Staff Writer Paul Voosen talks with host Sarah Crespi about plans for NASA’s first visit to the Moon in 50 years—and the quick succession of missions that will likely follow.
Next, Eileen Roesler, an engineering psychologist at the Technical University of Berlin, discusses the benefits of making robots that look and act like people—it’s not always as helpful as you would think.
Dig deep into the origins of building. The ground, now often used as a passive foundation for going higher, is rife with possibilities. Bjarne Mastenbroek investigates the relationship architecture has, had, and will have, with site and nature. Through the photography of Iwan Baan and more than 500 analytical drawings by SeARCH, Dig it! dissects structures from the past millennia—some well-known, some previously overlooked. This global survey of nearly 1,400 pages, designed by Mevis & Van Deursen, brings architecture back in harmony with the Earth’s surface. Discover the book: https://www.taschen.com/04697yt
A new theory to explain missing geological time, the end of leaded petrol, and the ancient humans of Arabia.
In this episode:
00:29 Unpicking the Great Unconformity
For more than 150 years, geologists have been aware of ‘missing’ layers of rock from the Earth’s geological record. Up to one billion years appear to have been erased in what’s known as the Great Unconformity. Many theories to explain this have been proposed, and now a new one suggests that the Great Unconformity may have in fact been a series of smaller events.
BBC Future: The strange race to track down a missing billion years
05:23 The era of leaded petrol is over
In July, Algeria became the final country to ban the sale of leaded petrol, meaning that the fuel is unavailable to buy legally anywhere on Earth. However despite this milestone, the toxic effects of lead petrol pollution will linger for many years to come.
Chemistry World: Leaded petrol is finally phased out worldwide
08:26 The ancient humans who lived in a wetter Arabia
While much of modern day Arabia is covered by deserts, new research suggests that hundreds of thousands of years ago conditions were much wetter for periods on the peninsula. These lusher periods may have made the area a key migratory crossroads for ancient humans.
Research Article: Groucutt et al.
News and Views: Traces of a series of human dispersals through Arabia
Recent studies have shown that the effectiveness of Covid-19 vaccines is decreasing, though experts say the shots still work well. WSJ explains what the numbers mean and why they don’t tell the full story. Photo illustration: Jacob Reynolds/WSJ
On Sept. 5, 2021, for the first time, a large high-temperature superconducting electromagnet was ramped up to a field strength of 20 tesla, the most powerful magnetic field of its kind ever created on Earth. That successful demonstration helps resolve the greatest uncertainty in the quest to build the world’s first fusion power plant that can produce more power than it consumes, according to the project’s leaders at MIT and startup company Commonwealth Fusion Systems.
Boomers Daily 