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simple factsMilestone: ‘Buckyball’ discovered and describedDate: November 14, 1985Location: Rice University, Houston, TexasPeople: Harry Croteau, Richard Smalley, Robert CarleIn 1985, scientists spent 10 frenetic days devising a new molecule with perfect symmetry, which they named after one of the 20th century’s most famous inventors and futurists.The search began in the 1970s, when Harry Croteau, a laboratory chemist at the University of Sussex in England, was puzzled by the discovery of a primordial soup of organic molecules in “the vast dark clouds that lie among the stars,” Croteau said in his Nobel Prize speech.However, radio and light-based data obtained from this…

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin landed the booster of its New Glenn giant rocket on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean on just its second attempt. It is the second company to accomplish such a feat, after Elon Musk’s SpaceX. This is an achievement that will help new rocket systems become an option for sending larger payloads to space, the moon, and beyond. But Thursday’s launch wasn’t just about the landing attempt. Approximately 34 minutes after liftoff, New Glenn’s upper stage successfully deployed the rocket’s first commercial payload: a twin-engine spacecraft for NASA bound for Mars to study the Red…

In the debut episode of the Build Mode podcast, host Isabel Johannessen speaks with Deon Nicholas, co-founder of Forethought AI, to uncover what it really takes to build a company that lasts, with and for your customers, from day one. Build Mode is TechCrunch’s new podcast, a messy, tactical, real-talk version that pulls back the curtain on how startups are actually built. Season 1: Product, Meet Market goes beyond product-market fit to consider all aspects of getting your product into the hands of your customers, from finding the right audience to gaining trust and turning initial traction into lasting momentum.…

The Russian-speaking threat behind an ongoing massive phishing campaign has resulted in over 4,300 domain names being registered since the beginning of the year. According to Andrew Brandt, a security researcher at Netcraft, this activity is designed to target customers in the hospitality industry, particularly hotel guests who may have made travel reservations through spam emails. The campaign is said to begin in earnest around February 2025. Of the 4,344 domains associated with this attack, 685 domains contained the name “Booking,” followed by “Expedia” with 18, “Agoda” with 13, and “Airbnb” with 12, indicating an attempt to target all popular…

New observations have revealed that the ‘other’ Comet Atlas has broken apart, turning into a cloud of debris spilling into space.The comet, called C/2025 K1 (ATLAS), was discovered in May by astronomers from the Asteroid Earth Impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) and passed through perihelion, or the closest point to the sun, on October 8. It has no relation to the famous interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, except that it was discovered at the same time and by the same telescope network.Early observations seem to suggest that comet K1 survived a pass around our star a minimum distance of 31 million miles…

When the hosts of the popular podcast “All In” launched their own tequila brand at a star-studded party last June, 750 bottles of the $1,200 spirit quickly sold out. But getting these bottles into customers’ hands proved more difficult than expected. Jason Calacanis, one of the podcast’s hosts, told TechCrunch that bottles of the long-awaited Besties All-In Tequila began shipping to customers last week, ending a nearly five-month wait. Karacanis said it was the unusual bottle that was at issue. “The handcrafted bottles took a little longer to create than expected, but the bottles started shipping last week.” The bottles…

If you thought Apple’s $19 polishing cloth was ridiculous, wait until you hear about Apple’s latest offering. The limited edition iPhone Pocket is a cloth sling for your phone that retails for $149.95 in the short size and $229.95 in the long crossbody size. It seems like the item itself can be rage fodder. According to Apple’s website, the product is inspired by the concept of a single piece of fabric, where a single piece of fabric makes up an entire design. But the iPhone pocket actually makes a lot of sense in the context of the fashion world. If…

US cybersecurity agency CISA said federal government departments are not sufficiently patching Cisco firewalls to protect against active hacking activity targeting them. In its latest advisory released Wednesday, CISA said it is currently “actively tracking the exploitation” of two security flaws in Cisco’s Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) software, which hardens a range of enterprise-grade firewalls used by major companies and government agencies to protect networks from malicious outsiders. CISA said the flaw has been being exploited by a “sophisticated” but as-yet-unnamed attacker since September, prompting CISA to issue its third emergency directive this year ordering government agencies to patch affected…

Firefighters conducting safety training at one of The Boring Company’s construction sites in Las Vegas suffered burns from chemicals used in the tunneling process, according to a new report in Fortune magazine. Clark County firefighters were not advised of the potential danger beforehand and suffered permanent scarring, the report said. Employees working in The Boring Company’s tunnels suffered similar chemical burns. The Boring Company has been digging tunnels in Las Vegas for several years in an attempt to connect the entire city with an underground network that uses Teslas to move people. This is the first effort to create a…

Millions of mysterious black stripes littering the surface of Mars have puzzled scientists for decades, but now researchers may finally have a good explanation. The new theory also explains why it took so long to solve this particular problem.Mars’ “slope stripes” are dark albedo features that cover the slopes of Martian terrain. They were discovered in the 1970s, and scientists initially thought they were evidence of landslides caused by melting ice. But while scientists still think the stripes are the result of landslides, a study published in May revealed that these landslides are actually caused by a “dry process” that…