Science

In her first interview since becoming the Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris told CNN’s Dana Bash that her “values have not changed,” even though when she ran for the nomination in 2019, she said she was in favor of a ban. Fracking, of course, is a lightning rod issue in the critical swing state of Pennsylvania.

According to Astrobotic’s post-mission report:

After an extensive review of the events before, during, and after Peregrine’s mission, the board concluded that the most likely cause of Peregrine’s anomaly was the failure of a singular helium pressure control valve, called PCV2, within the propulsion system.

The Elon Musk-led company is allegedly running gas turbines without the proper permit at a data center in Memphis, TN. Local environmental groups are reportedly urging regulators to investigate.

They’re worried about nitrogen oxides (NOx), smog-forming pollution that can aggravate respiratory illness.

In which a scientific feud gets surprisingly personal:

When During looks at a bone, she sees a chemical matrix waiting to be investigated. She sees an opportunity to extract information. When DePalma looks at a bone, he sees a narrative. He tells stories about the bones, some of them true.

The South Dublin County Council rejected the proposal, Bloomberg reports. Google reportedly didn’t provide sufficient information about “how the proposal will impact the power supply once operational.”

New data centers being built with the boom in AI have raised concerns about straining the power grid. Ireland is a hot spot for that construction, where data centers already use more electricity than urban households.

The US Department of Health and Human Services will be offering four free home Covid tests to each household at the end of September. This, together with the roll-out of the latest vaccines (I’ve already made my appointment), is another sign that the coronavirus has made a strong reappearance this summer.

Boeing’s first crewed Starliner launch got Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore to the International Space Station in June, but with issues including helium leaks, will the same vehicle still bring them home?

We expect to find out during NASA’s press conference that was scheduled to start at 1PM ET following an Agency Test Flight Readiness Review.

Will astronauts  Barry ”Butch” Wilmore and Sunita Williams come home from the ISS on the Starliner, or will they wait to hitch a ride home from SpaceX next year without protective space suits?

We may find out on Saturday:

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and leadership will hold an internal Agency Test Flight Readiness Review on Saturday, Aug. 24, for NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test. About an hour later, NASA will host a live news conference at 1 p.m. EDT from Johnson Space Center in Houston.

According to the company’s latest progress update, the patient has used the implant in combination with a specialized Quadstick game controller to play the first-person shooter, in addition to designing his own custom Neuralink charger mount in CAD software.

This implant has also remained fully attached to the patient’s brain, unlike the recipient of the first procedure.

The company has a target of making all of its hardware packaging without plastic by 2025. Packaging for new products it made and launched in 2023 was at least 99 percent plastic-free, according to the company’s latest sustainability report. It’s replacing plastic with paper, which can be included in curbside recycling programs unlike most plastic packaging.

Roughly half of customers lost power yesterday. As of this morning, more than 30 percent of customers are still without service, according to power utility Luma Energy.

It shows how vulnerable the US territory’s grid is after Hurricane Maria hit in 2017 and left residents without electricity for up to 11 months. In July, Puerto Rico filed a $1 billion suit against fossil fuel companies.

The World Health Organization made the declaration today after a new strain of the virus spread across the Democratic Republic of Congo and neighboring countries that hadn’t previously reported cases of mpox.

It’s deadlier this time around compared to 2022, when it was called monkeypox. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the US also warned clinicians to stay on alert for the virus.

In the meantime, NASA officials said on a media call that they will weigh the risks of bringing Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams home on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon.

The spacesuits they brought wouldn’t work, so they’d have to return without the protection of wearing one. Staying in space longer, however, could expose the astronauts to extra radiation.

They’re on different sides of a debate over how to counteract pollution from data centers’ energy use, Financial Times reports.

Amazon and Meta are part of a lobby group that wants more lax standards for renewable energy certificates, which can pose similar risks as carbon offset credits. Google, meanwhile, backs a different strategy for bringing more renewables online wherever data centers operate.