Science

Polyethylene plastic bags are challenging to recycle Robert Sanders/UC Berkeley Plastic bottles and bags can be vaporised into chemical building blocks and turned into new plastics with all the properties of virgin material. There are hurdles still to overcome, but the new process is a big step towards a truly circular economy for plastic. Around

The Wow! signal: did a telescope in Ohio receive an extraterrestrial communication in 1977? – Physics World Skip to main content Close search menu Discover more from Physics World Copyright © 2024 by IOP Publishing Ltd and individual contributors Read the original article here

LITTLETON, CO. – The common saying that “space is hard” may need redefinition, given the increasing use of softgoods to fashion inflatable structures from airlocks to habitats for future lunar and Mars missions. Here at the Waterton Canyon facility of Lockheed Martin, the company is testing inflatable structures that offer advantages over all-metal hardware. An

Boeing’s Starliner capsule won’t shuttle astronauts home from space this year NASA It’s official: Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams are staying on the International Space Station (ISS) until at least February. This is a major setback for Boeing’s Starliner, the capsule that brought them there, but it doesn’t spell doom for the US space programme.

Metamaterial gives induction heating a boost for industrial processing – Physics World Skip to main content Close search menu Discover more from Physics World Copyright © 2024 by IOP Publishing Ltd and individual contributors Read the original article here

WASHINGTON — Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander was unable to make it to the moon because of a failure of a single valve, leading to work to redesign the valve and overall propulsion system on the company’s larger Griffin lander. Astrobotic released Aug. 27 a report by a failure review board that examined the Peregrine Mission

“I have really modest goals. I want to have the largest impact on human suffering of anyone, ever,” says Lou Reese, co-founder of biotechnology company Vaxxinity. He might just pull it off. If everything goes to plan, by 2030 the firm will offer a new drug that will revolutionise our approach to one of the

Sunflowers ‘dance’ together to share sunlight – Physics World Skip to main content Close search menu Discover more from Physics World Copyright © 2024 by IOP Publishing Ltd and individual contributors Read the original article here

WASHINGTON — Despite the creation of the U.S. Space Force and increased attention on space as a critical domain for national security, the U.S. military is struggling to innovate in the crucial area of space domain awareness (SDA), experts said Aug. 26. SDA, which encompasses the monitoring, tracking, and identification of objects in Earth orbit,

We can enjoy music because of our ability to recognise musical boundaries NDAB Creativity/Shutterstock We may finally know how the brain processes a beat drop: people use two distinct brain networks to anticipate and identify transitions between segments in a piece of music. Musical boundaries, the moments when one section of a composition ends and

3D printing creates strong, stretchy hydrogels that stick to tissue – Physics World Skip to main content Close search menu Discover more from Physics World Copyright © 2024 by IOP Publishing Ltd and individual contributors Read the original article here

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Space Force awarded a $200 million contract to Northrop Grumman to construct a radar site in the United Kingdom to monitor objects in outer space. This initiative is part of the AUKUS security alliance involving Australia, the U.K. and the United States. The contract, announced Aug. 23, is for the second

A health worker assesses a suspected case of mpox in North Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo Arlette Bashizi/Bloomberg via Getty Images Mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, is driving an ongoing outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and neighbouring countries. Surging cases are partly caused by a new variant that is thought

Vacuum-sealed tubes could form the backbone of a long-distance quantum network – Physics World Skip to main content Close search menu Discover more from Physics World Copyright © 2024 by IOP Publishing Ltd and individual contributors Read the original article here

WASHINGTON — Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner will return from the International Space Station in September without the two astronauts on board who launched on it in June after NASA concluded thruster problems posed too much risk. NASA announced Aug. 24 that Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, the NASA astronauts who flew to the ISS on Starliner’s

The interior of the monument in Spain known as the Menga dolmen Miguel Ángel Blanco de la Rubia Neolithic people seem to have understood sophisticated concepts in science, such as physics and geology, using this knowledge to construct a megalithic monument in southern Spain. Called the Menga dolmen, it is among the earliest European megaliths,

Quantum sensor detects magnetic and electric fields from a single atom – Physics World Skip to main content Close search menu Discover more from Physics World Copyright © 2024 by IOP Publishing Ltd and individual contributors Read the original article here

WASHINGTON — Nine space technology companies won a new round of contracts from SpaceWERX, a Los Angeles-based organization that connects military needs with commercial space technologies, officials announced Aug. 22. The contracts, known as Strategic Funding Increase (STRATFI) agreements, are funded by the Department of the Air Force’s AFWERX organization. SpaceWERX revealed the contract recipients