Google will ban fake news sites from using its advertising software, The Wall Street Journal reports. The move will prohibit the placement of Google’s AdSense ads “on pages that misrepresent, misstate, or conceal information about the publisher, the publisher’s content, or the primary purpose,” the company told the Journal. Websites that published deliberately false news…
Google has just confirmed its Pixel smartphone, available in 5- and 5.5in versions as the Pixel and Pixel XL. Headline features include the new Google Assistant, which allows for natural dialogue between Google and a user to get the information they need, a 12.3Mp camera that has won the highest ever rating from DXOMark Mobile…
Japanese cell biologist Yoshinori Ohsumi has won the Nobel Prize in medicine for his work on autophagy: how cells in the human body repair themselves and detoxify. He will nab the award for “mechanisms for autophagy.” The scientist led a series of groundbreaking experiments in the early 1990s that helped researchers to understand the process…
The first spacecraft to orbit a comet ended its mission Friday by safely landing on the frozen body it had tracked or the past two years. The European Space Agency’s Rosetta probe made a confirmed landing on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko at roughly 2 miles per hour before sending its final radio signal back to the mission-control…
In an article published by Nature World News on Wednesday, researchers announced the discovery of a new “Earth-like” planet orbiting a star not far from our sun. The planet has not been named yet, but was found circling the star Proxima Centauri—a “cool, tiny red dwarf” scientists have long suspected might be capable of having…
Dallas police “took out” one of the suspects behind the deadly attack on its officers Thursday night using a robotic explosive device, the city’s mayor told CNN early Friday. “We were able to take out one of the suspects, who had been cornered in the garage, with an explosive device,” Mayor Mike Rawlings said. “We’ve…
NASA’s Juno spacecraft will reach Jupiter on Monday, the three-second beep marking its arrival is expected around 11:53 p.m. EST. The craft will have traveled nearly 2 billion miles in five years. “I can tell you when that completes, you’re going to see a lot of celebration,” said Juno’s project manager, Rick Nybakken, “because that…
China has put the final piece into position on what will be the world’s biggest radio telescope, which will be used to explore space and seek out extraterrestrial life. The Five Hundred Metre Aperture Spherical Telescope is cut out of the side of a mountain and is the size of 30 football fields. The massive…
The first American killed by a self-driving car died when the Tesla he was operating on “autopilot” mistook a tractor trailer for a bright sky, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported. The driver, identified as 40-year-old Josh Brown, was using his Tesla Model S’s built-in system in Florida in May when the truck made…
Looking at your smartphone while lying in bed at night could wreak havoc on your vision. Two women went temporarily blind from constantly checking their phones in the dark, say doctors who are now alerting others to the unusual phenomenon. The solution: Make sure to use both eyes when looking at your smartphone screen in…
SpaceX launched a Thai communi-cations satellite Friday afternoon, and its first-stage rocket booster landed on a floating target in the Atlantic Ocean, marking the company’s third successful sea landing.The rocket launched at 2:39 p.m. PDT from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
A link between cellphones and cancer has been found in a major U.S. study, officials said late Thursday. The peer-reviewed $25 million study was conducted over multiple years and found two types of tumors in male rats exposed to the same kind of radio frequencies emitted by the devices. The tumors were found in brain…
Hyperloop One successfully tested their magnetic levitation propulsion system on May 11, 2016 at a site in the North Las Vegas desert. The test is an important step in making the new high-speed transportation technology a reality. The test vehicle reached 120 mph in just two seconds, and hit a top speed of 300 mph…
Before Tesla had even unveiled its new electric wonder sedan, the Model 3, on Thursday, the company had already amassed $130 million from preorder deposits for the vehicle. The 115,000 preorders were garnered in a 24-hour period. “This is kind of crazy,” Elon Musk said when he announced the number at a launch event late…
Today marks 30 years since the Shuttle Challenger had a booster engine fail, causing the shuttle to break apart and kill all seven crew members on board. It happened just 73 seconds after launch on the morning of January 28, 1986. President Ronald Reagan eulogized the crew, quoting from the poem High Flight: “We will…
A SpaceX rocket exploded on Sunday after breaking a support leg while landing on a barge in the Pacific Ocean. The rocket successfully delivered a U.S.-European ocean-monitoring satellite into orbit, but failed to land upright on a floating platform and caused a fiery explosion. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk posted a video of the landing on…
Broadcast live streaming video on Ustream Tim Peake is officially on a spacewalk! British astronaut Tim Peake is now outside the International Space Station, on his first spacewalk. Major Peake is stepping into space as part of a six-and-a-half-hour mission to repair a broken power unit. “It’s a privilege,” he said in response to station…
Mark Zuckerberg is trumping all New Year resolutions with his own goal this year: building an artificial-intelligence assistant. The Facebook CEO shared his 2016 goal in an online post Sunday. “You can think of it kind of like Jarvis in Iron Man,” Zuckerberg said, referring to assistant who aids the Marvel Comics hero who serves…
Elon Musk’s SpaceX successfully landed the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket Monday, marking the first time a large rocket has delivered spacecraft to orbit and returned to earth intact. Rockets have traditionally been disposed of after they detach from spacecraft, but SpaceX’s landing and ability to recover it after an obital flight signals…
The space object named WT1190F, has a bunch of social media users attention for its peculiarly funny name and mysterious nature. Although it is still unidentified, it is predicted by scientists to plunge into the Indian Ocean on Friday the 13th next month. Astronomers from the European Space Agency (ESA) clarified that the impact of…
National Geographic is scheduled to air the first-ever live brain surgery on Oct. 25, according to Hollywood Reporter. The network is teaming up with Mental Floss and Bryant Gumbel is slated to host the two-hour event. Viewers will get an up-close look at awake deep brain stimulation (DBS) surgery in real-time at University Hospitals Case…
NASA has discovered signs of liquid water on Mars, it announced at a press conference Monday morning. “Mars is not the dry, arid planet we thought,” NASA official Jim Green announced. Liquid water has never been detected outside of Earth. NASA found evidence that water formed dark streaks on the Martian surface known as as…
Today’s Google Doodle honors Inge Lehmann, the female seismologist who discovered the earth’s inner and outer cores. Designed by Doodler Kevin Laughlin, the animated logo uses a glowing orb to represent Lehmann’s discovery. Born in Østerbro, Denmark, Lehmann was appointed the head of the department of seismology at Denmark’s Geodtical Institute in 1928. After intensive…
The Russian space agency said its wayward robotic cargo spaceship took a fiery plunge through Earth’s atmosphere over the Pacific on Thursday.
Tesla on Thursday introduced Tesla Energy, a suite of batteries that can power homes, businesses, and public utlities. The system consists of the Powerwall, a rechargeable lithium-ion battery system designed to store solar power and enable homes to go completely off the power grid, as well as the Powerback, which is directed toward business or…
Google wants you to search the legendary creature, affectionately known as “Nessie” on Google Street View. Eighty-one years after the “Surgeon’s Photograph”—which claimed to show the monster peeking out from the misty waters of the lake—Google is bringing 360-degree Street View imagery of Loch Ness to the masses. “Sail across the freshwater lake and take…
NASA’s Messenger spacecraft, which made history four years ago when entering the orbit around Mercury, is preparing to crash onto the planet’s surface later this month, NASA said Thursday. The car-sized probe will become the first human-made object to fall to Mercury’s surface.
Eight years and 3 billion miles after its launch to the asteroid belt, NASA’s Dawn spacecraft slipped into orbit around the dwarf planet Ceres. Dawn is the first probe to go into orbit around two worlds beyond Earth.
Today, the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft will release its Philae lander to make space history: the first soft-landing on a comet. If all goes well, Philae will make a seven-hour descent from Rosetta to the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and land at 10:35 a.m. EST (1535 GMT). Update for Nov. 12 at 8:14 a.m.…
Google has signed a 60-year lease for part of a historic Navy air base, where it plans to renovate three massive hangars and use them for projects involving aviation, space exploration and robotics. The tech giant has agreed to pay $1.16 billion in rent over the next six decades for the property, which also includes…
