Our planet’s environment is in a delicate balance with the ecosystem that’s largely invisible. We have a thin ozone layer protecting everything from harmful UV rays. Plants seem to be doing a great job of supplying breathable oxygen. It’s a bit concerning when human activity throws off something in the atmosphere on a large scale, but we might be able to do something about it. The first step, though, is admitting that we have a problem.

• Snow-dwelling algae on glaciers might be a problem someday. Pink snow looks a bit unusual, but the algae that grows on frozen ice in a visible amount — is also making that snow melt faster. And we probably don’t want glaciers melting any faster than usual in the next few decades.
• What ever happened to the hole in the ozone layer? The use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) has been significantly reduced, and the hole is expected to heal itself by 2050 — thanks to the Montreal Protocol passed in 1987.
• The reduction of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide pollution has had a tangible effect on soil acidity — finally. It’s taken over two decades for regulations aimed at curbing acid rain (by limiting sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions from coal-fueled power plants) to start showing some positive results in the environment.

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Helium is a fascinating element that most people recognize as the stuff that you can inhale to make your voice sound funny. However, it has some really serious uses in MRI machines and rocket engines — and if we’re not careful, we could waste this precious material and not have any kind of replacement for it. Once we run out of helium on earth, there aren’t a lot of great options for obtaining more. It’s not like we can just swing by Jupiter and bring some back. Maybe we can recycle and conserve for a bit, and perhaps someday we’ll figure out fusion.

• Vast helium reserves in Tanzania have been discovered that could supply the world with enough helium for several years (assuming we don’t celebrate will a LOT of unnecessary balloons). About 54 billion cubic feet of helium might last about 6 years or so at the global consumption rate, but this is the first time anyone has actually gone specifically looking for helium deposits (successfully). Presumably, if we have a method that works, we’ll be able to find a bit more helium before we need to resort to helium rationing.
• The lunar surface could be mined for helium. If mining the moon for helium sounds impractical and crazy, it wouldn’t be if we could use a specific isotope of helium for a fusion reactor. Just gotta get fusion technology working….
• The US National Helium Reserve is the largest supplier of helium in the world right now, but that could change. Nobel laureate Robert Richardson warned everyone about “peak helium” a few years ago, but party balloons are still cheap — so it’s likely no one will really care about a helium shortage until it’s almost too late.

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Lab mice aren’t really a great model model for studying human health, but we use them anyway. And every so often, researchers stumble on drugs that seem to make lab mice live longer. Unfortunately, no one has found a reliable treatment for significantly extending a human lifespan just yet — but if you want to raise old mice, there are plenty of things that’ll work. Check out a few of these potential fountains of youth for mice.

• The first human clinical trials using nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN) to slow the aging process should begin soon — on a small sample of 10 healthy people. NMN works remarkably well in mice, but no one knows yet how well it will work in people. If it’s safe enough, though, it’s a good bet that people will be adding this stuff to vitamins ASAP.
• A hormone, osteocalcin, injected in old mice appears to allow the rodents to run just as far as much younger mice. Old mice that weren’t given this hormone ran about half as far, so researchers are planning to try this in people next.
• If rapamycin works to delay the onset of certain diseases in mice, maybe it’ll work… on our pet dogs? And if Fido lives a bit longer and healthier, maybe we’ll try it ourselves, too. (Eating our own dogfood..?)
• How about chemical precursors to nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) to try to keep yourself young? You can buy this stuff right now as a supplement, if you’d like to participate in your own highly unscientific study….

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

After the Cold War ended, the space race enthusiasm evaporated as the funding for ambitious projects to explore space dried up. Launching dozens of satellites into space to form communications networks was (and still is) a risky business — with a lot of upfront costs and a lot of equipment that’s nearly obsolete by the time it reaches orbit. But it’s becoming a bit cheaper to get stuff into space, and maybe we’re seeing a bit more of a commercial space race. Check out a few of these space-bound projects.

• NASA recently tested its Space Launch System (SLS) engine that will send an uncrewed Orion capsule beyond the orbit of the moon in 2018 (assuming no delays). Someday, NASA’s SLS could take people to Mars, but there are still some engineering challenges to solve before that actually happens.
• Tom Markusic, the founder of the small satellite venture, Firefly Space Systems, wants to clean up the artificial space junk in geo-stationary orbit and recycle it for future moon and mars missions. Markusic proposes using solar electric propulsion-powered space tugs to push old satellites to potential staging bases for human colonies on mars.
• Vector Space Systems is a space vehicle startup just getting off the ground, aiming to put small satellites into low earth orbit — at a price of 45 kilograms for a $2-3 million. The company plans to have commercial launches ready in 2018, targeting very small satellites that normally go up as secondary payloads on larger launch systems. Smaller payloads with their own dedicated launches won’t be subject to the delays or requirements of other payloads, and Vector’s launch vehicle claims that its missions could be ready to go within a relatively short 3-month window.
• Russia’s new space port at Vostochny has had some delays, but it seems to be up and running. However, the mis-management of this cosmodrome has caught the attention of president Putin who warned that some of the senior managers involved in an embezzlement scheme could go to jail for a few years. The description of the first launch with a visit from Putin sounds a bit like a scene from Return of the Jedi.

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

We have computers that can beat us at games like chess and Go (and Jeopardy!), but we haven’t seen too many robots that can beat humans at more physical sports like soccer or tennis. We’ve seen some air hockey robots that are nearly unbeatable, so it’s really only a matter of time before robots learn how to play sports with a few more dimensions. Here are some badminton robots that are inching toward playing better than some of us.

• Badminton robots are getting better slowly. This robot has binocular vision from two cameras and was built by students at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China. However, it cheats a little bit by using two rackets….
• Just last year, Dong Jiong (a retired badminton professional) played against a couple of these badminton robots on a regulation court. The robots didn’t play very well, but they actually played — and presumably, upgrades will give them superhuman badminton skills someday.
• Badminton robots from the Flanders’ Mechatronics Technology Centre (FMTC) in Belgium were relatively primitive 2013. However, the developers were learning about optimizing the efficiency of robots — not actually trying to create a robot that could beat people at badminton.

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Robots are getting better at performing complex tasks all the time. It won’t be too long before they can drive cars and deliver packages (and replace about a quarter of a million human workers who drive for UPS/FedEx/USPS/etc). The technology isn’t quite there yet, but it doesn’t seem to be too far off in the future. However, we’re nowhere near seeing a Rosie the Robot servant, predicted in the 1960s, but we’re getting closer. Check out these marginally helpful robots for the home that could beat flying cars and pneumatic tube transportation to becoming a reality.

• Laundroid is a machine about the size of a refrigerator that can fold your laundry… very slowly. It’s currently just a prototype, but maybe in a couple of decades it’ll just be part of your washer/dryer setup.
• Boston Dynamics has another cool video of an even smaller version of its “robot dogs” — and its SpotMini has a creepy appendage with a hand/head at the end. This little guy can apparently put away dishes in a dishwasher and looks like it can pretend to be a puppy (a uncanny valley metal puppy).
• A laundry folding robot from a few years ago can only fold rectangular towels. If you enjoy watching paint dry, though, this is a cool robot to watch as it uses two humanoid arms and stereo camera vision… to complete the one task it knows how to do.

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

The Space Shuttle was a cool idea, but it never accomplished the goal of providing a relatively low-cost route to space. The concept of reusable space ships is still attractive, but it really depends on how much it takes to refurbish them before they attempt another launch. A few different organizations are already testing some reusable space vehicles (and Boeing has its X-37B that’s orbiting somewhere above us right now). Here are just a few more spaceplanes that might join the new reusable space race.

• The EU has its Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle (IXV) robotic space plane that was tested last year. The IXV is scheduled to fly another test in 2019, and it might be operating by the time Elon Musk is on Mars.
• DARPA’s XS-1 spaceplane project has a goal of flying 10 times in 10 days and putting a few tons of satellite payload into space — for less than $5 million per flight. That’s a pretty ambitious plan, especially if it’s supposed to start testing by 2019 (and they’re still narrowing down the technology).
• The Skylon concept spaceplane is a single-stage-to-orbit dream. It might not be hard to explain how it could work, but it’ll sure be difficult to actually build a working prototype.

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Animals aren’t as dumb as you might think, and the more we study our pets — the more we find that we may not just be anthropomorphizing our favorite animals. Some animals definitely have personalities, and some can exhibit some pretty complex cognitive skills. If we can understand more and more animal brains, maybe we’ll be able to figure out our own brains, too, someday. Here are just a few things to remember about cats, fish and birds.

• Cats are pretty smart pets, and they may understand more than you think — like cause and effect. Okay, that ability isn’t exactly surprising, but cats might also understand a bit of physics, too — but it probably won’t help them when they’re trapped in a box with a radioactive source connected to trigger a release of poison.
• How long does a fish’s memory really last? Finding Dory makes a joke out of fish having short term memory loss, but some researchers have measured some fish with memory spans that can last 3 months.
• Bird brains are surprisingly packed with more neurons per pound than mammals (including primates). This might explain how some birds can make tools, pass the mirror test, understand cause and effect, and even be said to be as smart as a 5-year-old human child.

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

We’re on the verge of a transportation revolution with autonomous cars and electric vehicles about to become mainstream means of mobility. Various concept cars make the future of transportation look more bubble-shaped or like spandex, so the roads are really going to look a bit crazy if we allow 40-year-old muscle cars to drive along with surviving K-cars and futuristic-looking Tron-like hypercars. Check out a few more crazy cars that aren’t quite practical in the links below.

• The Rimono is a 2-seater electric car from Japan with an all cloth exterior. Drivers will need a motorcycle license to use it, and it’s not clear how often it should be laundered….
• The classic yellow taxi cab isn’t manufactured any longer, but a company that still makes parts for these iconic vehicles has a couple of funky-looking prototype vehicles based on its cabs. The A888 limo is basically a stretched out 6-door, 12-passenger version of a yellow cab, and the “Sport Pick-up Crossover” is a yellow cab in front and Chevy El Camino-style pickup in the back.
• Maybe you’ve heard of cars that run on compressed air — well, those cars aren’t exactly efficient. Surprise!? One study says compressed air cars score worse than electric vehicles on energy use, greenhouse gas emissions, and life-cycle costs — but that maybe a hybrid electric and compressed air car might be more practical somehow?

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

The vast blackness of space might not look like much to the naked eye, but the origins of all life have come from distant stars. As Carl Sagan put it, we are all “star stuff” — we’re made of atoms that could have only been born in intense supernovas. It may appear futile to try to decipher what happened billions of years ago, but astronomers can literally look back in time and see the formation of the universe. Here are just a few cool things astronomers have discovered lately.

• A prebiotic, chiral molecule has been detected for the first time outside of our own solar system. All known life on earth is based on chiral molecules, but no one knows how this situation occurred originally. This first example of a chiral propylene oxide molecule could help explain how life on our planet acquired its preference for handedness or how primordial cosmic seeds might spread through the universe. (Or not.)
• Oxygen has been found 13.1 billion light years away — perhaps the first oxygen atoms to form in the universe. There’s not that much oxygen at a galaxy called SXDF-NB1006-2, but its abundance is in line with simulations of how we think early stars formed.
• Galaxy simulations on supercomputers help explain how stars form in interstellar space. Apparently, feedback from existing stars can regulate how other stars form and influence the growth of galaxies, solving a mystery of how a relatively small fraction of gas in interstellar space is used to form a star.

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.