Featuring the latest in daily science news, Verge Science is all you need to keep track of what’s going on in health, the environment, and your whole world. Through our articles, we keep a close eye on the overlap between science and technology news — so you’re more informed.
Oura is lobbying for relaxed wearables regulation. It has a point, but is regulation even the problem here?
The Environmental Protection Agency repealed the key finding that underpins limits on planet-heating pollution from cars and power plants.
TheNAACP sent anotice of intent to sue, accusing Musk’s company of illegally installing gas turbines in Mississippi to power its Colossus 2 data center. Thermal images taken by drone show more than a dozen turbines running at the site without a permit,according to aFloodlight investigation.
The first Southwest Airlines plane with Starlink will enter this service this summer, and Starlink is set to be available on “more than 300 aircraft” by the end of the year,Southwest says.
Southwest joins airlines likeUnited,WestJet, andBritish Airways in bringing SpaceX’s Starlink to customers.
[Southwest Newsroom]
Amazon’s Leo now has FCC approval for about 7,700 low Earth orbit satellites. So far it’s only launched about 150, well short of its FCC requirement to deploy 1,600 by July 2026 (it’s seeking an extension). SpaceX has launched over 11,000 Starlink satellites into LEO with about 9,600 still active.
According to recently released documents, the convicted sex offender had a vast network of people working to whitewash his digital presence.
“SpaceX has already shifted focus to building a self-growing city on the Moon,”Musk said on Sunday, just a week aftermerging SpaceX and xAI. It’s a notable change in plans from a little over a year ago whenMusk insisted that, “we’re going straight to Mars. The Moon is a distraction.”
[SpaceX prioritizes lunar 'self-growing city' over Mars project, Musk says]
ThisPolitico story is a fascinating deep dive into Oura cozying up to the government. What caught my eye is a tidbit that Oura is lobbying lawmakers for a “digital health screener” device classification process that would sidestep the more intensive FDA clearance process for medical devices.
[Politico]
The firstSuper Bowl ad from SpaceX apparently didn’t have enough time left in productionto mention its newly-joined X / xAI elements, but it is promoting the idea of global satellite internet.
EV adoption was tied to a decrease insmog-forming nitrogen dioxide pollution in California, the biggest market for electric cars in the US, a recentstudy confirms.
[Fast Company]
But here’s Dave Wiskus, founder of the Nebula streaming service, on how AG1 did not pass muster as a sponsor. If you’re curious to learn more, may I point you to this week’sOptimizer?
Athletic Greens is ‘clinically backed.’ What does that even mean?
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurmanreports that Apple is “scaling back” plans for the coach and will instead roll out some of what it had been working on into the Heath app over time.Maybe not the worst idea.
Maybecombining Musk’s companies is really aboutspace AI data centers. But reports fromBloomberg and theWall Street Journal indicate that SpaceX’s IPO pursuit includes a push to have major index providers find a way around the usual waiting periods before they’ll add newly listed companies.
The partnership will allow AT&T touse Amazon Leo — the ecommerce giant’s low Earth orbit satellite network — to deliver fixed broadband services to businesses. Amazon launched itsgigabit-speed Leo Ultra antenna last November, but it’s only available for commercial use for now.
SpaceX is profitable, while xAI is burning about $1 billion a month. Is this another case of Musk bailing out himself?
ThePresidentannounced a new $12 billion public-private partnership called Project Vault, meant to establish a strategic reserve of critical minerals. It’s expected to safeguard stores of rare earths and other materialsused in batteries, smart phones, cars, planes, and more.
I used to compare Elon Musk to an old boss of mine who would spin up a company division every time he found a new hobby, butthis might be just as apt:
ElectricOrchestra613:
Elon Musk’s constant new ventures and subsequent mergers just feels like the corporate equivalent of creating a new email every time you want to sign up for a free trial.
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NASA’s overnight wet dress rehearsal of the SLS rocket surfaced a liquid hydrogen leak. A second wet dress rehearsal is now needed, pushing the earliest possible launch of the crewed mission around the moon to March.
The Trump administration ordered five major offshore wind projects topause construction in December, suddenly citing national security risks even though developers had previously secured approvals to start building. After the companiesfiled suit, federal courts have now allowed all five projects to start construction again.
The Trump administration is quietly weakening regulations meant to protect groundwater and limit radiation exposure to workers at new nuclear reactors,NPR reports. Trump has worked to speed up the deployment ofnew nuclear reactor designs to power AI data centers.
The ‘crisp and refreshing’ protein drink is a sign of a company running out of time to turn it around.
The company,which was led by ex-Tesla CTO JB Straubel, says it just closed its series E funding, including participation from Google and other investors. The money will be put toward building out Redwood Materials’energy storage platform as well as itsEV battery recycling and critical minerals business. And in a blog post, the company gestures at the current debate over AI data centers and electricity demand, saying:
As electricity demand surges—driven by AI, data centers, manufacturing and electrification—energy storage is no longer optional; it is essential infrastructure.
Mr. 420 hopes to raise $50 billion by taking SpaceX public with the largest initial public offering in history. The target date is mid-June, near Elon Musk’s 55th birthday on June 28th, and June 8th and 9th “when Jupiter and Venus will appear very close together, known as a conjunction, for the first time in more than three years.”
SpaceX wants the extra funds to help develop its beefier Starship rocket system, expand its Starlink constellation, and to putdata centers into space.
Every time it gets really cold, the climate change deniers come out of the woodwork with their best“I am very intelligent” grins tosputter some version of “whither global warming?” Fortunately,The Verge’s senior science reporter Justine Calma knew to anticipate these inane inquiries inher story today about the approaching winter storm:
“People say, ‘Oh, well, it’s really cold or we’re getting a lot of snow — how is the world warming?’ Climate change is an increase in the baseline temperatures, but it’s also an increase in extremes from both ways,” says Kaitlyn Trudeau, a senior research associate at the nonprofit Climate Central. “It can make more extreme cold outcomes; it can make more extreme warm outcomes … judging climate change by a cold storm is like judging a baseball season by a single inning.”
President Trump has talked aboutdismantling FEMA as his administrationslashes staff from federal agencies. But now, FEMA will“cease offboarding” workers, CNN reports. Amajor winter storm threatens to wreck power grids and make travel treacherous across much of the US over the weekend and into next week.
