Glasgow pupil, 12, who invented solar-powered backpack for the homeless makes Time magazine's Girls of the Year list
Rebecca Young was just 11 when she came up with the idea after becoming concerned about people sleeping on the streets during a freezing Scottish winter.
Now 12, she has been named alongside nine other girls from around the world all recognised as being young leaders inspiring communities, as part of a list aimed at celebrating and empowering girls.
The Kelvinside Academy pupil said it was "cool and very unexpected", adding: "I'm honoured by the fact they wanted to include me on their Girls of the Year list and hope other kids see it and decide to do their part in helping people."
Rebecca, who won a UK engineering award earlier this year for her design, has already seen 30 of the blankets being manufactured and distributed to a homeless shelter in , with plans to make more.
The youngster and eight of the other girls are featured as part of a limited-edition animated Time cover - reimagined as Lego minifigures, with each character aimed at capturing the spirit of their achievements.
A-level results day live:
The collaboration followed a recent study by the Lego group of more than 32,000 parents and children across 21 countries which found 70% of young women struggle to see themselves as someone who is good at building things.
It also found that children were twice as likely to credit major inventions to men - with most believing that wifi (69%) and the Moon landing software (68%) were invented by men, despite being pioneered by women.
Time chief executive Jessica Sibley said the list features girls aged between 12 and 17 who are "shaping their communities with courage and purpose".
Julia Goldin, Lego group chief product and marketing officer, said: "When girls don't see it, they don't believe it - the world risks missing out on the next big breakthrough. There's no stopping what girls can build.
"Together with Time we hope these stories will inspire a future generation of unstoppable female builders to dream big and continue making their mark on the world."
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Engadget
14 hours ago
- Engadget
Why on Earth would NASA build a nuclear reactor on the Moon?
" Duffy to announce nuclear reactor on the moon " is not a headline I imagined reading before last week. Sure, as a sci-fi loving nerd, I could see a future where nuclear power played a role in permanent Moon settlements. But the idea of NASA building a 100 kilowatt microreactor there in the next five years seemed ridiculous. Not so, according to scientists. "I have no idea why this is getting so much play," Professor Bhavya Lal tells me over the phone, with a hint of exasperation in her voice. Lal's response makes sense once you understand the arc of her career; she has spent much of her professional life thinking about how the US should use nuclear power to explore space. At NASA, she served as the acting chief technologist, and was awarded the agency's Distinguished Service Medal. Among her other qualifications, she also testified before Congress on the subject of nuclear propulsion, and even helped rewrite the rules governing launches involving radioactive materials. Most recently, she wrote a paper titled Weighing the Future: Strategic Options for US Space Nuclear Leadership where she and her co-author, Dr. Roger Myers, examine the past failures of US policy as it relates to nuclear power in space and argue the country should test a small nuclear system on the Moon by 2030. The way Casey Dreier, chief of space policy at The Planetary Society — a nonprofit that advocates for the exploration and study of space — tells it, many aspects of Secretary Duffy's plan are "pretty much straight out" of that report. Lal is more modest and describes the directive Duffy issued as "accelerating ongoing work" at NASA. According to her, the agency has been "funding [space] fission power for years," adding that the only new thing here is that there's a date. "We've done this for more than 60 years," she tells me, and if NASA ends up delivering on Duffy's plan, it wouldn't even be the first nuclear reactor the US has sent into space. That distinction goes to SNAP-10A in 1965. The reason the US has spent decades exploring space-capable nuclear reactors is simple. "You can get massive amounts of power from very little mass," explains Nick Touran, reactor physicist, nuclear advocate and the founder of What is Nuclear . And for launches to space, keeping payload amounts low is critical. Just how much power are we talking about? "When fully fissioned, a softball-sized chunk of Uranium-235 offers as much energy as a freight train full of coal," says Dr. Lal. Combined with the limitations of solar power, particularly the farther a spacecraft travels away from the sun, nuclear is a game changer. An artist concept of a fission power system on the lunar surface (NASA) Dr. Lal points to the New Horizons probe as an example. In 2015, the spacecraft flew past Pluto, in the process capturing stunning photos of the dwarf planet . If you followed the mission closely, you may remember New Horizons didn't make a stop at Pluto. The reason for that is it didn't have enough power to enter orbit. "We had about 200 watts on New Horizons. That's basically two light bulbs worth of power," said Dr. Lal. It subsequently took New Horizons 16 months to send all of the 50-plus gigabytes of data it captured back to Earth. Had the probe had a 20-kilowatt microreactor, Dr. Lal says it could have streamed that data in real-time, on top of entering orbit and operating all of its instruments continuously. When it comes to the Moon, nuclear would be transformational. On our only natural satellite, nights last 14 Earth days, and there are craters that never see any sunlight. Solar energy could power a permanent NASA outpost on the Moon, but not without a "huge" number of batteries to bridge the two-week gap in power generation, and those batteries would need to be ferried from Earth. "At some point, we will want to do industrial-scale work on the Moon. Even if we want to do 3D printing, it requires hundreds of kilowatts of power – if not more," said Dr. Lal. "If you're going to do any kind of commercial activity on the Moon, we need more than solar can provide." On Mars, meanwhile, nuclear power would be absolutely essential. The Red Planet is home to dust storms that can last weeks or months, and cover entire continents. In those conditions, solar power is unreliable. In fact, when NASA finally ended Opportunity's nearly 15-year mission on Mars, it was a planet-wide dust storm that left the rover inoperable. As such, if the US wants to establish a permanent presence on Mars, Dr. Lal argues it would make the most sense to perfect the necessary reactor technology on the Moon. "We don't want our first-ever nuclear reactor operating on Mars. We want to try it out on the Moon first. And that is what I think NASA is trying to do." Of course, there are many technical hurdles NASA will need to overcome before any of this is anywhere close to reality. Surprisingly, the most straightforward problem might be finding a 100-kilowatt microreactor. Right now, there's no company in the US producing microreactors. Atomics International and North American Aviation, the companies that built SNAP-10A, went defunct decades ago. NASA and NNSA engineers lower the wall of the vacuum chamber around KRUSTY system. (Los Alamos National Laboratory) "There are many that are in development, but almost none that are even in the prototype stage," said Touran. As he explains, that's an important detail; most nuclear reactors don't work at all when they're first turned on. "It takes a few iterations to get a reactor up to a level where it's operable, reliable and cost effective," he said. The good news is Touran believes there's more than enough time for either NASA or a private company to build a working reactor for the project. "I think we're in a great spot to take a good swing at this by 2030," said Touran. In 2018, NASA and the Department of Energy demoed KRUSTY , a lightweight, 10-kilowatt fission system. "That was one of the only newish reactors we've turned on in many decades, and it was done on a shoestring budget," he said. In the end, deploying a reactor on the Moon may prove more difficult than building one. Based on some rough math done by Dr. Myers, a 100-kilowatt reactor would weigh between 10 to 15 metric tons, meaning no current commercial rocket could carry it to space. NASA will also need to find a way to fit the reactor's radiator inside a rocket. Unfolded, the component will be about the size of a basketball court. According to Dr. Lal, the 2030 timeline for the project is likely based on the assumption Starship will be ready to fly by then. But Elon Musk's super heavy-lift rocket has had a bad 2025. Of the three test flights SpaceX has attempted this year, two ended in the spacecraft exploding. One of those saw Starship go up in flames during what should have been a routine ground test . SpaceX's Starship as seen during its eighth test flight (Reuters) If Starship isn't ready by 2030, NASA could conceivably fly the reactor separately from all the other components needed to make a functioning power system, but according to Lal, "that comes with its own set of challenges." Primarily, the agency doesn't have a great way of assembling such a complex system autonomously. In any case, Starship is at least a tangible work in progress. The same can't be said for the lander that would be needed to bring the reactor to the surface of the Moon. In 2021, NASA contracted SpaceX to build a lander for the Artemis missions, but the latest update the two shared on the spacecraft was a pair of 3D renderings. Similarly, Blue Origin's Blue Moon lander has yet to fly, despite promises it could make its first trip to the Moon as early as this spring or summer. Another question mark hangs over the entire project. As of the end of July, NASA is on track to lose approximately 4,000 employees who have agreed to leave the agency through either early retirement, a voluntary separation or a deferred resignation — all as part of the Trump administration's broader efforts to trim the number of workers across the entire federal government. All told, NASA is on track to lose about a fifth of its workforce, and morale at the agency is at an all-time low . Even with the Department of Energy and private industry providing support, there's good reason to believe the reductions will affect NASA's ability to deliver the project on time. "The contradiction inherent in this proposal is that the White House is directing NASA to do the two most ambitious and difficult projects any space program can do, which is to send humans to the Moon and Mars, but to do so with a resource level and workforce equivalent to what the agency had before the first humans went to space in 1961," said Dreier. A NASA spokesperson declined to share specifics on the reductions — including the number of employees set to leave the Glenn Research Center , the facility that built the KRUSTY reactor, and where much of the agency's nuclear engineering talent is concentrated. "As more official information becomes available, we anticipate answering more of your questions," the spokesperson said. "I wish there was some inventory of the 4,000 people who left. What gaps are left? We have no idea if the departures were systematic," said Dr. Lal. "NASA has not been open or transparent about what types of employees have taken the deferred resignation program, where those skills are and where they're departing from," Drier added. "Nuclear engineering is not a common field for most people. [The reductions] certainly can't help." Still, both Lal and Touran believe the involvement of the Department of Energy is likely to swing things in NASA's favor. In a statement NASA shared with Engadget, Secretary Duffy downplayed the workforce concerns. 'NASA remains committed to our mission, even as we work within a more prioritized budget and changes with our workforce. NASA retains a strong bench of talent. I am confident that our exceptional team remains capable of executing upon my directives safely and in a timely manner and will continue to carry our work forward," he said. "We will continue to ensure America continues to lead in space exploration, advancing progress on key goals including returning Americans to the Moon and planting the Stars and Stripes on Mars, as we usher in the Golden Age of American innovation.' In their report, Lal and Myers estimate it would cost about $800 million annually for five years to build and deploy a nuclear reactor on the Moon. Even if DoE support can prevent NASA's staffing cuts from kneecapping the project, its feasibility will hinge on if the Trump administration ponies up the cash to execute on its own bold claims. Have a tip for Igor? You can reach him by email , on Bluesky or send a message to @Kodachrome.72 to chat confidentially on Signal.
Yahoo
16 hours ago
- Yahoo
Autonomous robots rappel into lunar caves to test exploration techniques
Future missions to Mars and the moon may involve exploring underground lava tubes. These natural caves could hide signs of life and offer shelter for human settlements. Scientists have now tested whether autonomous robots can handle the task in a real-world setting. The trials took place inside a lava cave on Lanzarote, a volcanic island in Spain's Canary Islands. The location was chosen because it closely resembles the underground structures found on Mars and the moon. Underground shelters in space Lava tubes form when flowing lava solidifies on the surface while molten rock continues moving below. Once the flow stops, long hollow tunnels remain. These structures exist on Earth and have been detected on Mars and the moon. Researchers believe they could protect astronauts from harsh conditions, including extreme temperatures, radiation, and meteorite strikes. They might even host microbial life. Human exploration of these caves is dangerous and costly. Robots offer a safer, cheaper way forward. "A heterogeneous cooperative robot team is a promising approach to address the access and exploration of extraterrestrial lava caves," wrote the researchers in Science Robotics. Robots in the cave The field trials lasted 21 days and unfolded in four stages. First, two rovers scanned and mapped the terrain around the cave entrance. They then used one rover to launch a sensor-packed cube into the opening. This payload created a detailed 3D model of the entrance area. The toughest phase involved both robots working in sync. The smaller rover attached itself to the larger one for a rappel down the cave wall. Once inside, it detached and drove deeper into the tunnel. It managed to travel 235 meters while building a 3D map of the route. These experiments showed that robots could carry out coordinated missions in complex underground spaces. They also proved that 3D mapping is possible in dark, enclosed environments. Hurdles before space missions The Lanzarote tests highlighted technical challenges. Moisture in the cave reduced the accuracy of the ground-penetrating radar. Some mapping sensors experienced interference, and the lack of ground-truth data limited verification. Autonomous navigation also remains a major hurdle. In a real Mars or moon mission, robots would need to operate without human guidance for extended periods. That requires more advanced algorithms and reliable communication between units. Despite the obstacles, the research points toward a future where robotic scouts prepare sites for human bases beyond Earth. Such missions could identify the safest and most suitable locations for long-term stays. The same technology could also support the search for life. If microbial life exists in protected underground environments, these robots could help find it. The findings move scientists closer to answering one of humanity's oldest questions, whether we are alone in the solar system. The study is published in the journal Science Robotics. Solve the daily Crossword
Forbes
21 hours ago
- Forbes
Don't Miss Saturday's Sky Show As The Moon Joins The ‘Planet Parade'
The moon will this Saturday, Aug. 17, join a 'planet parade' building in the morning sky. As it does so, it will brush past the Pleiades, a sparkling open cluster of stars that's best known for dominating the winter night sky. Best seen about an hour before sunrise, bright planets Venus and Jupiter will continue to dominate in the east while Saturn brightens in the south. Rising below Venus and Jupiter will be Mercury, though Uranus and Neptune — despite also being in the sky — are not visible to the naked eye. A spectacular 'planet parade' (also called an alignment) featuring six planets is visible during August 2025. getty This "planet parade" is taking place in the morning sky, so you'll need to get up early to see it. The best time to look is between about two hours and an hour before sunrise, though if you observe until about 45 minutes before sunrise, you may see tiny Mercury join the parade. About an hour before sunrise on Saturday, Aug. 16, Venus and Jupiter will be very bright in the eastern sky. They will shine at magnitudes -3.9 and -1.8, respectively, and will appear to be about four degrees from each other. Saturn will shine in the southern sky at magnitude 0.8. Mercury will appear below 10 degrees altitude in the east, according to NASA, so observe from a location with an unobstructed eastern horizon. Note that the exact rise times of planets depend on your location. The moon, now half-lit as it reaches its last quarter phase, will shine in the east-southeast about three degrees from the Pleaides, also known as M45 and the 'Seven Sisters' stars. The next big highlight of the 'planet parade' will come on Wednesday, Aug. 20, when a slender crescent moon will shine very close to a brilliant Venus. The planets an hour before sunrise on Saturday, Aug. 16, 2025, during the "planet parade." Stellarium This planet parade follows one in the evening sky in February, when five planets were visible together. Strictly speaking, they do not exist because they are entirely due to Earth's point of view of the rest of the solar system as it orbits the sun. Although all the planets orbit the sun on the same plane, they do so at vastly different distances and, therefore, apparent speeds as seen from Earth. For example, Venus and Jupiter appear very close to each other, but while Jupiter is four times farther away than Venus. Planet Parades always occur just before sunrise or sunset because Mercury — which is very close to the sun, relatively speaking — is usually lost in the sun's glare. When it is visible, it's not far from it. Either way, nothing is ever 'aligned'—that's an error. The planet parade really gets going this weekend as the moon joins the fray. On Monday, Aug. 18, a 26% crescent moon will be seen near Venus and Jupiter. On Tuesday, Aug. 19, Mercury will be at its highest in the morning sky as a 16%-lit crescent moon forms a curve with Venus and Jupiter. On Wednesday, Aug. 20, a 9%-lit crescent moon will be close to Venus, with Mercury below and Jupiter above. On Thursday, Aug. 21, a 4%-lit waning crescent moon will be beneath Jupiter and Venus, close to Mercury. The following planet parade will occur in October 2028, when five planets will be visible together, again before sunrise. Further Reading Forbes A 'Planet Parade,' A 'Black Moon' And A Meteor Shower: The Night Sky In August 2025 By Jamie Carter Forbes Why Friday May See The Perseid Meteor Shower At Its Best By Jamie Carter Forbes When To See The Fabulous Sky Show On Tuesday As 'Shooting Stars' Fall By Jamie Carter
