Elon Musk on data centers in orbit: “SpaceX will be doing this”

“We could see another transformation of what’s done in space.”

As artificial intelligence drives the need for vastly more computing storage and processing power, interest in space-based data centers has spiked.

Although several startup companies, such as Starcloud, have begun to address this problem, the idea has also attracted the interest of tech barons. In May, it emerged that former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt acquired Relativity Space due to his interest in space-based data centers. Then, earlier this month, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos predicted that gigawatt-scale data centers will be built in space within the next 10 to 20 years.

Now, Elon Musk, whose SpaceX owns and operates significantly more space-based infrastructure than any other company or country in the world, has also expressed interest in the technology.

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Windows 11 Task Manager bug makes the app’s “close” button do the exact opposite

Bug affects Windows 11 24H2 and 25H2 users using the October update preview.

One reason to use the Task Manager in Windows is to see if any of the apps running on your computer are misbehaving or using a disproportionate amount of resources. But what do you do when the misbehaving app is the Task Manager itself?

After a recent Windows update, some users (including Windows Latest) noticed that closing the Task Manager window was actually failing to close the app, leaving the executable running in memory. More worryingly, each time you open the Task Manager, it spawns a new process on top of the old one, which you can repeat essentially infinitely (or until your PC buckles under the pressure).

Each instance of Task Manager takes up around 20MB of system RAM and hovers between 0 and 2 percent CPU usage—if you have just a handful of instances open, it’s unlikely that you’d notice much of a performance impact. But if you use Task Manager frequently or just go a long time between reboots, opening up two or three dozen copies of the process that are all intermittently using a fraction of your CPU can add up, leading to a potentially significant impact on performance and battery life.

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Trump’s swift demolition of East Wing may have launched asbestos plumes

There is no confirmation that the Trump admin. followed abatement processes.

The speedy demolition of the East Wing of the White House last week has health advocates and Democratic lawmakers seeking answers about what efforts were taken, if any, to keep workers and passersby safe from potential plumes of asbestos that could arise from the destruction, according to a report by The Washington Post.

The East Wing was originally constructed in 1902 and was renovated in 1942, and asbestos was used extensively in government buildings during this period, according to the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO), a nonprofit focused on preventing asbestos exposure. Anyone who inadvertently breathes in asbestos fibers launched into the air by construction work could be at heightened risk of lung diseases and cancer.

“Every building of this age must undergo full asbestos inspection and abatement before any demolition begins,” Linda Reinstein, president and cofounder of ADAO, said in a press statement.

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Wear marks suggest Neanderthals made ocher crayons

Neanderthals were apparently no easier on their art supplies than modern kids.

Two chunks of ocher unearthed at ancient rock shelters in Ukraine were actually Neanderthal crayons, according to a recent study. The pair of artifacts, unearthed from layers 47,000 and 46,000 years old, showed signs of being deliberately shaped into crayons and resharpened over time. A third piece of ocher had been carefully carved with parallel lines. The finds add to the growing body of evidence that Neanderthals had an artistic streak.

Photo of a yellow-brown rock with a pointed tip This piece of yellow ocher was used as a crayon and resharpened before finally being worn blunt and discarded. Credit: D'Errico et al. 2025

Please pass Og the yellow crayon

Rock shelters, occupied by Neanderthals between 100,000 and 33,000 years ago, dot the landscape near the modern city of Bilohirsk in Crimea (a peninsula in southern Ukraine). Archaeologists studying those rock shelters have unearthed dozens of chunks of an iron-rich mineral called ocher. Many of them have flakes knocked out or grooves gouged into their surface, which mark how Neanderthals extracted powdery red, orange, or yellow pigment from the stone. D’Errico and his colleagues used X-ray fluorescence and scanning electron microscopes to examine 16 ocher chunks to better understand exactly what ancient Crimean Neanderthals were doing with the stuff.

Most of those ocher chunks could have been used for nearly anything. Ocher is handy not just as a pigment but also for tanning animal hides, mixing with resins into adhesives for hafting tools, or even repelling insects and preventing infection. Knapping a few flakes off a hard nodule of ocher, then crushing them into powder (or just carving out a chunk of a softer, more crumbly piece), is a good way to prepare it for any of those uses. But two pieces, both from a site called Zaskalnaya V, were clearly different.

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NASA test flight seeks to help bring commercial supersonic travel back

The X-59 has successfully completed its inaugural flight.

About an hour after sunrise over the Mojave Desert of Southern California, NASA’s newest experimental supersonic jet took to the skies for the first time on Tuesday. The X-59 Quesst (Quiet SuperSonic Technology) is designed to decrease the noise of a sonic boom when an aircraft breaks the sound barrier, paving the way for future commercial jets to fly at supersonic speeds over land.

The jet, built by Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works, took off from US Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California. Flown by Nils Larson, NASA’s lead test pilot for the X-59, the inaugural flight validated the jet’s airworthiness and safety before landing about an hour after takeoff near NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California.

“X-59 is a symbol of American ingenuity,” acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy said in a statement. “It’s part of our DNA—the desire to go farther, faster, and even quieter than anyone has ever gone before.”

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