Science News Roundup: Google unveils quantum computer breakthrough; climate fight and more

Following is a summary of current science news briefs.

Post-apocalyptic fossils show rise of mammals after dinosaur demise

A revelatory cache of fossils dug up in central Colorado details as never before the rise of mammals from the post-apocalyptic landscape after an asteroid smacked Earth 66 million years ago and annihilated three-quarters of all species including the dinosaurs. The fossils, described by scientists on Thursday, date from the first million years after the calamity and show that the surviving terrestrial mammalian and plant lineages rebounded with aplomb. Mammals, after 150 million years of subservience, attained dominance. Plant life diversified impressively.

Google unveils quantum computer breakthrough; critics say wait a qubit

Alphabet Inc's Google said on Wednesday it had achieved a breakthrough in computing research by using a quantum computer to solve in minutes a complex problem that would take today's most powerful supercomputer thousands of years to crack. Google researchers expect that quantum computers within a few years will fuel advancements in fields such as artificial intelligence, materials science, and chemistry. The company is racing rivals including IBM Corp and Microsoft Corp to be the first to commercialize the technology and sell it through its cloud computing business.

Manure, trash and wastewater: U.S. utilities get dirty in climate fight

Joey Airoso has always been proud of his cows, whose milk goes into the butter sold by national dairy company Land O'Lakes. Now he has something new to brag about: the vast amounts of gas produced by his 2,900-head herd is powering truck fleets, homes and factories across the state of California. "It's pretty incredible if you think about it," Airoso said during a recent tour of his 1,500-acre (607-hectare) farm, as a stream of watered-down manure flowed from cow sheds into a nearby pit. There the slurry releases methane that is captured and eventually piped into fueling stations and buildings.

Musk's satellite project testing encrypted internet with military planes

The Air Force is using SpaceX's fledgling satellite network to test encrypted internet services for a number of military planes, the space company's president said on Tuesday, detailing results for the first customer of Elon Musk's planned constellation of thousands of broadband-beaming satellites. "We are delivering high bandwidth into the cockpit of Air Force planes," SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell said on Tuesday. "Right now we're just testing the capability and figuring out how to make it work."

U.S. tech firm Maxar taps startup's software for moon mission

(This October 22 story has been refiled to correct headline to say software rather than robotics, first paragraph to clarify that the Olis software would run on a Maxar robotic arm, paragraphs 2 and 3 to state that the robotic arm belongs to Maxar, and paragraph 4 to remove reference to Olis building the robotic arm) U.S. technology company Maxar Technologies Inc said it picked software developed by space startup Olis Robotics to run on a robotic arm of a lunar lander under NASA's broader goal of human moon missions by 2024.

Also Read: U.S. tech firm Maxar taps startup's robotics for moon mission