Science & technology | Where no man has gone since 1972

Billionaire space travel heads for a new frontier

Flying on Elon Musk’s spaceship; sponsored by Doritos

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is prepared for launch of Polaris Dawn.
Doritos at DawnPhotograph: Reuters

Editor’s note (August 28th 2024): The mission was postponed a few hours before it was due to launch due to worries about bad weather.

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This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline “A giant leap for billionaires”

From the September 7th 2024 edition

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Legal Amazon preservation area borders the field for soybean planting.

Deforestation is costing Brazilian farmers millions

Without trees to circulate moisture, the land is getting hotter and drier

Robot slicing a cucumber at Toyota Research Institute.

Robots can learn new actions faster thanks to AI techniques

They could soon show their moves in settings from car factories to care homes



Scientific publishers are producing more papers than ever

Concerns about some of their business models are building

The two types of human laugh

One is caused by tickling; the other by everything else

Scientists are building a catalogue of every type of cell in our bodies

It has thus far shed light on everything from organ formation to the causes of inflammation