NEW YORK, United States (AFP) – General Motors announced Tuesday plans to invest $7 billion in the US state of Michigan as it converts assembly plants and builds batteries for the transition to electric vehicles (EV). Calling the announcement “the largest single investment in GM history,” the auto giant said the push in its Midwestern home state would create 4,000 new jobs and retain 1,000 more positions. GM has previously projected that it will double […]
Sci-Tech
Slovak flying car receives official certification
BRATISLAVA, Slovakia (AFP) – Slovakia’s Transport Authority on Tuesday said it had issued a certificate of airworthiness for flying car model AirCar, a first step towards commercial production of the invention. “AirCar certification opens the door for mass production of very efficient flying cars,” said Stefan Klein, founder and chief executive of KleinVision, a company that designed and manufactured the prototype of the dual-mode car-aircraft vehicle. “It is an official and final confirmation of our […]
Copy or innovate? Study sheds light on chimp culture
by Sara HUSSEIN Agence France-Presse TOKYO, Japan (AFP) – Chimpanzees in one part of Guinea crack and eat nuts while others declined to do so even when offered tools, research published on Monday found, and the difference could shed light on their culture. As humans, we are said to have cumulative culture: skills and technologies are transmitted and refined from generation to generation, producing behaviours more sophisticated than a single person could dream up. Some […]
Volkswagen hits 2021 EU emissions target after 2020 miss
FRANKFURT, Germany (AFP) – German car giant Volkswagen said Monday it beat the European Union’s target for cutting carbon emissions on its new vehicles in 2021, having missed the mark last year. “Our group-wide electric offensive picked up significant speed last year with many attractive new models,” the head of sales for the multi-brand group Christian Dahlheim said. Average CO2 emissions for passengers cars sold in the EU were “around two percent below the legal […]
Webb telescope reaches final destination, a million miles from Earth
by Issam AHMED WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The James Webb Space Telescope has arrived at its cosmic parking spot a million miles away, bringing it a step closer to its mission to unravel the mysteries of the Universe, NASA said Monday. At around 2:00 pm Eastern Time (1900 GMT), the observatory fired its thrusters for five minutes to reach the so-called second Lagrange point, or L2, where it will have access to nearly half […]
Lab monkeys found, killed after fleeing US road crash
WASHINGTON, D.C., United States (AFP) – Three monkeys have been found and killed after a truck carrying 100 primates to a laboratory crashed, allowing them to escape and triggering a police hunt. The vehicle turned in front of an oncoming dump truck near Danville, Pennsylvania, on Friday en route to a lab in Florida. Police said on Twitter Friday that “a small number of monkeys may have fled the crash scene into the surrounding area.” […]
Four people including baby freeze to death near US-Canada border
MONTREAL, Canada (AFP) — Canadian authorities found the bodies of four people including a baby who apparently froze to death in a blizzard a few meters from the US border along a route used by migrants, officials said Thursday. The temperature Wednesday when the bodies were found amid vast snowdrifts, taking into account the wind, was minus 35 degrees Celsius (minus 31 degrees Fahrenheit). “At this very early stage of the investigation, it appears that […]
Polish researchers invent anti-smog sound cannon
KALWARIA ZEBRZYDOWSKA, Poland (AFP) – In a battle against Poland’s constant smog, scientists are testing out a new “cannon” that uses soundwaves to push toxic particles higher into the atmosphere to allow residents to breathe. Installed on top of a metal container, the experimental device consists of a large upside-down cone that makes a loud sound every six seconds. The aim is to chase the smog from Kalwaria Zebrzydowska, which like many Polish towns and cities […]
Russia’s only female cosmonaut to travel to space in September
MOSCOW, Russia (AFP) – Russia’s sole active female cosmonaut, Anna Kikina, is due to travel to the International Space Station in September on a Soyuz rocket, the national space agency said Thursday. Kikina, a 37-year-old engineer, will be only the fifth professional woman cosmonaut from Russia or the Soviet Union to fly to space. Last year, the Russian space agency Roscosmos said “our beauty” Kikina would fly aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon as part of a […]
Peril and promise: gas from ‘killer lake’ powers Rwanda
by Marion DOUET Agence France-Presse LAKE KIVU, Rwanda (AFP) – The engineers aboard the floating power station on Lake Kivu could only watch nervously as the volcano in the distance erupted violently, sending tremors rumbling through the water beneath them. It was not the lava shooting from Mount Nyiragongo last May that spooked them, but the enormous concentrations of potentially explosive gases within Kivu, one of Africa’s great Rift lakes lying between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic […]
US artist, KAWS and London gallery launch first exhibition on Fortnite
by Charlotte DURAND Agence France-Presse LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) – On a frosty morning in London’s Hyde Park, onlookers aim their mobile phones at the top of the Serpentine Gallery. The large sculpture of a blue man sitting on the roof is invisible to the naked eye but it is there — in augmented reality. The sculpture is part of an installation by the American artist Kaws at the gallery, reproduced for the hundreds of […]
Shock waves, landslides may have caused ‘rare’ volcano tsunami: experts
PARIS, France (AFP) — A rare volcano-triggered tsunami sparked by the eruption of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai in Tonga could have been caused by shock waves or shifting underwater land, experts said Monday. “A volcanic-source tsunami event is rare but not unprecedented,” a post on the website for New Zealand’s geological hazard monitoring system GNS said Monday. GNS Tsunami Duty Officer Jonathan Hanson said it probably occurred in part thanks to a previous eruption of the […]