Car Tech
July 2026
Every article published in July 2026. 277 articles · Back to full archive
Science
Scott Kelly spent 340 days aboard the ISS, and his telomeres—the protective caps on chromosomes that generally shorten with age—unexpectedly grew longer in orbit. Most shortened again within two days of landing, ultimately leaving him with many more critically short telomeres than before the mission, alongside separate signs of lasting chromosome damage.
Constellations
In 2026, the FCC authorized radio operations for Reflect Orbital’s first 18-metre space mirror, a single demonstration for a proposed 50,000-satellite system that one astronomy model says could raise the natural night-sky background by 200% to 300%
Mind & Meaning
Pooling 71 studies of nearly 100,000 people, researchers found heavier short-video use was linked to poorer attention, weaker impulse control and more stress — a pattern that held across youths and adults
Science
A typical AI-focused data centre consumes as much electricity as 100,000 homes; that demand has helped trigger a race to put computing clusters into orbit, where companies argue that near-continuous sunlight could eliminate the utility bill — though the solar arrays, launches and cooling hardware would still cost millions.
Technology
On 2 August 2026, Europe's grace period on its landmark AI law ends and the Commission gains the power to fine the makers of the most powerful models — for how they trained them and for what those systems do in the world
Constellations
We tend to assume life needs a star to begin, but a 2025 study found that some moons carried into deep space by planets expelled during supernova explosions could preserve subsurface oceans for billions of years — heated not by sunlight, but by the repeated gravitational flexing of their orbits.
Science
Mountain gorillas build immense muscle on leaves and stems — and the gut microbes that help power them produce the same short-chain fatty acids your own body absorbs
Constellations
SpaceX has asked to place 100,000 Gen3 satellites into 20 orbital shells split between 323–327.5 and 473–477.5 kilometers above Earth, each weighing up to 2,500 kilograms — more than 200 million kilograms of spacecraft before a single launch vehicle or drop of propellant is counted
Mind & Meaning
Since the 1950s, dogs have leapt from the same spot on Scotland's Overtoun Bridge so consistently — almost always from the right parapet, almost always on clear days — that one behavioural investigation eventually traced it to the scent of mink living in the rocks below
Constellations
An exoplanet 124 light-years away may harbour a global ocean beneath a hydrogen-rich atmosphere. Webb has produced two tentative hints of dimethyl sulfide—a gas produced mainly by marine microorganisms on Earth—but independent analyses dispute whether the molecule has been detected at all, leaving scientists divided over what the data mean.
Science
In August 2012, Voyager 1 recorded a sudden surge in galactic cosmic rays while the surrounding magnetic field barely changed direction—an unexpected combination that revealed the boundary of interstellar space was more complicated than scientists had predicted.
Science
NASA is keeping Voyager 1 alive by switching off instruments and heaters one by one—but it cannot let the spacecraft become so cold that its fuel lines freeze. If those lines fail, Voyager could lose the thrusters that keep its antenna aimed at Earth, permanently silencing the most distant human-made object.
Exo Worlds
In June 2026, the James Webb telescope read the dawn and dusk skies of WASP-121b separately and found one side hotter and stripped of water, the other cooler and possibly cloudy, on a world where it can rain liquid rock
Exo Worlds
We assumed water had to be delivered to planets by comets or asteroids — but a 2025 Nature study found that sub-Neptunes, the most common type of planet in the galaxy, can forge their own oceans by reacting hydrogen atmospheres with molten rock deep inside their cores
Technology News