Month: July 2021

Enlarge (credit: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg/Getty Images)

After years of petitions and proposals, momentum is building in government to give consumers broader rights to repair products they own ranging from farm tractors to mobile phones.

In a press briefing yesterday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Biden will issue an executive order directing the US Department of Agriculture to issue rules that, among other things, “give farmers the right to repair their own equipment how they like.”

The order will reportedly cover more than tractors. According to a Bloomberg report, Biden will urge the Federal Trade Commission to press computer and electronics manufacturers and defense contractors to offer additional leeway in how their devices are repaired.

Enlarge (credit: Caltech/R. Hurt (IPAC))

As we carefully map the stars of our Milky Way, we're able to identify features that tell us of its history. These include local details, such as the stars that have passed through an area from which something would be able to detect Earth. And it includes far larger structures, like the trails of stars left behind by smaller galaxies that have merged with our own.

But one feature we've discovered has been a bit confusing: trails of stars that are too small and thin to have come from a galaxy collision. There are dozens of them that we've not identified a source for. Their size suggests they came from a globular cluster, but there's no obvious mechanism for these clusters to eject stars at a rate sufficient to generate this sort of stream.

Now, a team of researchers has suggested a not-so-obvious mechanism: Over time, clusters may become dominated by black holes that eject all the stars.

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  A whopping 37 different partners contributed to the creation of the AV-21, providing sensors, radars, throttle, brakes, and more to create possibly the most fastest autonomous car ever made. [credit: Gregory Leporati ]

INDIANAPOLIS—At a block party down the road from Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) the day before the Indy 500, engineering students from across the world gathered for a very different kind of car reveal. The AV-21, with its sharp, green-blue Dallara chassis, looks like a typical Indy Lights racecar. However, there's one notable exception: no driver. Its cockpit is crammed with wires, processors, sensors, and a motherboard—essentially, a supercomputer.

"It's shaped like a car, but I don't view it as one," said Chanyoung Jung, an engineering student from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. "I view it as a robot."

Automobile, robot, or something in between, the AV-21's unveiling was a significant step for the Indy Autonomous Challenge (IAC), a competition set for October 23 in which driverless cars will race wheel-to-wheel around IMS at potential speeds of more than 180 mph. The winning team will earn a $1.5 million university prize. Organized by IMS and Energy Systems Network (ESN), an Indianapolis-based nonprofit, the race seeks to significantly advance the safety and speed of autonomous vehicles.