SpaceX was supposed to be prepping for a crewed launch of its Dragon II capsule right now, but things have taken an unfortunate turn for the private spaceflight firm. A Dragon spacecraft during an engine test, and now NASA’s director of human spaceflight tells Congress that SpaceX also experienced an issue with its parachutes during a separate test. NASA’s Bill Gerstenmaier explained the previously unpublicized failure in response to questioning from Alabama Representative Mo Brooks. Gerstenmaier explained the test was what’s known as a “single-out,” which simulates a partial failure of the parachute system. SpaceX proactively failed one of the Dragon’s four chutes, allowing the other three to operate normally.
There’s no fountain of youth to turn back time, but it might be possible to hold back the ravages of age just a little. An ESA experiment that just arrived on the International Space Station (ISS) will . That could prevent some of the cellular damage associated with aging, but it may also help astronauts on long-term space missions stay healthy. There is no single cause of aging, but free radicals are a critical piece of the puzzle. A free radical is just a molecule with an unpaired electron in its outer shell. They’re highly reactive, meaning they will steal electrons from other molecules, which can cause them to stop working.
If you need an affordable gaming PC that doesn’t require a lot of tweaking to get started, this six-core Aurora R8 from Alienware is well worth the discounted price. With a ninth-gen Core i5 CPU, a 6GB GTX 1660 Ti graphics card, and 16GB of DDR4 RAM, this machine can handle most existing games on high settings. • Intel Core i5-9400 six-core gaming desktop with 16GB RAM, GTX 1660 Ti for $899.99 at Dell Home (Coupon code: SAVE10AFF – List price: $1199.99). Reduce the stress from everyday chores – make a robot clean up. This Roomba 671 works on both carpets and hardwood floors, uses a three-stage cleaning system for dirt and debris, and even works with Alexa.
There’s a new set of rumors around AMD’s upcoming Navi GPUs, though based on their contents and structure, we’d advise you take them with a substantial grain of salt. While they’re eye-opening, it’s not at all clear they’re accurate. Hot Hardware reports that the Radeon RX 3080 XT will match the performance of the GeForce RTX 2070, but undercut that GPU on price, coming in at $330. This, of course, would match the old price on the GTX 1070, and might be read as AMD “restoring” the GPU market to its original, pre-RTX configuration. The GPU will reportedly be based on Navi 10 and ship with 8GB of GDDR6 memory.
(Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) Google’s Pixel phones left behind the affordable price points of the Nexus era, but the Pixels are some of the best smartphones you can buy. The problem: they’re getting ever more expensive just like other flagship devices. Google’s solution is the much-leaked and . These phones cost hundreds of dollars less than the Pixel 3 and 3 XL, but they still have most of the same features. At a glance, the Pixel 3a doesn’t look much different than the more expensive phone. Picking it up, you’d immediately notice that it’s lighter.
“Space is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist, but that’s just peanuts to space.” — Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Hubble astronomers have the largest, most complete image of the universe ever recorded, by stitching together data gathered by multiple telescopes over years of observations. Back in 1995, astronomers created the first attempt at imaging the deep universe by having Hubble “stare” at an empty patch of sky for one million seconds.
A laser one-tenth of the sun’s power on Earth officially debuted in March when researchers in Romania ran the first successful test at 10 petawatts (PW). The laser is one of three in an international project in Europe known as Extreme Light Infrastructure. To date, it is the most powerful laser ever built, and it’s the most concentrated power on the planet. It’s hard to overstate the enormity of 10PW, which equates to 10 million billion watts. It was only a few years ago that this site referred to a mere . The new one is 10 times as strong.
Microsoft used to dominate the browser space, but then upstarts like Firefox and Chrome left it in the dust. Microsoft’s response was to retire Internet Explorer and move to Edge with the release of Windows 10. However, Edge didn’t return Microsoft to its glory days. Now, the company is working on a new version of Edge based on Chromium, and it’s going to have a surprising feature: . Internet Explorer 11 is the most recent version of Microsoft’s classic browser. It’s even bundled with Windows 10, believe it or not. While Microsoft pushes Edge as its browser of choice, you can launch Internet Explorer by typing it into the Start menu search or by digging around in the Windows Accessories folder.
In years past, drone aircraft were expensive and difficult to control. Today, you can pick up a speedy drone with long flight time for a pittance. Many of them even link with a phone for quick setup. Naturally, governments and law enforcement are worried about the hazards drones represent, and that’s why AerialX designed the DroneBullet. It’s a new type of drone that’s . Its goal is to knock other drones out of the sky. Imagine someone used a drone to transport an explosive device. How would law enforcement stop the drone even if they knew where it was? That might still sound like the plot to a Hollywood B movie, but drones are already very real threats in other ways.
