Science
The latest in science news, from the depths of space to the quantum realm.
Camera captures the world as animals see it, with up to 99% accuracy
January 25, 2024
It’s easy to forget that most animals don’t see the world the way humans do. In fact, many perceive colors that are invisible to us. But now, for the first time, scientists have found a way to capture footage as seen by animals, and it's mesmerizing.
Energy
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Self-assembling crane promises to halve cost of offshore wind setup
March 25, 2024Part of the exorbitant cost of offshore wind energy is the massive crane ships required to install the damn things – but Norwegian company Windspider has come up with a brilliantly lightweight crane system that promises to slash costs in half. -
Urban Vibro Trucks will thump city streets for geothermal options
March 22, 2024A new simulation video from Herrenknecht AG shows off its Urban Vibro Trucks. The machines can deploy thumping devices from their mid-sections that send seismic waves beneath city landscapes to explore the terrain for geothermal development. -
'Drinking bird' toys upgraded to generate clean energy from water
March 15, 2024Scientists have converted a children's "drinking bird" toy into a tool that generates usable amounts of electricity. The generator could one day be utilized to power a wide variety of small electronic devices, both indoors and outside.
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Medical
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Brain tumors 5x more likely when taking common contraceptives
March 27, 2024Taking frequently prescribed contraceptive hormones for a year or more has been linked to a heightened risk of developing a serious brain tumor. One of those hormones, medroxyprogesterone acetate, is currently taken by some 74 million women worldwide. -
Beyond plaques: New Alzheimer's treatment pathway discovered
March 27, 2024Researchers have discovered that limiting a certain enzyme can have a dramatic impact in protecting against the effects of Alzheimer's disease. The finding could lead to a new class of drugs that fight the disease. -
Bladder sensor sends 'pee-time' alerts to patients' smartphones
March 26, 2024Although you may know when you need to pee, such is not the case with everyone. A new implantable sensor is designed to help those other folks, by sending a smartphone alert when their bladder is full.
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Space
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Fusion drive space engine ready for flight
March 26, 2024Rocket science got a bit more science-fiction-like as RocketStar announces it has successfully demonstrated a new ion drive that incorporates nuclear fusion. It's not the sort of fusion that powers the Sun, but it does improve thrust by 50%. -
Life might survive the sulfuric acid clouds of Venus, new experiments find
March 24, 2024Venus may be a hellscape, but there’s a chance some forms of life could evolve there. A new MIT study has now found that the building blocks of life are surprisingly stable in highly concentrated sulfuric acid – which Venus’ clouds are made of. -
NASA mission could detect alien life from a single cell as early as 2030
March 22, 2024We might find alien life as soon as 2030, suggests a new study. A lab experiment has shown instruments on a spacecraft headed to one of the most promising worlds to find life are sensitive enough to detect a single living cell in a single ice grain.
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Materials
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Diamond nanomembranes make electronics 10x cooler, 5x faster to charge
March 04, 2024Fraunhofer scientists have used ultra-thin diamond membranes to drastically cool electronic components and boost electric vehicle charging speeds, taking advantages of diamond's outstanding thermal conductivity. -
Pulling gold out of e-waste suddenly becomes super-profitable
March 03, 2024A new method for recovering high-purity gold from discarded electronics is paying back US$50 for every dollar spent, according to Swiss researchers – who found their all-important gold-filtering substance in cheesemaking, of all places. -
Molecular chaos powers potent ice-busting coating
February 28, 2024Scraping ice off your car window might get a lot easier in the future thanks to a new spray coating developed by scientists in Austria. That's because of the way the molecules line up – or don't – during its high-tech creation process.
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Biology
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Freaky-looking new longhaired beetle owns its fungal flair
March 21, 2024Would you want to eat this beetle? Probably not, as it appears to be covered in fungus. That "fungus" is actually hair, however, which the recently discovered insect may use to put off would-be predators. -
Middle-age obesity linked to shape-shifting brain neurons
March 13, 2024A change in shape to a particular structure of neurons was found to have a significant impact on obesity in rats. Researchers believe the finding will translate to humans and could help us fight our own middle-aged bulges one day. -
Resurrecting the mammoth: Elephant breakthrough gets us a step closer
March 12, 2024We’re edging closer to seeing a live mammoth for the first time. Colossal Biosciences, a company dedicated to the controversial-but-unquestionably-cool goal of resurrecting extinct species, has made a breakthrough in creating elephant stem cells.
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Environment
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"First plastic demonstrated to not create microplastics" has been tested
March 22, 2024Even when it’s ground into microparticles, 97% of an algae-based plastic biodegrades in compost and water in under seven months, a new study has reported. The researchers hope their plastic will eventually replace existing petroleum-based ones. -
Winged cargo ship saves three tonnes of fuel per day on first voyage
March 19, 2024An age of greener, more efficient shipping may be in the offing as a specially modified 43,000-tonne bulk freighter completes a six-month sea trial using a combination of diesel engines and a set of high-tech automatic sails to catch the wind. -
Rock on the Richter scale: Seismologists rank the top concert-quakes
March 14, 2024With Taylor Swift fans linked to recent seismic activity during her current worldwide 'Eras' concert tour, we thought we’d investigate how other musical artists' fans stacked up in terms of their stadium-shaking abilities. The results may surprise you.
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Physics
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Quantum tornado mimics black holes' warped spacetime in the lab
March 21, 2024A giant quantum vortex has been created in superfluid helium in a lab at the University of Nottingham. Its behavior was found to mimic that of black holes and may help astrophysicists gain deeper insight into these galactic gravity gobblers. -
Bizarre time crystal oscillates for an unprecedented 40 minutes
March 04, 2024Time crystals are a strange state of matter with properties that sound impossible, but they have been created. Now, German scientists have made one that lasts 10 million times longer than in previous experiments. -
Fundamental physics rule violated as same-charge particles attract
March 03, 2024It’s a fundamental principle of physics that particles with opposite charges attract each other, while those with the same charge repel. Scientists have now discovered that under certain conditions, particles can attract those of the same charge.
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Electronics
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AI synthesizer bridges technology and creativity in music composition
February 15, 2024SPIN challenges conventional notions of music creation by inviting users to collaborate with an AI language model called MusicGen. With its distinctive blend of a turntable and a drum machine, SPIN offers users a creative music composition tool. -
Eye-tracking window tech tells sightseers about what they're looking at
January 05, 2024If you're on a sightseeing tour in a bus, you really don't want to be looking away from the passing attractions to Google them on your smartphone. The AR Interactive Vehicle Display is intended to help, by showing relevant information on the vehicle's window glass. -
Diamond data storage breakthrough writes and rewrites down to single atom
December 05, 2023Diamond is a promising material for data storage, and now scientists have demonstrated a new way to cram more data onto it, down to a single atom. The technique bypasses a physical limit by writing data to the same spots in different-colored light.
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Quantum Computing
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Diamond-stretching technique makes qubits more stable and controllable
November 30, 2023Researchers are claiming a breakthrough in quantum communications, thanks to a new diamond-stretching technique they say greatly increases the temperatures at which qubits remain entangled, while also making them microwave-controllable. -
Perovskite LED unlocks next-level quantum random number generation
September 05, 2023Random numbers are critical to encryption algorithms, but they're nigh-on impossible for computers to generate. Now, Swedish researchers say they've created a new, super-secure quantum random number generator using cheap perovskite LEDs. -
Silicon quantum computing surpasses 99% accuracy in three studies
January 19, 2022Three teams of scientists have achieved a major milestone in quantum computing. All three groups demonstrated better than 99 percent accuracy in silicon-based quantum devices, paving the way for practical, scalable, error-free quantum computers.
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