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Scientists have identified the sample return sites for NASA’s OSIRIS-Rex mission.They announced the two sites, Nightingale and Osprey, December 12 at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.Scientists are eager to capture and study the materials found on the asteroid, which has shown signs of water and could reveal new insight into the formation of our solar system.Astronomers announced the spot from which OSIRIS-REX will scoop up dirt and rock for return to Earth....

Update 6:10 p.m. EDT: SpaceX has postponed the first flight of the Falcon 9 Block 5 after the rocket triggered an abort with 58 seconds left on the countdown clock, just after the vehicle entered startup mode. SpaceX is reviewing the data to determine what triggered the Falcon 9’s abort procedure.SpaceX has a backup launch window reserved at Kennedy Space Center for the Bangabandhu-1 mission on Friday, May 11, between 4:14 p....

SpaceX and the space tourism company Space Adventures announced today that they will send the first private citizens to space aboard a Crew Dragon capsule. Up to four tourists will embark on a free-flying mission to Earth’s orbit in the next year, according to a joint statement. NASA commissioned SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule for its Commercial Crew program, which will shuttle astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard an American-made rocket....

The next phase of the hunt for new worlds lifted off the pad at Cape Canaveral today, flying on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. NASA’s newest planet-hunter, the TESS space telescope, will observe roughly 85 percent of the sky to find planets orbiting bright, nearby stars. The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite hopes to find another pale blue dot—a world to join Earth on the short list of known habitable worlds. “I have been blessed to have been a professional astronomer during the period of time that started with—‘well there probably are planets around other stars, but boy, they’re just too hard to find and we’ll never know’—to where we are today, which is we know there are planets around almost every star,” says Paul Hertz, the Director of the Astrophysics Division at NASA....

Media Platforms Design TeamMedia Platforms Design TeamNext week, British engine and construction equipment manufacturer JCB will attempt to break the diesel land speed record at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah with its JCB Dieselmax streamliner. The record run will come exactly one week after the annual Superbowl of land speed racing, Bonneville Speed Week. The current record of 235.756 has held since 1973. The JCB streamliner will attempt to break the 300 mph barrier using two, dual-stage turbocharged 5....

Media Platforms Design Team10. Angels & DemonsAntimatter SkyMedia Platforms Design TeamTom Hanks, Ayelet Zurer, Thure Lindhart and Ewan McGregor in Columbia Pictures’ suspense thriller Angels & Demons.Before the final plot twist drains all semblance of life from this sequel to The Da Vinci Code, there is a moment of eery, violent beauty: the bomb that everyone was looking for blows up. It’s actually a stolen vial of antimatter, which is suspended in a magnetic field, and helicoptered high above St....

British architectural firm NBBJ has an intriguing idea for next generation public transport: moving sidewalks. The technology, of course, already exists, and is more associated with “trying to get around airports,” but they have a fully envisioned way to keep it brisk: fast and slow lanes. The fastest lane would move at 15 MPH, with passengers either lazily coming along for the ride or adding in their own 3 MPH walk to drive up that top speed....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe civil war in Syria just got even more complicated. Today, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad run by the Islamic group Hezbollah that Russia has delivered the first pieces of advanced, long-range antiaircraft missiles called S-300PMUs. These are some of the world’s most capable air-defense missile systems, though they’ve never before been shot in combat. ( of the mobile system from Almaz-Antey, the company that makes them. Click “Favorit” for details....

Nobody’s ever asked me to come work in a car factory. The reasons for that are fairly obvious: Factories could be dangerous to me, and I could be dangerous to the product. The car companies are probably more worried about that second part—digits can be reattached, but wheels can’t, once I cross-thread all the studs. It takes a long time to build a reputation for quality, but a very short time for me to install your turbo backwards....

Looking for a small, fun project you can pull off using some scrap wood and one afternoon? Look no further than this compact little slingshot designed by the master of the form. The “Rambini”— as slingshotsman Joerg Sprave calls it—is a compact little shooter that’s easy to make so long as you just have a piece of wood lying around. The plans are simple, just a 2D shape for you to cut out of some suitably sturdy wood....

Media Platforms Design TeamAmerican truck manufacturers have long waged a heated battle for diesel horsepower and torque supremacy. Recently, the war has become more intense. Back in February, Ford announced that the new 6.7-liter Power Stroke would produce 390 hp and 735 lb-ft of torque—trumping diesel outputs from both Dodge and GM. That a pickup truck would have a motor that so handily cleared the 700 lb-ft of torque barrier was certainly impressive....

Today The Hollywood Reporter is confirming that nearly 30 years after Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure the famous time-hopping members of the Wyld Stallyns will be going on one last adventure in Bill & Ted Face the Music. Some Most Excellent Time Travel MoviesThe 35 Best Time Travel MoviesReeves says a script has been hanging around for eight years, but the film has been stalled for one reason or another. Now Face the Music has officially entered pre-production....

Artificial intelligence could be throwing off the search for alien life just as much as humans’ own cognitive biases, according to a new paper published in the scientific journal Acta Astronautica.When a neural network was shown an image from a crater on the dwarf planet Ceres, it identified curious patterns, including both a square (which people also saw) and a triangle. After the neural net detected the triangular shape in the images, people in the study also began to see it, even though they hadn’t previously....

Media Platforms Design TeamRelease Date: Available NowPrice: $749 (32GB) and $849 (64GB)Last year’s Galaxy Note Pro 10.1 has some of the best specs in its class, but this year Samsung grabbed the Note by its premium corners and stretched it, creating a new juggernaut in the tablet arena—the Galaxy Note Pro 12.2 The new (and bigger) Note was designed for professional artists, executives, and tablet enthusiasts, and it demands your attention with its huge size and craftsmanship....

Four decades ago, Robert A. Caro began writing a multipart biography he calls The Years of Lyndon Johnson. Over 3,000 pages and a Pulitzer later, he’s still working on the fifth and (allegedly) final volume. “In writing about me and my hopes of finishing, [journalists] often express their doubts of that happening in a sarcastic phrase: ‘Do the math,’ ” Caro, 83, writes in the introduction to Working, a new book about his research....

The Space Corps is getting closer to reality. In the early morning hours of June 13, the House Armed Services Committee voted to establish a United States Space Corps within the Department of the Air Force. The name Space Force, first proposed by President Trump, appears to be dropped. Long live the Space Force.The Armed Services Committee had begun marking up the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) on June 12....

Media Platforms Design TeamQ: Can you resolve a long-standing disagreement I have with my father about rearview mirrors? He insists on adjusting them so that he can see only his own rear fenders in the outside mirrors. I like to set them so I can just see the edge, not with the whole fender filling half of the mirror.A: I had a long chat over dinner with an engineer from a major auto company a couple of years back about this very subject....

Between 1901 and 2006, there were 511 Nobel Peace Prizes given out in physics chemistry or medicine. Out of all of those, only 11 went to women. L’Oreal, a cosmetics company that recognizes the benefits of science and technology not only to their company—their founder, a chemist, invented the first synthetic hair dye—but to society as well, is looking to change that. At this year’s third annual L’Oreal USA’s Fellowships for Women in Science awards ceremony in New York City on June 8, the international make-up and skin-care giant awarded five young American female scientists $20,000 each to continue their post-doctoral research in an effort to increase awareness of women in the sciences as well as create role-models for young, science-minded girls....

Media Platforms Design Team Every year, the New York International Auto Show isa strong showcase of advanced tech, plus the latest hand-buffed, domestic, Japanese and European production and concept automobiles. But few automakers quicken the pulse of the show-goers like the prancing stallions that come out of Ferrari’s factory. At this year’s show, Ferrari is showcasing an updated version of the 612 Scaglietti, packing 532 hp from its V12 engine, an updated F1-style transmission and an advanced stability control system....

Did we speak too soon in declaring the Mars One project finally dead? The organization now says it’s speaking with a mystery investor who might inject the cash necessary to save part of the would-be Martian project. Then again, Mars One says a lot of things.In case you missed the news yesterday: A Redditor discovered a Swiss court filing from January in which Mars One was officially declared bankrupt. It looked like the final nail in the coffin for the organization, which was founded back in 2012 with the stated goal of taking humanity to the Red Planet via a reality TV show that would select a handful of finalists from thousands of astronaut applicants, but was repeatedly accused of being a scam preying on people’s enthusiasm for Mars....