Ever since NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft flew past Jupiter in March, 1979, scientists have wondered about the origin of Jupiter's lightning. That encounter confirmed the existence of Jovian lightning, which had been theorized for centuries. But when the venerable explorer hurtled b … | Continue reading
A flying car project backed by Google co-founder Larry Page was closer to take-off on Wednesday, with a model for test flights by aspiring buyers. | Continue reading
What happens when the solar wind suddenly starts to blow significantly harder? According to two recent studies, the boundaries of our entire solar system balloon outward—and an analysis of particles rebounding off of its edges will reveal its new shape. | Continue reading
Picture a herd of sheep or cattle emerging from a shed or barn to graze a field. They head straight out of their digs to the pleasure of the pasture pretty much as one entity, but as the land opens up and the "grass gets greener" they disperse randomly in a motion that has neithe … | Continue reading
Quantum physics has led to new types of sensors, secure data transmission methods and researchers are working toward computers. However, the main obstacle is finding the right way to couple and precisely control a sufficient number of quantum systems (for example, individual atom … | Continue reading
Earth scientists consistently look for a reliable way to forecast earthquakes. New research from University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute professor Carl Tape may help in that endeavor, due to a unique set of circumstances. | Continue reading
Physicists have developed a "quantum stopwatch"—a method that stores time (in the form of states of quantum clocks) in a quantum memory. In doing so, the method avoids the accumulation of errors that usually occurs when measuring the duration of a sequence of events. In this way, … | Continue reading
Globular clusters could be up to 4 billion years younger than previously thought, new research led by the University of Warwick has found. | Continue reading
Although blockchain is traditionally seen as secure, it is vulnerable to attack from quantum computers. | Continue reading
Germany's spy agency can monitor major internet hubs if Berlin deems it necessary for strategic security interests, a federal court has ruled. | Continue reading
Rakesh Mogul, a Cal Poly Pomona professor of biological chemistry, was the lead author of an article in the journal Astrobiology that offers the first biochemical evidence explaining the reason the contamination persists. | Continue reading
NASA has achieved a first for the class of tiny spacecraft known as CubeSats, which are opening new access to space. | Continue reading
A world's first QUT-led study has used artificial intelligence to analyse regional personality characteristics estimated solely from language patterns in 1.5 billion Twitter posts and uncover hotspots and cold spots of entrepreneurial personality and activity across the US. | Continue reading
A new technique developed by MIT physicists could someday provide a way to custom-design multilayered nanoparticles with desired properties, potentially for use in displays, cloaking systems, or biomedical devices. It may also help physicists tackle a variety of thorny research p … | Continue reading
A 'self-eating' rocket engine which could place small satellites in orbit more easily and more affordably is under development at universities in Scotland and Ukraine. | Continue reading
Something strange is happening with a now-banned chemical that eats away at Earth's protective ozone layer: Scientists say there's more of it—not less—going into the atmosphere and they don't know where it is coming from. | Continue reading
A team of researchers from the U.K., Germany and Russia has found evidence of magnetism at the edges of graphene. In their paper published in the journal Nature, the researchers describe how they made their discovery and why they believe it is important. | Continue reading
We've all heard about the search for life on other planets, but what about looking on other moons? | Continue reading
Researchers at Queen Mary University of London have developed a new way to grow mineralised materials which could regenerate hard tissues such as dental enamel and bone. | Continue reading
The spectacular merger of two neutron stars that generated gravitational waves announced last fall likely did something else: birthed a black hole. This newly spawned black hole would be the lowest mass black hole ever found. | Continue reading
Facebook is rapidly losing ground against rival internet platforms in attracting and keeping US teenagers, a survey showed Thursday. | Continue reading
As Earth orbits the sun at supersonic speed, it cuts a path through the solar wind. This fast stream of charged particles, or plasma, launched from the sun's outer layers would bombard Earth's atmosphere if not for the protection of Earth's magnetic field. | Continue reading
When female birds have chicks as the result of an extra-marital fling, the fathers are almost always older males, and scientists are finding out why. | Continue reading
Scientists at the University of Alberta have applied a machine learning technique using artificial intelligence to perfect and automate atomic-scale manufacturing, something which has never been done before. The vastly greener, faster, smaller technology enabled by this developme … | Continue reading
For decades scientists have investigated the influence of the world's oceans in trapping greenhouse gasses. | Continue reading
Britain risks a shortage of electric cars after Brexit as carmakers will lose an incentive to sell low-emission vehicles there, a Brussels-based think-tank warned. | Continue reading
When a massive astrophysical object, such as a boson star or black hole, rotates, it can cause the surrounding spacetime to rotate along with it due to the effect of frame dragging. In a new paper, physicists have shown that a particle with just the right properties may stand per … | Continue reading
Laser pulse compression technology invented in the late 1980s resulted in high-power, short-pulse laser techniques, enhancing laser intensity 10 million-fold in a quarter of a century. | Continue reading
Iron-rich rocks near ancient lake sites on Mars could hold vital clues that show life once existed there, research suggests. | Continue reading
Iridescence is a form of structural colour which uses regular repeating nanostructures to reflect light at slightly different angles, causing a colour-change effect. | Continue reading
A large international team of researchers has found what they are describing as more evidence of the existence of Planet Nine. In their paper posted on the arXiv preprint server, the group describes the behavior of a newly discovered distant object as suggestive of an influence o … | Continue reading
The question of the origin of life remains one of the oldest unanswered scientific questions. A team at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has now shown for the first time that phase separation is an extremely efficient way of controlling the selection of chemical building … | Continue reading
Quantum memories are devices that can store quantum information for a later time, which are usually implemented by storing and re-emitting photons with certain quantum states. But often it's difficult to tell whether a memory is storing quantum or merely classical information. In … | Continue reading
Today IBM Research is introducing IBM Crypto Anchor Verifier, a new technology that brings innovations in AI and optical imaging together to help prove the identity and authenticity of objects. We're rolling this technology out with one of our first clients, GIA (Gemological Inst … | Continue reading
Finnish materials physicist Tuomo Suntola, who developed a groundbreaking technology to reduce the size of complex devices, on Tuesday won Finland's take on the Nobel science prizes. | Continue reading
The soil supporting a field of crops teems with life. Untold numbers of bacteria and fungi strive for space and food. Most are harmless. Many are vital to creating healthy soil. But farmers worry about a handful of species that cause devastating crop diseases, and they often turn … | Continue reading
Nanoparticles derived from tea leaves inhibit the growth of lung cancer cells, destroying up to 80% of them, new research by a joint Swansea University and Indian team has shown. | Continue reading
For its updated news application, Google is doubling down on the use of artificial intelligence as part of an effort to weed our disinformation and help users get viewpoints beyond their own "filter bubble." | Continue reading
New research from the University of Bristol has highlighted how little we know about giraffe behaviour and ecology. | Continue reading
Even though mobile internet link speeds might soon achieve 100 Gbps, this doesn't necessarily mean network carriers will be free of data-handling challenges that effectively slow down mobile data services, for everything from individual device users to billions of Internet-of-Thi … | Continue reading
A new technology from U of T Engineering is taking a substantial step towards enabling manufacturers to create plastics out of two key ingredients: sunshine and pollution. | Continue reading
As a single raindrop falls to the ground, it can splash back up in a crown-like sheet, spraying smaller droplets from its rim before sinking back to the surface—all in the blink of an eye. | Continue reading
Astronomers at ANU have found the fastest-growing black hole known in the Universe, describing it as a monster that devours a mass equivalent to our sun every two days. | Continue reading
Inside every proton in every atom in the universe is a pressure cooker environment that surpasses the atom-crushing heart of a neutron star. That's according to the first measurement of a mechanical property of subatomic particles, the pressure distribution inside the proton, whi … | Continue reading
An internal petition calling for Google to stay out of "the business of war" was gaining support Tuesday, with some workers reportedly quitting to protest a collaboration with the US military. | Continue reading
NASA's Voyager 1 took a classic portrait of Earth from several billion miles away in 1990. Now a class of tiny, boxy spacecraft, known as CubeSats, have just taken their own version of a "pale blue dot" image, capturing Earth and its moon in one shot. | Continue reading
German startup Flixbus on Wednesday brought its low-cost, long-distance bus service to the west coast of the United States, launching a direct challenge to America's iconic Greyhound Lines. | Continue reading
Inhibiting the production of the 'happiness' hormone – serotonin – in rice plants, increases their resistance to two of the world's most destructive and costly insect pests, new research has shown. | Continue reading