A scene from “Stephen Hawking’s Favorite Places” shows the good doctor and his heads-up display in a CGI-created spaceship called the S.S. Hawking. (Credit: CuriosityStream)
You’d think that physicist Stephen Hawking’s favorite place on Earth would be his native England, but it’s actually someplace completely different – as he explains in a new 25-minute documentary from CuriosityStream.
“Stephen Hawking’s Favorite Places” is an exclusive offering from the online video-on-demand channel, founded last year by John Hendricks, who was the mastermind behind the Discovery Channel. It’s the first episode in what’s expected to be a series of original “Favorite Places” features, supplementing CuriosityStream’s library of science documentaries from the BBC and other providers.
In today’s report, a compliance panel of the World Trade Organization found that Airbus’ A350 XWB superjumbo jet benefited from European subsidies. (Credit: Airbus)
The World Trade Organization turned up the heat on Europe’s aerospace industry today by ruling that Airbus was continuing to benefit from what’s now estimated at $22 billion in subsidies from the European Union and its member countries.
U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman hailed the decision as a “sweeping victory” in a dispute that has been simmering for more than a decade, with the Boeing Co. cast as the principal victim of Airbus’ subsidies.
“This long-awaited decision is a victory for fair trade worldwide, and for U.S. aerospace workers in particular,” Dennis Muilenburg, Boeing’s chairman, president and CEO, said in a statement.
Both of Washington state’s U.S. senators and several House members praised the development as well.
The WTO’s latest action marks one more step toward imposing retaliatory trade sanctions that could amount to as much as $10 billion a year.
Microsoft’s “cancer moonshot” effort aims to program cells like computers. (Credit: Microsoft)
Microsoft researchers are doing a bug bash on cancer, complete with software code names like “Project Hanover.”
Some of them are actually drilling down into our genetic code, looking for ways to reprogram the immune system to combat cancer cells more effectively.
“If you can do computing with biological systems, then you can transfer what we’ve learned in traditional computing into medical or biotechnology applications,” Microsoft’s Neil Dalchau says in the company’s in-depth report about its cancer moonshots.
Others are enlisting the power of cloud computing to identify which treatment would work best for a particular cancer patient, based on his or her personalized medical profile.
University of Washington junior Kat Schaffer works with sixth-graders at Brewster Elementary School through UW’s Alternative Spring Break program, one of the beneficiaries of newly announced Boeing grants. (Credit: Dennis Wise / UW)
Three universities and scores of other educational programs stand to benefit from $6 million in grants from the Boeing Co. – a bonanza that’s designed to boost the company’s future workforce in Washington state.
Grants totaling $1 million are going to the University of Washington, Washington State University and Seattle University. The other $5 million will be divvied up among about 50 nonprofit groups and educational institutions across the state.
Boeing said some of the largest grants will support Thrive Washington, which focuses on early learning; Washington STEM and its K-12 learning initiative; and SkillUp Washington, which partners with community and technical colleges on training for manufacturing jobs.
The grants focus on STEM education – science, technology, engineering and math – as well as workforce training, particularly for student populations who tend to be underrepresented when it comes to STEM.
Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson hosts “StarTalk” from the American Museum of Natural History in New York. (Credit: National Geographic Channel)
Few people can geek out to a movie harder than astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, but he met his match when it came to Thor’s hammer.
Tyson, who’s the director of New York’s Hayden Planetarium as well as the host of such TV shows as “StarTalk” and “Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey,” is likely to tell the tale during his sold-out lectures at Seattle’s Paramount Theater on Sept. 21 and 22.
The tempest over Mjolnir, the hammer wielded by Thor (played by Chris Hemsworth in the Marvel movies), marks one of the rare times when Tyson admits he was out-geeked at the movies.
An image from NASA’s Galileo orbiter shows Europa’s icy surface, crisscrossed by reddish-brown streaks of radiation-darkened salt. (Credit: NASA / JPL / Ted Stryk)
NASA is gearing up to unveil “surprising evidence” of activity that may be related to the presence of a watery ocean beneath the icy surface of Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons.
In a media advisory sent out today, the space agency said the evidence comes from the Hubble Space Telescope, in the form of images taken during a “unique Europa observing campaign.”
British physicist Stephen Hawking delved into the mysteries of the solar system and beyond in a Discovery Channel series titled “Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking.” (Credit: Discovery Channel)
An open letter from 375 scientists is voicing concern about GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump’s views on climate change – and urging the United States not to cancel its commitment to last year’s Paris climate agreement, as Trump has said he would do.
Among the signers of the letter published today are British physicist Stephen Hawking, billionaire philanthropist James Simons, 30 Nobel laureates and nine University of Washington professors.
The Paris pact was adopted by the United States and more than 190 other nations last December, and formally ratified by President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping this month. It lays out commitments to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and keep average global temperatures from rising by 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius).
Green Party candidate Jill Stein, Democrat Hillary Clinton, Republican Donald Trump and Libertarian Gary Johnson respond to Science Debate’s presidential policy quiz. (GeekWire illustration)
Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson may not be on stage for this year’s televised presidential debates, but he is getting his say on America’s top issues relating to science and technology, health and the environment – thanks to Science Debate.
Shawn Otto, who chairs the ScienceDebate.org initiative, said in a news release that the candidates’ responses “provide a window into the role evidence from science plays in their decision-making” – but he emphasized that the voters shouldn’t rely solely on the quiz answers.
“Now we need journalists and the public to press these candidates for more specifics,” Otto said. “How reasonable are their proposals, given the known evidence? What relative roles do ideology and evidence seem to play in their thinking? These are important considerations in electing an executive who will have the power to set policy, guide and enforce regulations, influence research investments, sign treaties, inspire students, encourage innovation, approve laws, manage immigration, and commit soldiers to battle.”
Freefly Systems’ Alta drone takes to the air in Washington’s North Cascades. (Credit: Freefly Systems)
Washington state officials convened the first meeting of an industry council focusing on drones and related businesses today, after a seminar on the promise and potential perils of unmanned aerial vehicles.
“Focusing on this isn’t just about aerospace and UAVs, it’s about a whole variety of industries that benefit,” Brian Bonlender, director of the Washington State Department of Commerce, told a gathering of business executives, researchers and other experts at the offices of K&L Gates in downtown Seattle.
About a dozen of the attendees went from the large-group gathering to the inaugural meeting of the Unmanned Systems Industry Council, led by John Thornquist, head of Washington state’s Office of Aerospace.
Drones, also known as unmanned aircraft systems or UAS, are expected to have an impact on fields ranging from package delivery to agriculture, media production and public safety. Nationwide, the UAS industry is expected to create 100,000 jobs and add more than $82 billion to the U.S. economy over the decade ahead.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Edward Snowden in the movie “Snowden.” (Credit: Open Road Films)
Whether you see him as a patriot or a traitor, it’s a big week for Edward Snowden, who was forced to seek asylum in Russia after revealing the magnitude of the National Security Agency’s mass surveillance program.
The American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and a host of other supporters have just launched a full-court press to get Snowden a pardon from President Barack Obama. And Oliver Stone’s biopic, “Snowden,” is hitting theaters across the country and around the world – even in Russia.
GeekWire’s crew saw the movie at a Seattle showing sponsored by the ACLU, so you can imagine that the audience scored Snowden high on the patriot scale.
After the movie, Shankar Narayan, director of ACLU of Washington’s Technology and Liberty Project, noted that Snowden’s revelations helped the national ACLU challenge the NSA over its surveillance programs. He also noted that the controversy continues.
