Science

Need something more intense than a burning log to help you relax this season? NASA now has its own festive fireplace featuring an eight hour loop of the burning RS-25 engines used for the launch of the Artemis I mission two years ago. The fireplace can be streamed on NASA Plus, or you can watch it on YouTube.

The FBI is investigating, Reuters reports. Hackers allegedly targeted US nonprofits and activists who have spoken out against ExxonMobil. Lawyers for ExxonMobil wielded hacked documents to fight lawsuits filed against the company, according to Reuters.

A treaty could potentially put a cap on plastic production. Recycling just isn’t enough to stop the flood of plastic pollution building up in landfills, waterways, in marine life, and that’s even found in baby poop.

And since plastics are made from fossil fuels, curbing production would also cut down the pollution causing climate change.

Home Energy Reports will be coming to the Ecobee app next month. The company says the feature should help users better understand how their HVAC system works and, hopefully, save more energy.

It will show detailed reports on your system’s energy use right in the app, help identify potential issues with the system, and compare energy consumption with others in your area for some healthy competition.

We’ve been saying this for a while at The Verge: filtering CO2 out of the air is absurdly expensive and not a realistic alternative to fighting climate change by replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy.

Nevertheless, Big Tech — including Microsoft, Amazon, and Google — has pumped hella money into carbon removal strategies that have yet to prove that they can make a meaningful impact.

Negotiations at the United Nations climate summit ended with a deal that falls well short of what vulnerable nations fought for — $1.3 trillion in climate funding that economists estimate is needed to help less affluent countries adapt to disasters and deploy clean energy.

“We don’t have anything there this year,” Meta told the Financial Times.

The annual UN summit is arguably the biggest climate event of the year, and typically an opportunity for tech companies to grandstand. But Big Tech’s obsession with AI has led to growing greenhouse gas emissions, pushing companies further away from climate goals.

The Starship vehicle successfully reignited a single Raptor engine while in space before splashing down in the Indian Ocean, writes SpaceX.

Unlike the 5th flight test, this one didn’t include a tower catch for the booster, as “automated health checks of critical hardware on the launch and catch tower triggered an abort of the catch attempt,” and it diverted to the Gulf of Mexico.

The launch is happening in Boca Chica, Texas and is scheduled for 5PM ET. SpaceX’s stream for the launch is live now.

That’s the concept behind Hippos Exoskeleton, a startup created by former basketball hopeful Kylin Shaw after he heard “a sickening pop from my knee while landing from a dunk,” according to TechCrunch.

The expanding “knee sleeve” uses predictive AI to detect risky movements and inflates in 30 milliseconds. The idea is to help prevent ACL tears and other injuries in athletes, construction workers, and older adults.

The two companies announced a “strategic partnership” today where Oura Ring and Dexcom CGM users can more easily share their health data between the two platforms. Both companies will also sell and cross promote each other’s products.

Oura’s been diving into metabolic health lately, acquiring a CGM startup called Veri just a few months ago.

To top it all off: Dexcom is also investing $75 million in Oura.

The “Beaver Moon” can be seen across the US tonight. It’s “super” because the full moon will be at its closest point to Earth in its elliptical orbit.

The President-elect chose his former political opponent and anti-vaccine activist to lead HHS, a department that oversees the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Kennedy has embraced policies widely rejected by the scientific community, like halting the addition of fluoride to drinking water — a mineral that helps prevent tooth decay.

It’s also offering monthly treatment options for erectile dysfunction and eyelash growth. Amazon says Prime members only have to pay for the cost of consultation and the treatment plan, which ranges anywhere from $2 / month to $43 / month.

The goal was a product that could predict a user’s fertility by collecting saliva. Users would’ve then been able to log period symptoms, sexual activity, and other fertility data via a mobile app. CNBC says Amazon has laid off the entire team behind the project. Initially, it was set to launch later this year before technical issues resulted in delays.

Elon Musk’s xAI has a rapidly growing supercomputer that other AI companies are worried about, The Information reports. Hopefully, they also find out how the facility affects the local environment.

Rivian released a short film today in which the company’s CEO RJ Scaringe issues a call to action on climate change, arguing the time is now to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy solutions.

The scale of the challenge means we need to be making these changes now, and we need to begin working toward every increasing renewable content on our grid. We need to replace the roughly one-and-a-half billion combustion powered vehicles on our planet with electric vehicles, but also know that on the path to the end state, we’re going to have solutions that are imperfect, but we need to start.

Trump tapped former New York Representative Lee Zeldin to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. Zeldin has a 14 percent lifetime score from the League of Conservation Voters.

He’ll “ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions that will be enacted in a way to unleash the power of American businesses, while at the same time maintaining the highest environmental standards,” Trump said.

A digital trail can provide evidence of someone obtaining an illegal abortion, but as Lux Alptraum wrote back in 2022, they’re not usually the initial tipoff:

A full 45 percent of cases were brought to the attention of the police via a healthcare professional like a doctor, nurse, or social worker. Another 26 percent of people were reported by friends or family members. 

In case you were wondering.

Hurricane Rafael cut off power across the island even before it made landfall on Wednesday as a Category 3 storm. Authorities are still working to restore power after weeks of widespread, prolonged blackouts exacerbated by another hurricane that struck Cuba in late October.