TECH

Researchers have found evidence of a star blasting itself out of its orbit with another star in a “partial supernova” — now hurtling across the Milky Way. The star, which has about 40 percent of the mass of our sun, is traveling at 559,234 mph. Scientists at the UK’s University of Warwick note that the star, a white dwarf designated SDSS J1240+6710, has an unusual composition. White dwarfs are very dense small stars that have exhausted their nuclear fuel. “The majority of white dwarfs have atmospheres composed almost entirely of hydrogen or helium, with occasional evidence of carbon or oxygen dredged up from the star’s core,” the University of Warwick scientists explained in a statement. SDSS J1240+6710, however, seemed to contain neither hydrogen nor helium, but was com

BEIJING — In the global race to make a coronavirus vaccine, a state-owned Chinese company is boasting that its employees, including top executives, received experimental shots even before the government approved testing in people. “Giving a helping hand in forging the sword of victory,” reads an online post from SinoPharm with pictures of company leaders it says helped “pre-test” its vaccine. Whether it’s viewed as heroic sacrifice or a violation of international ethical norms, the claim underscores the enormous stakes as China competes with US and British companies to be the first with a vaccine to help end the pandemic — a feat that would be both a scientific and political triumph. “Getting a COVID-19 vaccine is the new Holy Grail,” said Lawrence Gostin, a global public health law

WASHINGTON – NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said Tuesday he still expected support from Russia’s space corporation in its Artemis moon program despite Moscow’s space chief slamming the US-led lunar effort. Bridenstine said in an interview with Reuters on Tuesday “the relationship between NASA and Roscosmos is solid” and emphasized that international partners will play a key role in NASA’s plan to land humans on the lunar surface by 2024 and construct a space station orbiting the moon. “I’ve got a good relationship with Dmitri Rogozin, so I’m hopeful that there are opportunities for us to continue to collaborate,” Bridenstine said, referring to the general director of Russia’s state space corporation Roscosmos. But Rogozin called the moon program in an interview with Komsom

WASHINGTON – Oliver Taylor, a student at England’s University of Birmingham, is a twenty-something with brown eyes, light stubble and a slightly stiff smile. Online profiles describe him as a coffee lover and politics junkie who was raised in a traditional Jewish home. His half dozen freelance editorials and blog posts reveal an active interest in anti-Semitism and Jewish affairs, with bylines in the Jerusalem Post and the Times of Israel. The catch? Oliver Taylor seems to be an elaborate fiction. His university says it has no record of him. He has no obvious online footprint beyond an account on the question-and-answer site Quora, where he was active for two days in March. Two newspapers that published his work say they have tried and failed to confirm his identity. And exper

Everything else we do has shifted online — why not infidelity? Since the inception of chat rooms, the internet has long served as a fertile ground for cheaters. Last year, a YouGov poll found that some 17% of users across all dating apps were there to cheat on their current partners. Now, it’s only getting worse. Couples who haven’t already called it quits may be sabotaging their relationships anyway, according to University of Tennessee-Knoxville psychologists Kristina Coop Gordon and Erica A. Mitchell, whose co-authored editorial, “Infidelity in the Time of COVID‐19,” was published in the journal Family Process earlier this month. Approximately 25% of all marriages experience infidelity, according to their paper, but now more than ever before, couples are e

Researchers at Kyoto University and the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan detected 12 stellar flares on AD Leonis, a red dwarf 16 light-years away. A light-year, which measures distance in space, equals about 6 trillion miles. Red dwarf stars are the smallest and most abundant stars in our galaxy. They are also longest-lived stars. One of the solar flares spotted on AD Leonis was 20 times larger than the flares emitted by our own sun, according to the experts, who used the university’s new Seimei telescope to make the discovery. The research was published in the Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan. “Solar flares are sudden explosions that emanate from the surfaces of stars, including our own sun,” explained first author Kosuke Namekata in a stateme