Science

Our brains are remarkably energy efficient. Using just 20 watts of power, the human brain is capable of processing the equivalent of an exaflop — or a billion-billion mathematical operations per second. Now, researchers in Australia are building what will be the world’s first supercomputer that can simulate networks at this scale. The supercomputer, known

WASHINGTON — Astrobotic’s first lunar lander is ready for a launch in early January that would set up a landing on the moon in late February. The Pittsburgh-based company announced Dec. 19 that its Peregrine lunar lander has completed all its pre-launch integration activities, which include fueling the lander and mating it with the payload

Daydreaming is looking less like a vice and more like a virtue the more that neuroscientists and psychologists dig into the phenomenon. Scientists at Harvard University have now found preliminary evidence that when mice ‘daydream’ or quietly reflect on something they saw earlier that day, their brains are rewired in a useful way for memory

Quantum physics is fundamentally weird, so much so that we need thought experiments of hidden cats in boxes and metaphors of spinning coins to even begin to comprehend its laws. Yet even in our classical world, where physics is more intuitive, shades of quantum behavior can be represented using relatively simple scenarios. Researchers experimenting with

Thousands of years before ancient people in Central Eurasia learned to farm, hunter-gatherer groups in the subarctic were building some of the first permanent, fortified settlements, challenging the notion that agriculture was a prerequisite for societies to ‘settle down’. Researchers now think they have dated the earliest known fortifications in the icy north, if not

Cronian moon Enceladus doesn’t look like much. It’s kind of monochrome and small, paling in comparison with Saturn‘s big showy rings and giant hexagon. But, as many Solar System objects make clear, appearances can be very deceptive. Enceladus has a lot more going on than an initial glimpse would indicate. A new analysis suggests that

A methane monster, lurking beneath the Arctic’s frozen ground, is threatening to rear its ugly head. Scientists don’t yet know how big the threat is or where it will strike first, but what is clear is that the Arctic’s permanently frozen soil, called permafrost, is melting, threatening to uncap huge amounts of an extremely potent

ChatGPT was launched on 30 November 2022, ushering in what many have called artificial intelligence’s breakout year. Within days of its release, ChatGPT went viral. Screenshots of conversations snowballed across social media, and the use of ChatGPT skyrocketed to an extent that seems to have surprised even its maker, OpenAI. By January, ChatGPT was seeing

WASHINGTON — Nearly a year after the failed Virgin Orbit launch from England, United Kingdom government officials remain optimistic about the prospects for building up a launch industry in the country. The U.K. Space Agency released a lessons learned report Dec. 14 on the “UK Pathfinder Launch,” the January 2023 launch by Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne

In late August 2020, wildlife veterinarian Chris Foggin was masked up and dissecting an elephant that was suspected to have died from anthrax when he got a call to say there had been more fatalities. The next day, another five dead elephants were found in the baking hot Zimbabwean sun. Foggin knew he and his

How does the human brain keep track of the order of events in a sequence? Research suggests that ‘time cells’ – neurons in the hippocampus thought to represent temporal information – could be the glue that sticks our memories together in the right sequence so that we can properly recall the correct order in which

The Sun has just belched out an absolute beast of a flare. On 14 December, an active sunspot region named AR 3514 erupted in a class X2.8 solar flare, the most intense category of which our star is capable. The flare is the most powerful we’ve seen for the current solar cycle, and the most

Pine Island glacier is one of the fastest flowing outlets of ice from the west Antarctic ice sheet, draining an area three-quarters the size of the UK. In recent decades, the glacier has been retreating rapidly and losing ice, contributing more to global sea level rise than any other Antarctic glacier. The speed of the

A new venture-backed startup is capitalizing on the productivity that can be channeled while lucid dreaming, Fortune reports. Lucid dreaming is a state of being aware that you are dreaming during your sleep cycle and the ability to control or manipulate the dream narrative. As many as 70% of people experience the phenomenon at least

WASHINGTON — The House on Dec. 14 approved the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act by a vote of 310 to 118. The vote came a day after the Senate approved the bill by an 87 to 13 majority.  The NDAA is now headed to President Biden’s desk for signature. The White House indicated the president

Our favorite feline friends are fairly fussy, but not when it comes to their diet. According to a new global study of what animal species cats devour, free-roaming domestic cats, including pets and feral animals, are extreme generalists that eat whatever they can sink their claws into. While many cat owners – especially those in

Bulky and hard to wrangle, molecules have long defied physicists’ attempts to lure them into a state of controlled quantum entanglement, whereby the molecules are intimately linked even at a distance. Now, for the first time, two separate teams have succeeded in entangling pairs of ultra-cold molecules using the same method: microscopically precise optical ‘tweezer

You may not have ever realized it, but there are many trillions of microorganisms living on our skin – and puncturing the skin and inserting a metal object, also known as getting a piercing, creates a significant shift in that microbiome. A team from McGill University in Canada, in partnership with a local tattoo parlor,

Anyone who regularly watches the skies may well be familiar with the constellation Orion the hunter. It is one of the few constellations that actually looks like the thing it is supposed to look like rather than some abstract resemblance. One prominent star is Betelgeuse and back in 2020 it dimmed to a level lower

The year 2023 shattered the record for the warmest summer in the Arctic, and people and ecosystems across the region felt the impact. Wildfires forced evacuations across Canada. Greenland was so warm that a research station at the ice sheet summit recorded melting in late June, only its fifth melting event on record. Sea surface

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