Science

There’s been a fabulous new achievement in particle physics. For the first time, scientists have managed to image the orbits of electrons within a quasiparticle known as an exciton – a result that has allowed them to finally measure the excitonic wave function describing the spatial distribution of electron momentum within the quasiparticle. This achievement

There you are, sitting front row of Miss Ryan’s English class in your underwear, when in walks Chris Hemsworth holding a saxophone in one hand and a turtle in the other, asking you to play in his band. “Why not?” you say, taking the turtle before snapping awake in a cold sweat, the darkness pressing

If you’re a fan of titanium, you should head to the nearest supernova. You’ll get more than enough of it. And its presence can help astronomers understand how supernovae work. We understand the basic picture of how the most massive stars die. Once an iron core fuses in their centers, they stop producing energy from

Modeling the future consequences of climate change requires a huge number of calculations based on a vast amount of factors, including how well microbes in soil might hold onto carbon – something that’s much more complicated than originally thought. In new research, scientists combined field measurements with computer modeling to show significant seasonal shifts in

Australia, one of the world-leaders in household rooftop solar panel uptake, has once again broken its own record for the number of solar panels installed in a year. In 2020, installations were up nearly 30 percent from the year before, according to an analysis from Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO. The data, compiled by energy

TAMPA, Fla. — Telesat could start a spectrum auction to help fund its $5 billion Lightspeed low Earth orbit constellation “in a couple of months” if Canada’s government approves its proposal, according to CEO Dan Goldberg. Canada is considering proposals on how to release satellite C-band spectrum in the country for terrestrial 5G wireless networks,

Decades before we knew birds could ‘see’ Earth’s magnetic field, Albert Einstein was discussing the possibility of undiscovered super senses in his fan mail. A long-lost letter from the famous scientist to an inquiring engineer in 1949 has turned out to be extraordinarily prescient in both the field of biology and physics. The original enquiry

Over the past five years, a sensor keeping count of neutron emissions deep within the rubble of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant has kept track of a gradual spike in activity. The rising count might be nothing. It might even drop back down again, given time. Scientists aren’t exactly keen on taking any chances, as

If you’re going to gargle something next time you go for a run, here’s some free advice: Try using a pink-colored drink. As strange as it sounds, pink drinks appear to be linked with enhanced running performance. In a new study, scientists found that runners who rinsed their mouths with a pink-colored liquid solution –

What’s in a gas giant? No, really. The interiors of Jupiter and Saturn are actually quite difficult to probe. But Saturn’s uniquely glorious and extensive ring system is proving to be an excellent tool for figuring out the densities deep below its thick cloud layers, right down to the core. That core, according to a

Whether it’s turning forests into cropland or savannah into pastures, humanity has repurposed land over the last 60 years equivalent in area to Africa and Europe combined, researchers said Tuesday. If you count all such transitions since 1960, it adds up to about 43 million square kilometers (16.5 square miles), four times more than previous

The online world is continuously expanding – always aggregating more services, more users, and more activity. Last year, the number of websites registered on the “.com” domain surpassed 150,000,000. However, more than a quarter of a century since its first commercial use, the growth of the online world is now slowing down in some key

SAN FRANCISCO – The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign awarded a contract to Blue Canyon Technologies to provide cubesats for a space mission sponsored by the National Science Foundation. The value of the award was not disclosed. Under the contract announced May 12, Blue Canyon Technologies, a Raytheon Technologies subsidiary, will provide a pair of six-unit

Everybody knows the physical feeling of acceleration: the surging sensation as we pick up speed while moving from one place to another. But few of us know what it might be doing to our bodies. In a new study, scientists investigated the physiological effects of acceleration in a small experiment, where participants simply drove themselves

We have precisely one data point against which to measure exoplanets for habitability: Earth. As far as we know, life has evolved only on this one pale blue dot, orbiting a single star in the middle of a spiral arm of an otherwise unremarkable galaxy. Most stars in the Milky Way, however, are not like

It might seem odd to find supporters of climate action debating the merits of a concept that science shows to be essential for halting climate change, and which is accordingly embedded at the heart of the defining global agreement. Yet that is where we find ourselves with the concept of “net zero” – the point

If you’re struggling to handle the long line of tabs open in your browser right now, you’re not alone. A small new study has found many people who browse the internet experience tab overload, saving articles to read later, leaving tasks as reminders, or burrowing down an internet hole until the stack of open web

DoD spokesman: Countries that conduct activities in space should share information about those activities, especially when they put people at risk. WASHINGTON — Less than two days after parts of an uncontrolled Chinese rocket fell into the Indian Ocean, the Pentagon said allowing a large booster to free fall toward Earth is “irresponsible behavior.” “We

A symbiotic relationship between two marine lifeforms has just been discovered thriving at the bottom of the ocean, after disappearing from the fossil record for hundreds of millions of years. Scientists have found non-skeletal corals growing from the stalks of marine animals known as crinoids, or sea lilies, on the floor of the Pacific Ocean,

Quantum entanglement is the binding together of two particles or objects, even though they may be far apart – their respective properties are linked in a way that’s not possible under the rules of classical physics. It’s a weird phenomenon that Einstein described as “spooky action at a distance“, but its weirdness is what makes

IQ tests are widely used by educational and professional organizations to assess applicants. They are also the focus of psychological studies which seek to identify the many factors that influence intelligence. Like all tests, it seems reasonable to assume that you could improve your IQ score by practicing the test many times. Is it possible to improve

A large segment of a Chinese rocket re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere and disintegrated over the Indian Ocean on Sunday, the Chinese space agency said, following fevered speculation over where the 18-tonne object would come down. Officials in Beijing had said there was little risk from the freefalling segment of the Long March-5B rocket, which had

Mexico City, the most populous metropolis in North America, has sunk too low for us to save it, according to new research.  After centuries of water drainage from underground aquifers, the lake bed on which this city sits has grown increasingly dry, causing the clay sheets to compress and crack at a largely unstoppable rate.

Scientists have gotten one step closer to a quantum internet by creating the world’s first multinode quantum network.  Researchers at the QuTech research center in the Netherlands created the system, which is made up of three quantum nodes entangled by the spooky laws of quantum mechanics that govern subatomic particles. It is the first time that more than two

The United States is expected to play a supporting role in an international campaign to monitor greenhouse gas emissions from space. Through the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites, nations are coordinating efforts for space-based monitoring of air quality, greenhouse gases, the ozone layer and natural climate drivers like solar energy. China, Europe and Japan are

Using detailed fossil comparison techniques, scientists have been able to identify a giant new saber-toothed cat species, Machairodus lahayishupup, which would have prowled around the open spaces of North America between 5 and 9 million years ago. One of the biggest cats ever discovered, M. lahayishupup is estimated in this new study to have a

In a major milestone for quantum physics, thousands of molecules have been induced to share the same quantum state, dancing together in unison like one huge super molecule. This is a goal long-sought by physicists, who hope to harness complex quantum systems for technological applications – but getting a bunch of unruly molecules to work

The number of babies born in the United States took a hit last year, just like experts predicted it would. In 2020, according to initial government data, the national birth rate fell by a total of 4 percent – the largest annual decrease in 50 years. Obviously, most babies born last year were conceived before

The Pentagon has said it is tracking a chunk of a Chinese rocket that is expected to come back into the atmosphere in the coming days in an uncontrolled reentry. As of now, it does not know where the debris will land. The exact point where the rocket will enter the atmosphere will be known

River piracy, also known as stream capture, happens when melting glaciers divert the path of a river. Due to our warming planet, a major Alaskan river is under threat of being redirected in this way – stealing an essential source of water away from the ecosystems and people that rely on it. The threatened waterway is