innovation

The winners of the 10th annual and first virtual Broadcom MASTERS® were announced Wednesday night. Every year, 30 finalists are chosen from the country’s young scientists to compete in the nation’s premier Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) middle school competition. Due to the ongoing pandemic, this year was the first time the competition was…

In deciphering the cosmic puzzle of what the nature of dark energy is, we're going to better learn ... [+] the fate of the Universe. Whether dark energy changes in strength or sign is key to knowing whether we'll end in a Big Rip or not. Additionally, it has been speculated that the controversy over…

The Moon can be seen during the day in the week before and the week after a full Moon. Getty Have you ever seen our Moon during the day? That’s what’s happening this week if you know when and where to look.  Today the Moon reaches its First Quarter phase. There’s nothing special about that.…

Sonobuoys are critical anti-submarine warfare tools Getty Images As foreign undersea craft get quieter, more diverse and more numerous, America’s effort to advance undersea warfare requires stronger strategic guidance. Today, the relative lack of centralized strategic oversight of the undersea domain risks endangering fundamental pieces of the West’s anti-submarine warfare architecture, diluting precious procurement, research…

The spacecraft's sampling arm kicked up lots of material from Bennu's surface NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona NASA made history earlier this week with its first-ever successful landing on an asteroid, and now images returned by the spacecraft have revealed what happened in the dramatic touchdown. On Tuesday, October 20, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft successfully “touched” the surface…

The U.S. Navy took a step towards a new style of warfare this week with a request for proposals for its new Hammerhead Program. The Navy is looking for contractors to supply a mine that can be placed covertly on the sea bed by a robot submarine; when Hammerhead’s sensors spot a target, it fires…

Alexandra Cousteau on a scientific expedition with ocean conservation organization Oceana examining ... [+] rebounding coral reefs previously damaged by dynamite fishing in El Nido, Philippines. Danny Ocampo In 1968, The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau aired on televisions around the world. However, by this time the abundance of large marine mammals in the world’s…

Only a very small fraction of exoplanets are randomly aligned with our line of sight so we can see ... [+] them transit across their star. It works both ways. getty Can we find life beyond Earth? Let’s reverse the question. Can any alien civilizations see us? In other words, who might be watching us…

Venus, in many ways, is the planet most similar to Earth in the Solar System. With a comparable mass ... [+] and radius, it may have been watery, wet, and as similarly life-friendly as Earth is for hundreds of millions or even billions of years. Today, its thick atmosphere rich in sulfuric acid makes its…

A Halloween display in Minneapolis receives the first measurable snow of the season as a storm ... [+] arrived over much of Minnesota Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2020. (AP Photo/Jim Mone) ASSOCIATED PRESS This will turn out to be one of the snowiest Octobers on record in parts of the northern United States. A series of…