Astronomers have spotted three supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at the center of three colliding galaxies a billion light years away from Earth. That alone is unusual, but the three black holes are also glowing in x-ray emissions. This is evidence that all three are also active galactic nuclei (AGN,) gobbling up material and flaring brightly.
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Most of the 24 million annual visitors to Queensland don’t notice the series of seemingly innocuous yellow buoys at many popular beaches. Beneath the waves lies a series of baited drumlines and mesh nets that aim to make Queensland beaches safe from the ominous threat of sharks. Earlier this week the Queensland government lost a
BROWNSVILLE, Texas — SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk said the company would start test flights of its next-generation Starship vehicle in as soon as one to two months and reach orbit in as little as six months, even as some complain the company is devoting too many resources to this project. Musk provided an update
Oh deer. Are you carrying Mycobacterium bovis? (Photo: Getty Images) Getty In 2017, a 77-year-old man in Michigan developed pulmonary tuberculosis (TB). Deer we say how he got it? A recent publication in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) journal Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), told this story of TB and not
The crypt-keeper wasp is hardly a fussy eater. Given the chance, this creepy parasitic insect will chew through the heads of at least seven different species to survive, a new study has found. Discovered just a few years ago, this gruesome predator (Euderus set) is known as a ‘hyper-manipulator’ – a parasite that manipulates a parasite
We’ve watched the Spot robot quadruped grow up and evolve, from its earliest days as a larger, more cumbersome beast to a carefully refined machine capable of pulling trucks. Now maker Boston Dynamics is putting the robo-dog on sale. The idea is not to provide a friendly pet that curls up in front of the
WASHINGTON — Rocket Lab is nearing completion of its second launch site, and first in the United States, which the company says should be ready for its first Electron launch in early 2020. The company announced Sept. 18 it had achieved a milestone in the construction of Launch Complex (LC) 2 at the Mid-Atlantic Regional
Share to facebook Share to twitter Share to linkedin An infrared satellite view of Hurricane Lorenzo on September 28, 2019. College of DuPage Hurricane Lorenzo rapidly strengthened into a scale-topping category five hurricane on Saturday evening, with maximum sustained winds reaching an incredible 160 MPH. This breaks the record for both the easternmost and northernmost
As Tropical Storm Karen withers away, Hurricane Lorenzo has become “one of the largest and most powerful hurricanes of record for the tropical central Atlantic,” according to the National Hurricane Center. Now packing 140 mph winds, Lorenzo became a Category 4 storm Thursday farther east than any other previous storm on record, save for Julia
BROWNSVILLE, Texas — NASA announced Sept. 27 the award of more than $40 million in contracts to 14 companies, including Blue Origin and SpaceX, to develop technologies that can support NASA’s long-term exploration plans. The awards, with a total value of $43.2 million, are the fourth in a series of “Tipping Point” contracts from NASA’s
Share to facebook Share to twitter Share to linkedin Thomas Crapper was the brother of a successful master plumber and the uncle of another. By Unknown photographer – MJC Plumbing, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=75229 A popular historical story claims that we get the slang term “crap” from the name of a plumber named Thomas Crapper, but
Some people can’t sleep if they know there’s a spider in their house. Imagine being in Beaumont, Tex., and thinking that the largest alligator ever caught in the United States was on the loose there. Fortunately, after a nerve-racking few days, that gator has been found. It was a tense week for neighbors of Gator
You don’t belong here. They’re onto you. Everybody is going to find out the truth. It’s only a matter of time. Dark thoughts like these are symptoms of something called impostor syndrome: a strange psychological phenomenon that makes ordinary people – even brilliant ones – feel like they’re frauds, fakes, inadequate, and undeserving. It doesn’t have
It’s no secret that organic farmers believe in compost, but just what role compost plays in soil’s ability to store carbon – and keep it out of the atmosphere, where it contributes to climate change – has been less clear. A recent study out of the University of California, Davis suggests that compost plays a
Quantum computers exist today, although they’re limited, cut-down versions of what we hope fully blown quantum computers are going to be able to do in the future. But now, researchers have developed hardware for a ‘probabilistic computer’ – a device that might be able to bridge the gap between genuine quantum computers and the standard
Competitors vying for the $150,000 prize have to develop computer vision algorithms to automate the process of assessing building damage after natural disasters. WASHINGTON — The Defense Innovation Unit announced Sept. 25 it has posted the satellite images for its second prize challenge known as xVIEW2, which focuses on using artificial intelligence to assess damage
Getty It’s been a rough year for the vaping industry. What began as a purportedly less harmful replacement for combustible cigarettes has become the focus of investigations into everything from lung disorders to fatalities. And now a new study has found concentrations of dangerous heavy metals like lead and copper in vapors produced by some
Former Blink-182 singer Tom DeLonge has pulled off an astonishing career change. In 2017, after quitting the band, he co-founded a group called To the Stars Academy of Arts & Sciences, an organization committed to researching aliens. And he apparently now has something to show for it. In a recent Q&A with The New York
When KIC 8462852 – affectionately known as Tabby’s Star – arrived on the scene in 2015, it made one heck of a bang. We’d never seen a star like it before. It kept growing dimmer, erratically, in a manner that defied explanation. It still does – but it’s looking like KIC 8462852 isn’t quite unique.
WASHINGTON — Spectrum regulators around the world want to see more C-band spectrum purposed for 5G cellular services instead of satellite communications, and could make it a topic of a future World Radiocommunication Conference, regulators said Sept. 25. C-band reallocation, though a subject of major debate in the U.S., is not on the agenda for