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An Anonymous Coward writes:As reported by https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/36016/the-potentially-revolutionary-celera-500l-officially-breaks-cover a possible competitor for the private business jet is now being test flown. It's a pusher-prop plane, but it looks strange due to laminar flow fuselage and very high-aspect-ratio (long, skinny) wings. A high efficiency turbo-diesel engine gives claimed cruise speed of 450 miles/hour (700+kph) at 18-25 miles per US gallon, compare to 2-3 mpg for typical business jets. With this high fuel efficiency, range is 4500 miles and operating costs are projected to be less than 20% of typical small jet. The prototype seats six, similar to other small business aircraft.Company site at https://www.ottoaviation.com/ says:

RandomFactor writes:Under a veil of secrecy, China launched an experimental space plane believed to be an analog to the U.S. X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle on Thursday.The launch was

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:Metasurface materials put true holographic movie within grasp:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:Scientist Reveals Possible Reason Behind Mysterious Fall of Indus Valley Civilisation:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nothernotherguy:Three stars, warped rings may show how planets end up moving backward:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:Lessons for the Navy's New Frigate From the Littoral Combat Ship - War on the Rocks:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:Stanford scientists track tiny atmospheric ripples using data from internet-beaming balloons:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for aristarchus:Sorry, Amazon, Microsoft wins JEDI contract again upon re-evaluation:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:Supercomputer crunches data on COVID-19:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for aristarchus:Key coronavirus forecast predicts over 410,000 total U.S. deaths by Jan. 1: 'The worst is yet to come':

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for RandomFactor:Teen arrested for 8 DDoS attacks that disrupted school's online classes:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for RandomFactor:Battery-free Game Boy runs forever:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for RandomFactor:Pentagon takes first step toward building supersonic Air Force One:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for RandomFactor:Source of International Space Station leak still not found, NASA says - Business Insider:Officials first noticed a leak last September, but they didn't do anything about it for nearly a year, since the leak wasn't major. Plus, station operations like space walks and crew exchanges kept crew members too busy to collect enough data about the issue.Recently, however, technicians detected an increase to the already elevated leak rate. So NASA announced on August 20 that the three men aboard the station — NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy and Roscosmos cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner — would begin a hunt for the source.That search is "taking longer than expected," NASA spokesman Daniel Huot told Business Insider last week.Indeed, Huot said on Tuesday that technical teams were still reviewing the data collected by the crew. They've now ruled out most of the station's modules, Huot added, and should complete their review "in the coming days."If specialists still can't pinpoint the leak after that, he said, they'll need a new action plan.[...] In the event of an emergency on the space station, the crew members could return to Earth via the Soyuz MS-16 spaceship that's docked there. In a less extreme scenario, the crew could also cut off the leaking module and isolate it.Original SubmissionRead more of this story at SoylentNews.

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:Mass Firing at Lab Zero Leaves Company with No Employees:

An Anonymous Coward writes:Facebook could be hit with a massive brand new tax if it moves forward with its threat to block all Australian users from sharing news on its platform. In response, Facebook threatened to ban the sharing of news which then resulted in a threat to tax Facebook for news or rather "digital transactions". The Australian government appears to have predicted Facebook's response and had draft legislation drawn up ready to respond.

An Anonymous Coward writes:A Speaker for the Dead is a person who attends a funeral or similar convention to speak on behalf of the deceased as described in the second Ender novel. A funeral director has taken up the path of being a Speaker delivering messages to those who have come to grieve, clearing out parts of the lives for people unable to do so, and arranging mementos for the living.It's good to see science fiction continue to inspire us.Original SubmissionRead more of this story at SoylentNews.

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:The Moon Is Rusting, and Researchers Want to Know Why:

Several people have submitted leads to stories about how Ring Smart Doorbells might also alert people to the approach of law enforcement.FBI: Ring Smart Doorbells Could Sabotage CopsAn Anonymous Coward writes:Ring is the gift that keeps on giving...From https://threatpost.com/fbi-ring-smart-doorbells-sabotage-cops/158837/

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:Amazon's Prime Air drone delivery fleet gains FAA approval for trial commercial flights – TechCrunch:

'Just Passed a Guy in a Jetpack': Sightings at Los Angeles Airport Fuel Concernupstart writes in with an IRC submission for SoyCow96:'Just passed a guy in a jetpack': sightings at Los Angeles airport fuel concern:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:Rocket Lab secretly launched its own company-made satellite on latest flight:

"exec" writes:Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

RandomFactor writes:For the first time, U.S. officials have approved a small nuclear power plant design.

Freeman writes:Facebook complains, Apple responds: iOS 14's big privacy change gets postponed:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for RandomFactor:Noble metals dissolved without aqua regia[*]:

takyon writes:ZTE announces the world's first phone with a behind-the-screen camera:

Freeman writes:Facebook halts Oculus Quest sales in Germany amid privacy concerns:

takyon writes:Microsoft launches a deepfake detector tool ahead of US election

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:NSA spying exposed by Snowden was illegal and not very useful, court says:

The weird physics of levitating liquids and upside-down buoyancy [2 Marge!]c0lo writes:Nature video for the doi:10.1038/s41586-020-2643-8.Vibration overcomes gravity on a levitating fluid

The Mighty Buzzard writes:Congrats to the wannabe APK noobtard for advancing the site's codebase despite me having extremely limited time to play. I added three lines of code and now Spam modded comments (and comment trees) auto-collapse and you can still moderate a comment as Spam even if it's already at the minimum score. Honestly, the folks using any other downmod on obvious Spam annoy me more than the noobtard does but that annoyance at least is now history. Changes are to hot code only, I'll put them in the repo as part of my next pull request.Suck it, noob. --TMBRead more of this story at SoylentNews.

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:These Students Figured Out Their Tests Were Graded By Ai — And The Easy Way To Cheat:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:Apple mistakenly approved a widely-used malware to run on Macs – TechCrunch:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:Navy CIO: 'Malicious Cyber Actors' Attacking Military Telework Infrastructure - USNI News:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:Federal court rules geofence warrants are unconstitutional:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:Orange peels used to extract valuable metals from spent batteries:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:Facebook pilot links user profiles with online news subscriptions:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:Meet GW190521—a black-hole merger for the record books:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:When Asthma in Jail Becomes a Death Sentence:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for RandomFactor:A Molecule in Honeybee Venom Destroys Breast Cancer Cells in The Lab, Study Shows:

[Ed. note: per community request, this story is in addition to our regular story cadence. It is provided so that those who are interested will have an opportunity to plan ahead to watch the launch. Launch is scheduled for 12h45m from when this story goes "live". --martyb]upstart writes in with an IRC submission:SpaceX targets another Starlink launch Thursday to continue record pace:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:US Hails New Milestone in Development of Hypersonic Weapons:

Phoenix666 writes:China working to double nuclear warheads:

Phoenix666 writes:Walmart+ takes aim at Amazon Prime, launches September 15:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:Canada Post says dog attacks on mail carriers have increased during pandemic:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for RandomFactor:Can the moon be a person? As lunar mining looms, a change of perspective could protect Earth's ancient companion:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:Parents more likely than non-parents to turn to alcohol during pandemic, survey finds:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:Tesla will cash in on surging stock price with $5 billion stock sale:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:The confusing but cute 3 wheel Solo EV is finally in production: