Month: September 2017

Poor BMW. It had planned to take the covers off its new mega-SUV, the X7 Concept, at the Frankfurt Auto Show. Instead of carefully stage-managing the introduction what was bound to be a controversial-looking new model, someone leaked them to Bimmerpost a few days early. The X7 is another nail in the coffin of the luxury sedan, and more proof that the public wants ride height and a hatchback more than they want low centers of gravity or elegant proportions.

Because of its trademark kidney grill, BMW's cars always suffer from pareidolia. We can't help it, those grills look like nostrils and our brains convert the rest into faces. And the X7 has a pretty massive pair of nostrils on it. You can appreciate BMW's dilemma: a car that large is going to have a lot of front acreage to dress. But the current 7 Series is probably already pushing the limits in that regard, and we just can't stop seeing some kind of evil Pixar character with this one. Don't be surprised if the production car gets some rhinoplasty before going on sale.

Enlarge / The Falcon 9 rocket is ready to launch an Air Force spy plane. (credit: SpaceX)

10:20am ET Update: SpaceX made it. Beneath partly cloudy skies along the eastern coast of Florida, the rocket company launched the X-37B space plane near the beginning of the launch window. The spacecraft made it safely into orbit—how high was unspecified, due to the secretive nature of the mission—and the Falcon 9 rocket's first stage returned safely to a landing zone along the coast.

Now the rocket company, and the rest of Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, and other space companies along the coast, must make their final preparations for the effects of Hurricane Irma this weekend.

Original post: Florida has a lot to worry about right now with the imminent arrival of Hurricane Irma, but before the storm arrives this weekend, SpaceX is trying to squeeze out one more launch. And it's a big one. The company's Falcon 9 rocket will launch the US Air Force’s X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle on its fifth mission.

(credit: Steve Rhodes)

A catalog of music from high-profile artists including Bruno Mars, Ed Sheeran, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and others will populate Apple Music. According to a Bloomberg report, Apple has struck a deal with Warner Music Group to offer its songs on its music streaming service, as well as iTunes. This is the first major label agreement for Apple Music since its inception two years ago, and Apple hopes to ink a pact with Sony Music Entertainment soon as well.

Apple still plans on negotiating with record labels to pay them lower rates for Apple Music subscribers. We first heard of these plans back in June, when the Apple Music's first contracts were expiring. With on-demand music streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music having become the main source of sales for the record industry, labels may be willing to accept less from tech giants like Apple. But all of this hinges on the growth of these music streaming services—record labels may not mind getting a smaller percentage of the money provided subscriber numbers keep increasing.

Until now, Apple paid record labels 58 percent of sales, which is higher than what Spotify pays. According to the report, Apple now wants to pay labels 55 percent. It's possible that rate could decrease even more if Apple Music meets subscriber targets that please both Apple and record labels. Spotify now pays labels 52 percent of sales instead of its previous rate of 55 percent.

Enlarge / Flooded street in the eastern town of Fajardo during the passing of Hurricane Irma north of Puerto Rico. (credit: .Jose Jimenez/Getty Images)

As of Thursday morning, the 180-mph Hurricane Irma continues to pose a grave threat to the southeastern United States. The best available modeling continues to suggest this will probably be a historically bad storm for much of the southern half of Florida.

There remains a chance that Irma will turn north before reaching Florida and move to the east of the peninsula, which would leave the state on the drier side of the storm, with lesser winds and surge. But a 30 to 40 percent chance is not something we would gamble our lives and property on. If an evacuation order is called for your area, heed it.

You may have noticed some people are kind of freaking out about Irma, and we expect that to only get worse as the storm approaches Florida this weekend. And although it is certainly better to prepare for a hurricane rather than panic, there are some pretty legitimate reasons for extreme concern.

Enlarge / Our galaxy's Fermi bubbles are the dense patches of red above and below the center of this image. (credit: NASA)

Cosmic rays are a nuisance, a source of mystery, and a window into the galaxy. Cosmic rays are high energy bursts of particles, mostly protons. These slam into the atmosphere, generating showers of other high energy particles. We see them, whether we want to or not, as streaks in images or errors in computer memory. They are, to put it bluntly, a minor nuisance for every researcher. They are a major nuisance for dark matter and neutrino detectors the world over. The cosmic ray noise is so bad that is has driven physicists to live at the bottom of mine shafts, muttering in order to get away from them.

But cosmic rays also been a source of mystery for other physicists. Where do they come from? That question remained fairly contentious up until a few years ago, when supernovae were finally convicted of making neutrino scientists miserable. It turns out that as a star explodes, the magnetic field associated with the shock wave can accelerate particles up to energies of about 10¹⁵electronVolts (For comparison, the LHC works at about 10¹²eV).

That accounts for most, but not all of them. Cosmic rays at even higher energies have been detected, and they have remained a mystery. Now, it seems that they may actually also come from supernova, but not by a direct route. First, they have to exit the galaxy and then come back hot and angry after being given the shock of their lives.