The Cross Heads

People will share misinformation that sparks “moral outrage”

Finally, the researchers started analyzing the data to answer questions like whether misinformation sources evoke more outrage, whether outrageous news was shared more often than non-outrageous news, and finally, what reasons people had for sharing outrageous content. And that’s when the idealized picture of honest, truthful citizens who shared misinformation just because they were too […]

December 2, 2024 | Behavioral science, Human behavior, misinformation, rage clicks, Science, social media | No comments

Over the weekend, China debuted a new rocket on the nation’s path to the Moon

These startups operate with the blessing of China’s government and, in many cases, got their start by utilizing surplus military equipment and investment from Chinese local or provincial governments. However, the Chinese Communist Party has allowed them to raise capital from private sources, and they operate on a commercial basis, almost exclusively to serve domestic […]

December 2, 2024 | china, launch, long march, long march 12, moon, Science, Space | No comments

Falcon 9 reaches a flight rate 30 times higher than shuttle at 1/100th the cost

That is a meaningful number, because over the course of the three decades it flew into orbit, NASA’s Space Shuttle flew 135 missions. The space shuttle was a significantly more complex vehicle, and unlike the Falcon 9 rocket, humans flew aboard it during every mission. However, there is some historical significance in the fact that […]

December 2, 2024 | falcon 9, Science, Space, spacex | No comments

Supermassive black hole binary emits unexpected flares

“In addition to stars, gas clouds can also be disrupted by SMBHs and their binaries,” they said in the same study. “The key difference is that the clouds can be comparable to or even larger than the binary separation, unlike stars, which are always much smaller. “ Looking at the results of a previous study […]

December 1, 2024 | astronomy, astrophysics, black hole binary, black holes, Science, supermassive black hole | No comments

How should we treat beings that might be sentient?

What’s needed, Birch argues, when faced with such staggering uncertainty about the sentience stature of other beings, is a precautionary framework that outlines best practices for decision-making regarding their care. And in The Edge of Sentience, he provides exactly that, in meticulous, orderly detail. Over more than 300 pages, he outlines three fundamental framework principles […]

November 30, 2024 | Biology, consciousness, ethics, neurobiology, Science, sentience | No comments

Rocket Report: A good week for Blue Origin; Italy wants its own launch capability

NASA taps Falcon Heavy for another big launch. A little more than a month after SpaceX launched NASA’s flagship Europa Clipper mission on a Falcon Heavy rocket, the space agency announced its next big interplanetary probe will also launch on a Falcon Heavy, Ars reports. What’s more, the Dragonfly mission the Falcon Heavy will launch […]

November 28, 2024 | blue origin, china, human spaceflight, italy, launch, rocket lab, rocket report, Science, Space, spacex | No comments

Man suffers chemical burn that lasted months after squeezing limes

If Margaritaville were a real place, it should definitely keep a few dermatologists on hand. In a case of an oft-overlooked food preparation risk, a 40-year-old man showed up to an allergy clinic in Texas with a severe, burning rash on both his hands that had developed two days earlier. A couple of days later, […]

November 27, 2024 | Health, medical cases, NEJM, phytophotodermatitis, rash, Science, skin | No comments

What fossilized dino feces can tell us about their rise to dominance

Paleontologists have long puzzled over how the dinosaurs—originally relatively small and of minor importance to the broader ecosystem—evolved to become the dominant species some 30 million years later. Fossilized feces and vomit from dinosaurs might hold important clues to how and why this evolutionary milestone came about, according to a new paper published in the […]

November 27, 2024 | coprolites, dinosaurs, evolutionary biology, food webs, fossilized feces, Jurassic, paleontology, Science, Triassic | No comments

Teaching a drone to fly without a vertical rudder

Most airplanes in the world have vertical tails or rudders to prevent Dutch roll instabilities, a combination of yawing and sideways motions with rolling that looks a bit like the movements of a skater. Unfortunately, a vertical tail adds weight and generates drag, which reduces fuel efficiency in passenger airliners. It also increases the radar […]

November 27, 2024 | Biomechanics, birds, drones, engineering, flight, mechanical engineering, Science | No comments

Licking this “lollipop” will let you taste virtual flavors

Demonstrating lollipop user interface to simulate taste in virtual and augmented reality environments. Credit: Lu et al, 2024/PNAS Demonstrating lollipop user interface to simulate taste in virtual and augmented reality environments. Credit: Lu et al, 2024/PNAS Virtual reality (VR) technology has long sought to incorporate the human senses into virtual and mixed-reality environments. In addition […]

November 26, 2024 | augmented reality, extended reality, haptic interfaces, Human-computer interface, Science, virtual reality | No comments

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