“The fact that an apparently stable, cold-based glacier suddenly went from moving 20 meters per year to 20 meters per day was extremely unusual, perhaps unprecedented,” said Willis. “The numbers here are simply nuts. Before this happened, as far as I knew, cold-based glaciers simply didn’t do that...couldn’t do that.”

NASA Earth Observatory

From prehistoric cave paintings to buried nuclear waste, underground spaces record how humans have lived. To explore Underland means voyaging into the deep past – and raises urgent questions about our planet’s future.

Robert Macfarlane | The Guardian

A four-part series authored by journalist and artist James Bridle examining how technology is changing visual culture.

BBC

The Astrobee project is preparing to launch a pair of free-flying cube robots that will operate inside the International Space Station (ISS) alongside astronauts. Astrobee’s primary objective is to provide a zero-g research facility for guest scientists. The Astrobees will replace the SPHERES robots that have been on the ISS since 2006.

Evan Ackerman | IEEE Spectrum

The Russian Advanced Research Foundation is developing a cyclocopter drone, which flies using an “egg-beater wing” propulsion system.

David Hambling | Popular Mechanics

"After Scarcity is a sci-fi essay film that tracks Soviet cyberneticians (1950s – 1980s) in their attempt to build a fully-automated planned economy. If history at its best is a blueprint for science-fiction, revisiting contingent histories of economic technology might enable an access to the future." —Bahar Noorizdah, Artist

via DIS

Stratolaunch Systems Corporation successfully completed the first flight of the world’s largest all-composite aircraft. The aircraft is a mobile launch platform that will enable airline-style access to space that is convenient, affordable and routine. The reinforced center wing can support multiple launch vehicles, weighing up to a total of 500,000 pounds.

Press Release | Stratolaunch

A Russian company called StartRocket says it’s going to launch a cluster of cubesats into space that will act as an “orbital billboard,” projecting enormous advertisements into the night sky like artificial constellations.

Jon Christian | Futurism

As they see it, global warming stands to make corporate security as high-stakes in the 21st century as it was in the 19th.

Noah Gallagher Shannon | The New York Times

Smart spacesuits and solar surfing may sound like the stuff of science fiction, but they are just two of the technology concepts NASA has selected for further research as part of the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program. The program will fund 18 studies to determine the feasibility of early-stage technologies that could go on to change what’s possible in space.

Press Release | NASA

Two landed almost simultaneously back on Cape Canaveral (you can watch the video here). The third central booster, which had gone higher into orbit, landed on a ship platform in the Atlantic Ocean.

The Download | MIT Technology Review

A study found eight modified monkeys did better on a memory test, and their brains also took longer to develop—as those of human children do.

Antonio Regalado | MIT Technology Review

An international collaboration presents paradigm-shifting observations of the gargantuan black hole at the heart of distant galaxy Messier 87.

Event Horizon Telescope (EHT)

Three short films speculating surveillance futures and the effects of deeply embedded and connected surveillant systems on our everyday lives, produced as part of a international multiphase project on Big Data Surveillance.

Surveillance Studies Centre

As the Navy advances plans for a 10-ship "ghost fleet," leaders are assessing how much decision-making power to give large unmanned vessels that can operate without any humans aboard.

Gina Harkins | Military.com

The DARPA Subterranean Challenge will task teams of robots with autonomous exploration deep beneath the surface of the Earth.

Evan Ackerman | IEEE Spectrum

The era of hypersonic, long distance weapons is almost upon us.

The Economist

Last week, NASA awarded the New York-based design studio SEArch+ and robotics company Apis Cor top prize in phase three of the 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge for their conceptual tower.

Dianna Budds | Curbed