Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

Few places on the planet are more at risk from the climate crisis than south Florida, where more than 8 million residents are affected by the convergence of almost every modern environmental challenge – from rising seas to contaminated drinking water, more frequent and powerful hurricanes, coastal erosion, flooding and vanishing wildlife and habitat. If…

There wasn’t a whole lot of “just popping out for a walk” from Terry Virts during his six months in confinement. The three times he managed it, he required hours of preparation, some hefty manoeuvring and a million-dollar suit with a built-in life support system. Back indoors, getting along with some of his room-mates required…

It is not referred to as God’s waiting room for nothing. Now the state of Florida — where 20 per cent of the population is aged over 65, lured there by the year-round sunshine, tax perks and pensioner-friendly resorts — is braced for an onslaught against which it seems ill prepared, as coronavirus begins to…

Former governor candidate Gillum caught up in Miami hotel drugs incident Andrew Gillum, a rising Democratic Party star who narrowly lost his 2018 run to be Florida’s governor, has apologized after being found by police early on Friday in a state of intoxication in a Miami Beach hotel room, with three bags presumed to be…

A dog who waited more than five and a half years in a Kansas City shelter for adoption has found a permanent home after a benefactor paid $3,000 for his photograph to appear on a giant billboard. Merrick, a six-year-old mixed breed, sat for dozens of photoshoots and videos in a prolonged but unsuccessful social media campaign…

America’s human space programme suffered a setback yesterday when software on Boeing’s new Starliner crew capsule malfunctioned, dooming what was to have been a glittering test mission to the International Space Station. Jubilation over a spectacular pre-dawn launch from Cape Canaveral in Florida turned minutes later to drama as the crewless CST-100 Starliner, built by Boeing under…

Rosie the Rocketeer leads Nasa in mission to get its crews back in space It has been close to a decade since the USA last flew its own astronauts into space. But that is about to change as Boeing launched its new Starliner space taxi today on a week-long test mission. Built under the terms…

A team of eight musclebound “Mighty Mice” blasted off for the International Space Station (ISS) last night on a mission that could lead to scientific breakthroughs in human health. The creatures, named after the American animated superhero Mighty Mouse, have been genetically engineered to lack myostatin, a protein that limits muscle growth. The change allows their skeletal…

Nasa is to build a $600 million space-based telescope to act as an early warning system against asteroids on a collision course with Earth. The decision to proceed with the “near-Earth object surveillance mission” comes two months after an asteroid large enough to wipe out a city came within 45,000 miles of Earth, the astronomical…

From tourist jaunts to deep-space expeditions, research bases on the Moon to shining cities on Mars, humanity’s ambitions beyond the final frontier are picking up pace. While politicians debate pushing back the timeline of America’s new moon-landing programme by four years and stepping up the focus on sending astronauts to Mars, NASA and other government…