Check out the double-rotor helicopter that could be the US Army’s next Black Hawk
The Defiant X employs two coaxial rotors up top, with a propeller in the back to help it accelerate and decelerate. (Sikorsky/Boeing/) The Defiant X is a sleek, futuristic helicopter that’s designed to go fast and far. While it doesn’t exist as a production aircraft, it’s one of two candidates that could be the new […]
A new orange and black bat species is always ready for Halloween
Bats, better known for their mousy looks, can have a colorful side. A new species, discovered when two bats were caught at an abandoned miners’ tunnel in western Africa, sports showy swathes of orange fur. The new finds “are just gorgeous,” says mammalogist Nancy Simmons of the National Museum of Natural History in New York […]
Neutrons’ ‘evil twins’ may be crushing stars into black holes
The universe may be filled with “mirror” particles — and these otherwise-undetectable particles could be shrinking the densest stars in the universe, turning them into black holes, a new study suggests. These hypothetical evil twins of ordinary particles would experience a flipped version of the laws of physics, as if the rules that govern known […]
Monster black hole spews energy as regularly as Yellowstone’s ‘Old Faithful’
At the heart of a galaxy more than 570 million light-years away, energy flares into space so consistently that astrophysicists have dubbed the galaxy Old Faithful, like the famously predictable geyser in Yellowstone National Park. This is the first time such regular and frequent flares have been spotted emanating from a distant galaxy’s core. About […]
The most ancient supermassive black hole is bafflingly big
The most ancient black hole ever discovered is so big it defies explanation. This active supermassive black hole, or quasar, boasts a mass of 1.6 billion suns and lies at the heart of a galaxy more than 13 billion light-years from Earth. The quasar, dubbed J0313-1806, dates back to when the universe was just 670 […]
Galaxies hit single, doubles, and triple (growing black holes)
IMAGE: This pair of objects comes from a study of seven triple galaxy mergers. By using Chandra and other telescopes, astronomers determined what happened to the supermassive black holes at the centers of… view more Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Michigan/A. Foord et al.; Optical: SDSS & NASA/STScI When three galaxies collide, what happens to the huge […]
Could we harness energy from black holes? A new study indicates energy can be extracted from black holes through reconnection of magnetic field lines — ScienceDaily
A remarkable prediction of Einstein’s theory of general relativity — the theory that connects space, time, and gravity — is that rotating black holes have enormous amounts of energy available to be tapped. For the last 50 years, scientists have tried to come up with methods to unleash this power. Nobel physicist Roger Penrose theorized […]
Are primordial black holes really giant gravitinos?
Paul M. Sutter is an astrophysicist at SUNY Stony Brook and the Flatiron Institute, host of Ask a Spaceman and Space Radio, and author of How to Die in Space. He contributed this article to Space.com’s Expert Voices: Opinions and Insights. Astronomers don’t understand the origins of the biggest black holes in the universe. These […]
Black people with type 1 diabetes, COVID-19 are four times more likely to be hospitalized for diabetic ketoacidosis
WASHINGTON–Black and Hispanic people with COVID-19 and diabetes are more likely than Caucasians to die or have serious complications, according to a new study published in the Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. Health disparities refer to unequal health status or health care between groups of people due to differences in their background, […]
How schools can reduce excessive discipline of Black students
Anne Gregory remembers the child’s fondness for the Dewey decimal system. He would write down a combination of numbers and letters on a scrap of paper and hunt down the desired book in the library. Details were his thing. He once wrote several pages outlining the sequence of moves needed to beat a video game, […]
