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France has charged the Russian government with one of the first ever cases of space espionage. France’s Minister of Defense complained that a Russian satellite with “big ears” maneuvered too closely to a French satellite, eavesdropping on the advanced communications satellite.French Minister of Defense Florence Parly said the incident, which took place in 2017, involved the Russian Luch satellite coming very close to the Franco-Italian Athena-Fidus satellite (see above). Athena-Fidus is an acronym for “Access on Theatres and European Nations for Allied Forces - French Italian Dual Use Satellite” and was launched from French Guiana into geostationary orbit in 2014....

Coal power is going irrevocably extinct, and for good reason. Coal is simply too expensive to build and maintain, to the point where it’s actually cheaper to tear down an existing coal plant and build something else than to continue operating it. France is taking that information to heart, and is committing to shutting down all of its coal plants by 2021.French President Emmanuel Macron has declared that the country will rid itself of coal power entirely by 2021 at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland....

It’s still shrouded in secrecy, but Google’s free storage service is headed for the Web next year. Still, if the so-called Gdrive becomes as rapidly popular as the company’s e-mail service has in the past three years, what happens to your secrets? The prospect of a massive, speedy and tricked-out online hard drive already has privacy experts and illegal downloaders alike worried–especially if all that data is in the hands of a third-party giant and its cash cow to compete with Apple and Microsoft....

Japan’s largest warship, a sprawling, aircraft carrier-like destroyer, will protect a supply ship headed to rendezvous with a U.S. Navy carrier battle group. It’s the first time a Japanese warship has deliberately protected an American naval vessel.The warship, JS Izumo, left Yokosuka Naval Base near Tokyo today, May 1st. The ship will escort the supply vessel USNS Richard E. Byrd to meet up with USS Carl Vinson carrier battle group, which is headed from Australia to off the coast of the Korean peninsula....

Wednesday April 10: A day after the F-35 went missing, its wreckage has been found in the Pacific Ocean. But investigators still do not know what went wrong with the Joint Strike Fighter, and they have not located the pilot. Japanese Defense Minister Takeshi Iwaya said, “We have collected parts from the jet fighter’s tail fin so we [believe] it crashed.” Tuesday, April 9: A Japanese F-35A Joint Strike Fighter is reported missing and presumed lost today after a routine training flight over the Pacific Ocean....

Media Platforms Design TeamSome NASA researchers believe the key to better climate science is sitting about 65,000 feet above the Pacific Ocean. This month, they’re going up there.The project, called ATTREX (Airborne Tropical TRopopause EXperiment), will provide measurements of moisture and chemical composition, radiation levels, meteorological conditions, and trace gas levels in the high atmosphere. A slew of climate specialists hope to collect unprecedented amounts of data from the tropopause, the boundary between the troposhere (where most weather phenomenon take place) and the stratosphere....

Mercury is bad news for animals, plants, humans, water tables, and whole ecosystems, which is why it’s so important to contain. But according to a new study, there is a large reservoir of mercury trapped in Alaskan permafrost—permafrost that is presently melting.Research published in Geophysical Research Letters reports that the deposits of mercury in high northern latitudes could amount to the biggest amount found anywhere in the world. Altogether there could be 15 million gallons of mercury up there....

The U.S. Army is looking for a new infantry fighting vehicle to accompany the M1 Abrams into battle. The vehicle would carry a squad of infantry across the fast-moving battlefields of tomorrow, keeping them safe from enemy fire. Now three companies are preparing to throw their hats into the ring to produce what the Army calls the Next Generation Combat Vehicle (NGCV). The NGCV candidates are being exhibited by their manufacturers at the Association of the U....

One year ago today, the world was glued to its screens watching Elon Musk’s biggest test yet: the Falcon Heavy’s first launch. Years in the making, the launch cemented SpaceX’s initial lead in the new space race with the success of the most powerful rocket in the world, complete with booster-landing ballet. View full post on YoutubeAfter NASA rejected carrying a scientific payload on the test, which had to show it could transport an object to Mars, Musk decided on the gimmick-y backup option of his own personal car....

Flying a spacecraft to the sun has been an objective of NASA since the very beginning.In October 1958, just months after NASA was founded, a committee headed by physicists John Simpson and James Van Allen (for whom the radiation belts around the Earth are named) outlined some long-term goals for the new civil space agency. One of the principle missions identified by the committee was “a solar probe to pass inside the orbit of Mercury to study the particles and fields in the vicinity of the Sun....

Space station astronaut Joe Acaba is getting a double dose of hurricanes — even in orbit.Harvey flooded his home in Houston last month. Now Maria has slammed into Puerto Rico, his family’s homeland.In an interview with The Associated Press on Wednesday, the first astronaut of Puerto Rican heritage offered words of comfort to family members and everyone else during the wrath of Hurricane Maria.“My parents were born there, so a lot of relatives, cousins, godparents” are still in Puerto Rico, Acaba said....

It’s no exaggeration to say that functional fusion reactors—ones that generate more energy than they require—would change the world. While hundreds of scientists have been working on a handful of different approaches for decades, a new partnership between MIT and Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) is claiming it will be able to finish the job. The goal? Fusion power on the grid in 15 years. Related StoriesFusion Reactors’ Most Mysterious ProblemWhat Happens in a Nuclear Fusion ReactorMIT Achieves Breakthrough in Nuclear FusionWhile fusion energy is simple in theory, it’s ridiculously difficult in practice....

LAS VEGAS — What would CES be without an introduction of a new huge flat panel TV? At Sharp’s noontime press conference, they offered lunch (thank God) and introduced a 108-in., 1080p Aquos LCD TV, not only the largest LCD in the world, but it is bigger than the largest plasma TVs in the world. Sharp claims that this colossal flat panel is going to go into production and will hit the market this summer....

One of the most famous commercial robotic companions of all time, Sony’s robotic Aibo dog, is getting an expensive comeback. But before dusting off the dog collar, make sure to check the price tag on that robotic doggy in the window, the one with the mechanical tail: $2,899.The new Aibo, which has been selling in Japan since January 2018, is a bet that Sony has made enough improvements on its original creation, which was produced from 1999 through 2004....

Japan has unveiled what is very likely the design for its next-generation attack submarine. The 29SS submarines would replace the existing Sōryū class submarines starting in the early 2030s. The futuristic undersea warship will ensure that Tokyo retains its reputation for the quietest, most modern non-nuclear submarines in the world. A Sōryū class submarine anchored at the naval base at Kure, Japan. Note x-shaped stern planes emerging from the water at a 45 degree angle....

I owned the original comic that Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird created 30 years ago. And if you had told me then that we would still be talking about pizza-loving mutated reptiles today, I would have laughed in your face. Well I was wrong… and I really shouldn’t have sold those issues.Our favorite sewer surfers are back with a new origin story, one that—unless you’re a superfan— you wouldn’t know is a combination of TMNT comics and cartoons....

By 1965, Athelstan Spilhaus had grown despondent with the state of modern cities. As the Dean of the University of Minnesota’s Institute of Technology, and an inventor in his own right, he decided to try and create something new: the Minnesota Experimental City.The Experimental City, directed Chad Freidrichs of Unicorn Stencil Documentary Films, looks at how Spilhaus’ vision gained favor with NASA eningeers, visionaries like Buckminster Fuller, monied interests like Ford, Boeing and Honeywell and even political support in the form of Vice President and Minnesotan Hubert Humphrey, but also hit serious resistance....

The U.S. Air Force wants the X-37B space plane to be able to connect to fighter jets.It’s not clear what the Air Force has in mind. The space plane’s high vantage point could allow it to detect adversaries or pass data between jets at long ranges.The head of the U.S. Air Force wants to explore the idea of having the X-37B connect with fighter jets. It’s not clear what Chief of Staff General David Goldfein has in mind, but it could involve the space plane acting as a sensor platform, tracking targets below it....

Media Platforms Design TeamHorror aficionados judge onscreen zombie special effects by the quality of the cranial gunshots that kill the ghouls. The cameras of AMC’s show linger on the aftereffects of gunshots to the heads of their undead in a way that can only be described as lavish. The show’s just-completed first season has been serious, emotional, well-written and epic. But for those kind of people who are obsessed with this genre—like me—the grotesque, unflinching headshots became another mark of quality programming....

Media Platforms Design TeamA week after the catastrophic crash at the Reno Air Races that killed 11 people and injured dozens more, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) today released its preliminary report on the incident. While the report revealed little new information of note, it confirmed the most salient details and laid the groundwork for a longer report that will take approximately a year to complete. Only when that final report is issued will the NTSB make recommendations that may affect future running of the Reno races—or, possibly, cause them to be shut down....