Science

There is no computer even remotely as powerful and complex as the human brain. The lumps of tissue ensconced in our skulls can process information at quantities and speeds that computing technology can barely touch. Key to the brain’s success is the neuron’s efficiency in serving as both a processor and memory device, in contrast

WASHINGTON — Four federal agencies have signed an agreement intended to improve cooperation on space weather research and translating that research into operations. Representatives of NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Science Foundation and the U.S. Air Force signed a memorandum of agreement at the White House Dec. 7 outlining how they will

For many of us, dogs are our best friends. But have you wondered what would happen to your dog if we suddenly disappeared? Can domestic dogs make do without people? At least 80 percent of the world’s one billion or so dogs actually live independent, free-ranging lives – and they offer some clues. Who would

Mini brains grown in a lab from stem cells spontaneously developed rudimentary eye structures, scientists reported in a fascinating paper in 2021. On tiny, human-derived brain organoids grown in dishes, two bilaterally symmetrical optic cups were seen to grow, mirroring the development of eye structures in human embryos. This incredible result will help us to

As an astronomer and meteor enthusiast, I’d say it’s the most wonderful time of the year. Each December sees the return of the Geminid meteor shower – the best natural fireworks display of the year – and people the world over head out to enjoy the show. This year promises to be extra special as

It’s becoming increasingly clear that we will fail to meet our climate goals. We were already at 1.26°C of warming in 2022 and are on track to blow through 1.5°C in the mid-2030s. Research even suggests that current climate policy will lead to more than 2.5°C of warming by the end of this century. Warming

Google on Wednesday infused its Bard chatbot with a new-generation artificial intelligence model called Gemini, which it touts as being able to reason better than ChatGPT and other rivals. The search engine juggernaut is aiming to take the generative AI lead from ChatGPT-maker OpenAI as that company deals with the aftermath of a boardroom coup

HELSINKI — Chinese launch startup Landspace successfully sent satellites into orbit for the first time Friday and revealed details of a new stainless steel rocket. The third Zhuque-2 methane-liquid oxygen rocket lifted off at 6:39 p.m. Eastern (2339 UTC) Dec. 8 from the firm’s launch pad at Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert.

As our understanding of the Universe around us grows, so do scientific theories. Like the one that’s lasted for more than 100 years, about the function of balloon-like ‘bladders’ on resilient plants including quinoa. It was thought that these tiny balloons protected the plants against dangers like drought and salt. Not so, says a new

Flicking the switch on any kind of electrical device triggers a marching band of charged particles stepping to the beat of the circuit’s voltage. But a new discovery in exotic materials known as strange metals has found electricity doesn’t always move in step, and can in fact sometimes bleed in a way that has physicists

For most of us, hair naturally loses pigment as we get older. We often think that stress may also play a role, but until recently, that hadn’t actually been demonstrated in humans; a 2021 study finally brought some evidence to the table. Gray and white hair is typically caused by the pigment cells in our

The Moon is no longer pristine. We humans have been messing about up there for over half a century now, and our prints, dead equipment, crashed spacecraft, art, and even feces is speckled across its gray and cratered surface. The time has now come, scientists say. Humans have become the dominant force acting on the

The last time carbon dioxide in the atmosphere consistently matched today’s human-driven levels was 14 million years ago, according to a large new study Thursday that paints a grim picture of where Earth’s climate is headed. Published in the journal Science, the paper covers the period from 66 million years ago until the present, analyzing

Imagine brain scanning technology improves greatly in the coming decades, to the point that we can observe how each individual neuron talks to other neurons. Then, imagine we can record all this information to create a simulation of someone’s brain on a computer. This is the concept behind mind uploading – the idea that we

NASA’s robotic Mars exploration program is in crisis. A recent review of the plan of its flagship Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission pegged its cost at $10 billion, a price tag that threatens to preclude funding any other exploration missions to the Red Planet for the next decade and a half. While the decadal plan

In a world first, a megamouth shark has been seen pregnant. A female of this super rare, deepwater species was found washed up on a beach in the Philippines last month. Unfortunately the megamouth shark (Megachasma pelagios) had to die for us to see this, with one dead young shark found next to her and

Some enmities are so powerful, they could never be resolved. Bette and Joan. Batman and the Joker. Hamilton and Burr. It was starting to look like that list would include general relativity and quantum theory, two mathematical frameworks for describing the Universe that just cannot be made to fit together. But in new paper, physicist

A mysterious ancient graveyard that has flummoxed Finnish archaeologists for decades could be one of the largest Stone Age cemeteries in northern Europe, a new study suggests. Located on the edge of the Arctic Circle in Tainiaro, a place of long and bitter winters, the site was first unearthed in 1959 and studied again in

It seems like we have free will. Most of the time, we are the ones who choose what we eat, how we tie our shoelaces and what articles we read on The Conversation. However, the latest book by Stanford neurobiologist Robert Sapolsky, Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will, has been receiving a lot

In around a billion years, the sun will become hot enough to boil all the oceans on our planet, and life as we know it will be destroyed. The fate of life on Earth, scientists think, is more or less sealed. But a passing star could prove to be an unlikely savior, according to a

According to the president of COP28, the latest round of UN climate negotiations in the United Arab Emirates, there is “no science” indicating that phasing out fossil fuels is necessary to restrict global heating to 1.5°C. President Sultan Al Jaber is wrong. There is a wealth of scientific evidence demonstrating that a fossil fuel phase-out

The world’s biggest experimental nuclear fusion reactor in operation was inaugurated in Japan on Friday, a technology in its infancy but billed by some as the answer to humanity’s future energy needs. Fusion differs from fission, the technique currently used in nuclear power plants, by fusing two atomic nuclei instead of splitting one. The goal

WASHINGTON — SatixFy is the latest space firm to face being kicked off a stock exchange after shares plummeted following a merger with a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC), a fast-track alternative to traditional initial public offerings of stock.  The NYSE American stock exchange has given the Israeli satcom equipment maker until Dec. 30 to

In October, a great white shark washed up on a beach in southern Australia with its insides conspicuously missing. Large chunks of flesh had been violently ripped from its trunk, but the head, tail, and fins appeared untouched. Scientists can now confirm what they suspected at the time: that orcas were behind the slaughter of

Particle accelerators are hugely useful in scientific research, but – like the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) – usually take up vast amounts of room. A remarkable new system developed at the University of Texas in Austin could change this. In experiments, researchers were able to use their particle accelerator to generate an electron beam with

A newly discovered trade-off in the way time-keeping devices operate on a fundamental level could set a hard limit on the performance of large-scale quantum computers, according to researchers from the Vienna University of Technology. While the issue isn’t exactly pressing, our ability to grow systems based on quantum operations from backroom prototypes into practical

File this under ‘That’s not supposed to happen!’: Scientists observed a metal healing itself, something never seen before. If this process can be fully understood and controlled, we could be at the start of a whole new era of engineering. In a study published in July, a team from Sandia National Laboratories and Texas A&M

Researchers propose that a taste for fermented morsels may have triggered a surprising jump in the growth rate of our ancestors’ brains. In fact, a shift from a raw diet to one that included food items already partially broken down by microbes may have been a crucial event in our brain’s evolution, according to a

Astronomers have spotted signs of an extended disk of dust and gas, whirling in orbit around a distant star. There’s nothing unusual about this. It’s a normal stage in the development of a star and its planetary system. What makes this find so spectacular is that it’s the first ever seen around a star in

Nearly five times more people will likely die due to extreme heat in the coming decades, an international team of experts said Wednesday, warning that without action on climate change the “health of humanity is at grave risk”. Lethal heat was just one of the many ways the world’s still-increasing use of fossil fuels threatens