Month: January 2022

Enlarge / Sébastien Loeb (FRA) and Isabelle Galmiche (FRA) of team M-Sport Ford World Rally Team are seen performing during the World Rally Championship Monte Carlo in Monte Carlo, Monaco, on January 20. (credit: Jaanus Ree/Red Bull Content Pool)

The 2022 World Rally Championship got underway on Thursday with the first night stages of the Monte Carlo Rally. It’s a year of big change in the WRC with the introduction of all-new Rally1 cars—the most powerful vehicles to compete in the sport since the demise of the flame-spitting Group B cars in 1986.

For some time, WRC cars have used turbocharged four-cylinder 1.6 L engines, and that standard continues for Rally1. The engines drive the front and rear wheels via prop shafts and differentials, as you might expect, but there’s no center differential between the front and rear axles, just a fixed 50:50 distribution of torque front to rear.

And the engine isn’t the only thing that sends power and torque to the rear differential; there’s now a hybrid unit behind the fuel tank that has its own shaft to that differential. This is a spec component, supplied to all the teams by Compact Dynamics, a subsidiary of Schaeffler, which worked closely with Audi’s Formula E program.

Enlarge (credit: Vidal et al 2022)

The oldest known Homo sapiens fossil is about 36,000 years older than previously thought, according to a recent study. Volcanologists matched a layer of ash above the fossil skull to an eruption of southern Ethiopia’s Shala volcano 233,000 years ago. Their findings seem to line up well with other recent research about when our species’ branch of the family tree split from that of our nearest hominin relatives, the ancestors of the now-extinct Neanderthals and Denisovans.

Geochemical fingerprints on a Pleistocene crime scene

Finding the oldest member of our species hasn’t been easy for paleoanthropologists. There’s only a handful of sites in Africa where early Homo sapiens fossils—anything older than about 100,000 years—have turned up, and some of the samples have been nearly impossible to pin a precise date on. At other sites, the fossils don’t quite have all the features that distinguish our skulls from those of our now-extinct hominin cousins: things like a high, round cranium (the round part of your skull that holds your brain) and a chin.

One fossil, a skull found near the Omo River in southern Ethiopia, does have all the hallmarks of anatomically modern humans; among other traits, Omo I has a chin and a tall cranium. The skull was buried (probably not on purpose) in a layer of sediment that was later covered by ash from at least one volcanic eruption. In theory, that ash should make it easy to measure the fossil’s minimum age.

Enlarge (credit: Scharon Harding)

Many people think of the mouse as one of the most basic PC peripherals. Point, click, and that’s it. But modern mice have come a long way, and if you’re looking for a more advanced mouse, you may be confused by some of the marketing terminology.

Below, we’ll give quick breakdowns of some of the most common terms you’ll see when looking for a feature-packed mouse. If you’re paying $50 (or even $150 or more) for a mouse, you should know exactly what you’re getting.

Optical sensor

Modern mice use optical sensors, which leverage LEDs, complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) image sensors (like in a camera), and a digital signal processor (DSP) to convert your arm movements into pointer movements. The DSP, as explained by How Stuff Works, “is able to detect patterns in the images and see how those patterns have moved since the previous image. Based on the change in patterns over a sequence of images, the DSP determines how far the mouse has moved and sends the corresponding coordinates to the computer.” A bit less common are laser sensors, like the Logitech Darkfield sensor used in Logitech MX Master 3.

Enlarge / SpaceX launched its third mission of 2022 on January 18. The rocket carried 49 Starlink satellites. (credit: SpaceX)

Welcome to Edition 4.29 of the Rocket Report! There is plenty to discuss this week, including an accident in the Mojave (oh no!) and flights by two different rocket-carrying aircraft within days of each other (oh yes!).

As always, we welcome reader submissions, and if you don’t want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

ABL loses second stage during test firing. Observers at Mojave Air and Space Port in California reported hearing a boom around 1:30 pm local time on Wednesday. A plume of black smoke followed. A few hours later, ABL Space Systems confirmed that the second stage of the RS1 rocket that it’s developing was destroyed in an accident, SpaceNews reports. ABL is well-capitalized and has dozens of launch contracts for RS1 with Lockheed Martin, Amazon, and other companies.