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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Fusion record paves way for commercial reactors
May 14, 2024The Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) hits a new fusion reactor endurance record that could open the door to practical fusion power on a commercial scale. Using a tungsten lining, the WEST reactor held a reaction for six minutes. -
Volcanic ash: The cheapest battery for solar energy storage
May 14, 2024It's rarely great news when an area gets blanketed in volcanic ash – but University of Barcelona researchers have discovered it has a rare combination of useful properties, which make it remarkably useful as an energy storage medium. -
World's highest-efficiency hydrogen system scales up for mass production
May 13, 2024Hysata promises the world's cheapest hydrogen, thanks to a remarkable device that splits water into H2 and O2 at 95% efficiency – some 20% higher than the best conventional electrolyzers. The company has raised US$111 million to scale up production.
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Medical
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CRISPR restores some vision to blind patients in clinical trial
May 13, 2024CRISPR gene-editing has improved the vision of patients with a form of blindness in a Phase 1/2 clinical trial. The results give new hope to patients with the condition, and show that CRISPR could be put to use in humans to treat a range of conditions. -
World-first pig kidney transplant recipient has died
May 13, 2024The first successful transplant of a genetically modified pig kidney into a human recipient is still being regarded as a medical milestone and success – even though the recipient, Rick Slayman, suddenly passed away over the weekend. -
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.
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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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Watch: Mantis shrimp takes .22-caliber bullet punch using built-in shield
May 13, 2024The infamous mantis shrimp is in possession of a club-shaped claw that can deliver fatal blows to everything from hard-shelled prey to thick aquarium glass. So what happens when they thump a fellow mantis shrimp foe? Thanks to science, we now know. -
Google maps the human brain in breathtaking 3D images
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.
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Environment
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This 50,000-year-old block of ice reveals the true state of CO2 levels now
May 14, 2024Despite evidence that indicates we're now living beneath unprecedented levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases, a lack of historical records has meant we've had little to compare it to. So scientists decided to consult the planet's own record books. -
Human hair: A surprisingly effective way to soak up oil spills
May 12, 2024In a world of weird, this one ranks up there... A non-profit out of San Francisco, California, is cleaning up oil spills using the naturally adsorbent properties of human hair, woven into thick mats that soak up a gallon and a half at a time. -
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.
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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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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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