The Verge - Science Posts |
- Construction begins on ‘Mammoth’ direct air capture plant
- The fall of Roe v. Wade shows how little control patients have over medical records
- Amazon limits Plan B purchases after demand spike
- SpaceX asks Starlink customers for support in wireless battle with Dish
- The Supreme Court is about to decide a major climate court case
- A tiny NASA spacecraft launches to test out a new orbit around the Moon
| Construction begins on ‘Mammoth’ direct air capture plant Posted: 29 Jun 2022 10:55 AM PDT  Swiss climate tech company Climeworks announced yesterday that it has broken ground on its biggest facility yet for capturing carbon dioxide from the air. The new Direct Air Capture (DAC) plant, named Mammoth, will significantly scale up the company's operations in Hellisheiði, Iceland. That's where Climeworks built Orca, which was the largest DAC plant in the world when it came online last September. Orca can capture up to 4,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year, roughly equivalent to how much climate pollution 790 gas-guzzling passenger vehicles release annually. Mammoth, in comparison, can capture about nine times as much CO2 as Orca. There are fewer than 20 such plants in... |
| The fall of Roe v. Wade shows how little control patients have over medical records Posted: 29 Jun 2022 10:18 AM PDT  The end of federal abortion rights quickly made a common, safe medical procedure illegal in many parts of the United States and turned routine medical data into something that can be used against people suspected of having an abortion. Despite being highly sensitive, health data often isn't as private as people might assume. There isn't much preventing medical records from being weaponized against people seeking abortions in states where it is illegal. Even though medical records contain sensitive, personal information, most people don't have much control over the information in them or how they are shared. Medical privacy laws like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), don't stop subpoenas or warrants for... |
| Amazon limits Plan B purchases after demand spike Posted: 28 Jun 2022 01:50 PM PDT  Amazon is limiting customers to three units of emergency contraceptive pills a week in response to a spike in demand after the Supreme Court ended federal abortion rights, the company told CNBC. Other retailers are also limiting purchases of drugs like Plan B and Aftera — CVS and Rite Aid are likewise limiting customers to three pills per customer. The companies say there is enough supply of the drugs but that they're trying to keep them on the shelves consistently. The drugs, often called the morning-after pill, can prevent pregnancy if taken after unprotected sex. On the Amazon website, users can only select up to a quantity of three for Plan B. But as of publication, the website shows an option to select up to 30 units of My Choice,... |
| SpaceX asks Starlink customers for support in wireless battle with Dish Posted: 28 Jun 2022 01:02 PM PDT  SpaceX emailed Starlink customers today asking for help in its battle against Dish Network over radio frequencies for its Starlink internet-from-space effort. Some Starlink customers received an email urging them to contact the Federal Communications Commission and members of Congress in order to support SpaceX in the ongoing dispute. "Today we ask for your support in ending a lobbying campaign that threatens to make Starlink unusable for you and the vast majority of our American customers," the email reads in bold. Currently, SpaceX and Dish are squabbling over a range of radio frequencies known as the 12GHz band. SpaceX uses these... |
| The Supreme Court is about to decide a major climate court case Posted: 28 Jun 2022 11:00 AM PDT  This week, the Supreme Court is expected to decide a major climate case that could determine what tools the federal government can use to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The case, West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, started out years ago as a battle over how much authority the EPA has to force power plants to cut down their pollution — but it's turned into a bigger fight over how much power federal agencies have to enforce all kinds of regulations. With the Biden administration's climate plans relying on drastically slashing CO2 emissions from power plants, the case is being closely watched by environmentalists. The Supreme Court's decision could come down as soon as... |
| A tiny NASA spacecraft launches to test out a new orbit around the Moon Posted: 28 Jun 2022 03:13 AM PDT  Early this morning, a small NASA spacecraft about the size of a microwave embarked on the beginning of a four-month-long journey to the Moon, where it will eventually insert itself into a unique, elongated lunar orbit that no NASA mission has visited before. The spacecraft's goal is simple: test out this particular orbit and see what it's like. That's because it's the same orbit that lunar-bound astronauts could use in the coming decade. This distinctive orbit is called "near rectilinear halo orbit," or NRHO for short. It's a special seven-day path that spacecraft can take around the Moon, bringing vehicles relatively close to the lunar surface for one day before they swing out far from the Moon for the other six. NASA is considering... |
| You are subscribed to email updates from The Verge - Science Posts. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States | |
No comments:
Post a Comment