A leaked memo from the Office of Management and Budget proposes drastic cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the federal agency that leads weather and climate research in the US.
”We’ll go back to the technical and proficiency levels we had in the 1950s,” former NOAA acting chief scientist Craig McLean tells ProPublica.
Amazon’s Project Kuiper is required to send 1,600 internet satellites into space by next summer under its FCC license, but sources tell Bloomberg that Project Kuiper is falling behind. The company has reportedly produced only “a few dozen” satellites so far, which means Amazon may need to ask for an extension from the FCC.
Project Kuiper’s first launch is now scheduled for April 28th after its initial attempt was scrubbed.
It paves the way for the startup to partner with OpenAI on energy deals in the future, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Oklo is developing a next-generation nuclear reactor meant to be smaller, cheaper, and easier to deploy than a traditional nuclear power plant. Altman and other tech leaders are bullish about advanced nuclear reactors one day powering energy-hungry AI data centers, with Google and Amazon recently inked agreements with other companies developing small modular reactors.
Russian-born Kseniia Petrova has been detained since she was arrested at a Boston airport in February for allegedly not declaring samples of frog embryos for Harvard, which recruited her to work on cutting-edge research into aging and cancer detection.
The US faces a potential brain drain of scientists avoiding Trump’s crackdown on immigration and science. A poll of 1,600 scientists by the journal Nature found that 75 percent were thinking of relocating outside the US.
DOGE is gutting the agency that enforces environmental laws Elon Musk’s companies have been accused of breaking.
Efforts to “save species” with deep learning are not without controversy.
That’s more than triple the total clean energy investments canceled over the past 30 months, according to a report from nonpartisan think tank E2. Economic uncertainty and proposals to rollback tax credits for renewables under the Trump administration are already taking a toll.
Despite those headwinds, however, companies still managed to announce $1.6 billion in investments in new solar, EV, and power grid facilities this March.
[technologyreview.com]
After finding the Elon Musk-owned Starlink’s terminals on the roof of the General Services Administration — which a law professor quoted by The Associated Press called a “choke point for all agencies” — federal staffers had concerns.
IT staffers, who reported the discovery to superiors, were concerned that the devices were not authorized to be used at GSA and DOGE might be utilizing them to siphon off agency data...
As reported by Scientific American:
In a paper published on Friday in Science Advances, researchers detail how they used a precise laser setup to stimulate the retinas of five participants, making them the first humans to see a color beyond our visual range: an impossibly saturated bluish green.
Just to be clear, having a laser pointed directly into my eye doesn’t sound great. But I would like to see the color, somehow.
[scientificamerican.com]
ProPublica zooms in on DOGE cuts’ destructive effect on the collection and distribution of critical data tracking fatal shootings, sexually transmitted infections, child welfare cases, greenhouse-gas emissions, and infinitely more, resulting in a “black hole of information.”
As one dataset after another falls by the wayside, the nation’s policymakers are losing their ability to make evidence-based decisions, and the public is losing the ability to hold them accountable for their results.
The Environmental Protection Agency is demanding answers from controversial start up Make Sunsets about its attempts to cool the planet down by releasing reflective particles into the atmosphere. The company started launching sulfur dioxide-filled balloons in the US after Mexico banned its efforts.
Environmental advocates have also criticized solar geoengineering as a risky distraction from legitimate efforts to stop climate change by getting rid of greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels.
