Tech & Science

Yesterday, a capsule from NASA's Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security – Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft containing samples from the asteroid Bennu arrived in the US city of Houston, Texas. The capsule was en route to the Johnson Space Center (JSC) after landing in the Utah Test and Training Range the day before. This was NASA's first asteroid sample return. As of Sunday, the capsule was in a cleanroom with the sample container undergoing a nitrogen purge, in which nitrogen is pumped into a container,

Thursday, the US Department of Justice filed a civil complaint in an intra-Departmental court against SpaceX, a spacecraft company, over claimed hiring discrimination targeting asylees. The Department of Justice described its desired outcome as "fair consideration and back pay" for those who faced this alleged discrimination, other damages as the court ordered, and SpaceX altering its practices to avoid discrimination. The US government asserted the company, which Elon Musk founded and has owned, incorrectly stated it could not hire anybody n

Findings published Monday by a team composed mostly of University of Washington Center for Forensic Science researchers in Nature Human Behaviour report using a form of DNA analysis techniques originally designed for human teeth to track ivory poached from African elephants. The scientists, in collaboration with the United States Department of Homeland Security, identified the criminal networks that killed the endangered animals and smuggled their valuable tusks across national borders. The scientists took DNA samples from 4,320 tusks taken

On Monday, the James Webb Space Telescope entered its destination orbit around the L2 Lagrange point, about from Earth, on the opposite side of Earth from the Sun. A thruster maneuver closed the spacecraft's month-long journey that began in late December, following years of delays and several cost overruns. For its expected five- to ten-year service life, it is to study the most distant, and therefore the earliest galaxies formed after the Big Bang. During its journey, dubbed "30 days of terror" by Sky & Telescope, the telescope successfully

In an executive order on Monday, Texas governor Greg Abbott banned any "entity in Texas" from requiring vaccination against the COVID-19 virus, claiming that "countless Texans" object to receiving a vaccine against COVID-19 on grounds related to "personal conscience, based on a religious belief, or for medical reasons, including prior recovery from COVID-19." In Executive Order GA-40, Abbott states, "COVID-19 vaccines are strongly encouraged for those eligible to receive one, but must always be voluntary for Texans." The governor's order come

An earthquake with a magnitude of 5.9 was detected on Wednesday in the Australian town of Mansfield, which is located in the north-east of Victoria. Geoscience Australia stated the earthquake was recorded in Mansfield at 9:15am local time with a depth. An estimated 15 minutes after the initial event, an aftershock of 4.0 magnitude occurred near Mansfield. The agency declared the earthquake is one of the largest to occur since colonisation in east Australia. The earthquake was felt across the country, with over 15,000 recording on the Geoscien

On Tuesday, a statement released by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of North Korea heavily criticised a report made by the United Nations on child malnutrition in North Korea, which found around 100 thousand children in North Korea are suffering from malnutrition. This malnutrition crisis is in part caused by COVID-19 border closures, according to The Korea Times. In the statement, the director of the Research Institute for Nutrition Care of Children, which is a part of the Academy of Medical Science of the DPRK, described the report as "a sh

In May, a study was published in journal Nature Astronomy, conducted by Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Dr Sara Seager and other researchers, showing single-celled organisms like Escherichia coli (E. coli) and yeast can thrive in both 100% hydrogen gas and helium atmospheres. Wikinews discussed the findings with Dr Seager to know more about her research. Life has not been observed in any habitat other than Earth, which has an oxygen-rich environment. While Earth's atmosphere is dominated by nitrogen gas, oxygen is essential f

SpaceX successfully launched its first crewed mission at 1922 UTC yesterday from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, US with NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley in a Crew Dragon capsule atop a Falcon 9 rocket. This was the first launch of a crewed spacecraft from the United States since NASA's final Space Shuttle mission in July 2011 — a mission Hurley piloted. SpaceX, backed by entrepreneur Elon Musk, is the first private company to send astronauts into space. The company has engineered and operated reusable rockets, potentially reducing

Early yesterday morning, United States Representative Elijah Cummings died while in hospice care. Cummings, the Democratic chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, was 68. Elijah Eugene Cummings, first elected to Congress in 1996, was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1951. His parents, Robert Cummings Sr. and Ruth Elma Cummings, were sharecroppers. In grade school, Cummings expressed intent to become a lawyer. After receiving a bachelor's degree in political science from Howard University, he attended law school at the University o

On Tuesday, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced the winners of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics in Stockholm, Sweden. The prize was shared between James Peebles and the duo of Didier Queloz and Michel Mayor. They are to share a monetary award of SEK9 million (approximately GBP738 thousand or USD910 thousand) from the Nobel Foundation. Canadian-US scientist James Peebles won his half of the prize for his work in predicting cosmic microwave background and creating a theoretical framework from which other scientists have been able to c

On Thursday, the journal Science published a report by a team from the University of Hawaii at Mānoa (UH Mānoa) and the University of Southern California (USC), saying the eruption of the Kīlauea volcano last year has been followed by a dramatic increase in the population of phytoplankton, also called green algae, in the waters surrounding the island. Study co-author and geochemist Seth John remarked in a press release, "There was no reason for us to expect that an algae bloom like this would happen [...] Lava doesn't contain any nitrate." A