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NASA’s program to land astronauts on the Moon again has moved a critical piece of hardware closer to flight: the next-generation spacesuit intended for Artemis III has cleared a contractor-led technical review. That milestone is more than a line item in a program schedule — it reshapes development priorities across
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* Key Takeaways: * Former astronauts and space experts say NASA's Artemis II spacesuits are still too heavy. * The primary concern is that the suits' heft could impair mobility, increase fatigue and complicate emergency procedures. * Experts call for more testing, possible redesigns or mitigation steps before crewed Artemis missions
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* Key Takeaways: * Chinese researchers report a thermal-battery breakthrough that may solve a long-standing conversion and density trade-off. * Thermal batteries offer extreme durability and low self-discharge but traditionally lag in energy density and power output. * If validated at scale, the advance could broaden thermal storage use in grids, EVs, and harsh-environment
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* Apple Watch detected four times as many atrial fibrillation (AFib) cases as standard care in a new peer‑reviewed study. * The smartwatch identified AFib in many people who had no symptoms — 57% of detected cases were asymptomatic. * Results suggest wearables could expand screening reach, but clinical follow‑up and guideline
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• ExoMiner++ is an open-source deep learning model developed to validate exoplanet candidates, previously credited with finding 370 planets. • The model was trained on data from NASA’s exoplanet-hunting missions and now targets observations from TESS to speed candidate vetting. • By automating validation, ExoMiner++ helps prioritize follow-up observations and reduces the
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* MIT Technology Review published its annual "10 Breakthrough Technologies" list for 2026. * Highlights include commercial space stations, base editing in human embryos, and new batteries that could improve electric-vehicle sustainability. * NPR Short Wave host Regina G. Barber spoke with MIT Technology Review executive editor Amy Nordrum about the
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Key Takeaways: * NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) signed a memorandum of understanding to develop a fission surface power system for the Moon, targeting deployment by 2030. * The reactor is designed to deliver continuous, long-duration electrical power for Artemis and future Mars missions, operating for years without
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* Key takeaways: * Embodied robots can model core features of the human ‘minimal self’: body ownership, agency and self/other distinction. * Disembodied generative AIs (LLMs) may mimic self-talk but lack sensorimotor grounding needed for true selfhood. * Robotic experiments (motor babbling, mirror tests, rubber-hand variants) validate neuroscience theories of body representation and
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* Key takeaways: * NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman says he has "full confidence" in Orion’s heat shield for Artemis II after a half-day review with engineers and outside experts. * Engineers traced the Artemis I char-loss issue to trapped gases in non‑permeable Avcoat and validated fixes through arc‑jet
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• $1 million Navier‑Stokes prize remains unclaimed; researchers instead hunt simpler models. • Physics‑informed neural networks (PINNs) uncovered multiple new singularity candidates, many unstable. • Teams including Tristan Buckmaster, Javier Gómez‑Serrano and Google DeepMind produced high‑precision approximate solutions in Euler, porous‑medium and CCF models. • Candidates are unproven but
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* Social feeds in 2025 are increasingly monetized: sponsored posts, shoppable videos and AI-generated content dominate the experience. * Instagram, TikTok and YouTube prioritize engagement and commerce, leaving fewer genuine posts from real friends. * Alternatives like Reddit and Bluesky still retain pockets of real conversation, but long-term monetization threatens their character. * For
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• Key takeaways: * Virginia Tech researchers developed eQMARL, an entangled quantum multi-agent reinforcement learning framework that links drones via quantum entanglement without relying on conventional networks. * eQMARL showed performance gains over classical and non-entangled quantum baselines in simulations; research is published as an arXiv preprint (DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2405.17486)