Twitter has been in the news a lot lately, albeit for the wrong reasons. Its stock growth has languished and the platform itself has largely remained the same since its founding in 2006. On April 14, 2022, Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, made an offer to buy Twitter and take the public company private. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission , Musk stated, “I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy.” As a researcher of social media platforms , I find that Musk’s potential ownership of Twitter and his stated reasons for buying the company raise important issues. Those issues stem from the nature of the social media platform and what sets it apart from others. What makes Twitter unique Twitter occupies a unique niche. Its short chunks of text and threading foster real-time conversations among thousands of people, which ...
The Hubble Space Telescope is one of the most important scientific achievements of the human species that has helped us understand space. It has been in orbit for over 30 years and has been feeding some of the most vital streams of information that has not only helped us steer our space exploration efforts, but also solve some of the more deep mysteries of the universe . NASA would love to extend its usable life for as long as possible. Unfortunately, for some years now, Hubble Space Telescope has been slipping out of its orbit. That is why, NASA is planning to team up with Elon Musk’s SpaceX and place it into a higher much more stable orbit. NASA, SpaceX and Jared Isaacman, a private astronaut with the Polaris Program, hosted a media teleconference on Thursday to announce a feasibility study that will look into sending a commercial Dragon spacecraft to reboost the Hubble Space Telescope . This will, in effect place the telescope into a higher and more stable orbit than it’s curren...
China launched Tianhe-1, the first and main module of a permanent orbiting space station called Tiangong (Heavenly Palace 天 宫) , on 29 April . Two additional science modules (Wentian and Mengtian) will follow in 2022 in a series of missions that will complete the station and allow it to start operations. While the station is not China’s first – the country has already launched two – the modular design is new. It replicates the International Space Station (ISS), from which China was excluded . There are many reasons for China to invest in this costly and technologically challenging project. One is to conduct scientific research and make medical, environmental and technological discoveries. But there are also other possible motivations, such as commercial gains and prestige. That said, Tiangong does not aim to compete with the ISS. The Chinese station will be smaller and similar in design and size to the former Soviet Mir space station, meaning it will have limited capacity for a...
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