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.
2024 holds the current record, beating 2023. Now, there’s an 80 percent chance that at least one of the next five years will take the title, according to a recent forecast from the World Meteorological Organization.
Unless countries can transition to carbon pollution-free energy like wind and solar power, greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels will keep on heating up our planet.
For the third time in a row, a Starship test ended in a “rapid unscheduled disassembly,” after tumbling toward the Indian Ocean rather than making the planned controlled descent and soft splashdown.
As noted by Space.com, this mission ran into issues trying to achieve several goals: the reused Super Heavy booster rocket broke up about six minutes into the flight instead of splashing down in the Gulf of Mexico, they were unable to test deploying eight Starlink satellite dummies, and then the ship lost control about a half-hour after launch due to a leak in its fuel tank systems.
At 7:30PM ET, an hour-long launch window is scheduled to open for the ninth test of SpaceX’s Starship vehicle. After the seventh and eighth flight tests ended in massive explosions, the FAA has expanded the hazard area and required SpaceX to schedule its launch during “non-peak transit periods.”
Soon we’ll find out if the extra precaution is necessary for this flight. (Update: It launched, but experienced another rapid unscheduled disassembly.)
Following the news that Valve CEO Gabe Newell’s stealthy company, Starfish, plans to produce its first brain chip later this year, there’s a report that Elon Musk’s Neuralink has almost tripled in value in less than two years. Semafor reports that a recent $600 million investment valued the company at over $9 billion.
The technology has only been implanted in three people so far, the latest being a non-verbal ALS patient who used it to narrate this video.
The Environmental Protection Agency is crafting a plan to eliminate greenhouse gas pollution limits on coal and gas-fired plants, the New York Times reports. Power plant emissions account for about a quarter of the nation’s planet-heating emissions.
The Information reports that three years ago, Musk offered Apple an 18-month exclusive connection via SpaceX in return for $5 billion up front, and $1 billion per year after that to support satellite-connected iPhone features. If Apple didn’t take it within 72 hours, he threatened to announce a competing feature.
Apple went forward with Globalstar (the report also mentions a canceled “Project Eagle” effort with Boeing that would’ve delivered full-blown internet service), and before the iPhone 14 launched, Starlink announced a deal with T-Mobile. Later that year, Musk and Cook met at Apple HQ to discuss Twitter’s App Store presence, “among other things.”
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He signed a series of executive orders today meant to revive the nuclear energy industry in the US, which has struggled to compete with cheaper sources of electricity. The president could also hit the Nuclear Regulatory Commission with layoffs as part of a broader reorganization of the agency.
GOP lawmakers passed resolutions rescinding federal approval of California’s plans to require that all car sales be zero-emission by 2035, as well as policies limiting nitrogen oxide emissions and other pollutants from trucks.
Republicans fast-tracked passage of the resolutions using a maneuver that nonpartisan watchdogs said should be barred, and that Governor Gavin Newsom calls illegal. The Clean Air Act gives California authority to set state pollution limits that are more stringent than federal regulation.
On Wednesday, the House of Representatives passed President Donald Trump’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill” which would ban gender-affirming care for Medicaid recipients as well as those insured under the Affordable Care Act. House Republican leadership struck the phrase “for minors” with an amendment last night. Some Democrats are pushing back. Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL) told The Independent, “It’s horrible, and obviously the fight doesn’t end here.”
The bill now heads to Senate.
Researchers at Johns Hopkins claim to have developed a solid-state refrigeration tech that could increase efficiency by 70 percent compared to traditional thermoelectric materials.
The thin-film material called “controlled hierarchically engineered superlattice structures” (CHESS for short) is a thermoelectric material that could be used to make super-energy-efficient, super-slim fridges. And they might come from Samsung.
Samsung Research was part of the project, and the electronics giant just launched a new line of fridges with a thermoelectric Peltier module.
Updated May 22nd to clarify the efficiency comparison.
No, not those sorts of drugs, the kinds that could save your life.
The Empire Wind project off the coast of New York can restart construction, about a month after the Trump administration abruptly issued a stop work order. The project was reportedly bleeding $50 million a week during the pause as President Trump waged his war against windmills.
The company building it had considered taking legal action against the Trump administration; it already had federal and state permits in place and construction is roughly 30 percent complete.
Microsoft, TikTok, and other big names have signed deals with Climeworks, a company developing technologies to filter CO2 out of the air, as a way to try to clean up some of their planet-heating pollution. But Climeworks hasn’t even been able to capture enough CO2 to offset its own carbon footprint yet.
The climate tech company announced layoffs as it faces “a challenging time” that includes uncertainty around the future of its projects in the US.
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Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s recent embrace of the infamously transactional US president has already secured a Huawei AI chip clampdown and a reversal of limits placed on Nvidia’s AI chip exports. Now, according to Reuters, The UAE could be allowed to import 500,000 of Nvidia’s most advanced AI chips per year starting in 2025. It’s all part of a US deal to build a massive artificial intelligence campus in the UAE — measuring 10 square miles with 5 gigawatts of power for AI data centers — something that wouldn’t have been allowed previously over concerns that China would gain access to the tech.
China has implemented new export controls for rare earth minerals and magnets. The changes could upend the shift to electric vehicles.
Teen Vogue points out the irony of turning to water-intensive and energy-hungry generative AI in a recent op-ed. The rush to build massive new AI data centers is driving up electricity demand, prolonging the use of fossil fuels, and hitting nearby communities with more pollution.
New wind farms are still being built, but they’ll have to weather the storm of the Trump administration.
House Republicans proposed cutting crucial Biden-era tax credits for wind, solar, and geothermal energy even though Republican districts have the most to gain from investments in renewables.
The Trump administration’s war on DEI is spurring scientists and researchers from Indigenous communities to seek new protections for their data.
Humanity lives to fight another day after the failed Soviet lander re-entered our atmosphere at 2:24AM ET on Saturday before harmlessly splashing down in the Indian Ocean west of Jakarta, Indonesia, according to Russia’s space agency Roscosmos. Kosmos 482 became trapped in Earth’s orbit shortly after launching in 1972 and has been circling the planet for more than five decades.
This wildlife filmmaker documents the unseen beauty of freshwater ecosystems.
