. Logan Paul and KSI’s Prime had sales drop in half for their energy drinks. It’s one thing to build a successful entertainment company and an entirely different thing to succeed in the heavily-consolidated-but-also-very-competitive consumer packaged goods space! CPGs are dominated by a few firms with very wide moats compared to YouTube, which has few barriers to entry. These businesses require different skill sets and have completely different business environments. WRONG: Does the NBA Have an $8 Billion Bidder? Almost as soon as I published my article about the NBA’s finances, casting skepticism on NBA expansion, I saw this Front Office Sports headline: One group “claims to have already raised $8 billion” for the Vegas expansion team. I mean, wow. That’s just $2 billion less than what the Los Angeles Lakers were valued at when they were sold just last year. And they’re arguably the most popular team in the NBA. (Side note: the new owner is now under an investigation for fraud in how he went about financing the Lakers and the Dodgers purchases.) So much for the “dried up” language I used in that article. (This is why I usually stick to my “Entertainment Nuance Guy” tone in articles...) I went off old information—from April, when I read/heard about the NBA downplaying expansion efforts—instead of doing a quick double-check for new news. That said...if you read the article, the market for Seattle is “slow”, with just one reported bidder. So I wasn’t entirely off. This goof has annoyed me since I first published it, mainly because it undercut that article’s real point, which I stand by: NBA franchises are really overvalued right now. Now, I get why NBA teams are overvalued. When it comes to owning sports teams, it’s basically never wrong to assume that some rich person somewhere will care more about owning a team (or just being part of a group since they’re so expensive) than the actual financials. There are only so many teams to own, and opportunities to buy in preferred markets don’t come along very often. This explains why the teams sell for such high multiples (usually above a 10 to 12.5 revenue multiple, which is very high). You only need one person to overpay! Beyond the ultra-wealthy luxury good explanation, I worry NBA teams are becoming speculative assets. More and more private equity investors are buying into NBA teams. But the value, in owning a team, comes from selling it later, not any meaningful relationship to revenue or profit growth. In other words, the newer NBA owners are increasingly expecting someone later to buy their inflated asset. That’s not sound economics; that’s the “greater fool” theory at work.2 At some point, actually making money has to matter. Especially since revenue growth is now below the growth of the stock market. (And this matters because the NBA doesn’t have easy levers to pull to drastically lower their costs—half of their revenue has to go to players and then you actually have to run a team, including coaching, training, travel, media expenses, and more—or raise revenues aside from one-off expansions in America and overseas.) I just don’t see how investors make their money back buying NBA teams, except for selling at a higher price later on down the line. But if revenue/profit growth continues to slow, at some point, someone will be left holding the bag. RIGHT: Baseball and Basketball are about equally popular. Related to the above, I wanted to cite two quick pieces of evidence for one of my other theories: that the NBA and MLB are about as popular as each other, but the NBA gets much, much better media coverage. One YouGov survey has that fans prefer basketball to baseball by 52% to 48%, which I’m guessing is within the margin of error for that poll. That’s virtually even, meaning they’re about the same popularity. Over on NBC, a recent Red Sox-Yankees game averaged 4 million viewers, higher than Sunday Night Basketball’s average of 3.4 million on the same network. A Yankees-Dodgers game averaged 3.9 million two weeks ago. Not every game averages this much, but it shows you that baseball isn’t far off from basketball, depending on the matchup. Altogether, the NBA is just slightly more popular than baseball, but NBC is paying MLB a fraction of what they pay the NBA, a point I’ve made before. RIGHT: Angel, MUBI and Neon Updates... I’ve long been skeptical about many of Hollywood’s buzziest startups/smaller indie studios. It’s not that they don’t make great movies—films like Anora and Everything Everywhere All at Once are amazing—or that they’re not (rightfully) pushing the majors to make better films, but...they get a ton of hype, and that hype often doesn’t live up to the reality or difficulty in scaling up. Starting with MUBI, well, The Wall Street Journal wrote a feature on MUBI’s struggles last April, best summarized by the subheader “After Sequoia valued Mubi at $1 billion, a left-wing revolt sent the indie film company into a tailspin”. MUBI lost $7.3 million on $200 million in revenue in Q4 2025, but reportedly hit a record 1.7 million subscribers at the end of Q1. As for Neon, Department M purchased a “significant stake” in the company earlier this year. How much is that “stake” worth? According to Deadline, “No financial figures for the Neon-Department M deal were disclosed.” So...that’s not great! If it was a big valuation, we’d hear about. Also, I found this curious: “Both Neon and Department M already have separate partnerships with Qatar. The Qatar Film Committee has a slate deal in place with the former, and a biopic production pact with the latter.” Color me skeptical about much Middle Eastern investment dollars. See: LIV Golf. Finally, as for Angel (formerly Angel Studios), their stock very, very slightly popped last month after Young Washington ($20 million budget) which made $45 million in the US, but their stock is still way down from its opening. Smaller Updates RIGHT: The WGA should focus on antitrust concerns! I’ve been on this for years. Post-WGA/AMTPT deal in 2023, I wrote an article for the Ankler calling on the WGA to focus and organize against industry consolidation. Sure enough, the WGA filed a lawsuit against the Paramount-WBD merger, and people are organizing around this issue now. I wish this energy had coalesced earlier (specifically to lobby Washington much earlier), but better late than never! WRONG: Actually, the chip shortage might be due to market manipulation. In my last “Long Reads for the Long Summer” article, I shared an article about how LLMs are causing memory chip prices to spike, which will make all electronics more expensive. Well, turns out, three RAM manufacturers control 90% of the market, and now a private lawsuit accuses them of price-fixing. So yeah. WRONG/UPDATE: The Odyssey will hold! Two weeks ago, I wrote, “As of this moment, we haven’t had a super-blockbuster, though The Odyssey, Spider-Man: Brand New Day and Avengers: Doomsday could all cross the $500 million mark. (At this point, The Odyssey would need a very strong hold to get there.)” Well, it’s safe to say it’s going to have that hold! It only dropped 30% in weekend two and IMAX screenings are sold out all month. Spider-Man: Brand New Day is also off to a great start. RIGHT: People are rushing to get shows out yearly. I’ve long been bullish on yearly, weekly-released shows, and Leslie Goldberg at The Ankler wrote about how many people in town are now listening. WRONG: Mark Carney reverses Canada’s stance on homegrown production. After writing about Canada installing domestic production quotas, Canada has backed off. WRONG: I don’t trust Spider-Man: Brand New Day’s online “views”. When I originally wrote about the latest Spider-Man film’s record-breaking trailer, I thought this was just YouTube views, but after watching this Corridor Crew video and doing more research, well, it’s all social views of the trailer globally. Really? That stat includes TikTok, Reels and YouTube Shorts views. Basically, I don’t trust it anymore. (This film will probably set record, but I trust the pre-sales data more.) RIGHT: Celebrity Production companies are still struggling. I’ve written about this for years, but the company that I didn’t track was Kevin Hart’s HartBeat, which was valued at $650 million but is struggling now and might just end soon, especially after Kevin Hart pulled his endorsement deals. And Bad Robot is moving to NYC. CORRECTION: SpongeBob is a “second run” title. In my 2025 recap article, I had _SpongeBob SquarePants_labelled as a “library” title, when it is still a “second run” show, with new episodes still coming out on Nickelodeon. CORRECTION: In my last “What I Got Right, What I Got Wrong” update, I offered a correction from Doug Creutz and misspelled TD Cowen. Thanks, Grammarly! 1 Though he could have increased prices to make up for the gap, he couldn’t have increased them that much. 2 There’s a theory, which I think that Daryl Morey created and Bill Simmons popularized, that, to be successful building your team, you only need a handful of bad GMs in the league to take advantage of. To be clear, Daryl Morey’s theory was also for signing bad contracts, that you could always get out of bad contracts. Basically, there’s always someone who will make a bad trade. It’s not the same exact thing, but similar enough to the Greater Fool Theory that I really like it.

Aug 4 • 11:55 AM EDT • Entertainment • entertainment.substack.com

Astros acquire center fielder Daulton Varsho from Blue Jays

The first-place Astros acquired the center fielder from the Blue Jays for starting pitcher Spencer Arrighetti just before the trade deadline.

Aug 4 • 10:32 AM EDT • Sports • spectrumlocalnews.com

Apple briefly yanked Telegram from the App Store over CSAM violations

Telegram’s ban didn’t last very long.

Aug 4 • 8:57 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com

Raiders’ Maxx Crosby Has Blunt Message for Fernando Mendoza

The Las Vegas Raiders are looking to be competitive this upcoming 2026 NFL season after a disastrous 2025 campaign under former head coach Pete Carroll. One of the new faces on the team is No. 1 pick Fernando Mendoza, and Maxx Crosby is already taking him under his wing.Despite both players being on opposite sides […] The post Raiders’ Maxx Crosby Has Blunt Message for Fernando Mendoza appeared first on HEAVY.

Aug 4 • 1:43 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Trade Deadline: What Seattle Mariners' AL West rivals did

A look at how the 2026 MLB trade deadline shook out for the Seattle Mariners' AL West rivals, including the first-place Houston Astros.

Aug 3 • 6:54 PM EDT • Sports • sports.mynorthwest.com

Castro Theatre contractor sued by Another Planet Entertainment

SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — Another Planet Entertainment has filed a lawsuit over renovations to San Francisco’s iconic Castro Theatre. The lawsuit, which was filed in San Francisco Superior…

Aug 3 • 1:09 PM EDT • Entertainment • kron4.com

Moonquakes could reveal hidden water beneath the lunar surface

Hidden moon ice may reveal itself through the way it bends and reflects vibrations from moonquakes. The technique could help astronauts locate vital water supplies and uncover clues about the origins of Earth’s oceans.

Aug 3 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • sciencedaily.com

The Bulletin welcomes Sharon Weinberger as editor-in-chief

The Bulletin’s new editor-in-chief, Sharon Weinberger, has dedicated her career to covering the intersection of science, technology, and national security and will guide the Bulletin’s editorial efforts as it enters its eighth decade of informing the public on catastrophic risks.

Aug 3 • 6:00 AM EDT • Science • thebulletin.org

Scientists Find Evidence Suggesting Atmosphere On Habitable "Super-Earth"

Astronomers have discovered more than 6,200 exoplanets since the first ones were found in the 1990s.

Aug 3 • 4:21 AM EDT • Science • ndtv.com

With 1 more loss, Rangers could be open for business ahead of MLB trade deadline

The Rangers' Sunday game against the Astros is about as big as they come on deadline eve.

Aug 2 • 10:53 AM EDT • Business • nytimes.com

Rangers vs Astros Highlights ⚾️ MLB on FOX

Check out the best moments from the matchup between the Texas Rangers and the Houston Astros.

Aug 1 • 10:52 PM EDT • Sports • foxsports.com

Northeast Minnesota wildfires causing disastrous economic impacts to tourism industry

Small business owners in northeastern Minnesota told their state legislators Friday that the wildfires that have been burning in and around the Boundary Waters for almost a month have had a “disastrous” impact on their bottom lines. One canoe outfitter says he lost 98 percent of his revenue to cancellations in July.

Aug 1 • 8:00 AM EDT • Business • mprnews.org

Is Kevin Durant Going to Rejoin With Steph Curry?

The Houston Rockets Might Send Kevin Durant to the Golden State Warriors

Jul 31 • 11:22 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Cyclospora confusion? Four questions about the parasite in Minnesota, answered

Minnesotans can be reassured that the large multistate outbreak of cyclosporiasis infections, a gastrointestinal illness caused by cyclospora, has not yet reached the state.

Jul 31 • 8:30 AM EDT • Health • mprnews.org

Siemens Healthineers’ head of Americas steps down, GE CFO switch, new ASTRO prez, plus more leadership moves

In other news, Vanderbilt has appointed a radiologist to a key leadership position, the University of Rochester has picked a director of diagnostic imaging, and Pueblo Radiology Associates hired 7 new docs.

Jul 31 • 3:10 AM EDT • Business • radiologybusiness.com

Joe Barrett's WSJ piece on Archer debate ignores the politics behind the Astroturfed "rebellion" against the safety project

And traffic safety advocates who were interviewed for the article say they have issues with the reporter omitting other important info from the article.

Jul 31 • 1:37 AM EDT • Politics • chi.streetsblog.org

The IAC and California-based Predictive Science Inc Predict the Solar Corona for the August 12 Eclipse Using the La Palma Supercomputer

Ahead of the upcoming solar eclipse on August 12, the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), in collaboration with the research group Predictive Science Inc. (PSI, San Diego, California), has successfully simulated in high detail the structure of the solar corona that will be visible during totality along the path of totality, including Palencia, where the IAC will gather more than 40 spanish, moroccan, and american astronomers.

Jul 30 • 8:00 PM EDT • Science • iac.es

Krovinović lands in Porto Alegre to join Grêmio

In the early hours of Thursday, Croatian midfielder Filip Krovinović arrived in Porto Alegre to report to Grêmio.The player’s arrival fulfills a direct request from head coach Luís Castro. The bo...

Jul 30 • 12:12 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Astronomers Looking Through Forgotten Observations Find Bizarre And Beautiful Planet-Wide Rings On Venus

Looking at Venus, captured accidentally in old observations, the team found a truly odd feature that can only be seen in polarized light.

Jul 30 • 10:03 AM EDT • Science • iflscience.com

After Hobbes vs Rousseau: Politics must move beyond human nature

Since the great debate between Hobbes and Rousseau, our political theory has been organised around a single question: is human nature essentially good or essentially corrupt? Graham Harman, the philosopher behind object-oriented ontology, argues that this is simply the wrong question to be asking. The real forces governing our collective fate - climate change, artificial intelligence, geography, and pandemics - are non-human; therefore, questions about human nature are not the central ones. Instead, Harman proposes a politics reorganised around our relationship to non-human objects and environments, in which quasi-government institutions incentivise and deter actions with the aim of extending the survival of the human race. “It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.” This has become one of the most popular phrases among twenty-first-century intellectuals. Often misattributed to Fredric Jameson, it has been warmly embraced by such influential authors as Slavoj Žižek and the tragically departed Mark Fisher, and has fueled the notion that the major problem with the political Left is that it simply needs to become more speculative and creative. Naturally, this is never a bad idea in any human pursuit. But what if the political distinction between Left, Right, and Center itself results from a failure of imagination? SUGGESTED READING Hobbes vs Rousseau: are we inherently evil? By Robin Douglass This particular division has been with us only since the summer of 1789. During the simmering prelude to the French Revolution, it referred originally to the physical position in the National Assembly of radical figures on one side and loyal monarchists on the other. These positions are linked with two entirely different camps of modern political theory. On the Left we find a series of authors ranging from the moderate (Locke) to the supercharged (Rousseau) to the truly radical (Marx), all of them contending that exploitation of the many by the few justifies revolutionary overthrow of the existing order. On the Right they are countered by the likes of Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Schmitt, a group of thinkers convinced that corrupt human nature can be tamed only by force. In the words of the Nazi supporter Schmitt: “One could test all theories of nature and state and political ideas according to their anthropology and classify these as to whether they consciously or unconsciously presuppose [humans] to be by nature evil or by nature good.” This is the division we continue to face today, even in the daily retail politics of Western democracies.___Our species has regularly proven itself capable of both the noblest gestures and the most scathing cruelties, making it hard to define us as essentially either emancipatory or brutal in our aims.___The most refreshing feature of David Graeber and David Wengrow’s 2021 book The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity was their awareness that the forced choice between Rousseau and Hobbes (as they put it) is no longer sufficient. Our species has regularly proven itself capable of both the noblest gestures and the most scathing cruelties, making it hard to define us as essentially either emancipatory or brutal in our aims. Far from being stationed “beyond good and evil,” we seem to be fully entangled with both. We are not naturally good or evil, Graeber and Wengrow contend, but naturally experimental and imaginative. They rest their case on the archaeological record, which seems to bear witness to numerous episodes of seasonally shifting governments and festivals, which vacillate in the same society (even in the same year) between the egalitarian and the dictatorial. Such praise of political experiment makes a good fit with the generally anarchist position defended by these authors. Yet it is also what I find most disappointing in their position. Although they are right that the forced choice between Hobbes and Rousseau falls short of what our new situation requires, the authors simply replace it with praise for the human being as a political tinkerer and performer. In other words, they give us just another theory of human nature, one that would not have been out of place in the sixteenth or seventeenth century. What other options might we have?___The time is ripe for a retheorization of politics on the basis of something other than human nature… We are not just alienated and limited by objects, but also empowered and unleashed by them___One fresh approach would be to treat politics within a broader framework than human nature, given that the polis does not exist in a vacuum filled exclusively with people. When Bruno Latour went to observe the baboons of Kenya with the San Diego anthropologist Shirley Strum, they jointly concluded that these primates were more socially interdependent than our own species. Each baboon is so reliant on the dynamics of the group that they find themselves locked into constant surveillance of their potentially dangerous peers. The group structure turns out to be inherently volatile. Humans, by contrast, are able to stabilize their societies to a large degree through the mediation of inanimate objects. Although one’s position in society may seem to fluctuate over time, considerable stability is produced through such items as apartment keys, wedding rings, and identification cards, all of them serving to secure us a place distinct from that of our fellows. The Italian philosopher Maurizio Ferraris has written at length about the crucial role of documents in establishing social relations, making him a hero among notaries in his country. Proper names and license plates cement our position amidst other humans, as do symbolic achievements such as graduation from a top university or distinguished wartime service with its various medals and ribbons. None of this is found among baboons, despite their closeness to us on the evolutionary tree: after all, we did share a common ancestor just 25 to 30 million years ago. SUGGESTED VIEWING The goodness paradox With Richard Wrangham The time is ripe for a retheorization of politics on the basis of something other than human nature, whether understood in the manner of the Left or of the Right. We are not just alienated and limited by objects, but also empowered and unleashed by them. But initially, it is true, we face non-human things primarily in the form of constraints. It would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to form a human civilization underwater, deep underground, atop Mount Everest, or in outer space. Human dependence on the non-social background takes on subtler form in discussions of political geography, especially unloved on the more idealistic Left. Consider the luckless position of Poland during World War II, sandwiched between Hitler on one side and Stalin on the other. By contrast, note the good fortune of the United States in not having a military peer positioned on any land border. Anglo-American geopolitics, since the writings of the American naval commander Alfred Thayer Mahan and the British geographer Sir Halford Mackinder, has been wedded to the notion that one or more liberal offshore naval powers should prevent any authoritarian “heartland” regime from gaining effective control of Eurasia. That remains the case whether the opponent is the impatient Napoleon, the swashbuckling German Kaiser, the villainous Hitler, the murderous Stalin, or the industrial juggernaut Chinese. In their current Foreign Affairs article “Heartland vs. Rimland,” Michael Beckley and Hal Brands analyze the current and coming state of the world on the basis of these same rather durable principles. In recent years a similar outlook has been embraced, in inverted form, by the Putin-loving Russian philosopher Aleksandr Dugin, an icon of the Rightist intellectual underworld. For Dugin, the Anglo-Saxons are an evil force bent on destroying the spiritually superior people of the land: much like Athens in its failed war with Sparta, or Carthage in its eventual collapse against Rome. But the shared notion on both sides is that any strategy that fails to take geography into account is likely to end up as a defeated form of excessive optimism.___When dealing with environmental degradation, then, we are doing business with forces that promise dire effects on our species as a whole.___More striking for us today than geography is the non-human object called climate, which threatens rimland and heartland equally. Even if we contend that humans are one hundred percent responsible for triggering the climate crisis, it remains non-human in the sense of being an independent force beyond our effective control. In a major work published just before his death in 2002, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, the American paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould noted the tendency of evolutionary theorists to focus too closely on the fate of individuals in view of their successful or failed adaptation to circumstances. With climate change, however, we confront a force that goes well beyond the scope of any individual life. Whereas Richard Dawkins extended evolutionary questions downward from individuals to the sub-individual gene, Gould pushed it upward, speaking of entire species or clades as impacted by environmental change. The asteroid that struck the Yucatán 66 million years ago is only the most famous example of this sort. In the wake of that catastrophe, large animals needing abundant supplies of food were at a fatal disadvantage by contrast with the smaller birds and mammals of the planet. When dealing with environmental degradation, then, we are doing business with forces that promise dire effects on our species as a whole. The effect is to shift our attention away from individual beings towards the survival of the group.In the United States in particular, the COVID-19 pandemic sparked considerable backlash among those who asserted a nearly absolute degree of individual freedom. In California I encountered those who demanded that their businesses be allowed to reopen, that it was enough to cover their mouths but not their noses, or that they should have the right to enter any public area despite refusing vaccination. Yet public health is probably the clearest argument against libertarianism, which often merely asserts the autonomy of individuals against any claims of the commons. In normal times the individual is worth defending; under conditions that threaten the survival of part or all of our species, compulsion may be our only resort, as with perfectly reasonable blackouts and rations in wartime. To rebuild human society under the constraints of climate change will be one of the great challenges of the century to come, as will our improvised grappling with artificial intelligence. Such phenomena pose existential risks for humanity, and leave far less room for tolerance of individual brattiness. Cases are mounting of devastating wildfires caused by arson. Recently it was reported that there is even a website where one can bet on the location of coming wildfires, raising the specter of deliberate blazes set to collect on wagers. The death penalty has steadily lost support in a world where many stress the infinite value of human life. But if we focus instead on entire ecosystems, those who purposely burn the forests may begin to look worse than serial murderers.___The politics of the future may be splintered by disagreement over such topics as how to manage our environing background and how to permit or restrict the entry of new objects into the political sphere.___So far I have spoken of force, authority, and punishment: measures sure to have greater appeal to those who identify with what we know as the Right. But other implications of the post-anthropocentric world are likely to have different backers. If non-human objects are seen as structuring political space, it stands to reason that they can no longer be introduced solely by the pace of technical breakthrough. Fields ranging from cybernetics to energy will demand increased politicization once they are reconceived not just as products of individual human investment, but as renovations of collective political geography. This need not involve world government, with its inherent risk of tyranny, but may involve quasi-governmental enforcers of prestige along the lines of a less corrupt FIFA or International Olympic Committee, punishing deviant states not with violence but with less tangible incentives.Politics will never lose its historic links with conflict and faction. But rather than factions aligned by differing theories of human nature, the politics of the future may be splintered by disagreement over such topics as how to manage our environing background and how to permit or restrict the entry of new objects into the political sphere. This will prove just as incommensurable with the modern Left/Right spectrum as a globe is with a two-dimensional map.

Jul 30 • 8:00 AM EDT • Politics • iai.tv

Antarctica just experienced minus 119 F, Earth's coldest temperature since 2012

Too hot? Head to the Concordia research station in Antarctica, where "astronauts of ice" just experienced near-record-breaking cold.

Jul 29 • 2:54 PM EDT • Science • livescience.com

Astronomy Picture of the Day Calendar

Click on a picture and discover the cosmos!

Jul 29 • 11:15 AM EDT • Science • science.nasa.gov

Submit an image to APOD

Images can be submitted to Astronomy Picture of the Day by email to the editors Robert Nemiroff and Jerry Bonnell. To submit an image, please use this mailto

Jul 29 • 11:07 AM EDT • Science • science.nasa.gov

NASA Webb Explores Family Tree of Newly Discovered Distant Objects

Since their discovery by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope in 2022, little red dots (LRDs) have been the subject of great interest to astronomers.

Jul 29 • 10:00 AM EDT • Science • science.nasa.gov

Council caught off guard as mayor seeks funding from local business owners

WOAI NBC News Channel 4 San Antonio provides local news, weather forecasts, traffic updates, investigations, and items of interest in the community, sports and entertainment programming for San Antonio and nearby towns and communities in South Central Texas, including Windcrest, Uvalde, Universal City, Somerset, Seguin, Schertz, San Marcos, Sabinal, Poth, Poteet, Pleasanton, Pearsall, New Braunfels, Live Oak, Kerrville, Hondo, Helotes, Goliad, Fredericksburg, Floresville, Eagle Pass, Devine, Del Rio, Cuero, Crystal City, Converse, Cibolo, Castroville, Carrizo Springs, Boerne, Bandera.

Jul 28 • 7:33 PM EDT • Business • news4sanantonio.com

'Not alike any we've ever seen before': Three of the 12 galaxies in this cosmic string are missing a crucial component of the universe

Astronomers have discovered a third galaxy without dark matter in a strange string of a dozen dwarf galaxies. A violent collision is likely to blame.

Jul 28 • 4:04 PM EDT • Science • livescience.com

Hawaiʻi County announces Science Night at Keaʻau Armory

The free event will feature activities related to science, technology, engineering and math as well as hands-on experiments, space and astronomy exploration and more.

Jul 28 • 11:00 AM EDT • Science • bigislandnow.com

Ad ASTRA Community Workshop Detailed Schedule Available

Detailed Schedule for the Ad ASTRA Community Workshop, 1-3 Sept 2026, now available.

Jul 27 • 5:40 PM EDT • Science • science.nasa.gov

Amendment 68: New Opportunity: D.8 Habitable Worlds Observatory Precursor Science Investigations

The Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) is a large-aperture ultraviolet/visible/near-infrared observatory concept recommended by the National Academies of

Jul 27 • 2:48 PM EDT • Science • science.nasa.gov

Jodrell Bank Observatory facing closure after major funder cuts support

Scientists say decision is blow to UK astronomy as deep space observatory is home to world-leading facilities

Jul 27 • 8:10 AM EDT • Science • theguardian.com

Jodrell Bank's Lovell telescope faces axe in science cuts, BBC understands

Astronomers warn it would tear the heart out of UK science, and leave a generation untrained.

Jul 27 • 6:35 AM EDT • Science • bbc.co.uk

Hubble finds four hidden stars just 65 light-years from Earth that astronomers could never see before

Astronomers have directly detected four previously hidden white dwarfs orbiting nearby red dwarf stars, solving a long-standing observational challenge and improving our understanding of how close binary star systems evolve. The newly confirmed stellar remnants lie within 20 parsecs (around 65 light-years) of the Sun and had remained concealed because their faint light was overwhelmed by the much brighter glow of their companion stars.

Jul 27 • 3:10 AM EDT • Science • timesofindia.indiatimes.com

A planetarium for the brain

Neuroscientists should take a cue from astrophysicists and use planetariums to inspire awe, argues Tyler Sloan. His new film takes a first step.

Jul 27 • 12:00 AM EDT • Science • thetransmitter.org

Astros fizzle, White Sox romp, 12-3

Mune led the many moon shots

Jul 26 • 6:16 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Astros Even the Series Behind a Dominant Hunter Brown Outing

The winning streak continues for Houston. The Astros beat the White Sox 4-1 Saturday night to take the series lead.

Jul 26 • 1:00 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

A day in the life of a Nasa behavioral health scientist

Dr Suzanne Bell helps astronauts perform in a high-stress environment. To do that, she wakes up at 5am – without an alarm

Jul 26 • 12:00 PM EDT • Science • theguardian.com

A day in the life of a Nasa behavioral health scientist

Dr Suzanne Bell helps astronauts perform in a high-stress environment. To do that, she wakes up at 5am – without an alarm

Jul 26 • 12:00 PM EDT • Health • theguardian.com

Can You Eat Moldy Bread? Here’s What a Dietitian Says

It is generally not recommended that you consume moldy bread. Some molds have mycotoxins, harmful compounds that may cause gastrointestinal symptoms.

Jul 26 • 8:00 AM EDT • Health • health.com

Astros' Kai-Wei Teng: Earns win in relief Friday

Astros' Kai-Wei Teng: Earns win in relief Friday

Jul 25 • 9:49 AM EDT • Sports • cbssports.com

Astronomers express concern about future of science at Lowell Observatory after research department changes

About half a year after Lowell Observatory’s research restructuring went into effect, more than a third of its tenured scientists have left, with several expressing concerns about their ability to find funding for their work under the new model.

Jul 25 • 9:00 AM EDT • Science • azdailysun.com

Astros bring win streak into game against the White Sox

The Houston Astros are looking to prolong a four-game win streak with a victory against the Chicago White Sox

Jul 25 • 4:09 AM EDT • Sports • foxsports.com

Midjourney acquired the astrology app Co-Star

The AI lab Midjourney continues to expand its purview beyond image and video generation.

Jul 24 • 11:09 AM EDT • Technology • techcrunch.com

AI Lab Midjourney Eyes Suite of Apps After Buying Astrology Startup Co-Star

Artificial intelligence lab Midjourney Inc. has bought the popular astrology app Co-Star and is building its first standalone image-generation app, the startup’s latest moves to push into new business areas after promising an ambitious expansion last month.

Jul 24 • 10:30 AM EDT • Technology • bloomberg.com

Nancy Armour's disastrous Caitlin Clark article exemplifies why sportswriting and sports media is failing

A USA Today columnist linked Caitlin Clark's interactions with WNBA officials to Emmett Till, presenting another example of modern sports media's political bias.

Jul 24 • 6:49 AM EDT • Sports • foxnews.com

Microsoft pressures LG into killing unwanted McAfee ads

LG says it isn’t to blame, however.

Jul 24 • 5:20 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com

Ford picks Apple Maps for its next EV platform and updated BlueCruise

Ford and Apple are teaming up.

Jul 23 • 9:49 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com

Alvarez and Paredes hit back-to-back homers in Astros' 5-2 win over Marlins

After Jeremy Peña's leadoff single in the eighth, Alvarez hit his major league-leading 34th homer to give Houston a 4-2 lead.

Jul 23 • 9:15 AM EDT • Sports • spectrumlocalnews.com

ESPN connecting Mariners to Astros' star trade chips is pure escapist entertainment

The Mariners need a quality reliever and right-handed bat, but it's tough to see the Astros being willing to do business with their main divisional rivals.

Jul 22 • 5:00 PM EDT • Entertainment • sodomojo.com

Astros Trade RP Nate Pearson to Royals

Today, the Houston Astros announced they have traded reliever Nate Pearson to the Kansas City Royals in exchange for righthanded pitching prospect Max Martin. Martin, 22, has posted a 6-2 record with a 2.01 ERA in 26 relief appearances across two levels of Class A ball in the Royals system this season. Martin was a […]

Jul 22 • 11:49 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Astros Trade RP Nate Pearson to Royals

Today, the Houston Astros announced they have traded reliever Nate Pearson to the Kansas City Royals in exchange for righthanded pitching prospect Max Martin. Martin, 22, has posted a 6-2 record with a 2.01 ERA in 26 relief appearances across two levels of Class A ball in the Royals system this season. Martin was a […]

Jul 22 • 11:49 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

A newly found world blurs the boundary between planet and moon

The object orbits a brown dwarf that orbits a star, and astronomers aren’t sure if it’s a planet, a moon — or something else entirely.

Jul 22 • 11:00 AM EDT • Science • sciencenews.org

Peña and Paredes homer, Imai fans eight as Astros get by Marlins 5-3

Jeremy Peña and Isaac Paredes hit home runs, Tatsuya Imai struck out eight in six innings and the Houston Astros beat the Miami Marlins 5-3 on Tuesday night.

Jul 22 • 9:55 AM EDT • Sports • spectrumlocalnews.com

Baserunning blunder by JT Realmuto kills Phillies rally in 2-1 loss to Dodgers with disastrous game-ending double play

The Phillies had a chance at a walk-off win with runners on second and third and one out in the ninth. Instead, this happened.

Jul 21 • 10:55 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Transcript: Astronauts for America Event At The California Science Center

Transcript: Astronauts for America Event At The California Science Center

Jul 21 • 10:48 PM EDT • Science • nasawatch.com

When a SpaceX rocket crashes into the moon, scientists will be watching

On Aug. 5, 2026, an abandoned piece of space junk is predicted to crash into the moon near a spot called Einstein Crater. Astronomers will be watching because the collision and aftermath may be visible ...

Jul 21 • 12:50 PM EDT • Science • phys.org

LPI Scientists Honored with Asteroid Naming by the IAU

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has recognized the scientific achievements of Universities Space Research Association (USRA) scientists Dr. Imene Kerraouch and Dr. Allison McGraw by naming asteroids (20452) Kerraouch and (20092) Allisonmcgraw in their honor.

Jul 21 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • lpi.usra.edu

Warren’s latest ‘kiss of death’ endorsement sparks mockery over disastrous political picks

Elizabeth Warren's endorsement of Abdul El Sayed in the Michigan Democratic primary sparks backlash over her track record with failed candidates.

Jul 20 • 3:55 PM EDT • Politics • foxnews.com

Mysterious 'little red dots' at the beginning time may finally have an explanation, thanks to newfound 'little blue companions'

Astronomers may have found an unexpected origin for the mysterious "little red dots" that appear to be so common in James Webb Space Telescope surveys of the early universe.

Jul 20 • 1:39 PM EDT • Science • livescience.com

Gut check: What the digestive system means for our overall health

In a Q&A, gastroenterologist Rosemarie Fisher explains common digestive health issues — and the best ways to improve gut health.

Jul 20 • 11:36 AM EDT • Health • news.yale.edu

A SpaceX rocket is about to crash into the moon—scientists will be watching

Astronomers have a plan to observe an errant piece of a SpaceX rocket as it hits the moon to better understand impact events

Jul 20 • 9:00 AM EDT • Science • scientificamerican.com

Science can serve dark as well as light

I’m not sure how many of you are watching “Star City,” Apple TV’s spin-off of its “For All Mankind” program (2019-present), but it’s one of the better sci-fi series I’ve seen in a while, with an impressively dark political message. (Some light spoilers below.) For the uninitiated, “For All Mankind” presented a slightly tweaked history of the U.S. space program in which it was the USSR that landed on the Moon first in 1969, and shortly thereafter put a woman cosmonaut on the lunar surface. This sparks an ongoing space race that, in the original series, yields a lot of benefits for humanity. President Nixon’s insistence on a female astronaut corps to compete with the Soviets boosts the feminist movement of the 1970s and the ERA passes. New fuels generated for the space program create clean and cheap energy around Earth. There are also some darker changes — the USSR is thriving well into the 2000s, there are terrorist counter-technology movements around the globe, laborers on Mars work in nightmarish conditions and organize strikes and riots, etc. the @smotus report is a reader-supported publication. To support this work, please become a paid subscriber. Subscribe That show offers glimpses into the subtle ways this Earth is different. Teddy Kennedy never went to Chappaquidick because he was racing back to Washington to deal with the space program crisis; he gets elected President in 1972. John Lennon survives his early 1980s shooting but Pope John Paul II does not. The Apple Newton succeeded. Pretty much the whole of season 4 is a setup for an Al Gore joke. Again, mostly, the vision that “For All Mankind” presents is a positive one, with technology advancing many human interests. “Star City” goes in a very different direction. This spin-off show is about the same set of events but from the Soviet perspective. As we meet them, the team of scientists and cosmonauts responsible for the lunar landing are still basking in their hero status, but their program is embedded deep in the Soviet security state of the late 1960s. Everyone’s apartment is bugged. Whole teams of clerical staff spend their days transcribing recordings of people’s lives. People in the program, including respected cosmonauts, are regularly arrested. An incredibly menacing Colonel Lyudmilla Raskova (Anna Maxwell Martin) forces confessions and tortures and kills, expressing little more than annoyance in the process. Meanwhile, the space program’s highly respected Chief Designer (Rhys Ifans) has a vision for the program that he knows the government will not approve. He insists that they need to think past the Moon to focus on colonizing the solar system, starting with Venus. (This is a rough parallel to the Americans’ pivot to Mars in the original show.) He essentially builds a secret space program within the space program, calculating that the government will embrace the mission after it has succeeded. (As an aside, I’m not sure why the Venus obsession, as a successful mission can’t produce the biggest public relations payoff: a cosmonaut standing on the surface holding the Soviet flag. Anyone standing on Venus would be immediately crushed by the 92-bar atmosphere and then cremated in the 900°F temperatures. But in a country with no free press perhaps the visual payoff was less valued.) But the overall vision is that the technological advances have only amplified the most fearsome aspects of the Soviet system. The state is paranoid (but not incorrect) about American spies and does monstrous things to protect its secrets. People are terrified to trust each other. Classic banality-of-evil figures order people to harm those they care about; those people comply rather than get shot. Others are forced into criminal behavior to protect loved ones. We’re reminded all the time these days of what happens when a government despises science. It manifests in the defunding of schools, the elevation of fossil fuels as the rest of the world pivots to solar, outbreaks of measles and diarrhea, etc. But “Star City” offers a vision of a bad government that likes science. It’s not encouraging. It’s not yet clear if there will be a season two of this show. But I strongly recommend season one. It’s both thoughtful and gripping. Share

Jul 20 • 8:04 AM EDT • Science • smotus.substack.com

Where Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster is now after it was launched into space and caused amateur astronomer to panic

Where is the Tesla Roadster that was launched into space? It caused one amateur astronomer to panic, but should we be worried about its current whereabouts?

Jul 20 • 6:13 AM EDT • Technology • supercarblondie.com

A Quebecer noticed a strange circular pit on Google Maps while planning a trip; scientists have now confirmed it is a 390-million-year-old meteorite impact crater

In late 2023, amateur astronomer Joël Lapointe was doing something very ordinary: Mapping out forest roads for a summer road trip in Quebec. While zooming around northern regions on Google Maps, he spotted something that looked anything but ordinary.

Jul 20 • 5:52 AM EDT • Science • timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Kingdom Hearts Missing-Link may have been cancelled, but that hasn't stopped footage of Keyblade-wielding astronauts from leaking online

A year has passed since the game was canned, but this new snippet shows it's not lacking in wackiness.

Jul 20 • 4:48 AM EDT • Technology • eurogamer.net

Orioles Announce Reason for Samuel Basallo's Departure During Astros Game

The Baltimore Orioles removed catcher Samuel Basallo from Sunday's game against the Houston Astros.

Jul 19 • 2:57 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

'It's absolutely exciting!': Astronomers discover an atmosphere around an Earth-like planet in the habitable zone for first time ever

Astronomers have detected helium escaping from the super-Earth LHS 1140 b, providing the strongest evidence yet that a rocky planet in another star's habitable zone has retained an atmosphere for billions of years.

Jul 19 • 9:00 AM EDT • Science • livescience.com

Important Takeaways From Houston’s Summer League Blowout

A sluggish start derailed Houston’s championship hopes, but Quadir Copeland’s aggressive 24-point breakout and Bruce Thornton’s versatile playmaking provided silver linings despite a frustrating night in Vegas.

Jul 18 • 10:00 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Orioles win 3-2 over Astros

The Rangers had won eight of their last 10 games against left-handed starters, but they were over-matched against Sale.

Jul 18 • 11:36 AM EDT • Sports • spectrumlocalnews.com

Science news this week: Gold tongues discovered in tombs, sugar found in space, a new monkey identified in the Congolian rainforest, and ancient impact crater 'geoguessed' by an amateur astronomer

July 18, 2026: Our weekly roundup of the latest science in the news, as well as a few fascinating articles to keep you entertained over the weekend

Jul 18 • 7:00 AM EDT • Science • livescience.com

Apple Music is getting a price hike

Another Apple price hike.

Jul 17 • 2:14 PM EDT • Technology • theverge.com

New Deadline For NASA Astrobiology Science Conference (AbSciCon) Announcement for Partnership Proposals (AFPP)

NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD), Astrobiology Program, is pleased to extend the deadline for the Announcement for Partnership Proposals (AFPP): Astrobiology Science Conference (NNH26ZDA009L) on the NASA Solicitation and Proposal […]

Jul 17 • 11:46 AM EDT • Science • astrobiology.com

MEDaL-1 Mars Lander Science Definition Team

[ESA] Join the Science Definition Team (SDT) to help define the Exploration Science Payload for a proposed future Mars lander: MEDaL-1. Full announcement The European Explore2040 strategy expresses a bold […]

Jul 17 • 11:37 AM EDT • Science • astrobiology.com

U.S. National Science Foundation, NSF National Radio Astronomy Observatory, and U.S. Naval Observatory Partner on Pathfinder for Next Generation Very Large Array

The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), the NSF National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NSF NRAO), and the U.S. Naval Observatory (USNO) are advancing a new collaboration to support the future of high-resolution radio astronomy and astrometry, with the development of a pathfinder instrument for the proposed Next Generation Very Large Array (ngVLA).

Jul 17 • 9:50 AM EDT • Science • newswise.com

The Best Test to Know If Your Gut Is Healthy, According to a GI Doctor

In TODAY.com’s Expert Tip of the Day, a gastroenterologist reveals her answer to the common question, “What’s the best test to know if my gut is healthy?”

Jul 17 • 8:00 AM EDT • Health • today.com

Amateur astronomer spotted the Tesla Roadster Elon Musk launched in space and what he saw caused a bit of panic

An amateur astronomer spotted the Tesla Roadster that Elon Musk sent into space aboard a SpaceX rocket, and a tiny mistake led to a moment of massive panic

Jul 17 • 6:23 AM EDT • Technology • supercarblondie.com

Why has Venus obsessed so many astronomers?

Every 122 years, Venus crosses the Sun as a black and fleeting teardrop, kindling the awe of all those who dare to know

Jul 17 • 6:00 AM EDT • Science • aeon.co

Rare Pair of Improbably Light ‘Super-Puff’ Planets Is Discovered

They’re less dense than cotton candy, and they will help astrophysicists better understand the most unusual ways giant planets can form.

Jul 17 • 5:02 AM EDT • Science • nytimes.com

Astronomers Find an Atmosphere on a Nearby Earthlike Planet

It’s the first potentially habitable world known to host an atmosphere, making it a lead contender in the search for life beyond our solar system.

Jul 16 • 2:27 PM EDT • Science • nytimes.com

This “exotic weirdo” exoplanet has a rocky surface and an atmosphere

Astronomers found a helium atmosphere around a rocky exoplanet — a good sign for the search for life outside the solar system.

Jul 16 • 2:00 PM EDT • Science • sciencenews.org

First atmosphere detected on a habitable-zone rocky world

In a major milestone in the search for life on other planets, astronomers have detected, for the first time, an atmosphere surrounding an Earth-like, rocky planet orbiting within the habitable zone of another star.

Jul 16 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • eurekalert.org

How is USF St. Pete’s Marine Science Lab doing 2 months after catastrophic fire?

For the 150 students and faculty housed in the building, the last couple months have been a series of ups and downs.

Jul 16 • 7:00 AM EDT • Science • tampabay.com

Brewers Take Worthy Gamble In Trade With Astros

The Milwaukee Brewers took a worthy gamble in acquiring two pitchers ahead of the MLB Trade Deadline on August 3. Milwaukee is atop the NL Central and has one of the top teams in the MLB, but the Brewers could upgrade their pitching staff. So, ahead of the MLB returning on Thursday, the Brewers ...

Jul 15 • 9:51 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Who pays the cost when Americans opt out of science?

Astronomer Adam Frank used to think the consequences would play out on the individual level. Today, he's changed his mind.

Jul 15 • 4:14 PM EDT • Science • bigthink.com

Astros trade SP Lance McCullers Jr. to Brewers, acquire Jadyn Fielder, son of 6-time All-Star Prince Fielder

Jul 15 • 3:59 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Astros Trading SPs McCullers Jr., Gordon to Brewers

According to reports, the Houston Astros are finalizing a deal with the Milwaukee Brewers that would send pitchers Lance McCullers Jr. and Colton Gordon to Milwaukee. The deal appears to be a salary dump for Houston, who is reported to be paying down some of the salary owed McCullers Jr., who is in the final […]

Jul 15 • 12:29 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

NASA’s Webb Discovers Hidden Planet in Famous Star System

Astronomers using NASA's James Webb Space Telescope have discovered a giant planet outside our solar system, called an exoplanet, hiding within one of the

Jul 15 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • science.nasa.gov

Astronomers Have Accidentally Discovered The Faintest Planet Ever Imaged From Earth

A short time ago in a galaxy not so far away (because it's ours).

Jul 15 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • sciencealert.com