Science

Google has shared an update about its AI-driven mission to reduce wait times, fuel use, and polluting emissions at intersections – and the early indications are that stops can be reduced by around 30 percent, with emissions dropping around 10 percent. Multiply that by all the city intersections in the world and we’re potentially looking

WASHINGTON — A SpaceX executive used a Senate hearing to express frustration with the slow pace of launch licensing reviews that is holding up the next flight of the company’s Starship vehicle. At a hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee’s space subcommittee Oct. 18, Bill Gerstenmaier, vice president of build and flight reliability at SpaceX,

We can now hear one of the largest and most ancient living organisms on Earth whisper with the tremble of a million leaves echoing through its roots. The forest made of a single tree known as Pando (“I spread” in Latin) has 47,000 stems (all with the same DNA) sprouting from a shared root system

To pry into the private lives of objects in the microscopic domain (and beyond), scientists often rely on extremely bright sources of light. The free electron lasers that get the best results accelerate electrons over several kilometers towards light speed, wiggling them through a large hall of magnets to shake free intense pulses of photons

A piece of rock with mysterious markings that lay largely unstudied for 4,000 years is now being hailed as a “treasure map” for archaeologists, who are using it to hunt for ancient sites around north-western France. The so-called Saint-Belec slab was claimed as Europe’s oldest map by researchers in 2021 and they have been working

The source of a giant quake on Mars has turned out to be a huge surprise. The quake, detected on 4 May 2022 by NASA’s InSight lander, and registered at 4.7 magnitude, was the result of colossal tectonic activity in the Martian crust, according to an international team led by planetary physicist Benjamin Fernando of

Global emissions of planet-heating carbon dioxide are expected to rise around one percent to reach a new all-time high in 2023, the climate scientist behind the preliminary research said Tuesday. Scientists say carbon pollution will need to be cut almost in half this decade to meet the world’s targets of limiting global warming and avoiding

For the first time, artificial intelligence (AI) has searched for, detected, confirmed, classified, and announced a supernova discovery without any human intervention. An international team of scientists developed a new AI tool called Bright Transient Survey Bot (BTSbot), using over 1.4 million images from nearly 16,000 sources to train its machine-learning algorithm. Northwestern University reports

TAMPA, Fla. — One-year-old Californian startup AnySignal emerged from stealth mode Oct. 16 with $5 million in funding behind a multi-purpose space radio platform. AnySignal’s kit works across multiple spectrum bands, chief operating officer and co-founder Jeffrey Osborne told SpaceNews, and comes with ground equipment for hardware-in-the-loop tests, modems that can be upgraded for different

How much can the written records of ancient civilisations tell us about the animals they lived alongside? Our latest research, based on the venomous snakes described in an ancient Egyptian papyrus, suggests more than you might think. A much more diverse range of snakes than we’d imagined lived in the land of the pharaohs –

For most of us, the passage of time flies in just one inexorable direction. But for theoretical quantum physicists, time’s direction isn’t quite so inflexible. It’s possible to theoretically model, simulate, and observe the backwards flow of time in ways that are impossible to achieve in the real world. And now, scientists have shown that

Leonardo da Vinci is well known for having used less conventional painting methods and substances in his work, and we’re still making new discoveries about them – the latest being a mix of toxic pigments underlying the brushwork on the Mona Lisa. Researchers from France and the UK looked at a tiny microsample taken from

Many of us have dreamed about flying over the surface of Mars—someday. The planet offers so many cool places to study, and doing it in person is something for future Marsnauts to consider. The Mars Express spacecraft has been mapping the Red Planet for years. It now gives us an up-close look now, through an

Whale hunting in the 20th century significantly reduced the genetic diversity of the ocean giants, with particularly devastating effects on two species. The commercial whaling industry spent centuries slaughtering whales around the world for their oil and meat, wiping out some populations and driving many species to the brink of extinction. An international moratorium on

As you might imagine for a scroll that has been buried under mounds of volcanic ash from Mount Vesuvius for close to 2,000 years, the rolled-up papyrus excavated from the ancient Roman city of Herculaneum is rather difficult to open, let alone read – but AI has found a way. Scholars from the University of

HELSINKI — China added to its series of Yunhai remote sensing satellites late Saturday with a launch from the Gobi Desert. A Long March 2D rocket lifted off from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center at 8:54 p.m. Eastern, Oct. 14 (0054 UTC, Oct. 15). The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp. (CASC), confirmed launch success within

You might expect the whirring blades of a helicopter to spark concern or annoyance from animals in the vicinity. But for the reptilian residents of a crocodile farm, a low-flying chopper seemed to signal mating season. “All of the big males got up and roared and bellowed up at the sky, and then after the

Odd things happen inside planets, where familiar materials are subjected to extreme pressures and heat. Iron atoms probably dance within Earth’s solid inner core, and hot, black, heavy ice – that’s both solid and liquid at the same time – likely forms within the water-rich gas giants, Uranus and Neptune. Five years ago, scientists recreated

Sex is a natural, common, and pleasurable part of human life, yet its impact on the health of the brain is surprisingly understudied. A longitudinal study on life, sexuality, and mental sharpness in the US has now shown that sexual activity in older people, who do not live in nursing homes, is linked to better

The afterglow of a massive collision between two giant planets may have been detected for the first time. The wreckage of the collision could eventually cool and form an entirely new planet. If the observation is confirmed, it provides an amazing opportunity to watch the birth of a new world in real time and open

Methane emissions from fossil fuels must be slashed immediately to limit climate warming, and major reductions are possible with existing technologies at low cost, the International Energy Agency said Wednesday. Methane is far less abundant in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, but is responsible for around 30 percent of the global rise in temperatures to

In the world of lithium-ion batteries, smartphones take centre stage. Yet they’ve also sparked an ongoing debate: does prolonged (or overnight) charging wreak havoc on your battery? A number of factors determine a phone battery’s lifespan, including its manufacturing age and its chemical age. The latter refers to the battery’s gradual degradation due to variables

When queried about the progress of the U.S. Space Force’s commercial space strategy, Gen. Chance Saltzman, the top commander, did not mince words. Speaking at the recent AMOS space domain awareness conference in Hawaii, Saltzman characterized the latest draft of this highly anticipated strategy as rich in style but wanting in substance. Intended to shed

Researchers looking into the aggressive mating habits of some frogs have discovered that females frequently fake their own deaths to avoid persistent males. This disproves the traditional idea that female frogs passively submit to the desires of their male counterparts during mating season, say the authors of the new study, which focuses specifically on the

The densest naturally occurring element on the periodic table is the metal osmium. At room temperature, it forms a solid with a density of 22.59 grams per cubic centimeter – nearly twice as dense as Earth’s inner core and almost as dense as the core of Jupiter. But there are some objects out there in

Brutal violence is an undeniable part of human history. But whether our societies have become more or less violent over time is a difficult question that cuts to the heart of human nature – and one that new research takes aim at. Some scholars maintain human violence in all its various forms, from assault and

Pulsars are known for their regularity and stability. These fast-rotating neutron stars emit radio waves with such consistent pulses that astronomers can use them as a kind of cosmic clock. But recently a pulsar emitted gamma rays with tremendous energy. The gamma rays were the most energetic photons ever observed, with energies of more than

Amid the sixth mass extinction, frogs, salamanders, and caecilians remain the most threatened group of vertebrates on Earth. Over 40 percent of amphibian species are now threatened, the latest global assessment has found. “Amphibians are disappearing faster than we can study them, but the list of reasons to protect them is long, including their role

When a group of researchers asked an AI to design a robot that could walk, it created a “small, squishy and misshapen” thing that walks by spasming when filled with air. The researchers — affiliated with Northwestern University, MIT, and the University of Vermont — published their findings in an article for the Proceedings of

“After a dozen years designing and developing Euclid, it is exhilarating and very moving to see these first images. But you can’t just release them to the public; it takes time to get scientific validation. We expect the first science publication in January.” Giuseppe Racca, Euclid project manager at ESA PARIS — Launched atop a SpaceX