Spaceflight Now shared their video of the explosion, which the Orlando Sentinel describes as showing Blue Origin's rocket "become engulfed in flames. The fireball expands out and covers the entire launch pad as the fuselage of the rocket can be seen crumbling into the flames." Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos said on X.com "It's too early to know… Read More »
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Fortune: The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a push to avoid a lawsuit alleging that Facebook and Instagram harmed young users, a decision that comes as social media companies increasingly face legal scrutiny. Parent company Meta appealed after Vermont's highest court allowed a suit filed by its attorney… Read More »
A senior CIA official, David Rush, was arrested after investigators found more than $40 million in gold bars and about $2 million in cash at his Virginia home. According to the New York Times, "The only charge lodged against David Rush is that he inflated his academic credentials and obtained military leave pay worth tens of thousands of dollars."… Read More »
NASA has outlined a three-phase plan to build a lunar base at the moon's south pole. The first phase, from 2026 to 2029, will focus on robotic missions, landers, rovers, reactors, satellites, and Blue Origin's Blue Moon Mark 1 Endurance test. Later phases will add habitats, power systems, communications, cargo logistics, and rotating crews. Wired… Read More »
An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT News: Currently, lithium hard rock extraction involves baking the rock at over 1,000 Celsius and chemically leaching it to extract lithium. The rest of the rock is discarded. Now, a team of researchers from MIT and elsewhere has developed a low-temperature process for extracting battery-grade lithium… Read More »
A new Grundfos report warns that Europe's datacenter boom could strain water supplies and power grids unless regulators bake water and energy efficiency into planning, reporting, and incentives for new facilities. The Register reports: According to the report, the EU-wide server farm IT load is about 10 GW today, and is expected to rise to 35 GW… Read More »
Anthropic has released Claude Opus 4.8 with stronger performance and better handling of uncertain or flawed data, including a greater tendency to flag issues rather than make unsupported claims. The update also introduces a "Dynamic Workflows" research preview for coordinating complex tasks across many subagents. TechCrunch reports: Opus 4.8 comes… Read More »