New Robot Bird Can Fly, Jump, And Hop

Image: EPFL

Researchers at EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland have built a robot that not only looks like a bird but can also launch itself into flight like one. They say that the robot, called RAVEN (Robotic Avian-inspired Vehicle for multiple ENvironments), might be useful for remote inspections, disaster aid, or drone deliveries in areas that are otherwise difficult to access. Press release here, video here.

This episode of Science News covers the Big Bang Theory. The Big Bang is the first moment our universe existed according to calculations within Einstein’s theory of general relativity. But then what is the “Dark Big Bang” that some physicists are talking about? Does this really solve any problems, or is it just another theory that we’ll never be able to test? You can take the quiz here.

You can now create and share your own quizzes on QuizWithIt – for free! Just set up an account and creator profile and you are good to go. Create quizzes to go with websites, videos, blogposts, podcasts, or as standalone. Your audience can support you by subscribing to your content, which allows them to collect points by taking your quizzes. Each quiz has a unique URL, can be embedded into websites or newsletter, and be shared on X, Facebook, or LinkedIn. Happy quizzing!

In a First, Physicists Con­firm Super­flu­id­ity in Super­solid

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives have been one of the most divisive agendas of the Biden administration and almost certainly contributed to Trump winning the election. These initiatives, which spread in both public and private U.S. institutions, included practices such as training supposed to alleviate racial biases (though probably doing the exact opposite) and dedicated programs for hiring people of minorities, not to mention a lot of virtue-signalling about all that. DEI has been faltering in academia since some U.S. states, like Utah, passed laws that required scaling these initiatives back, and other universities followed voluntarily, like the University of Missouri at Columbia, which dissolved its DEI center in the summer. Private industry has now seen the tide turning: Ford, Lowes, and Walmart all recently announced they will roll back their DEI efforts. Meanwhile, investors close to incoming president Trump are creating an exchange-traded fund (ETF) that excludes companies deemed to have reduced value because they choose DEI over meritocracy. The new fund which some have dubbed “anti-woke” most prominently excludes Starbucks.

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Prominent Physicist Wades into Transgender Kerfuffle

The American astrophysicist and science popularizer Neil DeGrasse Tyson has angered some people with his opinions about transgender athletes. In a widely shared podcast with host Piers Morgan, Tyson has argued that if it was possible to classify athletes into classes of similar potential performance, then there would be no reason to classify them by sex. Most of the outrage that followed came from people who missed that Neil’s statement was about a hypothetical, not a currently practical, scenario. Or maybe people just like to hate on physicists. Beware: I will say more about this in an upcoming video.

Our podcast “Science with Sabine” is available on Spotify, Amazon, Apple, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Pocket Casts, Radio Public, and YouTube.