Science and Technolgy blog
When Canadian developer Peter Todd found out that a new HBO documentary, Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery, was set to identify him as Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin, he was mostly just pissed. “This was clearly going to be…
To fuel AI’s insatiable energy appetite, tech companies are going big on small nuclear reactors.
The smallest machine of its kind in the world uses a single photon as its qubit and it can perform calculations without needing the cumbersome equipment to cool it down to near absolute zero.
A recent study published in Psychoneuroendocrinology has uncovered a link between maternal stress, brain activity, and parenting behavior in new mothers. Researchers found that higher levels of cortisol were associated with more intrusive behaviors in mothers during interactions with their…
T-Mobile promised users who bought certain mobile plans that it would never raise their prices for as long as they lived—but then raised their prices this year. So it’s no surprise that 2,000 T-Mobile customers complained to the government about…
Spooky glows haunt the air above powerful thunderstorms. These include vibrant red lights called sprites, which are sometimes followed by eerie green ghosts. But these light shows are not paranormal. They arise naturally from the electricity of strong storms. And…
How old is Earth? Our planet’s age is known from a variety of sources, from rocks on our own planet to ones from the moon.
The first piece of the Euclid space telescope’s map of the universe is crammed with 14 million galaxies and 100 million sources of light. The mapping project is now 1% done.
A new study published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology reveals a surprising link between mystical experiences induced by the psychedelic compound DMT and specific patterns of heart activity. Researchers found that a unique balance between the body’s sympathetic and parasympathetic…
United Launch Alliance has started assembling its next Vulcan rocket—the first destined to launch a US military payload—as the Space Force prepares to certify it to loft the Pentagon’s most precious national security satellites. Space Force officials expect to approve…
Amid ongoing legal battles over coveted GLP-1 therapies, a drug vendor in Washington state is accused of running an outlandish scheme to sell do-it-yourself kits to make illicit knockoff versions of weight-loss and diabetes drugs, Zepbound and Mounjaro. For the…
Colossal, the company founded to try to restore the mammoth to the Arctic tundra, has also decided to tackle a number of other species that have gone extinct relatively recently: the dodo and the thylacine. Because of significant differences in…
It’s possible that the wheel was invented by copper miners in the Carpathian Mountains up to 6,000 years ago, according to a modeling study that uses techniques from structural mechanics.
A stunning image of differentiated mouse brain tumor cells has won the 2024 Nikon Small World photomicrography contest, yielding valuable insight into how degenerate diseases like Alzheimer’s and ALS can arise from disruption in the cytoskeleton of brain cells. The…
Subscription fees for video streaming services have been on a steady incline. But despite subscribers paying more, surveys suggest that viewers are becoming less satisfied with what’s available to watch. At the start of 2024, the industry began declaring the…
AI software company Anthropic has announced a new tool that can take control of the user’s mouse cursor and perform basic tasks on their computer. Announced alongside other improvements to Anthropic’s Claude and Haiku models, the tool is straightforwardly called…
Like Frodo himself, I wasn’t sure we were going to make it all the way to the end of our quest. But this week, my family crossed an important life threshold: every member has now heard J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of…
Fortinet, a maker of network security software, has kept a critical vulnerability under wraps for more than a week amid reports that attackers are using it to execute malicious code on servers used by sensitive customer organizations. Fortinet representatives didn’t…
Police use of automated license-plate reader cameras is being challenged in a lawsuit alleging that the cameras enable warrantless surveillance in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The city of Norfolk, Virginia, was sued yesterday by plaintiffs represented by the Institute…
Breast self-exams used to be recommended as a part of routine breast cancer screening. Here’s why the guidelines changed and what experts recommend instead.
A recent study of over 50,000 Norwegian students revealed that individuals who drank energy drinks daily tended to have lower-quality sleep compared to students who rarely or never consumed energy drinks. Daily energy drink consumers had shorter, less efficient sleep,…
Elon Musk may have personally used AI to rip off a Blade Runner 2049 image for a Tesla cybercab event after producers rejected any association between their iconic sci-fi movie and Musk or any of his companies. In a lawsuit filed…
Qualcomm has a new chip for flagship phones, and the best part is that it uses an improved version of the Oryon CPU architecture that the Snapdragon X Elite chips brought to Windows PCs earlier this year. The Snapdragon 8…
A draw housing six Sapphire Technology AMD graphics processing units (GPUs).
Leading climate scientists ring alarm bell on key Atlantic Ocean current collapse in open letter
It’s been just over two years now since soon-to-depart CTO John Carmack told a Meta Connect audience about his vision for a super low-end VR headset that came in at $250 and 250 grams. “We’re not building that headset today,…
A new NASA-led study suggests that photosynthetic microbes could thrive in hidden bubbles of meltwater below patches of ice on Mars. This could be one of the easiest places to search for extraterrestrial life “anywhere in the universe,” the team…
An ancient temple made by Arabian immigrants from the Nabataean culture has finally been found off the Italian coast near Naples.
A new study published in Consciousness and Cognition has revealed that individuals with aphantasia, a condition where people cannot form mental visual images, experience storytelling in a markedly different way than those with typical mental imagery. While aphantasics enjoy stories…
Astronomers have found a world shrouded in an atmosphere of water vapor, orbiting a star 100 light-years away.
Lakes appearing in the Sahara desert captured in satellite images after a cyclone dumped a years’ worth of rain on northern Africa in just a few days.
Two preserved great auk specimens displayed at a museum in 1971. The last pair of great auks were killed in 1844.
New cars really are better than they used to be. They last longer, they’re more efficient, and they’re safer for the occupants in a crash. But it’s not entirely a one-way street. If the last time you bought a car…
According to new research published in Communication Research, people who obsessively consume news are more prone to political hostility. The study shows that those who lose themselves in political news are more likely to see opponents as enemies, leading to…
Recent clinical trials of weekly insulin highlight how this formulation may be useful in managing diabetes, but the drug has limitations.
A team of scientists has made a significant discovery about how the brain retains long-term memories. They identified the molecule KIBRA, which acts as a “glue” to anchor PKMζ, an enzyme critical for strengthening synaptic connections between neurons. This interaction…
A genetic analysis suggests that rare cases of early onset osteoporosis may be partly caused by disruptions to the function of the hormone melatonin.
A study published in Nature Neuroscience suggests that targeting specific brain circuits with non-invasive neurostimulation could offer new hope for treating post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in veterans. Researchers found that veterans with brain injuries affecting connections to the amygdala were…
The iPad mini is a niche product, that much is clear. But for those who want an extra-small tablet, the launch of the sixth-generation iPad mini in 2021 was a red-letter day. For the first time in ages, the mini…
Rupert Murdoch’s Dow Jones and the New York Post have accused artificial intelligence start-up Perplexity of a “brazen scheme” to rip off their journalism for its AI-driven search engine in a lawsuit filed in New York on Monday. The publishers,…
A new study comparing the health outcomes of Medicaid patients with and without a doula suggests the extra support during pregnancy may be beneficial.
Residents of Snjay Camp in New Delhi fill plastic containers with water from a tanker in June 2026. Severe heatwaves mean that some areas of India’s capital experience water shortages in the summer.
Children with difficult temperaments, including personality tendencies such as irritability and having a hard time being comforted, are only slightly more likely than other children to have insecure attachment relationships with one or both of their parents, according to our…
For humans, cannibalism is the stuff of horror movies. But in the animal kingdom, it’s more common than you might think. All kinds of animals have been caught chowing down on members of their own species. The practice seems especially…
Researchers claim to have broken RSA encryption using a quantum computer, but what really happened?
How many moons does Jupiter have? Scientists have discovered dozens of them, but the answer may be more complicated than it seems.
Scientists studying the infamous 3-body problem have discovered certain “islands of regularity” that emerge from the gravitational chaos.
Whether intentional or not, the way mega-settlements in southeastern Europe from 6,000 years ago were laid out would have cut down on the spread of disease.
Half a dozen dinosaur eggs, each around the size of a grape, were recently saved from a construction site in China. Researchers say the tiny fossilized shells are exceptionally well preserved.
A recent satellite image captured the reemergence of a unique, UFO-like cloud, known as the “Taieri Pet,” which appears above New Zealand’s South Island when conditions are just right.
