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Dreamstime/Dreamstime/TNS

Berkeley startup wins government award to develop radiation and lead poisoning treatment

LOS ANGELES — Whether its lead from old buildings, arsenic from contaminated food or strontium fallout from a nuclear explosion, heavy metals that enter the body pose a serious health threat.

With chemical properties exceedingly similar to typical nutrients like iron and calcium, toxic metals look virtually the same to thef body. So, it ...Read more

Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times/TNS

The world's largest wildlife crossing is finally standing. Here is what's coming next

LOS ANGELES — It doesn't take a hawk eye to recognize that the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing over the 101 Freeway in Agoura Hills is not your normal Caltrans project.

For one thing, there's the color. Most Caltrans structures are the light gray of natural concrete. But to reduce reflectivity and help the crossing blend in more with the ...Read more

Dreamstime/Dreamstime/TNS

Invasive species posing 'immediate threat' found in California, a first in North America

An invasive mussel that poses a significant threat to other bivalves and the health of statewide water conveyances has been detected for the first time in North America in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Golden mussels were recently discovered in the Port of Stockton by wildlife ...Read more

Bizuayehu Tesfaye/Las Vegas Review-Journal/TNS

Lawsuit alleges Bureau of Land Management violated Endangered Species Act in approving lithium mine

LAS VEGAS — A week after the Bureau of Land Management approved Nevada’s third lithium mine, environmentalists and a Western Shoshone group filed a lawsuit alleging that the agency rushed the environmental review process and violated federal laws.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court on Thursday, is the latest in a long line of ...Read more

Bizuayehu Tesfaye/Las Vegas Review-Journal/TNS

Lawsuit alleges Bureau of Land Management violated Endangered Species Act in approving lithium mine

LAS VEGAS — A week after the Bureau of Land Management approved Nevada’s third lithium mine, environmentalists and a Western Shoshone group filed a lawsuit alleging that the agency rushed the environmental review process and violated federal laws.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court on Thursday, is the latest in a long line of ...Read more

Astronaut Provided/Nasa/Planet Pix via ZUMA Press Wire/TNS

NASA's Starliner astronauts to achieve feat … technically … during SpaceX Dragon relocation

ORLANDO, Fla. — A parking spot shuffle coming up this weekend more than 250 miles above Earth will mark a unique feat for a pair of NASA astronauts who will become the first to fly in both Boeing’s Starliner and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft.

NASA’s Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams who flew up to the International Space Station in ...Read more

Idrees Abbas/SOPA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/TNS

Looking for new activities? Google wants you to turn to its navigation app

Search giant Google wants people to use its navigation app for more than just finding directions and avoiding traffic.

The tech giant is adding generative AI features to Google Maps so people can easily get recommendations for places to go and activities to do.

With 2 billion people using Google Maps every month, the company envisions people ...Read more

NASA/TNS

Blue Origin hauls massive New Glenn 1st stage to launch site with hot fire up next

ORLANDO, Fla. — Blue Origin hauled the immense first stage booster for its upcoming debut launch of its New Glenn rocket to Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Wednesday.

Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp posted images to social media showing the 188-foot-long first stage with its seven BE-4 engines wrapped up in coverings with not-so-little Blue ...Read more

Tess Crowley/Chicago Tribune/TNS

Urban legends or urban wildlife? Creepy creature sightings might just be thriving Chicago animals

CHICAGO — Over the last decade, hundreds of reports have cropped up across the Chicago area of people’s horrifying encounters with a large, winged creature with glowing red eyes. Last month, Park Ridge residents looked out their windows to the creepy sight of a hairless, dog-sized creature crawling around the suburb. Earlier in the summer, ...Read more

Jill Lang/Dreamstime.com/TNS

These 5 North Carolina state parks are reopening after Hurricane Helene. But many are still closed

Five NC State parks damaged by Hurricane Helene will reopen, at least partially, on Friday.

The soon-to-open parks are: Grandfather Mountain, Gorges, Crowders Mountain, Lake Norman and Rendezvous Mountain.

The state closed all North Carolina parks west of I-77 after Helene struck Sept. 26, noting that each would reopen after the damage could ...Read more

Courtesy Miso Robotics/TNS/TNS

Robots can make your fries, salads and guacamole. Is this the future of fast food?

Miso Robotics' lab in downtown Pasadena, California, is filled with robots of the past and present.

There's Sippy, Chippy and Drippy. The star of the lab: an updated robot named Flippy that can fry French fries and chicken nuggets much faster than humans.

Miso Robotics has a lot riding on its ability to convince fast-food chains to incorporate...Read more

William Wise/Dreamstime/TNS

Virginia's bat population is shrinking. Here's why it matters

Bats are one of Halloween’s most famous symbols, but their real job is an important part of ecosystems and agriculture.

One William & Mary professor hopes the public can learn to appreciate the flying mammals year-round.

“Here in the US, there’s 47 species, and relatively speaking they’re all small, and they’re often hidden at night,...Read more

Annabelle Chih/Getty Images North America/TNS

AI's $1.3 trillion future increasingly hinges on Taiwan

When Jung Yoonseok was looking for an assembly partner for his AI chip startup, he had his pick of almost any country in Asia, including his native South Korea. Instead, the Rebellions strategy chief opted for Taiwan because of what he sees as an unparalleled combination of talent, cost and speed.

“Taiwan is small, and Taipei is small, and in...Read more

Dropbox lays off 20% of staff, cutting more than 500 jobs

Dropbox is laying off 20% of its workforce, eliminating a total of 528 jobs, the software company said Wednesday.

In a memo to staff, CEO Drew Houston told employees the company is in a “transitional period” as they work to “build our next phase of growth.”

“While I’m proud of the progress we’ve made in the last couple years, in ...Read more

Kevin Clark/The Seattle Times/TNS

AWS CEO Matt Garman seeks little change, pushes for return to office

The new head of Amazon’s cloud-computing division Matt Garman hopes to keep a lot of things at the company the same.

“The business is doing well…There’s not a desire to massively change anything,” Garman said in an interview with The Seattle Times last week, five months after he took the reins at Amazon Web Services, one of the tech ...Read more

Courtesy Space Launch Delta 45/TNS/TNS

SpaceX sets its own record with company's 69th Space Coast launch of the year

ORLANDO, Fla. — SpaceX may have contributed to an overall Space Coast record with its previous launch last weekend, but a Starlink mission from Cape Canaveral on Wednesday marked the most launches Elon Musk’s company has ever sent up from Florida in one year.

A Falcon 9 with 23 Starlink satellites lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force ...Read more

Courtesy Miso Robotics/TNS/TNS

Robots can make your fries, salads and guacamole. Is this the future of fast food?

Miso Robotics' lab in downtown Pasadena, California, is filled with robots of the past and present.

There's Sippy, Chippy and Drippy. The star of the lab: an updated robot named Flippy that can fry French fries and chicken nuggets much faster than humans.

Miso Robotics has a lot riding on its ability to convince fast-food chains to incorporate...Read more

Courtesy Space Launch Delta 45/TNS/TNS

SpaceX aims for its own record with company's 69th Space Coast launch of the year

ORLANDO, Fla. — SpaceX may have contributed to an overall Space Coast record with its last launch over the last weekend, but a Starlink mission from Cape Canaveral tonight will be the most launches Elon Musk’s company has ever sent up from Florida in one year.

A Falcon 9 with 23 Starlink satellites is aiming for liftoff from Cape Canaveral ...Read more

Another problem with daylight saving time: The time change raises your risk of hitting deer on the road

Daylight saving time ends in the U.S. and Canada on Nov. 3, 2024, and most of us will set our clocks back an hour. There is a long-running debate about the benefit of the time change, given how it disrupts humans’ circadian rhythms, causing short-term stress and fatigue.

Another risk accompanying the time change is on the roads: As ...Read more

Time to freak out? How the existential terror of hurricanes can fuel climate change denial

As TVs across Florida broadcast the all-too-familiar images of a powerful hurricane headed for the coast in early October 2024, people whose homes had been damaged less than two weeks earlier by Hurricane Helene watched anxiously. Hurricane Milton was rapidly intensifying into a dangerous storm, fueled by the Gulf of Mexico’s record-...Read more