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That is what Michaela Musilova spends her days investigating. As the director of the HI-SEAS facility, the product of a research program funded by NASA, she organizes missions that simulate, to the best possible degree, what life could look like on non-terrestrial surfaces. Musilova and her teams are looking at answering several questions that will arise once we embark: What food will we eat when we don’t have soil to grow it in?...

Now, Logitech is trying something a little different. Their new keyboard, the G810 Orion Spectrum, is a mechanical keyboard for the professional who also games. Or the gamer who’s also a professional. The G810 is interesting because it’s a synthesis and refinement of a lot of trends in the gaming world. As gaming, including playing competitive games like League of Legends, Dota 2, and Heroes of the Storm, becomes more mainstream, companies making peripherals are adapting to a market that want more serious products....

Humans have been meditating for 5,000 years, says Stephen Sokoler, founder of Journey Meditation. But in the last decade, something changed: We’ve started to take deep breathing instructions from our phones. Sokoler, who adopted Buddhism while living in Australia, founded Journey in 2015 to bring a “secular” approach to mindfulness—and the stress reduction, pain relief, and lifted spirits it reportedly affords—to corporate America. In time, instructors in 20 cities were guiding group meditations for employees at Warby Parker, Nike, Time Warner, and Conde Nast....

Boeing’s iconic B-17 Flying Fortress was designed to inflict heavy damage upon the enemy and was capable of carrying more than 4,000 pounds of bombs. This model version is made from a whopping 148 parts and the 1:48 scale gives it a length of almost two feet and a wingspan of a foot and a half. It also features detailed gun turrets, landing gear and wheels, and bomb racks. This American-made (both the model and the real thing) P-51 Mustang was likely the best single-seat piston engine fighter used during WWII....

PopSci reported a few months ago on a map from Durham University researchers, showing the complicated web of conflicting arctic claims. At least six nations could own part of the arctic. Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (what a mouthful), nations own the rights 200 meters out from the edge of their continental shelf—not the exposed coast, but the undersea lip of the continent. Unfortunately, there is no geophysical consensus on where those shelf edges are, hence this joint voyage....

Andrew Barry, a researcher at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL), designed the drone as part of his PhD thesis. The drone can recognize and avoid obstacles at speeds of 30 miles per hour, without any human direction. “Everyone is building drones these days, but nobody knows how to get them to stop running into things,” Barry said. “Sensors like LIDAR are too heavy to put on small aircraft, and creating maps of the environment in advance isn’t practical....

The number of cancer survivors (living people who have had a cancer diagnosis) has increased by over million in the past three years. As of January of this year, there are more than 18 million survivors, compared to only 3 million 1971. That number is expected to jump to 26 million by 2040, according to the association. From 2011 to 2017 (the most recent data) the five-year overall survival rate for all cancer combined has increased from 49 percent during the mid-70’s to nearly 70 percent today....

But it’s a process that wasn’t well-suited to the urgency of the COVID pandemic, when early research could save lives. Peer-review often takes months, and it asks for huge amounts of unpaid labor on the part of the scientists who scrutinize papers. In early 2020, growing numbers of scientists began to post research on open-access databases, called preprint servers, before those preprints had been formally reviewed. New research suggests that scientific norms are still operating on preprint servers....

With the Delta variant becoming increasingly widespread, US health experts are concerned about scattered unvaccinated communities, even in highly vaccinated states, and several countries have imposed new restrictions to curb the variant’s spread. Researchers have more information about the length of immunity granted by vaccines and boosters. Plus, a new study gives hope for those who lost their sense of smell after contracting the virus. Here’s what’s new this week....

The experiment, which began in January, is taking place at Lima’s International Potato Center (CIP), a nonprofit research center aimed at achieving food security, according to a press release put out by CIP in December. The researchers are growing 100 different varieties of potatoes and subjecting them to a slew of tests to see if any of them can hold up to Martian conditions. So, why potatoes? As Scientific American points out, a single potato can contain 10 percent of an average person’s required daily caloric needs....

Those qualifications are pretty strict. In order to apply, you have to: Be a US citizenHave at least a Bachelors’ degree in “engineering, biological science, physical science, computer science, or mathematics” (nursing, many social sciences, and some psychology degrees don’t make the cut)Have 3 years of professional experience in your field (teaching is ok), or have 1,000 hours of “pilot in command” time on a jetBe able to see in 20/20, or have glasses that let you see in 20/20Be between 5 feet 2 inches and 6 feet 3 inches tall, so you can fit into the space suit...

NASA and Orbital Sciences only recently finished assessing what went wrong. NASA released a report this past October, which is likely why photos from the disaster were recently added to NASA’s Flickr page. The two independent assessments point to an explosion in one of the engines’ liquid oxygen turbopump, but what caused the explosion remains unclear. NASA chalks it up to either poor engine design, debris in the engine, or a manufacturing defect....

“It’s been just 78 days since Parker Solar Probe launched, and we’ve now come closer to our star than any other spacecraft in history,” said Project Manager Andy Driesman in a press release. The new speed to beat is 153,454 miles per hour as viewed from a stationary sun, according to the team’s calculations. That’s more than 90 times faster than your typical bullet and more than twice as fast as the Earth orbits our host star, which is the fastest most of us will ever get to travel....

Go ahead and judge. These creatures don’t care whether they win marks for beauty by human standards — anything goes when survival and reproduction are at stake. They compete to not win any Darwin Awards. Perhaps it’s time for us humans to reassess our thinking, rather than let an aesthetic sense blind us to natural forms and functions that work well. Maggots writhing in a wound can disgust, sure, but saving a limb without risking an attack by antibiotic-resistant bacteria?...

A rare X-ray nova–a release of X-ray energy–was first caught by NASA’s Swift telescope in September. Scientists focused in on it and unraveled a story: the black hole formed a binary system with a nearby star, sucking in gas, then eventually releasing it. It’s a rare event–the first one the Swift satellite has ever seen. It’s hard to tell exactly how far away the black hole is, but NASA’s estimates peg it at between 20,000 and 30,000 light years away....

Already having the world’s largest and most advanced arsenal of short range ballistic missiles, China is constantly finding new ways to keep its missiles relevant for future battles. The DF-16 SRBM, which entered service in 2011-2012, has a range of 1,000km (twice that of the older DF-11 and DF-15), accuracy of 5-10 meters, and a warhead of up to one ton. Fired from a 10X10 transport erector launch vehicle, the DF-16B can hide hundreds of kilometers inland inside China’s interior, but reach out to launch attacks against enemy ships and bases....

Lonesome or not, WLM is ready for its close-up. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) took an incredibly detailed image of WLM using its near-infrared spotting tech to reveal a deep glimpse into the stars of the galaxy. The images were released to the public on November 9 and the data from this image could help astronomers study the early days of the universe since WLM’s seclusion has helped it maintain a chemical make-up that is similar to those of the galaxies in the early universe....

The vaccine was developed by Oxford University and the trial results of 409 children ages five to 17 in Nanoro, Burkina Faso were published yesterday in the Lancet Infectious Diseases. The vaccine was given in three initial doses with one booster a year later, and continued to meet the WHO’s Malaria Vaccine Technology Roadmap goal of a vaccine with at least 75 percent efficacy. Twenty-eight days after a booster dose, antibody levels were close to the same level following the primary three vaccinations, and no adverse events were reported....

The project was selected for the third and final phase of NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program, which helps develop promising ideas for scientific, government, and commercial use. The team will receive $2 million to support an additional two years of development to demonstrate their technology’s effectiveness ahead of a potential mission. It’s the fifth project to ever reach Phase III stage since the program started in 2012. Solar sails use the pressure of sunlight to propel themselves through space—much like sailboats pushed by wind—removing the need for rockets and fuel to push a craft forward....

Yes, that’s Back To The Future star Michael J. Fox in a pair of self-lacing Nike Mags that he says will be available for the public in Spring 2016. No price has yet been released, but the announcement fulfills years of rumors and hopes from fans of both the film and the shoe company. While Back to the Future gave the design some retro-future chic, there are real, practical applications for self-lacing kicks....