Month: January 2021

Enlarge / SpaceX believes its SN9 prototype is ready to take to the skies. (credit: SpaceX)

Update, 3pm EST Thursday: SpaceX is loading its Starship SN9 prototype with propellant on Thursday afternoon. That much we know. But whether this is for a "wet dress rehearsal," a static fire test, or an actual launch, who knows.

After the FAA said Thursday's launch was canceled at 11am local time, SpaceX founder Elon Musk replied with the following unhappy tweet:

Unlike its aircraft division, which is fine, the FAA space division has a fundamentally broken regulatory structure.

Their rules are meant for a handful of expendable launches per year from a few government facilities. Under those rules, humanity will never get to Mars.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 28, 2021

Then a couple of sources suggested that Musk and the FAA were working to try and get final approval for a launch on Thursday before the window closed at 6pm CST (24:00 UTC) in South Texas. New Temporary Flight Restrictions have not been put in place, but propellant is being loaded. So we really don't know what to expect. Stay tuned.

Enlarge / A registered nurse practitioner holds up a sign and a flag asking for another patient to dose with the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine as well as a more vaccine doses at a vaccination site in Seattle, Washington on January 24, 2021. (credit: Getty | Grant Hendsley)

With the country’s vaccine rollout in utter disorder, health officials in the Biden administration are cautiously trying to both manage expectations and express optimism.

In a series of interviews over the weekend, officials warned that states could face vaccine shortages in the short term, with some states’ supplies already running low—or completely running out. On the other hand, the officials remained convinced that they would be able to achieve the administration’s goal of getting 100 million doses in arms in their first 100 days in office—a goal that has been criticized as being both too ambitious and not ambitious enough.

With 95 days to go until their goal’s deadline, the officials have made clear just how much work they face in getting vaccinations on track.

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  Electric motorcycles, like electric cars, have been more expensive than their gasoline-powered cousins. Sondors hopes to change that with its new Metacycle. [credit: Sondors ]

It's unavoidably clear that staving off the worst extremes of climate change will require a wide-scale electrification of our vehicle fleet. There's a hitch, though—it's not cheap. We have the technology to make electric vehicles, and it's getting better all the time. But as of right now, the bill of materials for an electric car is still higher than for an equivalent vehicle with an internal combustion engine, even with impressive reductions in the cost of lithium-ion batteries.

The problem doesn't just affect passenger cars. It's more expensive to buy an electric garbage truck or school bus than one with a diesel engine, although after four to five years of operation, it balances out thanks to the cost of fuel. It's even true for motorcycles; Harley Davidson's new electric LiveWire costs an eye-watering $30,000—only slightly less than a Nissan Leaf. All of which makes the price of the Sondors Metacycle so notable. When it goes into production later this year, you should be able to pick one up for just $5,000.

Until now, Sondors was a brand people associated with electric bicycles. It's the brainchild of company founder Storm Sondors, who decided the time was right to expand the company's range with a highly affordable electric motorbike that's meant not for enthusiasts but for everyday transport. And the key wasn't perfecting a new type of motor or battery. "Oh, the hard part was done by people who are 1000 times smarter than any one of us," Sondors told me by phone.

Enlarge / Vaccine info in Google search. (credit: Google)

The rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine means a ton of people are soon going to be looking for vaccination sites. As usual, Google wants to be at the center of getting people where they're going, and in a new blog post Google says it will start loading Search and Maps with information on vaccination sites. "In the coming weeks," the company writes, "COVID-19 vaccination locations will be available in Google Search and Maps, starting with Arizona, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, with more states and countries to come."

Soon you'll be able to search "COVID vaccine" and get location results showing access requirements, appointment information, and if a site has a drive-through. Google says it is partnering with the Boston Children's Hospital's VaccineFinder.org, government agencies, and retail pharmacies for the data.

Elsewhere in the Google Empire, the company says it will open up various Google facilities as vaccine sites.

Enlarge / Copies of the Book of the Dead, or excerpts from it, were often included in burials so the deceased would have a guide to the afterlife. (credit: Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities)

Archaeologists in Egypt are preparing to open a 3,000-year-old burial shaft at the Saqqara necropolis, south of Cairo, in the coming week.

The unexplored tomb is one of 52 burial shafts clustered near the much older pyramid of the Pharaoh Teti. Workers at the site found the entrance to the latest shaft earlier this week as they were preparing to announce a slew of other finds at the site, including the tombs of military leaders and high-ranking courtiers, a copy of the Book of the Dead, and ancient board games. Also among the discoveries is the name of the owner of an elaborate mortuary temple near Teti’s pyramid: Narat or Naert, the pharaoh’s queen.

“I’d never heard of this queen before. Therefore we add an important piece of Egyptian history about this queen,” archaeologist and former Egyptian Minister of Antiquities Zahi Hawass told CBS News. Archaeologists first unearthed the stone temple in 2010, but it wasn’t clear who the grand structure had been built for. At mortuary temples like this one, priests and supplicants could make offerings to the dead queen to keep her comfortable in the afterlife—and ask her to help them out in this world.