Saturday Night Live was built with a cast of young no-names performing countercultural comedy. Fifty years later, it is firmly part of the culture, dictating mainstream comedy instead of throwing spitballs from the margins.
The show has become an incubator of talent think Will Ferrell, Chris Rock, Amy Poehler, Billy Crystal, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Eddie Murphy, Adam Sandler, Phil Hartman, Pete Davidson and Tracy Morgan. Its sketches have sparked Hollywood movies, from The Blues Brothers and Wayne’s World to MacGruber and Coneheads.
But SNL has embedded itself in our culture in deeper ways, from slogans like We’re not worthy! to You look mahvelous! It inspires Halloween costumes, connects viewers to the news via Weekend Update and may even have influenced elections.
As the show gears up to celebrate its milestone, here are 12 moments over the past five decades when the show didn’t just reflect pop culture it drove it.
Wolverines, 1975
This was the first sketch from the first show, an absurdist-meets-physical comedy interaction between a student played by John Belushi and his English teacher, played by head writer Michael ODonoghue. I would like to feed your fingertips to the wolverines, the teacher asks his pupil to repeat.
The show, then called NBC’s Saturday Night, would have George Carlin as the first host. Jim Hensons Muppets had a sketch and Andy Kaufman lip-synched the Mighty Mouse theme song. Billy Preston played his hit Nothing From Nothing and later folk singer Janis Ian sang At Seventeen and In the Winter. Preston closed things out with Fancy Lady.
New York magazine called its promise enormous and the Chicago Tribune said it premiered in superb fashion. The Los Angeles Times said it was bright and bouncy and even suggested it move to prime time.
King Tut, 1978
Steve Martin saw this off-the-wall novelty song about ancient Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun capture the nations imagination during a goofy performance. It eventually reached No. 17 on the Billboard Hot 100 and sold over 1 million copies after he performed it on SNL.
The comedian was parodying the hysteria and commercialization surrounding a traveling Tutankhamun exhibit, dancing sideways as he sang King Tut/Buried with a donkey/Funky Tut/Hes my favorite honky!
The song was riddled with errors: King Tut was not born in Arizona, he did not live in a condo made of stone-a and he was not buried in his jammies. Nevertheless, the song went viral long before there was an internet.
The French Chef, 1978
Dan Aykroyd parodied iconic chef Julia Child in a cooking segment gone horribly wrong: She cuts the dickens out of her finger, releasing staggeringly large spurts of blood, tries first aid and then collapses face-first in a puddle of her own blood.
It was inspired by a real injury on the set of Child’s The French Chef and was written by Tom Davis and Al Franken (the future former senator was also under the table pumping blood out of a tube on Aykroyds arm).
Instead of being offended, Child enjoyed Aykroyds parody of herself so much that the book Baking With Julia recounts she would play the tape at her own dinner parties, crying out, Save the liver!
White Like Me, 1984
Long before white privilege became a mainstream concept, Eddie Murphy in a landmark sketch put on white face makeup to see how he would be treated as a white man in New York.
It was a parody of the famous 1961 book Black Like Me, in which a white journalist went undercover as a Black man. You can see the legacy in Chappelles Show, Whoopi Goldbergs The Associate and White Chicks.
In the skit, a cashier wont take his money for a newspaper (Slowly, I began to realize that when white people are alone, they give things to each other for free), a city bus turns into a party after the lone Black passenger gets off and a bank clerk simply hands him $50,000 in cash. So what did I learn from all of this? Murphy asks at the end. I learned that we still have a very long way to go in this country before all men are truly equal.
Sinéad OConnor, 1992
The Irish singer capped her a cappella cover of Bob Marleys War by holding up a photo of Pope John Paul II and tearing it into pieces. Fight the real enemy, she said. SNL was blindsided. During rehearsals, OConnor had instead held up an image of a refugee child.
She was protesting child sex abuse in the Catholic Church, a decade before the Boston Globe revealed a systematic cover-up that forced the church to apologize and pay millions.
NBC banned OConnor from SNL for life, Joe Pesci mocked her during the next weeks show and Frank Sinatra called her one stupid broad. Her albums were crushed by a steamroller in Times Square. Less than two weeks later, OConnor made her first public appearance following the incident at a Bob Dylan concert at Madison Square Garden and she was jeered as Kris Kristofferson consoled her.
White House vs. Wayne’s World, 1993
White House figures are a long-standing target for SNL. In 1993, the White House fired back.
In a Waynes World sketch, Mike Myers and Dana Carveys immature, basement-dwelling characters suggested first daughter Chelsea Clinton, then 13, wasnt as attractive as then-vice president Al Gores daughters.
Hillary Clinton scolded producer Lorne Michaels and his writers for having nothing better to do than be mean and cruel to a young girl. Michaels issued an apology, Myers apologized to the Clintons and the joke was cut from subsequent reruns of the sketch.
More Cowbell, 2000
Another wacky skit that permanently entered the culture was when Christopher Walken, playing a producer as Blue Öyster Cult recorded (Dont Fear) the Reaper, insisted: I gotta have more cowbell.
The sketch widely regarded as one of te show’s greatest lampooned the excess of 70s rock and became a shorthand for adding one too many layers. The irony is that the idea was submitted some seven times before finally airing.
Blue Öyster Cult had to ban people from bringing actual cowbells to their concerts and Walken has said people tease him about cowbells everywhere he goes. The sketch was so influential that producers of the four-part SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night dedicated an entire episode to the parody.
First show after 9/11, 2001
Less than three weeks after 9/11, Saturday Night Live aired one of its most memorable openings. Rudy Giuliani, then New York City’s mayor, was flanked by firefighters and police officers who had just left ground zero.
Calling Saturday Night Live one of New Yorks greatest institutions, Giuliani said: Having our citys institutions up and running sends a message that New York City is open for business.
Can we be funny? Michaels asked, to which the mayor responded with perfect timing, Why start now?
That joke told everyone that things could be all right.
Ashlee Simpson, 2004
The younger sister of Jessica Simpson, making her SNL musical debut, first performed her hit Pieces of Me. All good. But when she came back to play the title track from her album Autobiography, the audience heard the vocal track from the first song by mistake.
Awkwardness ensued. Simpson did a silly shuffle and then walked off stage as her group continued to play and the show cut to commercial. She later said a case of acid reflux forced her to lip-sync that night.
The incident drew attention to one of pop cultures worst-kept secrets: Lip-syncing was way more common than performers or the music industry wanted us to think. Billboard magazine ranked it second among lip-sync scandals in modern pop history after Milli Vanilli.
Lazy Sunday, 2005
SNL is live, of course, but sometimes the funniest bits are pretaped, like the digital shorts from Andy Samberg and his Lonely Island compatriots, Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer. They crafted 101 digital shorts between 2005 and 2012 many of them destined for virality, from Dick in a Box, with Justin Timberlake, to Natalie’s Rap with Natalie Portman and Shy Ronnie with Rihanna.
Lazy Sunday was the second video SNL viewers got from the trio, starring Samberg and Chris Parnell rapping about hilariously mundane yuppie activities, like grabbing cupcakes and using Google Maps. It inspired an entire genre of video-shot joke raps and fed a fast-growing site that people had only just become aware of YouTube.
Lazy Sunday was the first TV show clip to have a viral second life online, with 2 million-plus viewings in its first week alone. That week, YouTubes traffic was up 83%.
Tina Fey does Sarah Palin, 2008
Many people believe that Republican vice-presidential candidate Palin once uttered: I can see Russia from my house. She never said that. That was Fey in her first appearance as Palin on SNL.
Feys spot-on impression later leaning into the more ridiculous sayings the candidate had offered may have changed some minds and therefore influenced the presidential election, an amazing thing for a comedy show. CNN coined the phrase the Tina Fey Effect.
People actually did studies on the Tina Fey Effect after the 2008 election and found Republican and independent voters liked Palin less after watching the SNL rendition of the politician, even though Palin herself appeared on the show alongside Fey to show she was in on the joke.
Welcome to Hell, 2017
SNL addressed the #MeToo movement with a pitch-perfect video a bubblegum song with lyrics about how women have suffered abuse and harassment for centuries.
Guest host Saoirse Ronan was joined by cast members Melissa Villaseor, Leslie Jones, Aidy Bryant, Kate McKinnon and Cecily Strong, many of whom had teamed up for hysterical pop girl group songs like First Got Horny 2 U,Back Home Ballers, and (Do It on My) Twin Bed.
This time, the comedy was bleak: Now House of Cards is ruined, goes the song, and that really sucks. Well, heres a list of stuff thats ruined for us: parking, and walking, and Uber, and ponytails, and bathrobes, and nighttime, and drinking, and hotels, and vans.
Mark Kennedy, AP entertainment writer
If your social media suitor seems too good to be true, it might be a scam.
Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta Platforms is urging users to stay vigilant about romance scams ahead of Valentine’s Day, warning of unsolicited messages through its apps and other social media platforms, as well as general text messages.
Scammers tend to pose as attractive, single and successful individuals,” Meta says. They often claim to have military, medical or business backgrounds, with photos either stolen from real people’s accounts or generated through artificial intelligence. Initially, messages are sent to a large pool of people in the hopes of getting a response. A scammer than builds trust over a period of time before they ask their target for money either by claiming hardship or offering investment opportunities, usually in cryptocurrency.
Meta said it recently worked with research firm Graphika to take down romance scams in three common categories: those impersonating military officers, celebrity mimics and scammers posing as fake match-making agencies that target people in Africa claiming to offer opportunities to meet rich men from Western countries or build relationships with African women.'”
In addition to taking down scam networks, Meta says it is testing other tools to combat bad actors, including facial recognition technology that compares suspicious users’ profile photos against a public figure’s image. But, for now, that only works for celebrity impersonations.
To stay vigilant, Meta recommends people be suspicious of messages from strangers. If you do engage, try to verify the persons identity by looking them up on the platform check when their accounts were created or use a reverse image search on their photos. Requests for money, whether in the form of gift cards or payment apps, should also be treated with skepticism.
Shares of Super Micro Computer, Inc. (Nasdaq: SMCI) surged 12% Wednesday in early morning premarket trading after it forecast strong revenue gains for 2026 and updated investors on plans to remain on the Nasdaq exchange. SMCI was up over 3% in afternoon trading.
On Tuesday, the AI server maker said it now “believes it will make” the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) February 25 deadline to submit its delayed 10-K filings, thereby avoiding delisting from the Nasdaq. It also expects to file its 10-Q quarterly report ending in September by that date.
Super Micro president and CEO Charles Liang projected revenue of $40 billion for fiscal 2026, lowering estimates to $23.5 to $25 billion in fiscal 2025, from prior guidance between $26 billion to $30 billion. Although Super Micro’s second-quarter results fell short of analyst estimates, investors are encouraged by the stock’s stronger-than-expected performance forecast for 2026.
With our leading direct-liquid cooling (DLC) technology and over 30% of new data centers expected to adopt it in the next 12 months, Super Micro is well positioned to grow AI infrastructure designs wins based on Nvidia Blackwell and more, Liang said in an earnings release. We anticipate this technology transition sets a strong foundation for us now.”
SMCI is at risk of being delisted from the Nasdaq exchange due to its delinquent filings with the SEC. The stock has swung wildly up and down since accounting giant Ernst & Young resigned as its auditor last fall, disclosing it was unwilling to be associated with the financial statements prepared by [SMCIs] management” after a report from Hindenburg Research alleged it had found glaring accounting red flags, sanctions and export control failures, and evidence of undisclosed related party transactions. The AI server maker conducted its own independent review and found no evidence of misconduct.
Chevron will lay off 15% to 20% of its global workforce by the end of 2026, the U.S. oil company said on Wednesday as it seeks to cut costs, simplify its business, and complete a major acquisition.
The No. 2 U.S. oil producer has faced production challenges including cost overruns and delays in a large Kazakhstan oilfield project. Its $53-billion deal to acquire oil producer Hess and gain a foothold in Guyana’s lucrative oilfield is in limbo due to a court battle with larger rival Exxon Mobil, which has more aggressively expanded its own production.
Chevron also faces industry-wide weakness in the refining business and the expectation that oil prices could be under pressure over the next two years as global production growth outpaces demand.
Chevron has said it is targeting up to $3 billion in cost cuts through 2026 from leveraging technology, asset sales and changing how and where work is performed.
At the end of 2023, Chevron employed 40,212 people across its operations. A layoff of 20% of total employees would be about 8,000 people. Those figures exclude another roughly 5,400 employees of Chevron service stations. Shares of Chevron declined 1.3% in afternoon trading.
The company told employees during an internal town hall that they can begin opting for buyouts now through April or May, according to a source familiar with the matter.
The oil industry has been consolidating in recent years, focusing on mergers and operational efficiency more than drilling new wells. Chevron will reorganize its business and announce a new leadership structure in the next two weeks, the source said.
Chevron is taking action to simplify our organizational structure, execute faster and more effectively, and position the company for stronger long-term competitiveness,” said Mark Nelson, vice chairman of Chevron, in a statement. “We do not take these actions lightly and will support our employees through the transition.”
The company’s oil and gas reserves have declined to their lowest point in at least a decade, raising concerns about its long-term prospects and highlighting the importance of closing the Hess acquisition.
Chevron moved its headquarters from San Ramon, California to Houston last year and replaced several long-standing managers to renew its leadership.
Last year, it also announced a new hub in India that will be its largest tech center outside the United States.
Scheyder and Sheila Dang in Houston, Reuters
The New York Stock Exchange announced on Wednesday it will launch an exchange in Texas, increasing competition among listing venues in the state.
Several high-profile firms, including Elon Musk’s Tesla and SpaceX, have relocated their headquarters to Texas, attracted by the state’s perceived favorable legal and regulatory environment. The Texas Stock Exchange, a new venture backed by financial giants including BlackRock, Citadel Securities and Charles Schwab, is targeting a 2026 launch after submitting paperwork late last month to operate as a national securities exchange.
The New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq have dominated the lucrative U.S. listings market in a virtual duopoly since the 2000s. The TXSE would represent the first challenge to that dominance if it wins regulatory approval to begin trading and seeking new listings.
NYSE Chicago will reincorporate in Texas and rebrand as NYSE Texas, providing companies with a new venue to list their securities, said the NYSE, which is part of the Intercontinental Exchange.
“As the state with the largest number of NYSE listings, representing over $3.7 trillion in market value for our community, Texas is a market leader in fostering a pro-business atmosphere,” NYSE Group President Lynn Martin said.
A TXSE spokesperson did not comment directly on the NYSE plan.
“We have known all along that Texas is the best place to do business,” the spokesperson said in a statement following the news. “The Texas Stock Exchange is harnessing this momentum to build a national securities exchange in our home state.”
Nasdaq recently stepped up its presence in Texas, announcing a new regional focus for its listings business and naming Rachel Racz to head the segment focusing on Texas, Latin America and the southern United States.
The NYSE’s initiative shows that a regional focus may not be enough of a competitive distinction that will allow the Texas Stock Exchange to challenge the two incumbents, said Owen Lau, a senior analyst at Oppenheimer & Co.
“There may be something in Texas Exchange that is yet to be revealed, so it is still too early to gauge how it plays out. But so far, it doesn’t appear to dramatically change the listing/exchange landscape.”
Both TXSE and NYSE Texas will be fully electronic equities exchanges headquartered in Dallas.
Niket Nishant, Manya Saini, and Suzanne McGee, Reuters
Laura Matthews contributed to this report.
What if the Playboy Mansion was filled with OnlyFans content creators? Thats the pitch for the Bop House, a TikTok page that has gained nearly three million followers since its launch in December.
Founded by Sophie Rain, 20, and Aishah Sofey, 22, the house is home to eight creators aged 19 to 24, who collectively boast over 33 million followers. Their TikTok presence leans into viral, algorithm-friendly content like flying private to the Super Bowl and reviewing popular cookie brand Crumbl. But their real revenue stream comes from OnlyFans. The Bop House claims to have generated $10 million in revenue in its first month.
Its just like a little girl group that were all doing and we just want to uplift each other and help each other grow on TikTok, Rain told the Daily Mail. The house has its own website, with a profile of each girl directing to their various social media platforms. The name itself is a reference to Gen Z slang which stands for baddie on point, a term used to describe a person who uses their body to make money.
The group has sparked controversy over the blurred line between their PG-rated TikTok presence and their adult content careers. Many members, including Rain, are 21 and under (one even wears braces). Although Rain is an OnlyFans creator, she says shes also a devout Christian and wears a promise ring.
The issue is the content looks very very very young, TikTok user Amber Horsburgh posted in a video. The deliberate marketing of youthful personas for adult content is creating a demand for barely-legal performers. With their mostly PG Instagram and TikTok videos, the Bop House has built a following on social media to funnel viewers toward their OnlyFans content. Given the platforms young user base, about 25% of TikTok’s global users are between the ages of 10 and 19, this raises clear concerns. Whether that responsibility falls on the Bop House is less clear.
@amberhorsburgh_ I did a marketing degree once and learned about supply and demand. The demand for this makes me feel all sorts of things. Meanwhile the Bop House has 2.5M followers in 60 days…. #bophouse #sophierain #bop Credits Footage: TikTok: @sophieraiin TikTok: @aishah TikTok: @bophouse original sound – Amber | Cultural Commentary – Amber | Cultural Commentary
Either way the Bop House has no plans to slow down. In a recent interview, Rain added, We can afford a new mansion every single month with the money the Bop House is making us.
Tulsi Gabbard, a former U.S. representative with little intelligence experience, was confirmed as the top U.S. spy on Wednesday, as Republicans lined up behind a nominee once seen as among President Donald Trump‘s most controversial picks.
The Senate voted 52 to 48, mostly along party lines, to confirm Gabbard to the position overseeing the 18-agency intelligence community and acting as Trump’s top adviser on intelligence issues.
The only Republican to vote against Gabbard was Senator Mitch McConnell, the party’s former leader in the chamber. No Democrats or independents voted in favor of the nominee.
The vote was another victory for Trump as he pushes to secure quick Senate approval for all of his nominees for administration positions.
The Senate’s Republican majority leader, John Thune, held a procedural vote on Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who also faced fierce opposition to his nomination for Secretary of Health and Human Services, immediately after the Gabbard confirmation vote.
Gabbard, a 43-year-old former Democrat, had faced bipartisan questions about past statements seen as supporting U.S. adversaries, and lack of experience that would have prepared her to manage a $100 billion budget. Gabbard neither worked at a spy agency nor served on an intelligence committee during her four House of Representatives terms.
She will now oversee an agency created by Congress in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to coordinate the country’s sprawling intelligence apparatus, one of the most important national security positions in U.S. government.
“The selection of a DNI is a very big deal,” said Emily Harding, director of the Intelligence, National Security and Technology Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, noting the DNI’s broad access to classified material and role as the president’s main intelligence adviser.
Russia, Syria, Snowden
Trump’s announcement of Gabbard in November sent shockwaves through the national security establishment, adding to concerns that intelligence-gathering would be politicized, and weakened, during a second Trump administration.
Skeptics questioned Gabbard’s past statements seen as sympathetic toward Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and defense of the government of former Syria leader Bashar al-Assad, whom she visited in Syria in 2017 while he was under U.S. sanction.
At her hearing, Gabbard faced particularly pointed questioning from senators from both parties about her past defense of former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, who leaked thousands of highly classified documents and then sought asylum in Russia.
Some were noticeably frustrated at her refusal to call Snowden a traitor.
Republicans who expressed concerns faced an intense political pressure campaign, from Trump and his billionaire ally Elon Musk, who threatened to support primary opponents of any Republican who obstructed nominees.
Senator Todd Young, an intelligence committee member who did not immediately back Gabbard, issued a statement supporting her before the panel’s party-line 9-8 vote to recommend the nominee to the full Senate.
A former Marine Corps intelligence officer criticized by Musk before he endorsed Gabbard, Young said Gabbard had reassured him that she would support intelligence professionals and provide unbiased information.
Gabbard’s supporters also praised her pledges to pare back the DNI’s office, at a time when Trump’s administration is slashing and even seeking to close government agencies.
Past DNI nominees have been intelligence veterans confirmed with broad bipartisan support. Daniel Coats, a former ambassador and Republican senator who served on the intelligence committee, was confirmed by 85-12 in 2017, as Trump began his first term.
The DNI under former President Joe Biden, Avril Haines, had held a series of major national security positions, including deputy director of the CIA. She was confirmed by 84-10.
Harding said Gabbard will need to reassure allies that they can trust Washington as Trump pursues an aggressive foreign policy, and be cautious about making cuts amid myriad global challenges.
“The person that is going to be doing it needs to be someone that he (Trump) trusts and somebody that he’ll listen to,” Harding said.
Gabbard left the Democratic Party in 2022 to become an independent. She backed Trump and joined the Republican Party in 2024.
Patricia Zengerle, Reuters
A new bill introduced in Congress last month aims to require proof of citizenship to register to votewhich could make an already-complicated registration process harder for millions of Americans.
On January 3, Republican representative Chip Roy reintroduced the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act to Congress to ensure that our elections and our sovereignty cannot be hijacked and influenced by foreign nationals who have no business voting in this country.
The SAVE Act would require voters to present physical documentary proof of citizenship to register or reregister to vote. This means passports, birth certificates, or special drivers licenses that include proof of citizenshipeither REAL ID or an Enhanced Driver License that includes an American flag to show its holders citizenship.
But by introducing additional barriers to vote, this legislation could incidentally disenfranchise millions of young voters, voters of color and married women, according to an analysis published by the nonprofit Brennan Center for Justice.
Why do people oppose the SAVE Act?
After the 2016 election, President Trump stoked fears about noncitizen voting by falsely claiming that 3 million-to-5 million noncitizens voted in the election, but instances of this occurring are vanishingly rare, according to the Brennan Center. Noncitizen voting is already illegal in all 50 states.
While the new requirements could ultimately bar noncitizen registrationwhich experts say only happens to an infinitesimal degreethey could also complicate or even block registration for millions of Americans who may not possess the required documents.
Last year, the Brennan Center found that 21 million Americans dont have proof of citizenship readily available. The Enhanced Driver Licenseswhich show proof of citizenship on the cardare only available in five states. And almost half of Americans dont even own a passport.
Younger voters and voters of color are less likely to have access to these required documents than others, according to the Brennan Centers analysis. The nonprofit also wrote that the SAVE Act would functionally eliminate mail-in voting registration because it requires voters to produce documentation in person to an election official.
This bill may also disproportionately block married women from voting: As many as 69 million married women dont possess a birth certificate that matches their legal name, according to the Center for American Progress.
The bill passed the House once in July, and with its reintroduction, it will likely see the floor again soon. But to be passed into law, the bill would need to overcome a potential Senate filibusterwhich would require unlikely support from seven Democrats.
From the moment Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier for the first time in 1947, zipping from New York to Paris in less than three hours became every travelers dream. It’s a dream that shattered as soon as everyone realized supersonic flight was really annoying for people on the ground. Thats why NASA and Lockheed Martin created the X-59 Quesst, which was designed with an aerodynamic profile that would reduce the eardrum-breaking boom to a dull thump. NASA’s upcoming test flight was supposed to be the first silent supersonic flight in historythen January 28 happened.
That’s when the startup company Boom Supersonic flew a supersonic flight over the Mojave Desert, in California, using a radically different approach that was theorized decades ago but only now has been possible thanks to new engines and computers.
[Photo: Boom Supersonic]
The company announced the milestone February 10. The testing of its Boomless Cruise technologyrecorded with a sophisticated microphone array by NASAshowed that its XB-1 demonstrator aircraft broke the sound barrier three times without generating a sonic boom that reached the ground. This is the first time a plane has achieved this.
On our first flight, we expected to break the sound barrier without a sonic boomthat was our prediction, Blake Scholl, founder and CEO of Boom Supersonic, tells me. We broke the sound barrier three times: on the first flight, no boom; and on the second flight, three more times. Our forecast was no sonic boom, and that’s exactly what we had.
Rather than redesigning the physical airframe of the airplane to redirect air and reduce the supersonic shock volumelike the X-59the company bet on taking advantage of using a physical phenomenon called Mach cutoff, using powerful computers and software to carefully change the airplane’s speed and altitude depending on the weather around it.
[Photo: Boom Supersonic]
Mach cutoff is a phenomenon where a sonic boom, instead of traveling directly to the ground, bends upwards and dissipates into the atmosphere. There is a boom that comes off the airplane, but it makes a kind of U-turn in the sky, Scholl explains. And as long as the boom is coming off the airplane at the right angle and its high enough, you can think of it as the bottom of the U never touches the ground. And as long as the bottom of the U never touches the ground, there’s no audible boom.
This phenomenon occurs because the sonic boom refracts upward due to temperature and wind gradients affecting the local speed of sound, just as how a pen appears to bend when passing through a glass of water because the difference in the density of water and air affects how light propagates.
The NASA X-59 [Image: Lockheed Martin]
Unlike the X-59s low-boom approach, Boomless Cruise aims to entirely eliminate the boom at ground level. The X-59 is designed to manage the shockwaves through its airframe design, aiming for a gentle thump. The way the engine is placed, and the fact that theres no cockpit breaking the flow of air, its Pinocchio nose reduces the sonic boom.
Scholl says the approach works, but there’s still a boom. With Boomless Cruise, there literally is none. During its first supersonic flight, XB-1 reached a top speed of Mach 1.12, demonstrating that the theory works. The data collected during XB-1’s supersonic runs allowed Boom to validate their sonic boom models and refine the algorithms that predict the operation within Mach cutoff. The successful flight test validated that this works.
[Photo: Boom Supersonic]
What were doing is well-known physics thats been around for a long time, Scholl says. The key to making it a reality now lies in advanced engine technology and sophisticated computing capabilities, which were unavailable in the past. The Concorde could have done it, but its engines werent powerful enough and they required afterburning to reach supersonic speed. The kind of computing power thats needed to do what the XB-1 did during its two flight tests also didnt exist. So, fast-forward 50 years, computers, weve got great weather data, and weve got engines that are powerful enough to fly supersonic without afterburners.
[Photo: Boom Supersonic]
The future of supersonic flight
After validating Boomless Cruise technology, the company is planning to build its supersonic airliner. It will utilize the Symphony engine, which is specifically designed for enhanced transonic performance, to enable Boomless Cruise for commercial flights. Symphony’s enhanced transonic thrust will allow its commercial airliner, called Overture, to surpass the sound barrier at altitudes exceeding 30,000 feet. This altitude is sufficient for Mach cutoff physics to function.
According to Boom Supersonic, Overture will use the company’s secret sauce: an advanced autopilot system that continuously optimizes speed for the Boomless Cruise based on real-time atmospheric conditions. This is what allows it to avoid the sonic boom. This dynamic adjustment is essential because weather conditions, particularly temperature and wind, significantly affect the speed of sound and the behavior of the sonic boom.
[Photo: Boom Supersonic]
If all goes as well with the demonstrator, the only major hurdle will not be technical but legal. Just as NASA is trying to do with its Quesst program, the company will need to convince lawmakers to allow for supersonic flight from coast to coast, over the continental United States. Hes convinced it will happen. It’s a very simple regulatory change. We should have a noise limit, not a speed limit, he tells me.
Boom Supersonic also notes on its site that Overture is not designed as a low-boom aircraft, and [they] do not expect to certify it for unrestricted supersonic flight over land. This means that, over sea, the airplane’s speed will be unrestricted, reaching Mach 1.7. There will be no speed limit because the sonic boom doesn’t matter over the ocean, and flying from Paris to New York will be twice as fast, taking only about 3.5 hours versus the current 7 hours. Over land, however, the future aircraft’s speed will be restricted to Mach 1.3 to avoid the booms, Scholl says: Sometimes, as low as 1.05 and sometimes as high as 1.3. Usually, itll be between 1.1 [and] 1.2. That’s 50% faster than current commercial planes, which will get you from New York to Los Angeles in around three hours rather than six.
Whatever happens with regulations, with this successful display, Boom Supersonic has demonstrated that it can be done. We will need to wait and see if it reaches the point in which we will enjoy quiet, affordable, and sustainable supersonic travel. And perhaps restart the era in commercial aviation that the Concorde brought to the world.
Apple is launching its first major holistic health study in five years to determine how Apple products, including iPhones, Apple Watches, and AirPods, can play a role in advancing and improving physical health, mental health, and overall well-being. It may be Apple’s most ambitious study yet.
Starting Tuesday, Apple customers in the United States can opt in to participate in the Apple Health Study by downloading Apples Research app, version 6.0 (more on that below).
The sweeping study, a collaboration with Brigham and Womens Hospitala preeminent research hospital in Boston, affiliated with Harvard Medical Schooltakes a complete approach to understanding how data can predict, detect, and manage health and well-being.
Weve only just begun to scratch the surface of how technology can improve our understanding of human health, cardiologist Calum MacRae, the principal investigator of the Apple Health Study at Brigham and Womens Hospital, said in a statement.
What makes this study groundbreaking? Unlike other medical studies, which rely on data from a limited number of participants over a finite period of time, the Apple Health Study’s continuing access to more than 350,000 U.S. participants’ data over time expands that possibility. That combined data comes from the Apple Womens Health Study, the Apple Hearing Study, and the Apple Heart and Movement Study.
The Apple Health Study also aims to harness technology in a new way to see how data from Apple and third-party devices can not only predict and detect, but also “monitor and manage changes in participants health” to identify insights about our overall well-being.
For example, when a person’s health changes, their body emits a physical or emotional signal, flagging a secondary, related health issue. Apple devices can identify these changes earlier, helping users create a more proactive approach to health, so something like early detection of hearing loss could reduce the risk of cognitive decline later on.
The study focuses on a number of health markers, including: activity, aging, cardiovascular health, circulatory health, cognition, hearing, menstrual health, mental health, metabolic health, mobility, neurologic health, respiratory health, and sleep.
How can I opt in to the Apple Health Study?
Apples Research app, which launched in 2019, enables study participants to opt into sharing data (which they can choose to stop sharing, and leave the study, at any time).
To enroll, download the latest version (6.0) of the Apple Research app. The study is open to participants who live in the U.S., meet the minimum-age requirements, and complete the informed-consent process.
This app is currently available only in the App Store for iPhone and Apple Watch.
