Google unveils new Nexus phones, Pixel C tablet

Google is launching major updates for the Nexus phone, Pixel line, and its widely-used Android operating system, the company announced on Tuesday.

Nexus 5X

Let’s start with updates to the Nexus line of phones. The 5X, made by LG, is now the flagship phone and touts specs that should satisfy consumers looking for a sub-$400 Nexus phone. That includes a 5.2-inch 1080p (1,920 x 1,080) display with Gorilla Glass 3, 12-megapixel camera with “massive” pixels for higher-quality photos, 4K video recording and a USB Type-C charging connector. The new USB connector – which is much smaller than a typical USB connector and much easier to plug in – is being adopted for a host of new devices including the 12-inch Retina MacBook and new Chromebook Pixel. The Nexus 5X ships with Android 6.0 Marshmallow starts at $379 and preorders begin immediately with shipments later in October.

Nexus 6P

This is Google’s top-of-the-line phone and is the first all-metal-body (using aeronautical-grade aluminum) Nexus phone and was built “in collaboration” with Huawei, according to Google. Its 5.7-inch screen fits into a chassis about the size of the iPhone 6s Plus. Since the iPhone 6s Plus has a smaller 5.5-inch screen, Google is claiming a more efficient physical design. That screen is a WQHD (2,560 x 1,440) based on AMOLED technology. For those keeping track, Samsung is best known for its stunning AMOLED displays on its Galaxy line of phones. Apple opts for cutting-edge LCD displays. Like the Nexus 5X, it also has a USB Type-C port for fast charging and a 12.3 MP camera. Other salient specs include a speedy Qualcomm 64-bit processor, 3GB of RAM, and Android 6.0 Marshmallow.  It starts at $499 with 32GB of storage and shipments will begin in October. 

Review: 'Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze' is all kinds of awesome

When Nintendo announced “Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze” in June 2013, the Internet reaction was overwhelmingly negative. Many gamers had been hoping for a Metroid game to be announced, and were consequently disappointed with what they saw as a very uninspired looking sequel to the successful “Donkey Kong Country Returns” released on the Wii and Nintendo 3DS.

Boy were they wrong.

Not only could “Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze” be the best game for the Wii U in 2014, it may be the best Wii U game to date.

I was cynical myself at first; it felt like the “Donkey Kong Country” series was running on borrowed time. Nintendo revamped the 1994 classic “Donkey Kong Country” for the Wii in 2010, and then fired it out again for the 3DS in 2013. Surely, another game wasn’t needed so quickly?

Yet “Tropical Freeze” is no cash-in, far from it. Instead it is a legitimate, and extremely high quality entry into a great series.

In the game, mysterious anthropomorphic Viking animals invade Donkey Kong’s homeland, and freeze it over while sending Kong and co. off to a faraway island. The gang must travel across the various islands to get back home and dispel their conquerors ... and get bananas.

Ok, the story is the game’s weak point. But the gameplay is where “Tropical Freeze” shines. While it bears the similar structure of the series, Freeze brings in a whole new set of features including platforming, mine-cart levels and more.

Review: With the new Apple iPad Air, size now matters

Until now, size wasn't the deciding factor between the full-size Apple iPad Air and the iPad mini. There were marked differences between the two such as size, weight, speed and quality of display.

But the latest generation of tablets from Apple -- the iPad Air goes on sale this Friday, the Mini shortly thereafter -- are both best in class: same speed, same camera same ultrahigh definition Retina display. So when you're deciding between the two … size makes all the difference.

In my house, the kids are the real gadget testers. Since they take over any tablet or phone I bring home, we joined forces to put the new Air through the Morris Family paces for the last week.

In my house, the kids are the real gadget testers.

At 1 pound, the new iPad Air is impressively light, barely heavier than the iPad mini. My toddler can waddle around the house with it a lot more easily, and I can now use it in bed without worrying that it will smack me in the forehead if I doze off while reading Frank Miller’s "The Dark Knight Returns." Which has been known to happen with the previous generation iPad.

It’s hard to believe Apple managed to shave nearly a half-pound off last year’s fourth-generation iPad while still maintaining exceptional battery life, which in my all-day usage rarely dropped below 30 percent.

Battery life is an important feature in my house. My children like to play Wood Puzzles HD and then leave the game on for the music as background noise while they play. And I leave the house at 3:30 a.m. for FOX & Friends, iPad in tow, so I need it to last me all day. Like previous generations, the Air does just fine on this count.

Yet the Air is now a lot thinner -- 20 percent thinner than the previous generation, to be exact. It's great for travel in my own backpack, as well as in the diaper bag. You barely notice it’s there.

The Retina display does not fail to impress. I found it all the more impressive given my recent Lasik eye surgery. The screen resolution is crystal clear. Apple reduced the bezel around the sides to give the appearance of more "screen" even though the viewing area remains the same as last year’s iPad.

'Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas' coming to mobile devices

The game Hillary Clinton sought to ban is back, and coming to a cell phone near you.

On the back of this year’s controversial “Grand Theft Auto V,” developer Rockstar announced Tuesday that the 2004 classic “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas” is coming to mobile devices this December.

Both 2001’s “Grand Theft Auto III” and 2002’s “Grand Theft Auto: Vice City” have been translated to mobile devices and sold well, so a port of “San Andreas” was inevitable. Yet this is one of Rockstar’s most ambitious moves yet: “San Andreas” was unrivalled in scope, size, and things to do. It will be comfortably one of the biggest games for mobile ever released.

Gamers loved the expansive map that could take hours to travel across, with varied missions in the rough suburbs of Los Santos and wild countryside to explore. Oh, and it had Samuel L. Jackson as a voice actor – amazing.

If you aren't an adult, the game is not intended for you. 'Grand Theft Bambi' this is not.

“San Andreas” also garnered a praise for its sensitive handling of race and gang issues. The gamer played young black gang member Carl “C.J.” Johnson struggling to shake off his past and make a life for himself outside of the world into which he was born. In trying to break free, C.J. ends up entrenched further in criminality. Characters broke free of tiresome stereotypes, and critics praised it for making a black character the lead.

Review: 'Dragon’s Crown' game a rough diamond

The best type of video games are those that ease you in gently, disguised as a casual experience that you sit down to play for twenty minutes. Suddenly, it’s five hours later and you need another Red Bull, but only after you complete just one more quest.

“Dragon’s Crown” is that sort of game.

The new side-scrolling beat-em-up takes its cues from classics such as the 1991 Sega Genesis title “Streets of Rage” and 1990’s arcade hit “Golden Axe,” and throws in addictive role-playing qualities found in more recent titles such as Blizzard’s time-sucking MMORPG “World of Warcraft.”

“Dragon’s Crown” takes place in the fantasy world of Hydeland. The player takes control of a stock character, such as a fighter, sorceress or a dwarf, and sets off in search of fame and fortune in the form of the titular dragon’s crown. The magical crown, we are told, has been lost and without it, the picturesque world in which your character resides is threatened by trauma, tragedy and of course, big scaly dragons.

It is therefore up to you to save the world.

And what a beautiful world it is. Hydeland drips with color and stunning exceptional character designs. Accompanied by a quality soundtrack that could have been lifted right out of “The Lord of the Rings,” “Dragon’s Crown” is a game that oozes quality.

Researchers ‘delighted’ with results of iPhone Asthma Health app

Six months after unveiling an asthma research app that harnesses the power of Apple’s iPhone, experts at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York are thrilled with the study's early results.

“We are delighted with the initial results we’ve seen after six months of using Apple’s ResearchKit framework for our Asthma Health app,” said Eric Schadt, professor of genomics at the Icahn School of Medicine, in a press release. “We recruited and enrolled over 8,600 research participants in our study, remotely via the Asthma Health app without direct, in-person, contact.”

Related: Asthma Health app harnesses the power of Apple’s iPhone

Jointly developed with LifeMap Solutions, the app uses Apple’s ResearchKit open source software framework, and aims to make it easy for asthma sufferers to participate in research studies via their iPhones.

The Asthma Health App also taps into Apple’s Health Kit, a tool for developers that lets health and fitness apps work together. When granted permission by the user, the Asthma Health app accesses data from Health Kit to track, for example, asthma inhaler use measured by third-party devices and apps. It can also take advantage of the iPhone’s features such as GPS sensors to gather other relevant health data.

The app broke the geographic barrier that typically limits traditional research to the local area of a university or medical center, according to a spokesman for the Icahn School of Medicine. “For our study, 87 percent of participants live outside of NY and NJ,” he told FoxNews.com, in an email. 

Instagram clobbers Twitter as it surpasses the 400 million mark

It's a bit of a chicken or the egg dilemma -- are we such a visual generation because of all the photography and photosharing apps available to us, or do these technologies exist because of our penchant for showing rather than telling? Either way, Instagram doesn't care, as the wildly popular editing and sharing app recently surpassed 400 million users, which is 80 million more than Twitter. Yikes. Much of this growth has taken place in the last nine months alone, when 100 million new Instagrammers joined the platform. So not only is Instagram growing, it's growing really, really quickly.

Much of this latest spike in user numbers comes from Instagram's concerted internationalization efforts. In a blog post announcing the milestone, the app noted, "Our community has evolved to be even more global, with more than 75 percent living outside of the U.S…Among the last 100 million to join, more than half live in Europe and Asia. The countries that added the most Instagrammers include Brazil, Japan and Indonesia." At only five years old, Instagram's rapid expansion has been consistently impressive, validating Facebook's decision to spend $1 billion acquiring it just 18 months after its launch.

Related: These Instagrammers are so good Getty just gave them $10K each

Particularly promising is Instagram's appeal to younger demographics. Whereas parent company Facebook seems to be losing its popularity among teens, Instagram has no such problem, especially with younger reality shows (thanks, Kardashian-Jenner clan) making frequent use of the app. Snapchat, another highly visual platform, has also reported strong numbers, though nothing quite as impressive as Instagram (yet).

In spite of the notable marker, Papa Zuckerberg remains rather unimpressed. He's previously noted that "he doesn't think about a service as a real business until it gets to a billion users," which means that Facebook was apparently nothing more than a sneeze for the first several years of its existence, but hey -- baby steps, right? In any case, congratulations Instagram! May you continue making our lives look cooler than they are.

Edward Snowden hits 1 million Twitter followers

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has racked up more than a million Twitter followers, just 24 hours after making his debut on the micro-blogging site.

Snowden, who posted his first tweet Tuesday, had amassed 1.03 million followers by late Wednesday morning.  The former NSA contractor was following just one Twitter account - @NSAGov.

Related: Edward Snowden makes Twitter debut

“Meanwhile, a thousand people at Fort Meade just opened Twitter,” he quipped Tuesday, referring to the NSA’s headquarters at Fort Meade, Md.

The whistleblower also exchanged tweets with astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, joking about the recent discovery of flowing salty water on Mars. “And now we've got water on Mars! Do you think they check passports at the border? Asking for a friend,” he wrote.

Snowden was a recent guest on the astrophysicist’s StarTalk radio show.

“I used to work for the government. Now I work for the public,” his Twitter profile explains, noting that he is a director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation.

Establishing a Twitter presence looks set to maintain the high profile of the former NSA contractor, who lives in Moscow. Russia granted Snowden asylumafter he leaked U.S. secrets to the media in 2013.

Social media giants clamp down on sickening Virginia shooting footage

Social media giants Facebook and Twitter, along with video sharing site YouTube, rushed to remove shocking video footage that appeared to show theshooting of two television news journalists Wednesday.

The suspect in the Moneta, Va. shooting was identified by police as 41-year-old Vester Lee Flanagan, who also went by the name Bryce Williams. Flanagan died at 1:30 p.m. ET from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Although Twitter and Facebook suspended pages believed to have been Flanagan's which had what appeared to be first-person video of the shooting, the social media behemoths could not stop the footage from spreading on the Internet. The video also surfaced on YouTube, apparently via Facebook. YouTube subsequently removed the video, noting that it violated the site’s policy on “shocking and disgusting content.”

“Our hearts go out to the families affected by this terrible crime,” said a YouTube spokeswoman, in an email to FoxNews.com. “YouTube has clear policies against videos of gratuitous violence and we remove them when they're flagged.”

A spokesman for Facebook confirmed that the social media giant had removed a profile and a page for violating the site's Community Standards.

In the Twitter video, a cell phone camera angle shows the shooter walking up to a reporter, interviewee and camera man and pointing a gun at them. The trio, in the midst of the interview, does not see the shooter approach or the pistol pointing at them. The shooter initially stops near the group and points the gun away. After a few seconds, he aims again and begins firing, first at reporter Alison Parker, who screams and runs as the video ends.

In the longer video posted to Facebook the sound of at least 14 gunshots can be heard. Nine shots ring out before a pause and the final shots are fired.

The two people killed in the live broadcast were identified by colleagues at TV station WDBJ7 as Alison Parker, 24, and cameraman Adam Ward, 27. Flanagan had previously served as a reporter for WDBJ7 using the name Bryce Williams.

Twitter.com back up after suffering outage

Twitter.com suffered an outage Monday, leaving some users frustrated.

USA Today reported that users began receiving an error message that “something is technically wrong” at 2:45 p.m. ET.

VentureBeat reported that the outage only seemed to affect Twitter’s Web client, with its mobile app and the TweetDeck app continuing to work. The micro-blogging site was down for approximately 35 minutes, it reported.

Twitter has not yet revealed the cause of the outage, but confirmed that Twitter.com experienced some problems. “Earlier today, some users may have experienced issues accessing twitter.com. This issue is now resolved,” Twitter Support tweeted at 3:37 p.m. ET.

Users took to other social media to vent their frustration about the outage, according to USA Today.

"During the Twitter outage, I checked and found Facebook still exists," tweeted @jamestaranto.

It's part tank, part salamander, and ready for combat

A new amphibious vehicle that moves just as well on land as it does in the water looks kind of like a salamander. That is, if a salamander had eight wheels, a six-cylinder turbodiesel engine and weighed about 20 tons.

Defense contractor Lockheed Martin designed and built the new Amphibious Combat Vehicle (ACV) to replace the U.S. Marine Corps' aging fleet of swimming tanks, which have been in use for more than four decades. The versatile new ACV was officially unveiled last Sept. 22 at the Modern Day Marine trade show in Quantico, Virginia.

Amphibious vehicles are very useful to Marines, who use the hybrid boat-tanks to travel safely between giant ships at sea and dry land. However, because they have to work in such varied environments, designing these machines can be a complicated (and expensive) process, according to David Hunn, technical director of Lockheed's ACV program. [7 Technologies That Transformed Warfare] 

"For military amphibians, you don't have the benefit of swimming in calm lakes or canal ways and then driving on smooth roads," Hunn said in a statement. "You’re swimming through, oftentimes, big waves, ocean currents, nighttime and storms — and then operating in rough, off-road land conditions."

To build a vehicle that can handle all of these conditions, engineers first have to figure out one very important thing: how to get a 20-ton tank to float. To do this, Lockheed engineers have to ensure that the volume of water the ACV displaces weighs the same or more than the ACV itself. If the vehicle is less dense than the water, then it will float.

Guns for good: The Remington Great Americans Shoot

Patriot Americans from around the country brought their shotguns to Texas on Saturday, raising more than $1 million for military-related charities.

The largest charity fundraising shooting event of its kind ever held in America, The Remington Great Americans Shoot managed to surpass its remarkable inaugural fundraising from last year , reaching more than $1.4 million. Last year, the event raised nearly $1.2 million for military charities.

This national shoot was sponsored by Remington Arms and pays homage to the warriors who have served and are serving in the U.S. military’s Special Operations.  

Folks brought their favorite shotguns out to the beautiful Providence Plantation near Houston. The event is an opportunity to have a lot of fun shooting clays and also to do a lot of good. The funds raised benefit the Special Forces Charitable Trust as well as other military non-profits to benefit active duty service members, veterans and their families.

Texan entrepreneur and renowned philanthropist Mike Reynolds founded the Shoot event. “The original idea was to find a way to allow normal citizens the opportunity to sit with some of these truly amazing men and women and say more than just a thank you,” he explained, in a press release. “It’s a chance for us to put our arms around someone who has been to battle for this country, whose family has given so much, and say how much we appreciate the security you bring to my family’s life.”

The Teams

More than 118 participants and over 2,098 donors – more than double the inaugural year - were involved in the shoot.

Some 18 teams of five shooters plus a sixth man from the forces took part in the competition, with each shooter committing to raise or write a check for a minimum of $10,000. Each team also had a “sixth man” shooter – either a veteran or an active duty service member.

Cold War weaponry and modern military hardware: Inside the ISIS arsenal

In January the U.S. Central Command announced that U.S. and coalition airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria destroyed some 184 Humvees, 58 tanks and nearly 700 other vehicles. The number of ISIS military vehicles destroyed may seem significant, but is really just a drop in the bucket compared to the militants' overall firepower.

While specific numbers are difficult to come by, reports suggest that ISIS has a huge fleet of vehicles – including tanks - its possession. Last year, for example, the jihadists captured 2,300 Humvees from Iraqi forces when they captured the city of Mosul, some of which were then converted to armored vehicles.

Unlike traditional nation states ISIS doesn't produce tanks or other weapons in factories, and unlike past insurgent forces that were supported by a nation state ISIS isn't being armed or equipped by a major power either. Yet the group's fleet of vehicles continues to grow. In May ISIS captured U.S.-built equipment, including M1A1 tanks after the group took control of the town of Ramadi, 60 miles west of Baghdad. The militants’ haul reportedly included about 100 wheeled vehicles and dozens of tracked vehicles.

Army tests remote-controlled weapons systems for base security

The U.S. Army is testing remote controlled weapons systems for base perimeter security.

The tests at Fort Bliss, Texas, involve unmanned, weaponized towers, which aim to make more effective use of military personnel. Using the remote controlled systems, two soldiers inside the base camp tactical operation center can do the security work once done by 10, explained Lt. Col. Raphael Heflin, commander, 142nd Combat Service Support Battalion (CSSB), 1st Armored Division, in apress release. "Every Soldier I have assigned to securing the perimeter is one I don't have that can execute support missions," he said.

Related: Cold War-era weaponry in pictures

The systems, and the “expeditionary towers” they are mounted on, are known as containerized weapons systems. One expeditionary tower "can be put together by six Soldiers in less than an hour, with minimal training," said Capt. Robert Scott, officer-in-charge of the 142nd CSSB's base defense operation center, in the press release. When it's time to pack up and leave, everything fits neatly back inside the container.

Tests at Fort Bliss have used a Browning M-2 50-caliber machine gun and a 338 Lapua sniper rifle mounted on towers, although most types of gun system can be mounted.

The weapons can be raised, lowered, rotated by 360-degrees and fired remotely, according to Scott, who noted that they are controlled using Joint All Hazard Command Control System software. The software serves as the brain of the sophisticated “Tower Hawk System” for base surveillance, he added.

New military radio uses soldiers’ bones to send messages

A new radio technology lets warfighters talk to each other by harnessing their bones to transmit and listen to messages.

The technology leverages the human body’s natural ability to transmit sound through bone. It takes the bone-transmitted messages and then delivers them directly to the inner ear through the warfighter’s helmet.

Warfighters can both listen to messages and send messages this way – and the tech is the mere weight and size of a small coin.

Related: Navies could harness 3D-printing to build military vessels, report says

Made by BAE Systems, the prototype will be on show at the Defence and Security Equipment International show in London next week. The biennial four-day event is the world’s biggest defense and security trade show. More than 30,000 visitors from 121 countries walked the floors at DSEI in 2013.

Communication 2.0

Radios are an essential tool that forces use to communicate with each other and understand the environment where they are working. In the battlespace environment, radios need to be effective amid loud noises from explosions and gunfire – warfighters also need to defend their hearing against the noise volume by wearing sound protection.

With this cutting-edge bone conduction tech, warfighters still send and receive messages while wearing sound protection for their ears.

‘The Martian’ director Ridley Scott explains his Mars fascination

The sci-fi adventure “The Martian” has landed in theaters starring Matt Damon as an astronaut forced to find ways of surviving on Mars solo after being left behind by his crew. The film is based on the popular book by Andy Weir and provides many science based explanations of how he could live on the red planet.

When FoxNews.com spoke with Director Ridley Scott at the Toronto International Film Festival we asked him about this Mars fascination. “I think because Mars really is the nearest planet, you discount the moon, which is only five days away, five days flight,” he said. “Mars, according to where you are, is between 50 million and 130 million miles away, according to its trajectory. After that, you got to learn to hibernate for years and you got to fly at the speed of light to get to the next planet. You’d be flying for 40 years.”

Related: Mars has flowing liquid water, NASA confirms

Scott describes manned Mars exploration as “a quantum leap”, further fueling our fascination with the planet. “NASA now knows that there is a massive glacier and therefore several massive glaciers of pure water underneath the sand on Mars,” he said. “So one does ask the question - 'a billion years ago, was Mars like us'?”

Now with the recent discovery of flowing liquid water on Mars, scientists may be closer to answering that question than ever before.

Scott also discussed how he came up with an on-screen Mars that audiences can see in both 2D and 3D. The director said he had plenty of material to help him design the cinematic planet. “I looked at all the stuff, the material that they’d had coming off Mars over the last 30 years, quite a lot actually, and they got a lot of assets lying up there or still working assets,” he said.

Antarctic scientists may face breathalyzer tests in attempt to curb drunkenness

When you’re working in Antarctica, you can only play so much Xbox before the walls begin to close. However, a recent safety audit released by the National Science Foundation Office of the Inspector General has sounded the alarm regarding over consumption (and in some cases, creation) of alcohol at U.S. Antarctic research bases. 

From May 2014 to March 2015, the organization conducted an audit of the U.S. Antarctic Program (USAP) at three research stations – McMurdo, Amundsen-Scott South Pole, and Palmer. Around 3,200 people participate in USAP every year, including contractors, subcontractors and researchers, as well as U.S. military personnel, NSF staff and visitors.

According to the report, some participants flout the alcohol rules fairly openly. 

Although both the USAP and contractor Lockheed Martin prohibit drinking on the job, officials on a visit to a science lab uncovered, “large quantities of bottled beer stored under a desk and in the refrigerator.” It doesn’t end there. Investigators learned that, “a researcher was brewing the beer at the station, which is also prohibited by the USAP Alcohol Policy.” 

Curtailing drinking on the job is only one challenge. The report continues, “NSF officials acknowledged that alcohol consumption in the USAP can create unpredictable behavior that has led to fights, indecent exposure, and employees arriving to work under the influence. However, we noted that breathalyzer tests are rarely administered to determine if employees are intoxicated.”  

In terms of over imbibing and its aftermath, auditors interviewed HR managers for three contractors that account for an estimated 90 percent of the contractor and subcontractors, only one sent an employee for alcohol testing. “Similarly, we interviewed the physicians at all three stations and the USAP Chief Medical Officer, and only one physician recalled a situation, in which an HR manager asked the medical staff to perform a breathalyzer test,” the report added.

Related: Scientists watch enormous iceberg drift away from Antarctic glacier

Auditors called for more effective use of breathalyzers in the bases. “Since alcohol abuse does occur in the USAP program, workplace safety could be enhanced if breathalyzer tests were administered to all USAP participants endangering themselves or others due to the influence of alcohol,” it said. “We recommend that NSF review the legality of a requirement for breathalyzer for all USAP participants and establish and enforce a requirement to the extent it is legal.”

The National Science Foundation has not yet responded to a request for comment on this story from FoxNews.com. Lockheed Martin referred FoxNews.com to the National Science Foundation for comment.

NASA to announce 'major science finding' about Mars Monday

The scientific community is in speculation overdrive ahead of a scheduled Monday announcement by NASA of a "major science finding" related to Mars.

The specific nature of the discovery won't be revealed until a scheduled 11:30 a.m. ET press conference at NASA headquarters in Washington. However, the roster of participants includes two authors of a paper that claimed images taken from orbit show flowing water on the surface of the Red Planet, prompting rumors that the announcement relates to the possible discovery of water in its liquid form.

Those authors — Lujendra Ojha of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta and Alfred McEwen, principal investigator for the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment at the University of Arizona in Tucson — published their paper on the subject in 2011, when Ojha was still an undergraduate at the University of Arizona. 

Scientists have long known that there is frozen water at Mars' poles, but they have never discovered liquid water. Any such discovery would have huge consequences for future expeditions, including NASA's goal of sending a manned mission to Mars by the 2030s.

"If they’re announcing that they’ve found easily accessible, freely flowing liquid water under the surface — which is one of the theories we’ve been hearing for years and years — that has massive implications both for the potential for life on that planet and sustainability of humans," Doug McCuistion, the former head of NASA’s Mars program, told the Boston Herald. "That would be highly enabling and might be the game-changing trigger for both finding life and hurrying up and getting people to Mars."