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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Drilling into magma: Risky plan takes geothermal to supercritical extremes
May 08, 2024The Krafla Magma Testbed "has the potential to be for geoscientists what the Large Hadron Collider has been for particle physicists." So say researchers working on the project to drill into a magma chamber to explore massive geothermal power. -
Sea-bed 'air batteries' offer cheaper long-term energy storage
May 06, 2024Israeli company BaroMar is preparing to test a clever new angle on grid-level energy storage, which it says will be the cheapest way to stabilize renewable grids over longer time scales. This innovative system lets water do the work. -
Lithium-free sodium batteries exit the lab and enter US production
May 02, 2024Natron Energy fell a little behind schedule on production plans for its sodium batteries but officially commenced production of the rapid-charging, long-life lithium-free batteries this week, bringing to market an intriguing new storage alternative.
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Medical
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Salting your food increases your risk of stomach cancer by 41%
May 09, 2024There's already a link between salt intake and stomach cancer in Asian populations. Now, a broader study has confirmed those earlier findings: Always adding salt to food at the table significantly increases cancer risk, no matter where you're from. -
5:2 fasting diet's anti-inflammatory effects come down to two proteins
May 08, 2024A 5:2 intermittent fasting regime – eating for five days, fasting for two – protected against liver inflammation and didn’t cause weight gain, say researchers, who also identified the proteins that provide this protective effect. -
6.7 million Americans at risk of genetic Alzheimer's with 95% strike rate
May 08, 2024A study has found that having two APOE4 genes may not just be a risk factor in Alzheimer's disease, but a driver of it. Nearly all carriers' brains showed key disease biomarkers by age 65, suggesting it may instead be a type of inheritable Alzheimer's.
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Space
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Video: Death by black hole looks absolutely stunning
May 08, 2024What would it look like to fall into a black hole? It’s a question basically everyone has pondered, and now NASA has finally given us a first-person view of the experience with scientifically-accurate visualizations produced by a supercomputer. -
Video: Sleek SpaceX suit to make its runway debut on Polaris Dawn mission
May 06, 2024Bridging fashion and functionality, SpaceX has revealed what its astronauts will be wearing on the first-ever private spacewalk in 2024. In a new video, the company details the features of the suit that will be space-tested on the Polaris Dawn mission. -
Video: Ill-fated Boeing Starliner launch scrubbed due to faulty valve
May 06, 2024Boeing's attempt to put two astronauts into orbit has been scrapped. At 8:33 pm EDT, the launch of the Starliner spacecraft was called off due to engineering problems with the oxygen release valve of the Centaur second stage of the Atlas V rocket.
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Materials
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Special silk sheets suppress sound by giving off good vibrations
May 09, 2024There may be new hope for people with noisy neighbors. Scientists at MIT have developed a method of using thin sheets of fabric to either cancel or block sound – in the latter case, the racket even gets reflected back to its maker. -
Glass waste and trash-ash find their way into better, greener bricks
May 08, 2024Bricks made of discarded glass and recycling-waste ash have been shown to insulate better than regular bricks, while also requiring less energy to produce. And of course, they additionally use materials which would otherwise end up in landfills. -
Copper coating turns touchscreens into bacteria killers
May 03, 2024If there's one thing that needs to be antibacterial, it's the public touchscreen displays that everyone paws at with their filthy fingers. Well, help is on the way, in the form of a newly developed copper coating.
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Biology
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Unprecedented 3D wiring diagram of human brain looks like a tiny world
May 10, 2024Harvard and Google Research have mapped thousands of cells and millions of synapses in a poppy seed-sized sample of tissue. The result is a set of truly stunning images and marks a major step towards understanding of the biggest challenges in science. -
Excretings! Elephants say hello in a way you'll never forget
May 09, 2024There are so many ways to say hello. People wave, bow, shake hands, hug, kiss, fist bump, say “hi” or any combo. But there’s one greeting from nature that we sure hope doesn’t catch on, as a new study finds that elephants often greet chums with a dump. -
Would we exist if Earth's magnetic field hadn't collapsed 500m years ago?
May 05, 2024The Earth’s magnetic field is vital for life – without it, the Sun’s radiation would sterilize the planet. But a new study suggests we wouldn’t be here at all if that magnetic field hadn’t almost completely collapsed half a billion years ago.
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Environment
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Earth's 'Gateway to Hell' is growing by 35 million cubic feet each year
May 08, 2024Whether a John Carpenter fan or not, you shouldn't need much convincing to see that the thawing of subterranean permafrost at the poles is not really a good thing. Siberia's biggest sinkhole is now devouring the landscape around it at an alarming rate. -
Tiny tenacious robots snatch bacteria and microplastics out of the water
May 08, 2024Scientists have developed tiny "robots" which appear to be very effective at removing microplastics pollution from water. What's more, the little bots also target the harmful bacteria that often hitch a ride on the plastic particles. -
Plastic embedded with plastic-eating spores is degradable – and tougher
April 30, 2024A new biodegradable plastic embedded with spores of plastic-eating bacteria manages to break down 90% of the material after five months in landfill. Weirdly, this actually made the plastic tougher and stronger during use.
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Physics
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Think you understand evaporation? Think again, says MIT
April 25, 2024We all know that water evaporates when the temperature climbs, but researchers have just shown that there's another factor at play. The breakthrough could solve long-standing atmospheric mysteries and lead to future technological advances. -
Free software lets you design and test warp drives with real physics
April 16, 2024Warp drives are among the more plausible of science fiction concepts, at least from a physics perspective. Now, a group of scientists and engineers has launched open-source software that lets you design and test scientifically accurate warp drives. -
Professor Peter Higgs, renowned for Higgs boson prediction, dies aged 94
April 09, 2024Professor Peter Higgs has died aged 94. The theoretical physicist was best known for his prediction of a key elementary particle, the Higgs boson, which earned him the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics soon after its discovery.
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Electronics
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"Superatomic" material beats silicon for fastest semiconductor ever
October 31, 2023Scientists have found that a “superatomic” material is the fastest and most efficient semiconductor ever. Taking advantage of a tortoise-and-hare mechanism, the new material can transport energy much faster than silicon. -
Colorpik Pen draws from its surroundings to draw in 16 million colors
August 29, 2023With regular felt pens, users are limited to the colors of the pens in a set. As you might have guessed, though, the Colorpik Pen is different – it can reproduce 16 million colors, which are scanned from the user's environment. -
Portal, PlayStation’s first dedicated remote player, to launch late 2023
August 24, 2023Sony gave us a sneak peek of PlayStation’s first dedicated Remote Play device, then called Project Q, back in May. It's now provided more details and announced that the device, renamed Portal, will launch later this year.
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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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