A BuzzFeed News investigation recently discovered that President Joe Biden's Venmo account was not only easy to find, but had a public friends list that posed a threat to national security. BuzzFeed News notified the White House that the president's Venmo friends and their transactions were visible and shortly afterward, both the President and the First Lady's Venmo accounts disappeared from the app. 

Because of Venmo's default privacy settings and unchangeably public friends list, it's likely that it was easier to remove the account than let the United States president continue to have one, which poses the question: What can someone who isn't the Commander-in-Chief do to protect their privacy on Venmo? Read more...

The legendary Hubble telescope captured an intriguing cosmic cloud — a cloud that makes its own light.

Called an "emissions nebula," it's a bright cloud whose gases get excited by radiation from nearby stars, and ultimately emit light. (In other words, this isn't starlight isn't being reflected off the gas.)

The right side of this image, however, is darkened by a great cloud of dust, which blocks light from reaching the Hubble Space Telescope.

Zap.

After the Perseverance rover spent its first three months on Mars getting its bearings and serving as an observation post for the successful Ingenuity helicopter flights, NASA announced the robot has started its primary mission: seeking out past evidence of microbial life — should any have ever existed.

"The time has come: I’m switching from on-scene photographer to science investigator," NASA's Perseverance rover Twitter account posted this week. "Did this ancient lakebed ever have life? The tools I brought will help begin the hunt. I’m a bot on a mission."

The "hunt" largely means scouring the geological and chemical make-up of rocks in the Jezero Crater, a place NASA believes was "once flooded with water and was home to an ancient river delta." Primitive life could have potentially dwelled in these wet soils, like it does on Earth. Read more...

How much are people willing to pay for new Twitter features? Is it $2.99? According to Jane Manchun Wong, a software developer who's gained a reputation for reverse-engineering applications to reveal upcoming services, Twitter is hoping it's exactly $2.99. 

Wong's deep dive into the backend of Twitter suggests that a subscription tier called Twitter Blue will give paying users access to exclusive features, including better tools for organizing bookmarks and an "undo" button that makes it possible to recall tweets within a certain timeframe. Some of the alleged options appeared on a Twitter survey conducted in summer 2020, which asked users about which app features they'd be willing to pay for, if any.  Read more...

Engineers commanded the James Webb Space Telescope to unfurl its over 21-foot wide golden mirrors this week, and the crucial test succeeded.

The test, shown in the image below, was the last check on the sprawling telescope's moving parts under space-like conditions. James Webb, set to launch in Oct. 2021, is the largest, most powerful space telescope ever built. It's the next generation of space telescope, furthering the legendary observations made by the aging, over 30-year old Hubble telescope. 

After launching into space, Webb's 18 hexagonal mirrors will align to form a "single, precise mirror," NASA engineer Lee Feinberg said in a statement. "The primary mirror is a technological marvel," Feinberg said. Read more...