Tyner Rushing as Samantha Massey in For All Mankind.Image: Apple Folks hoping to see more of Apple TV Plus’ For All Mankind series are in for a treat, but the streamer is working on more than just a new season. Today, Apple announced that For All Mankind has been renewed for a fifth season that will continue to chronicle the alternate history of a world in which the Soviet Union is the first nation to put a man on the Moon and the United States set out to catch up with its rival. Following the show’s season 4 finale, news of the renewal doesn’t exactly come as a surprise, but Apple also reveal ..read more

This artist mockup of Dragonfly soaring over Titan’s dunes has... well, Dune vibes.Image: NASA / Johns Hopkins APL / Steve Gribben NASA has been given the go-ahead to send a flying drone-like lander to explore Titan, the largest of Saturn’s 146 moons. Targeting a July 2028 launch, the agency announced on Tuesday that it can now complete the final design for Dragonfly — a Mars rover-sized rotorcraft that will be used to detect “prebiotic chemical processes common on both Titan and the early Earth before life developed.” If all goes according to plan, the eight-rotor drone is scheduled to arrive ..read more

Image: Boston Dynamics The robotics company has retired the dancing bot after more than a decade ..read more

A sign warns of elevated fire danger in the Oakland Hill area of Oakland, California, on Thursday, October 29th, 2020.Photo by Philip Pacheco / Bloomberg via Getty Images Hate to break it to you, baby — but if you were born in the US this year, climate change could wind up costing you around $500,000 over the course of your lifetime. That’s according to a new study commissioned by Consumer Reports and conducted by consulting firm ICF. The study counts up higher bills for climate-related calamities that drive up housing, food, and healthcare costs, for example. On top of that, there’s the prosp ..read more

The four-inch tall metal object tore through a roof in Naples, Florida last month.Image: Alejandro Otero NASA has confirmed suspicions that the strange object that crashed into a Florida home last month did indeed come from the International Space Station (ISS). The agency analyzed the cylindrical object after it tore through the roof and two floors of a house in Naples on March 8th, and established that it came from a cargo pallet of aging batteries that was released from the ISS back in 2021. More specifically, NASA revealed in a blog post on Monday that the offending object was a support co ..read more

Image from NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover captured in April 2024. NASA Budget constraints have NASA looking for a faster and cheaper method to bring samples from Mars’ surface back to Earth. In a teleconference on Monday, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said that an independent review concluded that the agency’s current plan to bring the first samples collected by the Mars rover Perseverance could cost up to $11 billion and would likely not be achievable until 2040. The fiscal 2025 budget for the space agency, as well as additional anticipated budget cuts, are behind how slowly the current plan ..read more

A 20-foot chunk of Newport, Rhode Island’s beloved Cliff Walk broke off and dove into the depths of the ocean in a significant landslide and partial collapse, pictured on March 4th, 2022.Photo by Jonathan Wiggs / The Boston Globe via Getty Images The US Department of Transportation (USDOT) is doling out nearly $830 million in grants to 80 different projects aimed at strengthening US infrastructure against climate change. The funding will fan out over 39 states and territories to projects ranging from refurbishing aging bridges to expanding emergency evacuation routes. The grants are “the first ..read more

Executives hold shovels during a groundbreaking ceremony at the Occidental Petroleum and 1PointFive carbon removal plant in Ector County, Texas, on April 28th, 2023. Image: Jordan Vonderhaar / Bloomberg via Getty Images Attempting to filter enough carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere to make a significant impact on climate change would require hundreds of billions of dollars in government spending, according to a new report. The suite of technologies emerging to attempt that task all fall under an umbrella called carbon dioxide removal, or CDR. It’s still risky and astronomically expensiv ..read more

Illustration by Cath Virginia / The VergePhotos by Getty Images Generative AI could be coming to your local TV station as The Weather Company, aka the people that run The Weather Channel, is bringing AI tools to make weather videos. The Weather Company announced ReelSphere on Thursday, a video creation tool for broadcasters and other customers that automatically adds captions, graphics, and hyperlocal weather information overlays to video weather reports. ReelSphere even lets users add an AI voice that can sound like a local meteorologist. Think of the quick weather forecast updates you usuall ..read more

Part of a filtration system designed to filter out PFAS forever chemicals from the drinking water supply at Well #2 of the Horsham Water and Sewer Authority facility in Horsham, Pennsylvania, on August 22nd, 2019.Photo by Bastiaan Slabbers / NurPhoto via Getty Images The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has finalized rules for the amount of certain “forever chemicals” allowed in drinking water. This is the first time the US has placed legally enforceable federal limits on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), chemicals so ubiquitous that they’ve likely already made their way into mo ..read more