(Bloomberg) A passionate and bipartisan legislative effort to rein in the United States' largest technology companies collapsed this week, the victim of an epic lobbying campaign by Amazon, Apple, Google, and Meta.
The internet titans spent hundreds of millions of dollars, sent their chief executives to Washington, and deployed trade groups and sympathetic scholars to quash two antitrust bills co-sponsored by Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, and Senator Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican. The...
(Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) For the first time, astronomers have spotted an exoplanet whose orbit is decaying around an evolved, or older, host star. The stricken world appears destined to spiral closer and closer to its maturing star until collision and ultimate obliteration.
The discovery offers new insights into the long process of planetary orbital decay by providing the first look at a system at this late stage of evolution.
Death-by-star is a fate thought to await many worlds...
(Yale University) Annual spikes in infections from the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) are usually so predictable that "you can set your clock" by it, says Yale School of Public Health Associate Professor of Epidemiology (microbial diseases) Daniel Weinberger.
Normally a cold-weather epidemic, RSV spreads among young children, straining hospitals in the Northern Hemisphere as early as late October and lasting until the cold and flu season wanes in spring.
The COVID-19 pandemic appears to have upended this...
(Ball State University) The passage of the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) Act has led to widespread enthusiasm regarding the possibility of increased manufacturing of semiconductors in the United States.
With the likelihood of the U.S. experiencing growth in the manufacturing of semiconductors, researchers at Ball State University have pinpointed locations across the country most likely to experience expansion of semiconductor chip production in the coming years.
"Semiconductor Plant Location Decisions in the Wake...
(AFP) The Twitter accounts of several journalists suspended after Elon Musk accused them of endangering his family were reinstated Saturday, but some said the billionaire owner offered full use of the platform only if they deleted posts about tracking his location.
Musk had drawn anger and warnings from the European Union and United Nations after suspending the accounts of more than a half-dozen prominent journalists from The New York Times, CNN, The Washington Post, and...
(Phys.org) A team of physicists affiliated with several institutions in the U.S. has collaborated on a paper that discusses the possibility of using the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) to search for evidence of aliens piloting huge spacecraft around the Milky Way. The group has posted their paper on the arXiv preprint server.
Over the past several decades, astrophysicists and sci-fi enthusiasts have grown increasingly frustrated with mankind's inability to detect the presence of life anywhere...
(Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias) An international scientific team led by researchers at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) has discovered the presence of two planets with Earth-like masses in orbit around the star GJ 1002, a red dwarf not far from our solar system. Both planets are in the habitability zone of the star.
"Nature seems bent on showing us that Earth-like planets are very common. With these two, we now know seven...
(BBC News) Peru's government has declared a nationwide state of emergency amid a political crisis triggered by the attempted dissolution of Congress by President Pedro Castillo and his subsequent impeachment.
Soldiers are being deployed to help police rein in violent protests by supporters of the ousted president.
Several protesters have died in clashes with the police, and a number of airports and roads were temporarily blocked.
In recent years, Peru has seen a series of presidents ousted...
Researchers from the University of Western Ontario have shown that a fireball that originated at the edge of the solar system was likely made of rock, not ice, challenging long-held beliefs about how the solar system was formed.
Just at the edge of our solar system and halfway to the nearest stars is a collection of icy objects sailing through space, known as the Oort Cloud. Passing stars sometimes nudge these icy travelers toward the...
Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout – nicknamed the "merchant of death" – has joined the pro-Kremlin ultranationalist LDPR party, following his release in a high-profile U.S. prisoner swap.
In a video posted online, LDPR (Liberal Democratic Party of Russia) leader Leonid Slutsky thanked Bout, 55, for becoming a member of "the best political party in today's Russia."
After an elaborate U.S. sting, Bout was sentenced to 25 years in jail in 2011.
Last week, he was exchanged for U.S....
