Boeing’s first ever astronaut launch has been delayed after a valve issue was spotted in the Atlas V rocket.
The United Launch Alliance rocket was due to send two NASA astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, to the International Space Station, inside Boeing’s Starliner capsule, but it was called off just two hours before launch.
The aerospace manufacturer’s mission to send the Starliner Capsule into space has been on hold for years due to issues with the capsule itself.
Nasa says the next attempted launch won’t take place before Friday 10th May.
It is understood the Ministry of Defence has been the target of a large-scale data breach.
The bank details of all serving armed forces personnel and some veterans have potentially been compromised, after a third-party payroll system was hacked.
When discovering the breach, the MoD immediately took the external network, operated by a contractor, offline.
Sky News reported that China was behind the cyber attack, but the Prime Minister has declined to identify the “malign actor” behind it.
A team of researchers using satellite images to record changes in Cumbria’s Lake Windermere say that an influx in tourists could be turning the lake green.
Map Impact have used the images in conjunction with anonymous smartphone data to spot the link between high tourist numbers and levels of blue-green algae in the lake.
Too much of the algae can lead to reduced oxygen levels in the water, killing fish and aquatic life, and it is also harmful to humans.
Map Impact says at specific times of the year, the number of people visiting the lake has reached more than 320,000, up to eight-times the local population.
The researchers said that human waste can also impact the Lake, and they’re calling for stringent regulatory enforcement of the local wastewater treatment plants around it.
In a bid to climate-proof our crops, scientists are examining ancient bacteria to see if they hold the secrets to surviving warming temperatures.
Edinburgh’s Herriot-Watt University’s been given £500,000 to examine ancient soil samples extracted from deep below the Arctic.
The samples are from the palaeolithic period, when the planet was warming in a similar way to how it is today.
It is hoped they can determine whether this ancient DNA can help present-day bacteria support plants when water is scarce.
Also in this episode:
World’s purest silicon brings scientists one step closer to scaling up quantum computers, insurers warn about fake and manipulated images being used in claims, scientists say they have identified a new genetic form of Alzheimer’s disease and Nintendo reveals a Switch 2 is in the works.
Listen above, find us on Apple, Spotify or wherever you stream your podcasts.
