Science

The Explorer 2000 Plus v2 packs a 2kWh LFP battery and features a Storm Warning Function to automatically pre-charge ahead of severe weather, and an emergency reserve mode to ensure there’s always power available in case of disaster. It supports 800W of maximum solar input, 3600W of AC output, and up to 12kWh of battery expansion capacity. It launches on September 29th for $1,199, alongside a few other Jackery x Red Cross models. More specs in the pics that follow.

In line with its pivot into wellness tech, Nanoleaf has launched a wraparound LED light therapy mask for your neck, which the company claims “is designed to reach deeper layers of the skin and support faster skin cell renewal.” It offers seven lighting modes and near-infrared wavelengths up to 1072nm.

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has worked to send tailpipe pollution policies to Congress to repeal. US District Judge Beryl Howell accused the EPA of “Orwellian doublethink.”

It says in a new report that global temperatures are probably going to climb 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial averages soon. We’ll have to cope with catastrophes the UN had previously hoped to avoid, like the “submersion of Small Island Developing States and low-lying coastal cities,” while continuing to cut down and capture CO2 emissions to prevent even worse damage.

The NBA has announced penalties from its investigation into cap circumvention allegations around the Clippers, Kawhi Leonard, and a string of companies that inked shady “endorsement” deals with the star: Aspiration, Daktronics, Boingo Wireless, and Lockton Insurance, as detailed in a report from the law firm of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz.

I recently started running again. And, as I started building back to my first half marathon in almost a decade, I realized — my running playlist is hopelessly out of date. Nothing on there is newer than 2018, so tell me what keeps you motivated to power through the pain.

Data center developers typically have to apply for permits to install generators that create local air pollution. The DataOne facility in New Jersey is the latest project accused of violating federal law by running on gas-fired generators without approval.

The $619 HomePower 1000 Plus V2 solar generator is now available in white or gray. It’s built around a 1kWh LFP battery that can be expanded to an impressive 11kWh of capacity. Its diminutive size, 1800W of sustained AC output, and up to 400W of solar (or car’s alternator) input makes it suitable for vanlifers, creator job sites, and even home backup to keep devices like the fridge and CPAP machine running during the next outage.

The prediction market platform will use The Weather Company’s data to verify weather-related market outcomes, such as how high the daily temperature might get in New York or Los Angeles. At the same time, The Weather Company will add Kalshi’s weather probabilities to “select experiences” on its app and website.

The standard currently requires reactors to keep radiation exposure to workers and the public “as low as is reasonably achievable.” The change is part of the Trump administration’s efforts to speed the buildout of new nuclear reactors expected to power AI data centers.

AI data center projects are continuing to pop up across the US, with frequent opposition from locals concerned about their impact. Here are a few recent articles about the projects:

Proposals for new gas-fired power capacity tied to data centers nearly doubled in the first half of 2026, according to a Global Energy Monitor report. Nearly a third of that new capacity would come online in Texas, more than in any other state or country.

States struggling with dwindling water resources as a result of climate change are turning to a new generation of companies claiming they can induce rain or snowfall. Rainmaker, a cloud seeding company based in El Segundo, California, says it has helped generate at least 143 million gallons of water for Oregon and Utah.

We’ve talked about outages globally and power grid issues in the US, but the place feeling the worst of it has been northwest Indiana, ever since a derecho knocked out power for more than 300,000 people starting on August 11th.

When the FCC banned future foreign robots, it also banned all future foreign power inverters under its jurisdiction. Inverters are in lots of things! But it actually cares about the ones that give us energy independence, it clarified today. (To be fair, it’d suck if a foreign power managed a coordinated attack on the grid this way.)

SpaceX approached the AI coding startup with an offer, though “the deal talks are not currently active,” according to a report from Bloomberg. The two companies are still reportedly discussing potential partnerships, which could involve Cognition using SpaceX’s computing capacity.

AI data center projects are continuing to pop up across the US, with frequent opposition from locals concerned about their impact. Here are a few recent articles about the projects:

The company calls it the world’s first state-backed trial aimed at mitigating warming contrails across an entire flight corridor — specifically the eastern half of the North Atlantic corridor, which accounts for around 5 percent of global contrail warming.

Midjourney isn’t the only one getting into body scanners, and Neko Health has touted long lists of potential clients and investors ahead of the US launch. Now it says the SoHo location at 300 Lafayette Street is nearly ready to open, with seven scan rooms for its “non-invasive and radiation-free” $499 check.

The wearable company now says the Advanced Labs blood testing service that it launched last year is now available, with prices starting at about $150, even if you don’t have one of its wearable devices or the membership subscription tied to them. It’s also adding the “multi-cancer early detection test” Galleri to the package, which might help it stand out from the increasingly crowded wearable field and alleged lookalikes.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX completed its $60 billion acquisition of the AI coding tool Cursor on Friday. Cursor says it’s going to work on the company’s Grok AI chatbot, which added a new AI agent feature this week.

Virgin Galactic is running a poll to choose the name for an upcoming member of its fleet. Unfortunately, you’re limited to voting for a preselected group of four finalists: Horizon, Explorer, Ascend, and Apeiron. All appropriately boring names — no Rocket McRocketface here.

The end of USAID, which Elon Musk fed “into the wood chipper”, will cause an extra 14 million deaths through 2030, including 4.5 million in children under the age of 5. SpaceX shares are $141.10 as of this writing, above their IPO price of $135.

A person on Reddit says their friend’s phone added craters to the Sun during yesterday’s solar eclipse. The poster doesn’t say what phone this was captured on, but it’s definitely something we’ve seen before.

TechCrunch reports that the new factory would be located 45 minutes outside of Houston:

AI data center projects are continuing to pop up across the US, with frequent opposition from locals concerned about their impact. Here are a few recent articles about the projects:

Today there will be a total solar eclipse viewable from “parts of Greenland, Iceland, northern Russia, the Atlantic Ocean, Spain, and a small corner of Portugal,” as well as a partial eclipse across some of the US and most of Canada, Europe, and northwestern Africa.