Collaborate Disseminate
Gamma ray bursts (GRBs) are among the most energetic explosions since the Big Bang – and now astronomers have detected the most powerful one yet. A beam of high-energy radiation up to 18 times more powerful than the previous record swept over Earth las… Continue reading Extremely powerful gamma ray burst sweeps across Earth
Scientists have demonstrated a powerful technique that will allow quantum computers to store much more information in photons of light. The team managed to encode eight levels of data into photons and read it back easily, representing an exponential le… Continue reading “64-dimensional quantum space” drastically boosts quantum computing
As the dinosaurs could attest, it’s worth keeping an eye on any big space rocks that might be buzzing around Earth. A fleet of observatories are doing just that, and astronomers have now announced that we’ve just ticked over the milestone of 30,000 nea… Continue reading Near-Earth asteroid tally ticks over 30,000 milestone
Electrons zip around in electronic devices extremely quickly, which can make it hard to see what’s going on in there. Now, engineers at the Universities of Michigan and Regensburg have developed an “attoclock” that can take snapshots of electrons in in… Continue reading “Attoclock” measures electrons moving at quintillionths of a second
Scientists in Australia have demonstrated that clusters of brain cells in a lab dish can be taught to play Pong in an approximation of sentience. This is the first time that these cells have shown the ability to perform goal-directed tasks, and it open… Continue reading Brain cells in a lab dish “exhibit sentience” by learning to play Pong
Black holes have been seen to chow down on stars that wander too close, resulting in a bright stellar show. But now a black hole has been seen doing something nobody’s ever seen before – it “burped up” material several years after eating a star, leavin… Continue reading Astronomers can’t explain a black hole “burp” years after it ate a star
The fastest internet network in the US just got a bit faster. The Energy Sciences Network (Esnet) has been upgraded to ESnet6, boasting a blistering bandwidth of 46 Terabits per second (Tbps). But don’t warm up your downloading fingers just yet – it’s … Continue reading World’s fastest internet network upgraded to staggering 46 Terabit/s
Humans might not be the first lifeforms in the solar system to face the threat of their own activity changing the climate of their home planet. A new model suggests that ancient Mars was once habitable enough to support methane-producing microbes, and … Continue reading Ancient Martian life may have died out in self-induced climate change
Predicting the likelihood and severity of earthquakes is important, but it’s hard to account for all factors at play. Researchers in New Zealand have now uncovered a previously overlooked factor that could affect the impact of the next big quake – foss… Continue reading How tiny fossils could minimize or supersize the next big earthquake
Plastic waste is one of the most pressing environmental problems of our time, and sorting different types makes recycling tricky. Now, engineers at MIT have developed an effective new catalyst that breaks down mixed plastics into propane, which can the… Continue reading Efficient new catalyst converts mixed plastic waste into propane