Science Archive

Stanley, the maker of the obscenely large adult sippy cups that people are going feral over, confirms that yes, one part of the cups is made with lead — but that exposure to it would be “rare.” Lead in drinking cups has been a problem with other brands’ products in the past.

The Ingenuity helicopter mission achieved powered flight on another world, brought Zigbee and Linux to Mars, and survived close calls, lasting 33 times longer than originally planned.

The NSA is buying your internet data!

The industry has been navigating choppy waters lately with soaring costs forcing companies to cancel plans to develop offshore wind farms along the east coast of the US. In a big blow to the state’s clean energy plans, Ørsted nixed two major projects off the coast of New Jersey last October. Bouncing back, New Jersey just inked new deals with Leading Light Wind and Attentive Energy Two to develop a couple new offshore wind projects.

Without it, scientists wouldn’t have discovered four new emperor penguin colonies in Antarctica. Satellites were able to spot their guano from orbit — dark spots against the white ice. It’s a bit of good news after record low sea ice led to a “catastrophic breeding failure” in 2022. The penguins need stable sea ice to breed, which is harder to come by in a warming world. One of the colonies spotted from space might even be breeding site thought to have been lost that the penguins have actually re-established.

In 2004, NASA’s solar-powered Spirit and Opportunity rovers landed on the Red Planet’s surface on January 3rd and January 24th, respectively, with their touchdown softened by multiple bounces on giant airbags. Both rovers easily surpassed their three-month lifespan: Spirit lost contact in 2010, while Opportunity made it to 2019 — traveling 28 miles during its almost 15 years in operation.

AST SpaceMobile, which is building the first space-based cellular network, recently secured new investments from some familiar names: AT&T, Google, and Vodafone.

In a recent Bloomberg interview, Samsung executive Hon Pak says it’s actively pursuing noninvasive blood glucose monitoring and continuous blood pressure checks. Pak declined to give any concrete timeline but said he hopes to bring it to market in five years.