James Altucher:

Microsoft’s New 10,000-Year Data Storage Medium: Glass

Archival storage poses lots of challenges. We want media that is extremely dense and stable for centuries or more, and, ideally, doesn’t consume any energy when not being accessed. 

Lots of ideas have floated around – even DNA has been considered – but one of the simplest is to cut the data into glass. Many forms of glass are very physically and chemically stable, and it’s relatively easy to create features in it.

There’s been a lot of preliminary work demonstrating different aspects of glass-based data storage systems. But in Wednesday’s issue of Nature, Microsoft Research announced Project Silica – a working demonstration of a system that can read and write data into small slabs of glass with a density of over a Gigabit per cubic millimeter.

Microsoft’s accelerated aging experiments suggest the glass data would be stable for over 10,000 years at room temperature. That led Microsoft to declare, “Our results demonstrate that Silica could become the archival storage solution for the digital age."

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Ray Blanco:

Artemis II Moon Rocket Refueled in Practice Countdown Setting Stage for Historic Flight

NASA cleared engineers to load more than 750,000 gallons of supercold propellants into its Space Launch System rocket Thursday in a second "wet dress rehearsal" countdown to verify leak repairs and clear the way for a flight to orbit the moon as early as March 6.

The practice countdown began last night, kicking off a series of steps to ready the world's most powerful operational rocket for a simulated launch today at 8:30 p.m. EST. Controllers then planned to carry out additional tests to make sure the team can recycle, hold and restart an actual launch countdown as needed to handle unexpected problems.

The initial stages of the rehearsal countdown went well and at 9:35 a.m., Launch Director Charlie-Blackwell Thompson gave her "go" to begin the multi-hour process of loading 196,000 gallons of liquid oxygen and 537,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen fuel into the SLS rocket's first stage. The rocket's second stage holds another 22,500 gallons of propellant.

If no major problems are detected, Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen will go into pre-flight medical quarantine Friday, aiming for launch on March 6.

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Greg Guenthner:

How Will Bitcoin React if the U.S. Military Strikes Iran This Weekend?

Bitcoin traded near $66,400 on February 19, holding steady after days of volatility. However, growing fears of a potential U.S. military strike on Iran are adding fresh uncertainty to global markets, including crypto.

According to confirmed reports from multiple American media, U.S. military officials have told President Donald Trump that strike options against Iran are ready and could be executed as early as this weekend.

The Pentagon has already deployed additional aircraft and moved a second carrier strike group toward the Middle East. At the same time, Iran has conducted military exercises and warned it would retaliate if attacked.

These developments follow stalled nuclear talks and rising tensions over Iran’s uranium enrichment and missile programs.

The White House said diplomacy remains the preferred path, but officials also acknowledged that military action is under active consideration.

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