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Today, Microsoft announced that the first versions of the HoloLens, dubbed the “HoloLens Development Edition,” will begin shipping to independent software developers on March 30th, 2016. The devices cost a whopping $3,000 per unit for now, and you need to apply on Microsoft’s website, fill out a form, and be approved by the company, in order to get one. There’s no sense yet on when HoloLens will be available for purchase by the wider public, without these restrictions, but Microsoft technical fellow Alex Kipman calls this release “the first step in our journey to consumers....

As a press release from MIT explains, powerful solar cells’ fragile natures require thick glass and aluminum encasements for protection, thus limiting their versatility and implementation opportunities. Using semiconducting inks printed onto material thinner than a single strand of human hair, the team was able to subsequently glue the panels onto a layer of Dyneema, a protective, ultra-lightweight composite fabric weighing only 13 grams-per-square meter. The resultant microns-thin sheet could then be laminated atop a variety of surfaces and materials—think tent exteriors to generate power during disaster relief efforts, or drone wings to extend their potential flight times....

The news comes as a follow up to last month, when an FDA panel recommended that recipients of the Pfizer vaccine should receive a booster shot. The panel recommended a booster shot to the same groups of people for both Moderna and Pfizer. Unlike Pfizer’s booster, which will be given at the same dosage as its original two shots, Moderna’s booster will be given at half the original dose—50 micrograms rather than the original 100 micrograms—though experts think this won’t mean people will experience less symptoms....

National forests often get the blame for wildfire conditions in the West, says Christopher Dunn, a fire ecologist at Oregon State University. But more importantly, the Tamarack Fire isn’t representative of the fires that threaten most Westerners. According to recent research co-authored by Dunn, and published in the journal Scientific Reports, fires beginning in national forests are “a rare occasion.” Instead, “those ignitions are more likely to come off private land and move into national forest or into communities,” Dunn explains....

A new study published last month in Frontiers in Microbiology reports that herpes viruses lying dormant inside the body become reactivated in more than half of all astronauts sent into space, potentially exacerbating what is already a high-risk environment. While we’ve yet to run into any kind of worrisome situation resulting from this phenomenon, those concerns loom larger as we set our sights on longer duration missions in orbit and seek to send astronauts back to the moon and on to Mars....

Motobot is still very much in the research and development stage, so the technical details are scarce. In a promo video posted by YouTube user Motorcycle Dreams, Motobot’s tagline is ‘Beyond Human Capabilities’. But Yamaha is still very focused on their human riders. The company wants to eventually get Motobot to the point where it can ride a completely unmodified motorcycle around a track at speeds of 125 miles per hour (200 km/h), a task that is incredibly cool and futuristic, but also could make motorcycles safer for humans....

The questions physiologists asked about animal energetics were straightforward: How much energy was required to keep an animal from starving under various conditions (for example, physical regimen, ambient temperature)? How much protein—specifically, in the early days, how much meat—was required to maintain the animal in nitrogen equilibrium, that is, to ensure that the quantity of nitrogen lost as urea in the urine was equal to that ingested? Efforts to measure metabolic rate by gauging the volume of carbon dioxide expelled in respiration went back at least to the French chemist Antoine Lavoisier’s experiments with guinea pigs in the 1780s, but for a long time, respirometry remained cumbersome and subject to the concern that what an animal did under a respirometer hood did not represent a good approximation to what it did out in the world....

As explained by Philippe Lognonné, a planetary scientist from Paris Diderot University and the principal investigator of the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) instrument on the InSight lander, the goal of the mission is to do on Mars what seismologists did on Earth at the turn of the 20th century. (Coincidentally, the first remote quake on Earth was measured 130 years ago this month.) When InSight landed on the red planet in late November and turned on SEIS a few weeks later, it began a two-year investigation that would reveal what the interior of Mars really looks like, and more importantly how active it still is....

According to the proposal, some of these tests will require fast, vertical takeoffs and landings (we’re looking at you, SpaceX and Blue Origin). Others can have a slower ascent—perhaps that’s a job for Sierra Nevada’s spaceplane. Up until now, NASA experiments would travel into space on sounding rockets or space balloons, and then float aimlessly back to Earth on parachutes–the space agency was more concerned with getting stuff up into space than getting it back to Earth....

The heart is made of flexible silicone and was inspired by soft robotics and artificial muscles, which can fit naturally in the body and interact gently with organic tissues. Unlike rigid artificial hearts, the foam heart is porous, which allows air to flow through it and allow it to beat, the way blood moves through blood vessels to make hearts beat, as New Scientist reports. This means that the heart’s design can be much simpler than other artificial hearts....

Popular Science tracked down ground-breaking startups at the Kairos Global Summit. Check out our complete coverage here. You can hear more from Katie on her podcast.

GE Global Research has already developed a less sophisticated, though tongue-twisting, software program called Physiologically Based Pharmacokinetic (PBPK), which measures drug response in the body far faster than clinical trials can. The new project will advance this product. The Department of Defense is interested because it hopes that the endeavor will promote and help develop dramatically fast-acting drugs, which could be put to use during armed conflicts or in the event of biological warfare, where a fast recovery can often mean the difference between life and death....

The Facebook-owned Oculus kicked off what we know to be the modern virtual reality wave, and many companies iterated on the company’s ideas. Among them, but certainly not the only one, was Taiwanese electronics giant HTC. In a partnership with Valve, the folks behind PC service Steam (and game we’ve all spent too much time playing, Portal), HTC has devised its own VR helmet. And both are awesome. With both virtual reality devices coming in 2016 and opening their doors for preorder, it can be tough to choose which one you’ll get....

The proper lighting can make or break the way you feel in your space. This high-quality LED corner lamp measures just over 4.5 feet tall and brings the ultimate lighting to any room in your home or office. There’s also no need for a switch—use its remote control until you find your perfect setting and change it as often as your heart desires. Its integrated soft-white LED bulbs with over 300 multi-color effects and 16 million-plus colors in RGB color rendering last up to 50,000 hours, making the lamp cost-efficient and durable for years to come....

All vertebrates–humans, fish, snakes, and so on–have a spine consisting of many vertebrae connected in a row. Unlike modern creatures, the vertebrae of early tetrapods contains three sets of bones, one in front, one on top and one in back. But the one that everyone thought was the back bone is actually in the front, said lead author Stephanie Pierce of the Royal Veterinary College in the UK. Pierce and colleagues from RVC and the University of Cambridge were studying three tetrapod fossil types, from animals called Ichthyostega, Acanthostega and Pederpes....

But a modern city can just as easily be filled with verdant gardens or splashes of color: from Jodhpur’s azure to Jaipur’s pink to the rainbows of Bristol in the UK or Cape Town’s Bo-Kaap neighborhood. It’s perhaps of little surprise that scientists believe vibrant environments can be a physical and psychological boon for their inhabitants. The latest evidence to support that—in a study published Friday in the journal Frontiers in Virtual Reality—comes from, well, VR....

For a limited time, you can pick up a refurbished version of Microsoft Surface 3, featuring 64GB of storage space and a Windows 10 operating system for only $199.99 (reg. $230). Use those savings, with no coupon required, to upgrade your current setup or to snag a gift for the holiday season. This model of Microsoft Surface was manufactured in 2015 and comes equipped with an Intel Atom Z8700 processor....

For those that may have missed it, the PS VR headset can be found in the blue portion of the banner towards the left. CES has yet to kick off, but hints have started to drop via banners and booths located at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Now that we’ve reached the new year, “first half of 2016” means fewer days we’ll have to wait for Playstation VR. We could even see the announcement of a release date come in the company’s unveiling tomorrow....

At Emory’s Yerkes National Primate Research Center, researchers exposed voles to other anxious individuals and observed their responses. Prairie voles are highly social and monogamous animals that mate for life and form deep familial bonds. For this reason, all the voles used in the study were exposed to anxious individuals that were close to them. The responses were uniform. Not only did the voles proceed to touch and groom their agitated partners—behaviors usually associated with consolation—but they also became anxious and fearful themselves, matching their distressed counterpart’s physical states....

The drop followed Meta’s release of its fourth-quarter earnings report on Wednesday, which revealed challenges the social media giant faced. While Meta saw an overall rise in revenue during the last three months of 2021, its quarterly profits fell by 8 percent, and the company predicted more losses are expected this year, partly due to a change in Apple’s privacy features. Last year, Apple introduced App Tracking Transparency, allowing iPhone and iPad users to opt out of having apps share or track their activity....