Enlarge / “Exploded” view of the new computer model of the Antikythera mechanism, showing how it might have worked. Tony Freeth Scientists have long struggled to solve the puzzle of the gearing system on the front of the so-called Antikythera mechanism—a fragmentary ancient Greek astronomical calculator, perhaps the earliest example of a geared device. Now, […]
Scientists from Johns Hopkins, Columbia and other leading American universities moved with rare speed when a Chinese virologist, Li-Meng Yan, published an explosive paper in September claiming that China had created the deadly coronavirus in a research lab. The paper, the American scientists concluded, was deeply flawed. And a new online journal from MIT Press […]
ESTON MARTZ / PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY Pigs can play video games, scientists have found, after putting four fun-loving swine to the test. Four pigs – Hamlet, Omelette, Ebony and Ivory – were trained to use an arcade-style joystick to steer an on-screen cursor into walls. Researchers said the fact that the pigs understood the connection […]
Emma Bell usually uses Twitter the way most of us do: for browsing funny web comics, procrastinating and communicating with their colleagues in the scientific community. Bell, a postdoctoral fellow who researches cancer genomics using bioinformatics at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto, will also occasionally correct a bit of misinformation they see online. […]
Media playback is unsupported on your device Scientists at the University of Liverpool have unveiled a robotic colleague that has been working non-stop in their lab throughout lockdown. The £100,000 programmable researcher learns from its results to refine its experiments. “It can work autonomously, so I can run experiments from home,” explained Benjamin Burger, one […]
(Reuters) — A rift has opened up over the design of smartphone apps to trace people in Europe at risk of coronavirus infection, potentially hindering efforts to curb the pandemic and ease crippling travel restrictions. Scientists and researchers from more than 25 countries published an open letter on Monday urging governments not to abuse such […]
An artist’s conception of the 20 newly discovered moons orbiting Saturn. These discoveries bring the planet’s total moon count to 82, surpassing Jupiter for the most in our solar system. Illustration is courtesy of the Carnegie Institution for Science. Saturn image is courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute. Starry background courtesy of Paolo Sartorio/Shutterstock. Astronomers using […]
UCLA Samueli School of Engineering Scientists have discovered a way to power a light by using the cold of outer space, which could eventually be used to create the nighttime counterpart to solar energy. Using an inexpensive thermoelectric device, they’re able to harness the cold of space without an active heat input. The process, called […]
This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope reveals an ancient, glimmering ball of stars called NGC 1466. ESA/Hubble & NASA This Hubble image shows a scene within the bounds of our galactic neighbor, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) galaxy. This particular object, called NGC 1466, is a type of star cluster called a globular […]
Devices that merge machines with the human brain need to be investigated, a study has said. In future, “people could become telepathic to some degree” and being able to read someone else’s thoughts raises ethical issues, experts said. This could become especially worrying if those thoughts were shared with corporations. Commercial products should not come […]
Event Horizon Telescope An international team of scientists that captured the first-ever image of a black hole has bagged a $ 3 million prize for its efforts. The win was announced this week by the Breakthrough Prize as part of an annual awards event dubbed “the Oscars of science.” Recognizing major achievements in the scientific […]
OpticSELINE electrode array for intraneural stimulation of the optic nerve. EPFL/Alain Herzog Blindness is difficult to treat, in part because it can be caused by so many different issues in the eye, the brain, or the optic nerve which connects the two. But recently, scientists from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) have developed […]
The Kohnen Station in Antarctica. Sepp Kipfstuhl We are made of starstuff, Carl Sagan once said, and new findings from Antarctica show that to be literally true in some cases. A rare isotope of iron, called iron-60, is formed when a star explodes in a supernova. And recently, scientists found traces of iron-60 in fresh […]
Ever wish your eye came with a zoom lens? Soon they might. Scientists at the University of California San Diego have successfully created a pair of contact lenses that zoom in on something when you blink twice. Details about the creation were recently published in the journal Advanced Functional Materials. To create the lens, the […]
An active volcano discovered 3.5km (2 miles) below the sea surface CNRS/IPGP/IFREMER/BRGM Geologists first noticed something unusual in the Indian Ocean in November last year, when they detected a massive seismic event originating from a spot near to the French island of Mayotte. Now further research has revealed that the source of the seismic activity […]