Author: appsfornexus

  • Watch this tail-sitter drone take off and land from a ship

    Watch this tail-sitter drone take off and land from a ship

    On March 8, in the ocean between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula, the US Navy tested out a new drone. Called the Aerovel Flexrotor, it rests on a splayed tail, and boasts a powerful rotor just below the neck of its bulbous front-facing camera pod. The tail-sitting drone needs very little deck space for takeoff…

  • Earth’s satellite problem isn’t unfixable, experts say

    Earth’s satellite problem isn’t unfixable, experts say

    The average distance between the Moon and Earth is 382,500 kilometers (about 237674.48 miles). As such, there’s plenty of space around our planet to warrant all the satellites we put into orbit, right? Not necessarily. In fact, there are many who have growing concerns about Earth’s orbiting satellites, and the dangers they pose to spacecraft…

  • A New Mission Will Search for Habitable Planets at Alpha Centauri

    A New Mission Will Search for Habitable Planets at Alpha Centauri

    Alpha Centauri is our closest stellar neighbor, a binary star system located just 4.376 light-years away. Despite its proximity, repeated astronomical surveys have failed to find hard evidence of extrasolar planets in this system. Part of the problem is that the system consists of two stars orbiting each other, which makes detecting exoplanets through the…

  • New Drug May Prevent the Evolution of COVID Variants

    New Drug May Prevent the Evolution of COVID Variants

    Until the incredibly infectious Omicron variant emerged and took over, it seemed like there was a never-ending stream of new SARS-CoV-2 variants. New variants may also continue to emerge. SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is known to infect human cells by attaching to ACE2 receptors on cell surfaces, and then dumping the viral genome…

  • New analysis offers insights into causes of persistent inequities affecting non-white scientists and their research

    New analysis offers insights into causes of persistent inequities affecting non-white scientists and their research

    Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain A team of NYU Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) researchers, including data and computational social scientists, is reporting new findings that highlight previously unknown ways through which non-white scientists suffer from inequities when it comes to the process of having their research considered, published, and cited, potentially hindering the advancement of their academic…

  • A ‘hole’ 30 times Earth’s size has spread across the sun, blasting solar winds that’ll hit our planet by end of this week

    A ‘hole’ 30 times Earth’s size has spread across the sun, blasting solar winds that’ll hit our planet by end of this week

    A video from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory shows the massive hole in the sun’s atmosphere.NASA/Solar Dynamics Observatory The sun is sporting a giant coronal hole that could fit 20-30 Earths across, back-to-back. Coronal holes blast rapid solar winds into space that travel 500-800 kilometers per second. The relatively-harmless winds should reach Earth by Friday for…

  • Cat-Eating Monitor Lizards Are Invading Florida

    Cat-Eating Monitor Lizards Are Invading Florida

    FORT MYERS, Florida – Nile monitor lizards that can grow to over 5 feet long and weigh close to 15 pounds are spreading through Florida. The invasive species are known in their native Africa to prey or scavenge for a variety of small animals, including domestic cats. In areas where Nile monitors are abundant in…

  • Study suggests that patients with baclofen pumps may safely undergo transcutaneous spinal stimulation

    Study suggests that patients with baclofen pumps may safely undergo transcutaneous spinal stimulation

    Photo shows a person with spinal cord injury wired for transcutaneous stimulation with electrodes taped over his mid spine. Credit: Kessler Foundation Researchers from Kessler Foundation and Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation (collectively termed “Kessler”) have conducted the first prospective study to assess whether transcutaneous spinal stimulation (TSS) interacts with implanted intrathecal baclofen (ITB) pump delivery…

  • How to Program Your Child’s Brain for Obesity

    Is it different metabolic activity, environment, behavior, genetics? The connection between a mother and their child’s obesity is an active area of research. New findings shed light on how receiving too much nutrition early in life primes the brain for adult obesity. Children of obese women are more likely to develop obesity and type 2…

  • The universe might be shaped like a doughnut, not like a pancake, new research suggests

    The universe might be shaped like a doughnut, not like a pancake, new research suggests

    The universe could, in fact, be a giant doughnut, despite all of the evidence suggesting it’s as flat as a pancake, new research suggests.  Strange patterns found in echoes of the Big Bang could be explained by a universe with a more complicated shape, and astronomers have not fully tested the universe’s flatness, the study…