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NASA tests new ‘quiet' supersonic plane capable of London-New York flight in under four hours

NASA tests new ‘quiet' supersonic plane capable of London-New York flight in under four hours

Independent22-07-2025
NASA has begun testing a new supersonic aircraft, almost 22 years after Concorde flew its last passenger service.
The 'quiet' X-59 research aircraft – 99.7 feet long, with a wingspan of 29.7 feet – is designed to fly faster than the speed of sound, without generating loud sonic booms.
On 10 July, NASA test pilot Nils Larson performed the X-59's first low-speed taxi test at US Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California.
During the taxi test, flight crews monitored steering and braking systems as the aircraft manoeuvred the runway.
According to NASA: 'Over the coming weeks, the aircraft will gradually increase its speed, leading up to a high-speed taxi test that will take the aircraft just short of the point where it would take off.'
The X-59 is part of NASA's Quesst mission to complete a quiet supersonic flight with a 'thump' rather than a sonic boom.
The space administration says that the aircraft is expected to fly at 1.4 times the speed of sound, or 925mph, with the potential to connect New York and London in three and a half hours.
NASA said that data gathered from the X-59 test flights will be used to inform 'acceptable noise thresholds' for commercial supersonic flights over land.
On 27 April 1973, the US federal government banned all civilian supersonic flights over land to prevent the resulting sonic booms from startling the public.
NASA's Quesst mission integration manager Peter Coen previously said: 'Instead of a rule based solely on speed, we are proposing the rule be based on sound. If the sound of a supersonic flight isn't loud enough to bother anyone below, there's no reason why the airplane can't be flying supersonic.'
Concorde, the last supersonic passenger service, was operated by British Airways from New York's JFK Airport to London's Heathrow Airport on 24 October 2003.
The supersonic aircraft suffered a catastrophic crash in Paris on 25 July 2000, which, along with high operating costs and declining passenger numbers, caused the aircraft to be retired.
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Shocking video captures 'Bigfoot' sprinting through the woods in broad daylight
Shocking video captures 'Bigfoot' sprinting through the woods in broad daylight

Daily Mail​

time21 minutes ago

  • Daily Mail​

Shocking video captures 'Bigfoot' sprinting through the woods in broad daylight

A man walking his dogs through the snow-covered Sierra Nevada Mountains captured footage of a mysterious figure sprinting in the distance, sparking renewed debate over the existence of Bigfoot. The Rocky Mountain Sasquatch Organization (RMSO) received the video from a man identified only as Bill, who said the sighting took place this past May in Coyote Ridge, California. Bill had been recording his dogs playing in the snow when he noticed something moving on the left side of the frame. 'The subject moves very smoothly, none or very little up and down,' Bill shared with the Sasquatch research team. 'At first, I didn't think it was even moving its arms. However, after enlarging the section by 400 percent with the creature in it, I can see that it does move its arms.' He also noted that one frame appeared to show a side profile of the figure, revealing what he described as a dome-shaped head. However, some viewers were skeptical, saying the figure was too far away to be identified clearly and was likely a person hiding among the trees. WATCH: Coyote Ridge Sasquatch Caught on Camera in Eastern Sierras The video has since circulated online, reigniting interest among believers and skeptics alike. While some dismiss the footage as inconclusive, others view it as compelling evidence of the legendary creature said to roam the wilderness of North America. The Sierra Nevada Mountains is a hotspot for Bigfoot sightings with some researchers, like Ron Morehead, claiming to have collected audio recordings they believe capture Bigfoot vocalizations. The vocals, according to these Sasquatch researchers, are a mix of human-like sounds and unique, unidentifiable noises. The Sierra Nevada range, which stretches along eastern California and into Nevada, has had sporadic Bigfoot reports over the decades, particularly in remote forested areas like Yosemite National Park, Tahoe National Forest and Eldorado and Stanislaus National Forests. Bill's two dogs were playing near the tree line when they began to bark as if noticing something, or someone, moving in the forest. However, it was not until Bill replayed the footage that he noticed what his dogs may have seen, Coast to Coast reported. An enhanced version of the video, shown above, offers a clearer view of the mysterious figure, which appears entirely dark in color and features an unusually shaped head. The most famous and still-debated piece of Bigfoot 'evidence' came in 1967, when Bob Gimlin and Roger Patterson filmed a now-iconic clip of a large, furry figure striding through the woods at Bluff Creek (pictured) 'One noteworthy aspect of the incident is that, beyond looking in the direction of the suspected Bigfoot, the dog does not bark at the interloper or offer any other kind of response before casually strolling away from the spot where it noticed the creature, the research team shared. The RMSO also pointed to the figure's unusual movement as a potential indicator of something non-human. 'This Bigfoot creature, if you will, moved very fast when it didn't have much cover,' the group stated. 'Then, once it reached cover, it seemed to hunker down to hide and observe those in its surroundings.' Stories of large, hairy, human-like beings date back centuries in Indigenous cultures across North America, where the creature was known as 'Sasquatch,' meaning 'wild man.' The first widely publicized modern report of Bigfoot came in 1958, when Humboldt Times journalist Andrew Genzoli published a letter from a reader describing massive, mysterious footprints found near a logging site in Bluff Creek, California. The letter sparked widespread public interest. Follow-up stories, some playfully referring to the creature as 'Bigfoot,' helped launch the legend into the mainstream. The most famous, and still hotly debated, piece of alleged Bigfoot evidence emerged in 1967, when Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin captured a now-iconic video of a large, furry figure striding through the woods at Bluff Creek, California. Known as the Patterson-Gimlin film, the footage was shot during the pair's expedition to find the elusive creature. Both men were on horseback when they rounded a bend and reportedly saw a towering, ape-like figure walking along a riverbed. Startled, Patterson's horse reared up. He quickly dismounted, grabbed his camera, and scrambled to film the figure, waving the camera with one hand while trying to keep the subject in frame. The shot steadied just long enough to capture the moment the creature turned and looked over its right shoulder before vanishing into the trees. Years later, Bob Heironimus, a retired Pepsi bottler from Yakima, Washington, claimed he was the person in the costume used to fake the footage. However, Gimlin, who is still alive, has consistently denied that claim, maintaining that what he and Patterson saw that day was not a man in a suit, but Bigfoot.

Ivar Giaever obituary: modest Nobel-winning physicist
Ivar Giaever obituary: modest Nobel-winning physicist

Times

time23 minutes ago

  • Times

Ivar Giaever obituary: modest Nobel-winning physicist

As a Nobel prizewinner, Ivar Giaever was surely within his rights to call his autobiography I am the Smartest Man I Know. But the title was firmly tongue-in-cheek, he insisted, despite his achievements. For a start, he asserted, he was far from the brightest spark at the vast General Electric (GE) research and development facility in New York where he tinkered with superconductors. 'There were several hundred scientists at the laboratory all with a better education than I had had and maybe half of them were smarter than me,' he wrote. He believed that a Nobel could indicate good fortune rather than exceptional intellect. 'Some winners are smart,' he once told a reporter, 'some are average and a few are actually dumb.' It was true that higher education was a low point for Giaever. While studying mechanical engineering at the Norwegian Institute of Technology in Trondheim his main focus was playing bridge, chess and billiards. Though the university champion in the latter, he did not win trophies for his academic performance. Giaever asked his physics professor about his examination results and was told: 'Your answers are among the worst that have ever been handed in!' As luck would have it, this dismal effort helped Giaever to secure a job at a renowned GE industrial laboratory near Albany, the New York state capital. Eyeing his grades, the personnel director exclaimed: 'I see you have 4.0 in both physics and mathematics, you must have been a very good student!' Giaever wisely neglected to mention that the grading system in Norway worked in the opposite direction to the US, meaning that 4.0 was the lowest pass mark rather than the top grade it signalled in American schools. Setting aside his educational record and self-deprecation, Giaever was, of course, very smart. He excelled during a corporate training programme and when he was hired in 1958 he became, according to his family, the only scientific researcher at the laboratory without a PhD. Giaever began experimenting with superconductors — materials that can conduct electricity without energy loss — and in 1960 performed a breakthrough quantum mechanics experiment on a phenomenon known as the tunnel effect. In the late Fifties a Japanese physicist working for the Sony Corporation, Leo Esaki, had demonstrated electron tunnelling in semiconductors. He showed that the particles had wave-like properties that, in the right conditions, allowed them to 'tunnel' through ordinarily impenetrable barriers. Using metal strips separated by a thin oxide layer, Giaever proved this also occurred in superconductors. Such insights were valuable to theoretical physicists and to makers of modern electronic equipment that uses diodes, transistors and lasers. Giaever's experiment supported what is known as the BCS theory. The authors of that 1957 theory on superconductor behaviour were awarded the Nobel prize for physics in 1972; Giaever secured the honour a year later, aged 44, crediting his success to advice from colleagues as he shared the prize with Esaki and Brian Josephson, a Welsh theoretical physicist whose work while a graduate student at Cambridge University built on Giaever's achievements. Ivar Giaever was born in Bergen in 1929 to John, a pharmacist, and Gudrun (née Skaarud), who helped in the pharmacy and took care of the family. Neither went to high school. He grew up on a farm, which proved useful during wartime food shortages, and enjoyed skiing and taking machinery apart to see how it worked. Schools closed each autumn so that children could spend three weeks in the fields harvesting potatoes. Aged 14 he met a local girl, Inger Skramstad, who became an au pair in England and a ski instructor and community volunteer in the United States; they married in 1952. Before entering the Institute of Technology Giaever had a year of work experience at an ammunition factory, experimenting during his lunch hour to automate the lathe he operated. It was dangerous work; several colleagues were missing thumbs and he narrowly escaped serious injury when he used a steel milling machine incorrectly and a tool snapped and recoiled forcefully, grazing his chin. After his degree and compulsory military service he took a job with the patent office in Oslo, assessing applications related to locks, hinges and knitting machines. Money was tight: on one occasion, Ivar and Inger accepted a dinner invitation but could not afford a babysitter, so he tied their infant son, John, to the bed and went out. With a baby and a housing crisis so severe there was an eight-year waiting list for an apartment, they decided to follow the example of a friend who had emigrated to the US and, Ivar recalled, bought 'a car as large as a tank'. With only $200 in their pockets the family moved to Toronto, where one of Inger's sisters lived, but at first life in Canada was no easier. Giaever used a knife to slit the front of his ill-fitting shoes to ease the rubbing pain as he trudged the city's streets looking for a job in the dead of winter. He tried the GE headquarters in Toronto. Directed by a secretary to walk down several corridors to the employment office, he took a wrong turn and found himself out on the street. Disheartened and wondering if he had been tricked, he was on the brink of leaving but went back and was guided to the correct entrance. Giaever was hired as an engineer, testing electrical equipment and improving his mathematics skills on a company training scheme. To enhance his salary and career prospects he emigrated to the US, continuing his training with GE and enrolling at the nearby Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) for a master's degree in physics before finishing a doctorate there in 1964, the year he became an American citizen. He was invited to a meeting of scientists in Moscow, which led to him being interviewed by the FBI, and to a conference in Brighton, where the main inconvenience was the stones on the beach. Bringing their hulking Chevrolet station wagon across the Pond in 1968, the family spent a sabbatical year in England. Giaever studied biophysics on a Guggenheim fellowship at Clare Hall, Cambridge, and observed that even a meeting about his overdraft with his bank manager started with a glass of sherry. Formalities were not the only culture shock. 'Americans take great pride in working hard while the English are more concerned with appearing very smart,' he wrote. 'In Cambridge people did not seem to care about what was correct or not; the point was to win the argument.' Applying the techniques and principles of physics to biology was a growing passion and on his return to the US he began experiments with the goal of detecting hepatitis antibodies. Though his GE bosses had scant interest in biology the prestige of his Nobel victory gave him free rein to pursue whatever interested him. When news of the triumph emerged the company sent a limousine to whisk him to work and rolled out a red carpet at the laboratory entrance. Giaever worked in the laboratory of the celebrated polio vaccine developer Jonas Salk at the Salk Institute in San Diego. He left GE in 1988 for a professorship at the RPI, had a spell as a professor at the University of Oslo and co-founded a biophysics company centred on cell research and drug discoveries. Careful with money given his earlier struggles, he habitually lunched on cups of spicy noodles bought from Walmart for 28 cents apiece. Leisure time was spent playing board games, windsurfing and skiing into his mid-eighties. Inger died in 2023; he is survived by their son, John, a retired engineer, and three daughters, Anne, a teacher, Guri, an associate professor in pharmaceutical sciences, and Trine, an artist. Giaever and his wife lived in the same house for 60 years but travelled the world. Aged 80, he took a teaching position in Seoul and made the national news on a trip to South Korea when he told a journalist that the nation lacked Nobel laureates because fervent debates can inspire progress and Koreans are too polite to argue with authority figures. Unafraid to speak his mind, Giaever possessed an irreverent wit honed from dedicated viewing of the sitcom, Seinfeld. He was a sought-after speaker and frequent guest expert on an American public radio science programme. A natural sceptic — aged six he declared the Easter bunny to be a fiction, a stance that cost him sweets — he was a prominent self-described climate change denier and resigned from the American Physical Society in 2011 because it described the evidence for global warming as 'incontrovertible'. He wrote: 'In my view, nothing in science is incontrovertible.' Asked how it felt to win the Nobel, he liked to reply: 'I suddenly became the most famous person I knew.' Reflecting on a career that brought him several other prestigious prizes and more than 30 patents, he mused about how different it all would have been had he given up and gone home after walking the wrong way in the GE office in Toronto: a 50-50 decision that transformed his future. 'Life is not fair,' he wrote in his 2016 book, 'and I, for one, am happy about that.' Ivar Giaever, Nobel prize-winning physicist, was born on April 5, 1929. He died after a period of declining health on June 20, 2025, aged 96

Radioactive wasp nest found at site where US once made nuclear bombs
Radioactive wasp nest found at site where US once made nuclear bombs

The Independent

time2 hours ago

  • The Independent

Radioactive wasp nest found at site where US once made nuclear bombs

Workers at a site in South Carolina that once made key parts for nuclear bombs in the U.S. have found a radioactive wasp nest but officials said there is no danger to anyone. Employees who routinely check radiation levels at the Savannah River Site near Aiken found a wasp nest on July 3 on a post near tanks where liquid nuclear waste is stored, according to a report from the U.S. Department of Energy. The nest had a radiation level 10 times what is allowed by federal regulations, officials said. The workers sprayed the nest with insect killer, removed it and disposed of it as radioactive waste. No wasps were found, officials said. The report said there is no leak from the waste tanks, and the nest was likely radioactive through what it called 'onsite legacy radioactive contamination' from the residual radioactivity left from when the site was fully operational. The watchdog group Savannah River Site Watch said the report was at best incomplete since it doesn't detail where the contamination came from, how the wasps might have encountered it and the possibility there could be another radioactive nest if there is a leak somewhere. Knowing the type of wasp nest could also be critical — some wasps make nest out of dirt and others use different material which could pinpoint where the contamination came from, Tom Clements, executive director of the group, wrote in a text message. 'I'm as mad as a hornet that SRS didn't explain where the radioactive waste came from or if there is some kind of leak from the waste tanks that the public should be aware of,' Clements said. The tank farm is well inside the boundaries of the site and wasps generally fly just a few hundred yards from their nests, so there is no danger they are outside the facility, according to a statement from Savannah River Mission Completion which now oversees the site. If there had been wasps found, they would have significantly lower levels of radiation than their nests, according to the statement which was given to the Aiken Standard. The site was opened in the early 1950s to manufacture the plutonium pits needed to make the core of nuclear bombs during the start of the Cold War with the Soviet Union. Now the site has shifted toward making fuel for nuclear plants and clean up. The site generated more than 165 million gallons (625 million liters) of liquid nuclear waste which has, through evaporation, been reduced to about 34 million gallons (129 million liters), according to Savannah River Mission Completion. There are still 43 of the underground tanks in use while eight have been closed.

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