Sunday, December 22

Tag: system

To safely explore the solar system and beyond, spaceships need to go faster – nuclear-powered rockets may be the answer
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SCIENCE

To safely explore the solar system and beyond, spaceships need to go faster – nuclear-powered rockets may be the answer

With dreams of Mars on the minds of both NASA and Elon Musk, long-distance crewed missions through space are coming. But you might be surprised to learn that modern rockets don’t go all that much faster than the rockets of the past. There are a lot of reasons that a faster spaceship is a better one, and nuclear-powered rockets are a way to do this. They offer many benefits over traditional fuel-burning rockets or modern solar-powered electric rockets, but there have been only eight U.S. space launches carrying nuclear reactors in the last 40 years. However, last year the laws regulating nuclear space flights changed and work has already begun on this next generation of rockets. Why the need for speed? The first step of a space journey involves the use of launch rockets to get a ship into...
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Older people are at more risk from COVID-19 because of how the immune system ages
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COVID-19, HEALTH & WELLNESS, Journalism

Older people are at more risk from COVID-19 because of how the immune system ages

The rapidly spreading coronavirus pandemic is taking a particularly harsh toll on older people. Data from the initial outbreak in China and then Italy show that infected people under the age of 60 are at low – but not no – risk of dying from COVID-19. Curiously, young children do not appear to be at increased risk of serious COVID-19 complications, in contrast to what happens with other viruses, like the seasonal flu. However, the statistics get grimmer as the patients get older. Whereas people in their 60s have a 0.4% chance of dying, people in their 70s have a 1.3% chance of dying, and people over 80 have a 3.6% chance of dying. While this may not sound like a high chance of death, during the current outbreak in Italy, 83% of those who succumbed to COVID-19 infection were over the age ...
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The Air Force colonel, the ballroom dance instructor and the US immigration system
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CELEBRITIES

The Air Force colonel, the ballroom dance instructor and the US immigration system

For most of the last six decades, the Republican Party could count on Charlie Heimach. The retired Air Force colonel donated money to President Richard Nixon, backed Ronald Reagan and both Bushes, and cast his ballot last year for Donald Trump. But in the recent Virginia governor’s race, Heimach voted for the Democrat, because of the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration, and its attempts to deport a ballroom dancing instructor from the studio where Heimach, 79, likes to Lindy Hop. Since May, Heimach and a disparate crew of lawyers, military veterans, a dog walker, an entomologist and others united in their love for dancing have been on a crusade to protect the instructor they call “G,” an undocumented immigrant from Mongolia who was arrested twice in 2016 for drunken ...
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Journalism

How the Bankruptcy System Is Failing Black Americans

Black people struggling with debts are far less likely than their white peers to gain lasting relief from bankruptcy, according to a ProPublica analysis. Primarily to blame is a style of bankruptcy practiced by lawyers in the South. Novasha Miller pushed through the revolving doors of the black glass tower on Jefferson Avenue last December and felt a rush of déjà vu. The building, conspicuous in Memphis’ modest skyline along the Mississippi River, looms over its neighbors. Then she remembered: Years ago, as a teenager, she’d accompanied her mother inside. Now she was 32, herself the mother of a teenager , and she was entering the same door, taking the same elevator. Like her mother before her, Miller was filing for bankruptcy. She’d cried when she made the decision, but with three boy...
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