2025-10-09 07:56:33
NASA has thrown a lifeline to scientists working on a mission to visit an asteroid that will make an unusually close flyby of the Earth in 2029, reversing the Trump administration's previous plan to shut it down.
This mission, named OSIRIS-APEX, was one of 19 operating NASA science missions the White House proposed canceling in a budget blueprint released earlier this year.
"We were called for cancellation as part to the president's budget request, and we were reinstated and given a plan to move ahead in FY26 (Fiscal Year 2026) just two weeks ago," said Dani DellaGiustina, principal investigator for OSIRIS-APEX at the University of Arizona. "Our spacecraft appears happy and healthy."
2025-10-09 06:42:39
Stoke Space announced a significant capital raise on Wednesday, a total of $510 million as part of Series D funding. The new financing doubles the total capital raised by Stoke Space, founded in 2020, to $990 million.
The infusion of money will provide the company with "the runway to complete development" of the Nova rocket and demonstrate its capability through its first flights, said Andy Lapsa, the company's co-founder and chief executive, in a news release characterizing the new funding.
Stoke is working toward a 2026 launch of the medium-lift Nova rocket. The rocket's innovative design is intended to be fully reusable from the payload fairing on down, with a regeneratively cooled heat shield on the vehicle's second stage. In fully reusable mode, Nova will have a payload capacity of 3 metric tons to low-Earth orbit, and up to 7 tons in fully expendable mode.
2025-10-09 06:32:12
A 36-year-old man showed up to the emergency department of the Massachusetts General Hospital, severely unwell from a puzzling set of conditions. He had abnormalities in his lungs, intestines, blood, liver, and lymphatic system—and, of course, no single clear explanation. His case was such a riddle that a master clinician with an expertise in clinical reasoning was called in to help unravel it.
In a case report published today in the New England Journal of Medicine, the expert and the man's other doctors lay out the masterful medical deduction that explained his remarkable case—which had an entirely unremarkable cause.
It all started about two weeks before his hospital visit. A mild, dull pain had developed in the patient's right lower abdomen and back. Nine days later, a fever and body aches also developed. The next day, he went to urgent care, where clinicians gave him intravenous fluids and an intravenous pain reliever. His abdominal pain went away, and he was discharged. But the pain returned over the next few days, and with it came nausea and vomiting. He then started coughing and having trouble breathing.
2025-10-09 05:18:30
AI bubble talk is in the air, and among the chorus of voices warning of an AI-fueled market bubble (which includes OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Amazon's Jeff Bezos) is the Bank of England, which warned on Wednesday that global financial markets could face a sharp correction if investor sentiment turns negative on AI.
The UK central bank said US stock valuations resemble those seen near the peak of the dotcom bubble on some measures, with AI-focused companies making up an unprecedented portion of market value.
In its quarterly report derived from a meeting of its Financial Policy Committee that took place last week, BoE wrote that "the risk of a sharp market correction has increased." Reuters notes that it's the BoE's strongest warning to date about potential AI-driven market declines. The committee, chaired by Governor Andrew Bailey, said spillover risks to Britain's financial system from such a shock were "material."
2025-10-09 05:08:50
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr says Internet service providers shouldn't have to list every fee they charge. Responding to a request from cable and telecom lobby groups, he is proposing to eliminate a rule that requires ISPs to itemize various fees in broadband price labels that must be made available to consumers.
The rule took effect in April 2024 after the FCC rejected ISPs' complaints that listing every fee they created would be too difficult. The rule applies specifically to recurring monthly fees "that providers impose at their discretion, i.e., charges not mandated by a government."
ISPs could comply with the rule either by listing the fees or by dropping the fees altogether and, if they choose, raising their overall prices by a corresponding amount. But the latter option wouldn't fit with the strategy of enticing customers with a low advertised price and hitting them with the real price on their monthly bills. The broadband price label rules were created to stop ISPs from advertising misleadingly low prices.
2025-10-09 04:51:22
Cards Against Humanity, the often-vulgar card game, has launched a limited edition of its namesake product without any instructions and with a detailed explanation of each joke, "why it’s funny, and any relevant social, political, or historical context."
Why? Because, produced in this form, "Cards Against Humanity Explains the Joke" is not a game at all, which would be subject to tariffs as the cards are produced overseas. Instead, the product is "information material" and thus not sanctionable under the law Trump has been using—and CAH says it has obtained a ruling to this effect from Customs and Border Patrol.
"What if DHS Secretary and Dog Murderer Kristi Noem gets mad and decides that Cards Against Humanity Explains the Joke is not informational material?" the company asks in an FAQ about the new edition. (If you don't follow US politics, Noem really did kill her dog Cricket.) Answer: "She can fuck right off, because we got a binding ruling from Trump’s own government that confirms this product is informational and 100% exempt from his stupid tariffs."
