Featuring the latest in daily science news, Verge Science is all you need to keep track of what’s going on in health, the environment, and your whole world. Through our articles, we keep a close eye on the overlap between science and technology news — so you’re more informed.
If you’re using one of 23 popular supplements, some cool and thorough investigative work at Consumer Reports can tell you the answer is probably yes — and explain why US health regulators aren’t doing anything about it.
It’s supporting new solar and wind farms across Greece, Italy, Latvia, Poland, and Romania that are supposed to add 650 megawatts of renewable energy capacity to local power grids.
The company also shared that its suppliers jointly launched a new $150 million investment fund to support renewable energy infrastructure in China.
The reduction — in the works before the government shutdown — comes from its Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which Reuters reports is “NASA’s only federally funded research and development center.” The layoffs affect roughly a tenth of the JPL’s workforce, who will find out if they’re affected or not today.
[NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)]
Most supermassive black holes don’t just swallow up matter, they eject it, sometimes in spectacular jets of super heated plasma. Sagittarius A* at the center of our galaxy has seemed oddly quiet, though. But scientists believe they’ve finally found evidence this plasma wind, in the form of a cone-shaped gap in the gas surrounding the black hole. It’s not quite as dramatic as Centaurus A, but it has it’s own galactic charm.
With the government still shut down, the Trump administration announced more layoffs across the already decimated federal workforce. That includes EPA employees who worked on battery recycling and safety, plastics reduction, recycling and composting programs, and collecting solid waste data, according to the EPA union.
The Pew Research Center published a study of how parents are managing their kids’ screen time. Which got us wondering: how are you, dear reader, managing your kids’ screen time? Do you have time limits for video games? A “kid-safe” phone like Gabb? Do you let your eight-year-old talk to ChatGPT? Let us know in the comments.
That’s according to a recent Bloomberg analysis of wholesale electricity prices across the US, which has more data centers than any other country.
There are other factors aside from speculative electricity demand from data centers that are pushing up prices. Updating aging grids with new power lines and recovering from climate disasters is also costly.
In unsealed testimony, SpaceX investor Iqbaljit Kahlon says that some Chinese investors are “directly on the cap table.” This may raise some national security concerns, depending on how much information about SpaceX — which is deeply involved with the US defense department — gives to its investors.
The embryos all had chromosomal abnormalities and weren’t meant to lead to a pregnancy. But the results open up questions about potential infertility treatments in the future.
Today’s the day to vote for the winner of this year’s Fat Bear Week, the annual March Madness-style popularity contest for Katmai National Park’s famous brown bears. (Personally, my money’s on Chunk.)
[explore.org]
A federal judge lifted the stop-work order the Trump administration issued in August for the Revolution Wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island. The project was already permitted and 80 percent complete, but Trump hates wind turbines and his administration claims it’s concerned about potential national security risks with the project.
Magnum is tapping an AI called Giuseppe to help it develop new products, revamp existing ones, and, of course, cut costs. Giuseppe’s maker NotCo has helped big brands like Shake Shack and Kraft make plant-based versions of products like custard, mac ‘n’ cheese, and mayo.
Trump and RFK are blaming the painkiller acetaminophen for autism without conclusive scientific evidence.
RFK also claims that leucovorin, a type of folate, can be used to treat autism. The FDA is also planning to approve prescription leucovorin for the treatment of autism in children. “The evidence that it works is scant,” NPR reports.
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Verge Score
Good for side sleepers but ANC kills battery life.
The Verge received a Covering Climate Now award for this story about a quirky and determined community of scientists and locals bringing forests back to life in Costa Rica, despite new perils brought on by climate change. They were so fun to hang out with, hope this story feels like a trip into the forest with them!
Both Trump and Biden have sought to build up a domestic supply chain for uranium to lessen dependency on Russian imports and meet growing data center electricity demand with nuclear energy.
Along with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Wright previously sat on the board of a company called Oklo that’s developing advanced nuclear reactors.
The Environmental Protection Agency wants to stop collecting data on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and other polluting sites. The proposed rule change comes as the Trump administration attempts to get rid of the agency’s ability to regulate planet-heating pollution at all.
[The New York Times]
“They’re doing away with science,” Christine Todd Whitman, former Environmental Protection Agency administrator and former Republican governor of New Jersey, tells Bloomberg. That only makes it harder to prepare for the consequences of a warming world, from eroding coastlines to more devastating wildfires across the US.
