SUNDAY, 02 AUGUST 2026, 02:47
Dr Suzanne Bell helps astronauts perform in a high-stress environment. To do that, she wakes up at 5am – without an alarm
Tell us: what impact have GLP-1s had on your relationships?
Dr Suzanne Bell, an organizational psychologist, leads the Behavioral Health and Performance Laboratory at Nasa’s Johnson Space Center.
What’s your morning routine?
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Prof Abbie Garrington reflects on an interview with the physicist Laura Grego about the battle for our skies
Where are the arts and humanities in current debates about space research? The physicist Laura Grego tells us we “have to be aware of what is happening in space”, that we should probe Elon Musk’s potential “appropriation” of space via satellite, and that our spacefaring era...
“Welcome home!” NASA posted on X.com, sharing footage of a successful “parachute-assisted” landing on a Kazakhstan steppe for the Soyuz MS-28, carrying three astronauts who’d spent 241 days on the International Space Station. (And YouTube has a full two-hour video with NASA’s coverage of the landing.) A NASA web page notes they orbited Earth 3,856 times and traveling more than 102 million miles...
It started with some underground utility work for the South Carolina town of Surfside Beach (population: 4,155). “Public records confirm that a payment of $545,598.30 was issued,” according to a local news station — but the CEO of Wildcat Contractors “stated that the account that received the money is a scammer account and that his company has an overdue invoice for underground utility work...
The operators want the high court to set aside regulations that will force automatic rollover of unused data bundles.
Preliminary study shows older people who avoided food four hours before bed did better in problem solving tests
Confining mealtimes and snacks to a nine-hour window and avoiding food for four hours before bed may help stave off cognitive decline in older age, researchers say.
A pilot study of older women living with overweight or obesity found hints of improvement in mental skills among those...
The Special Investigating Unit (SIU) has announced that it has secured a preservation order from the Special Tribunal ordering the preservation of two multimillion-rand properties linked to former Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA) Group Chief Executive Officer Tshepo Lucky Montana. The order prohibits Montana from selling, transferring, leasing, encumbering or otherwise dealing with...
A Canadian lab has run a chemical process on real spent nuclear fuel “and pulled out 90% of the long-lived danger in 24 hours, the part that forces a burial site to last 100,000 years,” notes the blog Autonocio, “with the leftovers meant to fuel a reactor.”The standard plan for spent nuclear fuel is to wait it out. You pull the used bundles from a reactor, sit them in a pool of water for seven...
As social media companies face scrutiny over addictive design features, mental health experts cite a stream of breakup content as an example of the failure to protect users.
How the scion Sammy Nussdorf found his calling among the carefully arranged shelves of Meadow Lane, his chic market in Lower Manhattan.
Big news from Comic-Con 2026:”Coyote vs. ACME” debuted its long-awaited final trailer. CNET calls it “an animation-meets-live-action story,” with the Coyote catapulting into theaters this August 28. (The film began development back in 2018, but was shelved for a tax write-off in 2023 by Warner Bros. until a backlash led to its sale to Ketchup Entertainment.) “Fed up with Acme’s unreliable...
“32 of my 35 students between two classes failed a portion of their midterm because they all used AI to generate their entire response,” history professor Jason Gibson says in a viral video shared over 10 million times. “And apparently, they didn’t proofread it.” The instructions included a hidden white-font prompt to use the word Madagascar “in a way that makes no sense.” So if he saw the word...
In a sign of the times, Firefox’s New Tab page could soon include a crossword puzzle from AI-powered news platform Particle. The blog OMG Ubuntu reports:The mini crossword game is updated daily, with puzzles based around recent content Particle’s AI has ingested and summarised that day. [After solving the crossword, links appear to related news articles…] If you just want to try the crossword,...
In a sign of the times, Firefox’s New Tab page could soon include a crossword puzzle from AI-powered news platform Particle. The blog OMG Ubuntu reports:The mini crossword game is updated daily, with puzzles based around recent content Particle’s AI has ingested and summarised that day. [After solving the crossword, links appear to related news articles…] If you just want to try the crossword,...
Politico reports that in the Virginia area alone there’s dozens of data center projects “that altogether need 70 gigawatts of power — equivalent to 70 nuclear plants” — currently seeking connection to their grid. But there’s also concerns about a Virginia data center powered with natural gas and backup diesel generators:When Virginia’s top environmental regulator received an analysis...
“In many parts of the world, lakes are drying out at a scale so massive that scientists are warning they may be emitting enough greenhouse gases to rival our fossil fuel habit,” reports ScienceAlert: In a new study published in Science, scientists say the Aral Sea — the world’s largest desiccated lake — has emitted a whopping 204 megatons (~225 million US tons) of carbon dioxide since it...
Ars Technica reports:Hyundai Motor Company’s plan to put humanoid robots to work by 2028 is not part of current negotiations with striking South Korean autoworkers, according to the company. The automaker is disputing news reports that partial labor strikes by the Hyundai Motor union at the world’s largest automotive plant in South Korea were spurred by concerns about the company’s planned...
CNBC reports:Amazon is requiring that third-party sellers label any product images or videos that contain “AI-generated people” after New York recently passed a law mandating greater transparency around “synthetic performers” in ads… The policy directs sellers to tag images [and videos or other graphics on listing pages] with specific metadata keywords before they’re uploaded. “Recent...
Prescribing doctors often warn of the medications’ potential side-effects – but unexpected impacts on romantic relationships are less understood
For Jennifer, obesity was the obvious culprit for most of her problems.
The litigation attorney told herself it was the reason why she wasn’t being invited to parties, and why she and her husband struggled with physical intimacy in their otherwise...
Futurism reports:[Some online publications] are now debating whether to cut Google off entirely, as the Wall Street Journal reports, illustrating an increasingly fraught relationship between the tech giant and the publishers that are creating content its AI models are regurgitating. According to the newspaper, prominent outlets including USA Today, Politico, the Economist, People, and Reuters...
CNN reports on yaks “designed and cloned” in secretive, high-altitude labs in Tibet — 2.4 miles (4,000 meters) above sea level. They’re a critical part of the local economy, and researchers “hope to create an ‘elite’ herd of super-yaks, healthier and more fertile than their predecessors.”Both domestic yaks and their wild cousins have been facing threats for years, with some rare subspecies at...