DoorDash said it has received a Part 135 air carrier certification from the FAA that enable it to delivery small packages via drone. Other companies to receive this designation include Alphabet’s Wing, Zipline, and Amazon.
Previously, DoorDash worked with Alphabet’s drone delivery division Wing on a number of pilots in places like Dallas-Fort Worth, Virginia, and Australia. Now the company says it will deploy its own drones, designed specifically for food delivery. The drones will be designed and assembled within the company’s DoorDash Labs division, which houses its robotics and AI teams responsible for building its Dot sidewalk delivery robots.
“We’re designing an aircraft purpose-built for the gaps we see in local commerce, and it complements the short- and long-range designs our partners are scaling,” the company said in a press release. “Our drone is also proudly American-designed and built, with the majority of components made right here in the U.S.” (To be sure, the vast majority of drones are manufactured in China.)
In addition, DoorDash says it will also build all the necessary ground-level infrastructure to enable restaurants to hand off their deliveries to drones. As seen with other drone delivery pilots, there is a complex system of structures and additional equipment that needs to be built on the ground to enable drones to pickup their payloads before embarking on their deliveries. And there are flight plans, airspace management, and drop-off logistics that needs to be established to track the drones in flight. DoorDash says its committed to building all that infrastructure itself.
“The aircraft is what everyone sees,” the company says. “The harder problem is the infrastructure and integration on the ground, and that’s our advantage. Solving hard physical-world problems for local businesses is our focus, from real-time inventory reconciliation to universal handoff systems for drive-throughs, rooftops, or merchant back doors. We are building that complete end-to-end system.”
DoorDash says drone delivery could solve the problem of midrange deliveries that still end up taking longer because couriers are hard to find. The company says more than 20 percent of its orders involve distances of three to five miles, but that those orders can take on average nearly 25 percent longer than shorter deliveries, largely because finding a courier takes longer for these mid-range trips.
“Routing mid-range deliveries to drones lets Dashers focus on the orders they often favor: shorter deliveries that can be done quickly, staying near a high concentration of merchants for optimal routing, and maximizing their earning potential by getting them to their next order faster,” the company says.
DoorDash didn’t reveal which markets it was targeting for its initial launch, noting that it would announce more details in the months to come.
DoorDash said it has received a Part 135 air carrier certification from the FAA that enable it to delivery small packages via drone. Other companies to receive this designation include Alphabet’s Wing, Zipline, and Amazon.
Previously, DoorDash worked with Alphabet’s drone delivery division Wing on a number of pilots in places like Dallas-Fort Worth, Virginia, and Australia. Now the company says it will deploy its own drones, designed specifically for food delivery. The drones will be designed and assembled within the company’s DoorDash Labs division, which houses its robotics and AI teams responsible for building its Dot sidewalk delivery robots.
“We’re designing an aircraft purpose-built for the gaps we see in local commerce, and it complements the short- and long-range designs our partners are scaling,” the company said in a press release. “Our drone is also proudly American-designed and built, with the majority of components made right here in the U.S.” (To be sure, the vast majority of drones are manufactured in China.)
In addition, DoorDash says it will also build all the necessary ground-level infrastructure to enable restaurants to hand off their deliveries to drones. As seen with other drone delivery pilots, there is a complex system of structures and additional equipment that needs to be built on the ground to enable drones to pickup their payloads before embarking on their deliveries. And there are flight plans, airspace management, and drop-off logistics that needs to be established to track the drones in flight. DoorDash says its committed to building all that infrastructure itself.
“The aircraft is what everyone sees,” the company says. “The harder problem is the infrastructure and integration on the ground, and that’s our advantage. Solving hard physical-world problems for local businesses is our focus, from real-time inventory reconciliation to universal handoff systems for drive-throughs, rooftops, or merchant back doors. We are building that complete end-to-end system.”
DoorDash says drone delivery could solve the problem of midrange deliveries that still end up taking longer because couriers are hard to find. The company says more than 20 percent of its orders involve distances of three to five miles, but that those orders can take on average nearly 25 percent longer than shorter deliveries, largely because finding a courier takes longer for these mid-range trips.
“Routing mid-range deliveries to drones lets Dashers focus on the orders they often favor: shorter deliveries that can be done quickly, staying near a high concentration of merchants for optimal routing, and maximizing their earning potential by getting them to their next order faster,” the company says.
DoorDash didn’t reveal which markets it was targeting for its initial launch, noting that it would announce more details in the months to come.
#DoorDash #airborne #drone #delivery #divisionDrones,Food,News,Science,Tech,Transportation">DoorDash is going airborne with new drone delivery division
DoorDash is launching a new drone delivery program called DoorDash Air. The largest food delivery app in the US said that it has approval from the Federal Aviation Administration that clears the way for drone delivery in the near future.
DoorDash said it has received a Part 135 air carrier certification from the FAA that enable it to delivery small packages via drone. Other companies to receive this designation include Alphabet’s Wing, Zipline, and Amazon.
Previously, DoorDash worked with Alphabet’s drone delivery division Wing on a number of pilots in places like Dallas-Fort Worth, Virginia, and Australia. Now the company says it will deploy its own drones, designed specifically for food delivery. The drones will be designed and assembled within the company’s DoorDash Labs division, which houses its robotics and AI teams responsible for building its Dot sidewalk delivery robots.
“We’re designing an aircraft purpose-built for the gaps we see in local commerce, and it complements the short- and long-range designs our partners are scaling,” the company said in a press release. “Our drone is also proudly American-designed and built, with the majority of components made right here in the U.S.” (To be sure, the vast majority of drones are manufactured in China.)
In addition, DoorDash says it will also build all the necessary ground-level infrastructure to enable restaurants to hand off their deliveries to drones. As seen with other drone delivery pilots, there is a complex system of structures and additional equipment that needs to be built on the ground to enable drones to pickup their payloads before embarking on their deliveries. And there are flight plans, airspace management, and drop-off logistics that needs to be established to track the drones in flight. DoorDash says its committed to building all that infrastructure itself.
“The aircraft is what everyone sees,” the company says. “The harder problem is the infrastructure and integration on the ground, and that’s our advantage. Solving hard physical-world problems for local businesses is our focus, from real-time inventory reconciliation to universal handoff systems for drive-throughs, rooftops, or merchant back doors. We are building that complete end-to-end system.”
DoorDash says drone delivery could solve the problem of midrange deliveries that still end up taking longer because couriers are hard to find. The company says more than 20 percent of its orders involve distances of three to five miles, but that those orders can take on average nearly 25 percent longer than shorter deliveries, largely because finding a courier takes longer for these mid-range trips.
“Routing mid-range deliveries to drones lets Dashers focus on the orders they often favor: shorter deliveries that can be done quickly, staying near a high concentration of merchants for optimal routing, and maximizing their earning potential by getting them to their next order faster,” the company says.
DoorDash didn’t reveal which markets it was targeting for its initial launch, noting that it would announce more details in the months to come.
Tang and Charlie Jacobsma, the Shedd’s director of animal behavior and training, accompanied beluga whales Acadia, Lillooet, Osiris, and Sierra on the journey from their Niagara Falls enclosures to Toronto’s Pearson Airport and to Chicago. Two additional belugas joined the flight on a chartered Boeing 777 freighter but were then transported to an aquarium in San Antonio.
The whales had been living in Marineland of Niagara Falls, a notorious, long-running aquarium and amusement park that went bankrupt after the death of its owners and closed to the public in 2024. As it ran out of money to care for the animals, the park had previously implored the Canadian government for assistance. In 2025, Marineland announced that it had made the “devastating decision” to consider euthanasia if it could not relocate the animals.
Workers at Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium use a sling to move a beluga whale.
Photograph: Reuters
At that point, the wider aquarium and marine biology world was already discussing what could be done; by January 2026, members of the rescue team were flying to Ontario to assess how they’d transport the belugas. In June, Canada reached an agreement with Marineland to allow this rehoming process, in which animals may go to a consortium of aquariums in Georgia, San Diego, and Spain, in addition to the whales already transferred to Chicago and Texas institutions. It was an unprecedented mission. “People have moved belugas before,” Tang says. “But something of this scale had not been done.”
It all went about as smoothly as moving thousand-plus-pound water-dwelling mammals hundreds of miles could have gone: “Beautiful, nice, slow takeoff and a nice easy landing,” Jacobsma tells WIRED. The team was able to stay close to the whales, constantly monitoring them and “pouring water on their backs, making sure that they were comfortable.”
A few days after the transport, on a sunny Friday afternoon, visitors to the Shedd’s Oceanarium section are greeted with signs asking for quiet. “Please keep voices low,” they read. “Help the rescued belugas acclimate to their new home.” WIRED peeked into a secluded habitat, which is under round-the-clock surveillance by veterinarians and other marine life experts, where Acadia, Lillooet, Osiris, and Sierra are currently being kept out of sight of the public so their new stewards can focus on settling them into their new home.
Tang and Charlie Jacobsma, the Shedd’s director of animal behavior and training, accompanied beluga whales Acadia, Lillooet, Osiris, and Sierra on the journey from their Niagara Falls enclosures to Toronto’s Pearson Airport and to Chicago. Two additional belugas joined the flight on a chartered Boeing 777 freighter but were then transported to an aquarium in San Antonio.
The whales had been living in Marineland of Niagara Falls, a notorious, long-running aquarium and amusement park that went bankrupt after the death of its owners and closed to the public in 2024. As it ran out of money to care for the animals, the park had previously implored the Canadian government for assistance. In 2025, Marineland announced that it had made the “devastating decision” to consider euthanasia if it could not relocate the animals.
Workers at Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium use a sling to move a beluga whale.
Photograph: Reuters
At that point, the wider aquarium and marine biology world was already discussing what could be done; by January 2026, members of the rescue team were flying to Ontario to assess how they’d transport the belugas. In June, Canada reached an agreement with Marineland to allow this rehoming process, in which animals may go to a consortium of aquariums in Georgia, San Diego, and Spain, in addition to the whales already transferred to Chicago and Texas institutions. It was an unprecedented mission. “People have moved belugas before,” Tang says. “But something of this scale had not been done.”
It all went about as smoothly as moving thousand-plus-pound water-dwelling mammals hundreds of miles could have gone: “Beautiful, nice, slow takeoff and a nice easy landing,” Jacobsma tells WIRED. The team was able to stay close to the whales, constantly monitoring them and “pouring water on their backs, making sure that they were comfortable.”
A few days after the transport, on a sunny Friday afternoon, visitors to the Shedd’s Oceanarium section are greeted with signs asking for quiet. “Please keep voices low,” they read. “Help the rescued belugas acclimate to their new home.” WIRED peeked into a secluded habitat, which is under round-the-clock surveillance by veterinarians and other marine life experts, where Acadia, Lillooet, Osiris, and Sierra are currently being kept out of sight of the public so their new stewards can focus on settling them into their new home.
#Wild #Rescue #Mission #Beluga #Whales #Chicagoanimal behavior,biology,animals,zoos,marine science,science,whales,chicago,canada">Inside the Wild Rescue Mission That Took 4 Beluga Whales to Chicago
One of the most crucial parts of pulling off an unprecedented international plane ride for four beluga whales is making sure they don’t even realize that they’re on a trip. “The goal is that they notice as little as possible,” says Karisa Tang, the lead veterinarian and vice president of animal health at Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium.
Tang and Charlie Jacobsma, the Shedd’s director of animal behavior and training, accompanied beluga whales Acadia, Lillooet, Osiris, and Sierra on the journey from their Niagara Falls enclosures to Toronto’s Pearson Airport and to Chicago. Two additional belugas joined the flight on a chartered Boeing 777 freighter but were then transported to an aquarium in San Antonio.
The whales had been living in Marineland of Niagara Falls, a notorious, long-running aquarium and amusement park that went bankrupt after the death of its owners and closed to the public in 2024. As it ran out of money to care for the animals, the park had previously implored the Canadian government for assistance. In 2025, Marineland announced that it had made the “devastating decision” to consider euthanasia if it could not relocate the animals.
Workers at Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium use a sling to move a beluga whale.
Photograph: Reuters
At that point, the wider aquarium and marine biology world was already discussing what could be done; by January 2026, members of the rescue team were flying to Ontario to assess how they’d transport the belugas. In June, Canada reached an agreement with Marineland to allow this rehoming process, in which animals may go to a consortium of aquariums in Georgia, San Diego, and Spain, in addition to the whales already transferred to Chicago and Texas institutions. It was an unprecedented mission. “People have moved belugas before,” Tang says. “But something of this scale had not been done.”
It all went about as smoothly as moving thousand-plus-pound water-dwelling mammals hundreds of miles could have gone: “Beautiful, nice, slow takeoff and a nice easy landing,” Jacobsma tells WIRED. The team was able to stay close to the whales, constantly monitoring them and “pouring water on their backs, making sure that they were comfortable.”
A few days after the transport, on a sunny Friday afternoon, visitors to the Shedd’s Oceanarium section are greeted with signs asking for quiet. “Please keep voices low,” they read. “Help the rescued belugas acclimate to their new home.” WIRED peeked into a secluded habitat, which is under round-the-clock surveillance by veterinarians and other marine life experts, where Acadia, Lillooet, Osiris, and Sierra are currently being kept out of sight of the public so their new stewards can focus on settling them into their new home.
A typical proposed rule from the OMB garners less than 100 public comments. This rule has netted over 500,000 comments, the large majority of which appear to be negative, including a response from respected nonprofit The Planetary Society, which has criticized everything from the proposal’s rules around publication to its move away from peer review to its chilling effect on scientists in every field.
“Nearly every proposed aspect of these rule changes has some deleterious or negative consequence for the practice of science,” Casey Dreier, chief of space policy at The Planetary Society, tells The Verge.
“There’s concrete harm, even if you’re not a scientist,” he points out. The biggest obstacle is the restrictions on the funding of open-access publication, which is the method through which space science papers are made freely available to the public.
“There’s concrete harm, even if you’re not a scientist.”
— Casey Dreier, chief of space policy at The Planetary Society
For more than a decade, NASA has prided itself on making public the data collected with NASA instruments, as well as the science papers that come from studying that data. The new changes reverse that trend, making science data more difficult for everyone to access. Forbidding the use of grant funding for open-access publication means it’ll be harder for the public to see the research that their tax money helped fund.
“There’s no really good argument for that, unless you’re trying to use it as a means of control over the scientists themselves,” Dreier says.
Then there’s the ability to terminate grants because of the associations or political leanings of the scientists themselves. Consider the data collected by the Mars rovers — precious data that cost billions of dollars and took decades of expertise to acquire — and a scientist, who doesn’t even work for NASA directly, who wants to study that data and has a novel idea for research that their fellow scientists think is worthwhile and important. Hypothetically, the new regulations would allow a partisan non-expert employed by the White House to nix that scientist’s funding because they posted an anti-Trump meme on X years ago.
It gets worse. “You don’t even have to be in violation of a rule” to have your funding cut, Dreier says. Grants can be revoked at any time, for any reason, if they are deemed against the interests of the president’s whims: “There’s a capriciousness that is enabled by these changes, and an opacity of the decision process.”
The problems with the regulations are not just ideological. They largely impose a bureaucratic burden: Is any scientist going to want to set up an international partnership, or attend a conference, or try to publish their data publicly and for free, when doing so requires time and paperwork applying for exemptions that may or may not be granted by a government body that has no expertise or interest in their work? Are they going to set up a potentially fruitful collaboration with other scientists in China, or Russia, or even Canada, when doing so introduces a risk to their own work, knowing their livelihood could be yanked away when the president decides he doesn’t like another nation tomorrow?
“There’s no really good argument for that, unless you’re trying to use it as a means of control over the scientists themselves.”
— Casey Dreier
This is a separate, though perhaps even more dangerous, attack on science than the proposed cuts to NASA funding that are affecting programs like the operation of the Mars rovers. Under the proposed OMB rules, the contracts through which NASA builds spacecraft and collects data would remain, but the grants for scientists to analyze that data would be under political threat.
“There’s a distinction between data collection and science,” Dreier says. Building amazing tools like the Mars rovers or the James Webb Space Telescope and using them to collect data is only the first step in making progress: “The science is what happens when you pay a scientist to sit down and look at the data, interpret it, model it, test it, and then present it and go through the process of arguing about it.”
“What are we collecting data for, if we’re not going to support the scientists to study it?”
Despite the significant public pushback against the move, including a Senate hearing with the director of the OMB, Russell Vought, in which Democratic senators described the effects of the rule as “absurdity” and “bias,” the OMB does not seem disposed to back down and withdraw its proposed rule. Instead, it will likely face a series of legal challenges, including from a group of 24 governors and attorneys general who argue that the rule is unconstitutional and a violation of the separation of powers.
What is at stake here is bigger than slashed funds or a temporary refocusing on Earthly concerns over space research. “This is not a budget cut,” Dreier points out. Budget cuts are easy to understand and easy to argue against. What is happening here is more pernicious: “This is a surgical, scalpel-like attack on the actual process of science that is buried under procedural rules and boring-sounding language.”
Update July 17th: The OMB proposal has received over 500,000 comments, not 50,000 as stated in a previous version of this story.
Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.
A typical proposed rule from the OMB garners less than 100 public comments. This rule has netted over 500,000 comments, the large majority of which appear to be negative, including a response from respected nonprofit The Planetary Society, which has criticized everything from the proposal’s rules around publication to its move away from peer review to its chilling effect on scientists in every field.
“Nearly every proposed aspect of these rule changes has some deleterious or negative consequence for the practice of science,” Casey Dreier, chief of space policy at The Planetary Society, tells The Verge.
“There’s concrete harm, even if you’re not a scientist,” he points out. The biggest obstacle is the restrictions on the funding of open-access publication, which is the method through which space science papers are made freely available to the public.
“There’s concrete harm, even if you’re not a scientist.”
— Casey Dreier, chief of space policy at The Planetary Society
For more than a decade, NASA has prided itself on making public the data collected with NASA instruments, as well as the science papers that come from studying that data. The new changes reverse that trend, making science data more difficult for everyone to access. Forbidding the use of grant funding for open-access publication means it’ll be harder for the public to see the research that their tax money helped fund.
“There’s no really good argument for that, unless you’re trying to use it as a means of control over the scientists themselves,” Dreier says.
Then there’s the ability to terminate grants because of the associations or political leanings of the scientists themselves. Consider the data collected by the Mars rovers — precious data that cost billions of dollars and took decades of expertise to acquire — and a scientist, who doesn’t even work for NASA directly, who wants to study that data and has a novel idea for research that their fellow scientists think is worthwhile and important. Hypothetically, the new regulations would allow a partisan non-expert employed by the White House to nix that scientist’s funding because they posted an anti-Trump meme on X years ago.
It gets worse. “You don’t even have to be in violation of a rule” to have your funding cut, Dreier says. Grants can be revoked at any time, for any reason, if they are deemed against the interests of the president’s whims: “There’s a capriciousness that is enabled by these changes, and an opacity of the decision process.”
The problems with the regulations are not just ideological. They largely impose a bureaucratic burden: Is any scientist going to want to set up an international partnership, or attend a conference, or try to publish their data publicly and for free, when doing so requires time and paperwork applying for exemptions that may or may not be granted by a government body that has no expertise or interest in their work? Are they going to set up a potentially fruitful collaboration with other scientists in China, or Russia, or even Canada, when doing so introduces a risk to their own work, knowing their livelihood could be yanked away when the president decides he doesn’t like another nation tomorrow?
“There’s no really good argument for that, unless you’re trying to use it as a means of control over the scientists themselves.”
— Casey Dreier
This is a separate, though perhaps even more dangerous, attack on science than the proposed cuts to NASA funding that are affecting programs like the operation of the Mars rovers. Under the proposed OMB rules, the contracts through which NASA builds spacecraft and collects data would remain, but the grants for scientists to analyze that data would be under political threat.
“There’s a distinction between data collection and science,” Dreier says. Building amazing tools like the Mars rovers or the James Webb Space Telescope and using them to collect data is only the first step in making progress: “The science is what happens when you pay a scientist to sit down and look at the data, interpret it, model it, test it, and then present it and go through the process of arguing about it.”
“What are we collecting data for, if we’re not going to support the scientists to study it?”
Despite the significant public pushback against the move, including a Senate hearing with the director of the OMB, Russell Vought, in which Democratic senators described the effects of the rule as “absurdity” and “bias,” the OMB does not seem disposed to back down and withdraw its proposed rule. Instead, it will likely face a series of legal challenges, including from a group of 24 governors and attorneys general who argue that the rule is unconstitutional and a violation of the separation of powers.
What is at stake here is bigger than slashed funds or a temporary refocusing on Earthly concerns over space research. “This is not a budget cut,” Dreier points out. Budget cuts are easy to understand and easy to argue against. What is happening here is more pernicious: “This is a surgical, scalpel-like attack on the actual process of science that is buried under procedural rules and boring-sounding language.”
Update July 17th: The OMB proposal has received over 500,000 comments, not 50,000 as stated in a previous version of this story.
Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.
Georgina Torbet
#war #woke #science #space #researchNews,Policy,Politics,Science,Space">The war on ‘woke science’ comes for space research
The Trump administration is waging a culture war on science, and the latest salvo is in the form of a dry, bureaucratic proposal from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) that could threaten the future of US science as we know it.
A typical proposed rule from the OMB garners less than 100 public comments. This rule has netted over 500,000 comments, the large majority of which appear to be negative, including a response from respected nonprofit The Planetary Society, which has criticized everything from the proposal’s rules around publication to its move away from peer review to its chilling effect on scientists in every field.
“Nearly every proposed aspect of these rule changes has some deleterious or negative consequence for the practice of science,” Casey Dreier, chief of space policy at The Planetary Society, tells The Verge.
“There’s concrete harm, even if you’re not a scientist,” he points out. The biggest obstacle is the restrictions on the funding of open-access publication, which is the method through which space science papers are made freely available to the public.
“There’s concrete harm, even if you’re not a scientist.”
— Casey Dreier, chief of space policy at The Planetary Society
For more than a decade, NASA has prided itself on making public the data collected with NASA instruments, as well as the science papers that come from studying that data. The new changes reverse that trend, making science data more difficult for everyone to access. Forbidding the use of grant funding for open-access publication means it’ll be harder for the public to see the research that their tax money helped fund.
“There’s no really good argument for that, unless you’re trying to use it as a means of control over the scientists themselves,” Dreier says.
Then there’s the ability to terminate grants because of the associations or political leanings of the scientists themselves. Consider the data collected by the Mars rovers — precious data that cost billions of dollars and took decades of expertise to acquire — and a scientist, who doesn’t even work for NASA directly, who wants to study that data and has a novel idea for research that their fellow scientists think is worthwhile and important. Hypothetically, the new regulations would allow a partisan non-expert employed by the White House to nix that scientist’s funding because they posted an anti-Trump meme on X years ago.
It gets worse. “You don’t even have to be in violation of a rule” to have your funding cut, Dreier says. Grants can be revoked at any time, for any reason, if they are deemed against the interests of the president’s whims: “There’s a capriciousness that is enabled by these changes, and an opacity of the decision process.”
The problems with the regulations are not just ideological. They largely impose a bureaucratic burden: Is any scientist going to want to set up an international partnership, or attend a conference, or try to publish their data publicly and for free, when doing so requires time and paperwork applying for exemptions that may or may not be granted by a government body that has no expertise or interest in their work? Are they going to set up a potentially fruitful collaboration with other scientists in China, or Russia, or even Canada, when doing so introduces a risk to their own work, knowing their livelihood could be yanked away when the president decides he doesn’t like another nation tomorrow?
“There’s no really good argument for that, unless you’re trying to use it as a means of control over the scientists themselves.”
— Casey Dreier
This is a separate, though perhaps even more dangerous, attack on science than the proposed cuts to NASA funding that are affecting programs like the operation of the Mars rovers. Under the proposed OMB rules, the contracts through which NASA builds spacecraft and collects data would remain, but the grants for scientists to analyze that data would be under political threat.
“There’s a distinction between data collection and science,” Dreier says. Building amazing tools like the Mars rovers or the James Webb Space Telescope and using them to collect data is only the first step in making progress: “The science is what happens when you pay a scientist to sit down and look at the data, interpret it, model it, test it, and then present it and go through the process of arguing about it.”
“What are we collecting data for, if we’re not going to support the scientists to study it?”
Despite the significant public pushback against the move, including a Senate hearing with the director of the OMB, Russell Vought, in which Democratic senators described the effects of the rule as “absurdity” and “bias,” the OMB does not seem disposed to back down and withdraw its proposed rule. Instead, it will likely face a series of legal challenges, including from a group of 24 governors and attorneys general who argue that the rule is unconstitutional and a violation of the separation of powers.
What is at stake here is bigger than slashed funds or a temporary refocusing on Earthly concerns over space research. “This is not a budget cut,” Dreier points out. Budget cuts are easy to understand and easy to argue against. What is happening here is more pernicious: “This is a surgical, scalpel-like attack on the actual process of science that is buried under procedural rules and boring-sounding language.”
Update July 17th: The OMB proposal has received over 500,000 comments, not 50,000 as stated in a previous version of this story.
Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.
The satellite, named Eärendil-1 in reference to a Tolkien character, will attempt to redirect sunlight to specific areas on Earth after dark using a 59-foot (18-meter) reflective surface. If successful, Reflect Orbital plans to launch and operate a constellation of 50,000 satellites by 2035, with enough reflected light to illuminate areas up to 3 miles (5 kilometers) on the ground. The company says this technology will be available “on demand” and could be used across a variety of industries, including solar energy, agriculture, and emergency response sectors.
“Imagine the endless possibilities when sunlight is not limited by geography or time of day,” Reflect Orbital says on its website. “A search-and-rescue team locates a missing person in minutes. A city has safer, evenly-lit streets without the carbon emissions. Construction projects complete in half the time with teams able to work through the night safely.”
The growing number of satellite constellations orbiting Earth are driving concerns regarding space junk and light pollution. Reflect Orbital’s plans are already facing objections that the space mirrors could make astronomical observations more difficult. There are also concerns about how the reflected light could interfere with wildlife that depend on natural light cycles and impact the safety of aircraft pilots.
Wired reports that the FCC received nearly 2,000 public comments opposing the space mirror plans, with the American Astronomical Society, DarkSky International, and the Royal Astronomical Society among the most notable critics. “For optical astronomy, this is an existential threat, and we hope that the regulators will share that view,” Betty Kioko, institutional affairs officer for the European Southern Observatory (ESO), said to Wired, ahead of the FCC clearance.
The satellite, named Eärendil-1 in reference to a Tolkien character, will attempt to redirect sunlight to specific areas on Earth after dark using a 59-foot (18-meter) reflective surface. If successful, Reflect Orbital plans to launch and operate a constellation of 50,000 satellites by 2035, with enough reflected light to illuminate areas up to 3 miles (5 kilometers) on the ground. The company says this technology will be available “on demand” and could be used across a variety of industries, including solar energy, agriculture, and emergency response sectors.
“Imagine the endless possibilities when sunlight is not limited by geography or time of day,” Reflect Orbital says on its website. “A search-and-rescue team locates a missing person in minutes. A city has safer, evenly-lit streets without the carbon emissions. Construction projects complete in half the time with teams able to work through the night safely.”
The growing number of satellite constellations orbiting Earth are driving concerns regarding space junk and light pollution. Reflect Orbital’s plans are already facing objections that the space mirrors could make astronomical observations more difficult. There are also concerns about how the reflected light could interfere with wildlife that depend on natural light cycles and impact the safety of aircraft pilots.
Wired reports that the FCC received nearly 2,000 public comments opposing the space mirror plans, with the American Astronomical Society, DarkSky International, and the Royal Astronomical Society among the most notable critics. “For optical astronomy, this is an existential threat, and we hope that the regulators will share that view,” Betty Kioko, institutional affairs officer for the European Southern Observatory (ESO), said to Wired, ahead of the FCC clearance.
#sunlight #reflecting #space #mirror #cleared #launchNews,Science,Space,Tech">The first sunlight reflecting space mirror has been cleared for launch
Reflect Orbital has been given the green light to launch its first space mirror that aims to redirect sunlight down to Earth at night. The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has authorized the California-based startup to build and operate a single prototype satellite in low-Earth orbit later this year, despite concerns over how the technology could impact optical astronomy.
The satellite, named Eärendil-1 in reference to a Tolkien character, will attempt to redirect sunlight to specific areas on Earth after dark using a 59-foot (18-meter) reflective surface. If successful, Reflect Orbital plans to launch and operate a constellation of 50,000 satellites by 2035, with enough reflected light to illuminate areas up to 3 miles (5 kilometers) on the ground. The company says this technology will be available “on demand” and could be used across a variety of industries, including solar energy, agriculture, and emergency response sectors.
“Imagine the endless possibilities when sunlight is not limited by geography or time of day,” Reflect Orbital says on its website. “A search-and-rescue team locates a missing person in minutes. A city has safer, evenly-lit streets without the carbon emissions. Construction projects complete in half the time with teams able to work through the night safely.”
The growing number of satellite constellations orbiting Earth are driving concerns regarding space junk and light pollution. Reflect Orbital’s plans are already facing objections that the space mirrors could make astronomical observations more difficult. There are also concerns about how the reflected light could interfere with wildlife that depend on natural light cycles and impact the safety of aircraft pilots.
Wired reports that the FCC received nearly 2,000 public comments opposing the space mirror plans, with the American Astronomical Society, DarkSky International, and the Royal Astronomical Society among the most notable critics. “For optical astronomy, this is an existential threat, and we hope that the regulators will share that view,” Betty Kioko, institutional affairs officer for the European Southern Observatory (ESO), said to Wired, ahead of the FCC clearance.
Several years ago, Microsoft set itself a goal to be carbon negative by 2030, meaning it will need to remove more carbon emissions than it produces. This isn’t the first time Microsoft has faced setbacks toward accomplishing that goal, as its 2024 sustainability report showed a similar rise in climate pollution. This year’s report admits that, “While AI infrastructure is driving demand for energy, water, land, and materials, sustainability solutions are not scaling fast enough to meet demand.”
Several years ago, Microsoft set itself a goal to be carbon negative by 2030, meaning it will need to remove more carbon emissions than it produces. This isn’t the first time Microsoft has faced setbacks toward accomplishing that goal, as its 2024 sustainability report showed a similar rise in climate pollution. This year’s report admits that, “While AI infrastructure is driving demand for energy, water, land, and materials, sustainability solutions are not scaling fast enough to meet demand.”
#Microsofts #carbon #emissions #percent #yearAI,Environment,Microsoft,News,Science,Tech">Microsoft’s carbon emissions went up 25 percent last year
Microsoft may once again be struggling to keep up with its own climate goals, according to its 2026 sustainability report. As reported by GeekWire, the report states that Microsoft’s carbon emissions increased 25 percent in 2025, totalling 34 million metric tons “without select interventions.” Microsoft says this was “driven primarily by the expansion of our datacenter infrastructure,” as well as the company’s decision last February to stop purchasing “non-additional, unbundled renewable energy certificates.”
Several years ago, Microsoft set itself a goal to be carbon negative by 2030, meaning it will need to remove more carbon emissions than it produces. This isn’t the first time Microsoft has faced setbacks toward accomplishing that goal, as its 2024 sustainability report showed a similar rise in climate pollution. This year’s report admits that, “While AI infrastructure is driving demand for energy, water, land, and materials, sustainability solutions are not scaling fast enough to meet demand.”
Using a three-armed spacecraft to lift a satellite 150 miles higher into orbit is challenging enough, but the speed with which Katalyst pulled the mission together makes it even more impressive. NASA required the company to rush the job because Swift would be too low to save by October. $30 million and nine months later, help is on the way for the $500 million Swift.
Using a three-armed spacecraft to lift a satellite 150 miles higher into orbit is challenging enough, but the speed with which Katalyst pulled the mission together makes it even more impressive. NASA required the company to rush the job because Swift would be too low to save by October. $30 million and nine months later, help is on the way for the $500 million Swift.
#NASA #launched #emergency #mission #stop #Swift #Observatory #crashing #EarthNews,Science,Space">NASA launched an emergency mission to stop the Swift Observatory from crashing to Earth
The Swift Observatory was launched in 2004, but recent solar storms have pushed its orbit lower, and it’s in danger of burning up in Earth’s atmosphere as soon as this year. To try and stave off its demise, NASA has enlisted Katalyst Space Technologies. The company’s Link spacecraft launched Friday with the goal of intercepting Swift, which has no propulsion system, and boosting its orbit back to its original position. Right now, Swift is circling at an altitude of 224 miles, and Link is aiming to raise that by about 150 miles.
Using a three-armed spacecraft to lift a satellite 150 miles higher into orbit is challenging enough, but the speed with which Katalyst pulled the mission together makes it even more impressive. NASA required the company to rush the job because Swift would be too low to save by October. $30 million and nine months later, help is on the way for the $500 million Swift.
He mentioned that one way he’d like to use it would be to see how his body changes in response to diet and workout changes, saying, “I’m not the most measured man on Earth yet, you know, but maybe I want to have that daily [measurable information]. A set of job listings advertises the company’s goal as trying to “build and launch the world’s first full-body ultrasound CT scanner, ultimately bringing safe, fast, and high fidelity preventative scanning to billions via a magical spa experience.”
The Midjourney Scanner was developed in a partnership with ultrasound tech company Butterfly Network, which said it uses “40 Butterfly Ultrasound-on-Chip™ imaging modules per system.”
The scanning process starts with stepping onto a platform that drops down into the water on rails through a ring of thousands of transducers that create ultrasonic waves and then record the ripples from them passing through your body to analyze them and create detailed 3D images, saying the scan will take about 60 seconds. Holz said about a dozen people have been scanned so far.
It starts by stepping into a shallow pool of golden light. You then begin to descend into the water. Your body passes through a ring of underwater sensors, each acting like a dolphin, using its echolocation. The sensors send ultrasonic sound waves through your body from every angle. With enough waves, and enough angles, we form an image of what’s happening inside your body.
It combines those sensors with two petaflops of processing power. But after watching the livestreamed reveal, I’m still unclear on what Midjourney’s AI image generation tech exactly has to do with the Midjourney Medical effort, beyond an alternative business for otherwise-unused AI compute.
Holz hopes to put 10 of the scanners into a Midjourney Spa location in San Francisco’s Union Square that will open before the end of 2027, and offered to scan the hands of attendees at its launch event. The Midjourney Spa will have a gym, saunas, and cold plunges to go along with the hot tub-equipped scanning rooms where visitors will get into the water to be scanned.
He did mention that various medical applications would require FDA clearances, but for now, Midjourney Medical says it’s working on “body composition maps” that don’t require the same level of clearance as diagnostic imaging. It also says the “library of scans” users create can be shared with doctors, AI health tools, or others, and that “We take data privacy seriously — more details on our data policies will come as we get closer to launch.”
Holz suggested that eventually these scans could become better than an MRI, without radiation, powerful magnets, or other complicating factors, to get a look at what’s going on inside people’s bodies “real fast.” In response to a question, he imagined a future where the FDA had a class of devices to look at “weird” things and allowed people to “just try to get as much data as we can.”
He mentioned that one way he’d like to use it would be to see how his body changes in response to diet and workout changes, saying, “I’m not the most measured man on Earth yet, you know, but maybe I want to have that daily [measurable information]. A set of job listings advertises the company’s goal as trying to “build and launch the world’s first full-body ultrasound CT scanner, ultimately bringing safe, fast, and high fidelity preventative scanning to billions via a magical spa experience.”
The Midjourney Scanner was developed in a partnership with ultrasound tech company Butterfly Network, which said it uses “40 Butterfly Ultrasound-on-Chip™ imaging modules per system.”
The scanning process starts with stepping onto a platform that drops down into the water on rails through a ring of thousands of transducers that create ultrasonic waves and then record the ripples from them passing through your body to analyze them and create detailed 3D images, saying the scan will take about 60 seconds. Holz said about a dozen people have been scanned so far.
It starts by stepping into a shallow pool of golden light. You then begin to descend into the water. Your body passes through a ring of underwater sensors, each acting like a dolphin, using its echolocation. The sensors send ultrasonic sound waves through your body from every angle. With enough waves, and enough angles, we form an image of what’s happening inside your body.
It combines those sensors with two petaflops of processing power. But after watching the livestreamed reveal, I’m still unclear on what Midjourney’s AI image generation tech exactly has to do with the Midjourney Medical effort, beyond an alternative business for otherwise-unused AI compute.
Holz hopes to put 10 of the scanners into a Midjourney Spa location in San Francisco’s Union Square that will open before the end of 2027, and offered to scan the hands of attendees at its launch event. The Midjourney Spa will have a gym, saunas, and cold plunges to go along with the hot tub-equipped scanning rooms where visitors will get into the water to be scanned.
He did mention that various medical applications would require FDA clearances, but for now, Midjourney Medical says it’s working on “body composition maps” that don’t require the same level of clearance as diagnostic imaging. It also says the “library of scans” users create can be shared with doctors, AI health tools, or others, and that “We take data privacy seriously — more details on our data policies will come as we get closer to launch.”
Holz suggested that eventually these scans could become better than an MRI, without radiation, powerful magnets, or other complicating factors, to get a look at what’s going on inside people’s bodies “real fast.” In response to a question, he imagined a future where the FDA had a class of devices to look at “weird” things and allowed people to “just try to get as much data as we can.”
#Midjourney #generating #cat #images #fullbody #ultrasound #scansAI,Health,News,Science">Midjourney goes from generating cat images to full-body ultrasound scans
Midjourney CEO David Holz just showed off the company’s first hardware product and plans to build a San Francisco spa, which he admitted is a bit different from the “cat pictures” produced by its AI image generator. Dubbed The Midjourney Scanner, it’s an ultrasound-based full-body scanner that uses a ring of sensors to capture vertical slices of the inside of your body, looking at the composition of your muscle, fat, bone, and organs to start. Holz said ideally, you could do this once a year or every single day, as it “aims for image quality comparable to MRI in many ways.”
He mentioned that one way he’d like to use it would be to see how his body changes in response to diet and workout changes, saying, “I’m not the most measured man on Earth yet, you know, but maybe I want to have that daily [measurable information]. A set of job listings advertises the company’s goal as trying to “build and launch the world’s first full-body ultrasound CT scanner, ultimately bringing safe, fast, and high fidelity preventative scanning to billions via a magical spa experience.”
The Midjourney Scanner was developed in a partnership with ultrasound tech company Butterfly Network, which said it uses “40 Butterfly Ultrasound-on-Chip™ imaging modules per system.”
The scanning process starts with stepping onto a platform that drops down into the water on rails through a ring of thousands of transducers that create ultrasonic waves and then record the ripples from them passing through your body to analyze them and create detailed 3D images, saying the scan will take about 60 seconds. Holz said about a dozen people have been scanned so far.
It starts by stepping into a shallow pool of golden light. You then begin to descend into the water. Your body passes through a ring of underwater sensors, each acting like a dolphin, using its echolocation. The sensors send ultrasonic sound waves through your body from every angle. With enough waves, and enough angles, we form an image of what’s happening inside your body.
It combines those sensors with two petaflops of processing power. But after watching the livestreamed reveal, I’m still unclear on what Midjourney’s AI image generation tech exactly has to do with the Midjourney Medical effort, beyond an alternative business for otherwise-unused AI compute.
Holz hopes to put 10 of the scanners into a Midjourney Spa location in San Francisco’s Union Square that will open before the end of 2027, and offered to scan the hands of attendees at its launch event. The Midjourney Spa will have a gym, saunas, and cold plunges to go along with the hot tub-equipped scanning rooms where visitors will get into the water to be scanned.
He did mention that various medical applications would require FDA clearances, but for now, Midjourney Medical says it’s working on “body composition maps” that don’t require the same level of clearance as diagnostic imaging. It also says the “library of scans” users create can be shared with doctors, AI health tools, or others, and that “We take data privacy seriously — more details on our data policies will come as we get closer to launch.”
Holz suggested that eventually these scans could become better than an MRI, without radiation, powerful magnets, or other complicating factors, to get a look at what’s going on inside people’s bodies “real fast.” In response to a question, he imagined a future where the FDA had a class of devices to look at “weird” things and allowed people to “just try to get as much data as we can.”
The LCVG is the all-important base layer that will keep the crew cool and comfortable while inside the AxEMU and on spacewalks. Cold water is circulated through tubes embedded in the suit to whisk heat away from astronauts’ bodies. And, should the primary system fail, there is a backup, unlike older cooling suits. The LCVG also houses the ventilation system that supplies fresh oxygen to the AxEMU helmet and directs exhaled CO2 to a scrubber for recirculation.
The collaboration between Axiom Space and Prada isn’t the first time NASA has gotten involved with a project that blended high-tech materials and manufacturing with high-fashion design. It also funded the BioSuit concept created by MIT professor Dava Newman with help from renowned architect Guillermo Trotti.
The LCVG is the all-important base layer that will keep the crew cool and comfortable while inside the AxEMU and on spacewalks. Cold water is circulated through tubes embedded in the suit to whisk heat away from astronauts’ bodies. And, should the primary system fail, there is a backup, unlike older cooling suits. The LCVG also houses the ventilation system that supplies fresh oxygen to the AxEMU helmet and directs exhaled CO2 to a scrubber for recirculation.
The collaboration between Axiom Space and Prada isn’t the first time NASA has gotten involved with a project that blended high-tech materials and manufacturing with high-fashion design. It also funded the BioSuit concept created by MIT professor Dava Newman with help from renowned architect Guillermo Trotti.
#NASA #wear #hightech #Prada #long #johns #MoonDesign,News,Science,Space,Tech">NASA will wear high-tech Prada long johns to the Moon
We’ve seen Axiom Space and Prada’s collaboration on the Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit (AxEMU) spacesuit. Now the company has revealed the Liquid Cooling and Ventilation Garment (LCVG) that astronauts will wear underneath it when Artemis IV returns humans to the Moon in 2028.
The LCVG is the all-important base layer that will keep the crew cool and comfortable while inside the AxEMU and on spacewalks. Cold water is circulated through tubes embedded in the suit to whisk heat away from astronauts’ bodies. And, should the primary system fail, there is a backup, unlike older cooling suits. The LCVG also houses the ventilation system that supplies fresh oxygen to the AxEMU helmet and directs exhaled CO2 to a scrubber for recirculation.
The collaboration between Axiom Space and Prada isn’t the first time NASA has gotten involved with a project that blended high-tech materials and manufacturing with high-fashion design. It also funded the BioSuit concept created by MIT professor Dava Newman with help from renowned architect Guillermo Trotti.
![Midjourney goes from generating cat images to full-body ultrasound scansMidjourney CEO David Holz just showed off the company’s first hardware product and plans to build a San Francisco spa, which he admitted is a bit different from the “cat pictures” produced by its AI image generator. Dubbed The Midjourney Scanner, it’s an ultrasound-based full-body scanner that uses a ring of sensors to capture vertical slices of the inside of your body, looking at the composition of your muscle, fat, bone, and organs to start. Holz said ideally, you could do this once a year or every single day, as it “aims for image quality comparable to MRI in many ways.”He mentioned that one way he’d like to use it would be to see how his body changes in response to diet and workout changes, saying, “I’m not the most measured man on Earth yet, you know, but maybe I want to have that daily [measurable information]. A set of job listings advertises the company’s goal as trying to “build and launch the world’s first full-body ultrasound CT scanner, ultimately bringing safe, fast, and high fidelity preventative scanning to billions via a magical spa experience.”The Midjourney Scanner was developed in a partnership with ultrasound tech company Butterfly Network, which said it uses “40 Butterfly Ultrasound-on-Chip™ imaging modules per system.”The scanning process starts with stepping onto a platform that drops down into the water on rails through a ring of thousands of transducers that create ultrasonic waves and then record the ripples from them passing through your body to analyze them and create detailed 3D images, saying the scan will take about 60 seconds. Holz said about a dozen people have been scanned so far.It starts by stepping into a shallow pool of golden light. You then begin to descend into the water. Your body passes through a ring of underwater sensors, each acting like a dolphin, using its echolocation. The sensors send ultrasonic sound waves through your body from every angle. With enough waves, and enough angles, we form an image of what’s happening inside your body.It combines those sensors with two petaflops of processing power. But after watching the livestreamed reveal, I’m still unclear on what Midjourney’s AI image generation tech exactly has to do with the Midjourney Medical effort, beyond an alternative business for otherwise-unused AI compute.Holz hopes to put 10 of the scanners into a Midjourney Spa location in San Francisco’s Union Square that will open before the end of 2027, and offered to scan the hands of attendees at its launch event. The Midjourney Spa will have a gym, saunas, and cold plunges to go along with the hot tub-equipped scanning rooms where visitors will get into the water to be scanned.He did mention that various medical applications would require FDA clearances, but for now, Midjourney Medical says it’s working on “body composition maps” that don’t require the same level of clearance as diagnostic imaging. It also says the “library of scans” users create can be shared with doctors, AI health tools, or others, and that “We take data privacy seriously — more details on our data policies will come as we get closer to launch.”Holz suggested that eventually these scans could become better than an MRI, without radiation, powerful magnets, or other complicating factors, to get a look at what’s going on inside people’s bodies “real fast.” In response to a question, he imagined a future where the FDA had a class of devices to look at “weird” things and allowed people to “just try to get as much data as we can.”#Midjourney #generating #cat #images #fullbody #ultrasound #scansAI,Health,News,Science](https://i3.wp.com/platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/ultrasound_phantom_segmentation-b254a71d083eb5c9.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=28.441715022566%2C0%2C70.316569954868%2C100&ssl=1 "Midjourney goes from generating cat images to full-body ultrasound scansMidjourney CEO David Holz just showed off the company’s first hardware product and plans to build a San Francisco spa, which he admitted is a bit different from the “cat pictures” produced by its AI image generator. Dubbed The Midjourney Scanner, it’s an ultrasound-based full-body scanner that uses a ring of sensors to capture vertical slices of the inside of your body, looking at the composition of your muscle, fat, bone, and organs to start. Holz said ideally, you could do this once a year or every single day, as it “aims for image quality comparable to MRI in many ways.”He mentioned that one way he’d like to use it would be to see how his body changes in response to diet and workout changes, saying, “I’m not the most measured man on Earth yet, you know, but maybe I want to have that daily [measurable information]. A set of job listings advertises the company’s goal as trying to “build and launch the world’s first full-body ultrasound CT scanner, ultimately bringing safe, fast, and high fidelity preventative scanning to billions via a magical spa experience.”The Midjourney Scanner was developed in a partnership with ultrasound tech company Butterfly Network, which said it uses “40 Butterfly Ultrasound-on-Chip™ imaging modules per system.”The scanning process starts with stepping onto a platform that drops down into the water on rails through a ring of thousands of transducers that create ultrasonic waves and then record the ripples from them passing through your body to analyze them and create detailed 3D images, saying the scan will take about 60 seconds. Holz said about a dozen people have been scanned so far.It starts by stepping into a shallow pool of golden light. You then begin to descend into the water. Your body passes through a ring of underwater sensors, each acting like a dolphin, using its echolocation. The sensors send ultrasonic sound waves through your body from every angle. With enough waves, and enough angles, we form an image of what’s happening inside your body.It combines those sensors with two petaflops of processing power. But after watching the livestreamed reveal, I’m still unclear on what Midjourney’s AI image generation tech exactly has to do with the Midjourney Medical effort, beyond an alternative business for otherwise-unused AI compute.Holz hopes to put 10 of the scanners into a Midjourney Spa location in San Francisco’s Union Square that will open before the end of 2027, and offered to scan the hands of attendees at its launch event. The Midjourney Spa will have a gym, saunas, and cold plunges to go along with the hot tub-equipped scanning rooms where visitors will get into the water to be scanned.He did mention that various medical applications would require FDA clearances, but for now, Midjourney Medical says it’s working on “body composition maps” that don’t require the same level of clearance as diagnostic imaging. It also says the “library of scans” users create can be shared with doctors, AI health tools, or others, and that “We take data privacy seriously — more details on our data policies will come as we get closer to launch.”Holz suggested that eventually these scans could become better than an MRI, without radiation, powerful magnets, or other complicating factors, to get a look at what’s going on inside people’s bodies “real fast.” In response to a question, he imagined a future where the FDA had a class of devices to look at “weird” things and allowed people to “just try to get as much data as we can.”#Midjourney #generating #cat #images #fullbody #ultrasound #scansAI,Health,News,Science")
