Beyond Infinity

Sunday February 9, 2020 saw the successful launch of an Atlas V from Cape Canaveral carrying Solar Orbiter on a ground-breaking mission to the Sun. The mainly European spacecraft is bristling with instruments to study the heliosphere, hazardous coronal mass ejections and help scientists understand our star's 11 year activity cycle.

The US Department of Justice accused San Francisco startup Practice Fusion of creating software to increase pain med prescriptions by medical practitioners. The company, which provided software to thousands of doctors' offices, settled for US$145 million.

An expensive new treatment promises gradually to protect allergic children from accidental exposure to small amounts of peanuts.

A look at the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and the amazing astrophysics research taking place above and below the ice. The observatory is looking for neutrinos - enigmatic subatomic particles that permeate the universe. It involves over 300 scientists at 52 institutions in 12 countries.

As its July 2020 launch date approaches, more information is coming to light about NASA's sophisticated new rover headed for Mars. Expect to see hi-res colour video of the entry, descent and landing sequence from multiple viewpoints, including the sky crane maneuver and touch down. There's also a new super-precise landing navigation system which can steer the rover away from dangerous obstacles it sees during descent. Terrain-relative navigation (TRN) allows for a highly targeted landing in Jezero crater - an extremely rugged, yet scientifically valuable site.

Imagine a super-advanced civilisation capable of building on a galactic scale, enjoying complete mastery of the most exotic laws of physics. You'll need to think big, like Dr. Albert Jackson at Triton Systems in Houston, whose paper 'A Neutrino Beacon' offers a new take on alien megastructures. As Freeman Dyson, Professor Emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, once wrote: “When we look into the universe for signs of artificial activities, it is technology and not intelligence that we must search for. It would be much more rewarding to search directly for intelligence, but technology is the only thing we have any chance of seeing.”

Software experts, including our own John Young, are urging Windows users to upgrade to Windows 10 as a decade of support for 7 winds up. It's estimated well over 20% of all PC users are still running the aging operating system, leaving them exposed to risks of hacking, ransomware and data loss.

San Diego start-up BlueNalu has found a way to make a plant-based fillet of yellowfish. Crucially, the lab-made seafood can be cooked by direct heat without disintegrating. Scaling up to commercial quantities will be a big challenge.

With bushfires still burning out of control in South Eastern Australia, the nation's capital Canberra was hit by an ice storm, damaging thousands of cars and buildings. Wildlife and trees have also been pounded.

The bushfire emergency has killed over a billion animals and decimated national parks and old growth forests. Now seems a good time to listen again to our in-depth interview on anthropogenic climate change with Professor David Karoly, recorded in 2016. We discuss global warming, its impacts and implications for the planet. The podcast includes an update on the enormous and tragic losses of native flora and fauna in Australia, plus how to donate and support recovery efforts.

With 1.5% of Australia's land mass burnt in disastrous bushfires - an area bigger than Scotland - and 1.25 billion animals lost, we revisit an in-depth interview we did in 2016 with leading climatologist Professor David Karoly. He spoke about human-induced climate change, its impacts and implications for the planet.

There are mounting fears about foreign-made apps hoovering up sensitive personal data. The proposed National Security and Personal Data Protection Act would try to stop foreign app owners from collecting any more data from American users than is necessary to provide their service.

Fossilised Antarctic seashells show the planet was unstable, warmed by intense volcanism, long before it was smashed by the notorious space rock impact 66 million years ago.

New measurement methods show that pieces of plastic smaller than 5 mm in diameter are scarily common. Microplastics are entering all parts of the marine ecosystem. If we eat any kind of fish, we are likely ingesting toxic microscopic plastic. Things must change.

Library Genesis and Sci-Huh have evolved into very popular and massive repositories of pirated scientific papers. Now there are moves to formalise and protect the "pirate bays" of science.

Metallosphaera sedula is a single-celled organism and hails from some of the earliest life forms on Earth. Now scientists think this metal-eating extremophile could help extract minerals from space rock or even find signs of life on Mars.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk successfully fended off a monster US$190 million defamation lawsuit brought by UK cave diver Vernon Unsworth. In a far-reaching decision, an LA court found that tweets are merely casual conversation and opinions, and should not be taken too seriously.

After serving a lengthy jail term, a German criminal wants Der Spiegel Online to remove his name from archived references on its website.

When you buy a smart phone in China, your face will be imaged and the biometric data kept by the government.

'AC 75' hydro foiling monohulls, capable of sailing at over 50 knots from wind power alone, will compete for the Auld Mug in Auckland. But there are concerns over crew safety, susceptibility to capsize and how they'll handle before getting up on to their foils.