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Pedro Duque, who became Spain's first astronaut and later led the country's science ministry, has been named an honorary member of IEEE. He now serves as president and chairman of the board of Spanish satellite company HispaSat, and accepted the honor via recorded remarks at an April 24 ceremony in New York he could not attend in person.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said the agency will be selective about which countries it partners with in lunar exploration, prioritizing only what he called 'good deals.' Speaking at a defense conference near Washington, he framed the race to the Moon's south pole as a contest for limited prime real estate rich in water ice and near-constant sunlight, rather than a purely symbolic contest.
Researchers studying birdsong for International Dawn Chorus Day found that species such as blue tits, blackbirds, great tits, woodpigeons and yellowhammers show clear regional and even individual variation in their calls. Woodpigeons' familiar phrase changes syllables depending on location, while yellowhammers split into two dialects across the UK, distinguished by pitch differences in the final notes of their song.
NASA has expanded its Commercial Crew Transportation Capability contract with SpaceX, adding three additional crewed Dragon missions to the International Space Station through 2030. The new award is worth up to $946 million and brings SpaceX's total operational flights under the contract to 17, pushing its cumulative earnings from NASA to $5.92 billion. SpaceX shares ISS crew transport duties with Boeing, whose Starliner is set to begin crewed flights in 2027 after an unpiloted test flight.
Waymo announced plans to bring its autonomous ride-hailing service to Singapore, with vehicles arriving within months to begin mapping and safety-driver testing in 2027 ahead of a public launch in 2028. The company must first pass safety assessments from Singapore's Land Transport Authority and its CETRAN testing center before carrying passengers, and it has already set up a local entity and joined the city-state's autonomous vehicle steering committee.
Maersk announced plans to fit a 35-meter rotor sail to one of its 8,700-TEU containerships, with trials on Atlantic routes set to begin in 2027, marking the first such installation on a containership. The move follows a broader trend across shipping, with the International Windship Association reporting more than 100 large vessels now carrying modern wind-assist systems totaling over 5 million deadweight tons.
The International Meteor Organization, a nonprofit that coordinates global reporting of meteor and fireball sightings, disclosed that a cyberattack severely damaged its outdated infrastructure and knocked much of its website offline. The group says it expects weeks of partial downtime while it rebuilds on new systems, and is temporarily directing fireball reports and updates through alternative channels including Facebook.
JustWatch, best known as a guide for finding where to stream content, announced at the Toronto International Film Festival that it will launch its own platform called JustWatch TV in October. The service will offer three tiers: a free ad-supported option, rental/purchase titles, and a paid ad-free subscription, with initial content from Fremantle, Paramount and Bleecker Street. It will launch across the US, UK, Canada, and several European and Oceania markets, with plans to expand further.
A Nature commentary co-authored by economist Joseph Stiglitz and UNAIDS chief Winnie Byanyima proposes creating an International Panel on Inequality (IPI), a roughly 40-member expert body that would synthesize research on income and wealth gaps for policymakers. The proposal already has support from the UN, the African Union, and more than 700 scholars, with South Africa, Brazil, Spain and Norway backing it. The commentary cites data showing the richest 1% captured 41% of new wealth created between 2000 and 2024, versus just 1% for the poorest half of the world.
Following Marvel's stalled Blade reboot, star Mahershala Ali and director Bassam Tariq have teamed up on a new film called Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. The film follows a devout Muslim hitman who must raise three children, including a newborn, after his wife's death while his violent past resurfaces.
At TIFF, Laika crew members detailed technical advances behind their upcoming stop-motion film Wildwood, due in theaters next month. The studio credited digital frame-grabbers that let animators review recently shot frames for smoother movement, plus improved internal puppet mechanisms called breathers that simulate lifelike breathing in nearly all major characters.
The NTSB detailed early findings from the cockpit voice and flight data recorders recovered after 21 Air Flight 7598, a Boeing 767-33A cargo plane, overran the runway at Miami International Airport on Sept. 6. The recorders captured over two hours of audio and 54 hours of flight data, with a timeline showing the crew configuring flaps and gear for landing while one pilot repeatedly warned about excessive approach speed.