Tech

They say beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, but in actuality, it goes far deeper than that. The concept of physical beauty resides in the mind, defined by whatever features we find attractive in other people’s faces. These subtle preferences represent some of our most private inner thoughts – but that doesn’t mean

In the struggle to slow the runaway freight train of humanity’s destructive impact on Earth, scientists are increasingly looking at the role our oceans can play. Teaming up with industry, scientists from the University of Southern California have discovered a ‘kelp elevator’ technique that produces ample seaweed, potentially providing a high-yield biofuel to help wean

China, which last year overtook the United States as the world’s top filer of international patents, a key measure of technical innovation, increased its lead significantly in 2020, the UN said Tuesday. Even as COVID-19 took a vast human and economic toll, international patent applications continued to grow strongly, with China leading strong gains from

It was recently revealed that in 2017 Microsoft patented a chatbot which, if built, would digitally resurrect the dead. Using AI and machine learning, the proposed chatbot would bring our digital persona back to life for our family and friends to talk to. When pressed on the technology, Microsoft representatives admitted that the chatbot was

Scientists are using a radar-like weather system to watch as a storm of pathogens brew inside living tissue. The strategy is entirely novel, according to the authors, and relies on a technique very similar to Doppler radars, which can detect the motion of precipitation and predict upcoming weather patterns. Doppler ultrasounds, which use sound waves

Sometimes, while waiting for quantum computers to become ubiquitous, or wondering whatever happened to flying cars, it’s easy to forget just how far technology has come over the past 50 years. Sure, we can all list off a bunch of innovations that have changed the way the world works – the Internet, smartphones, radio telescopes

Americans often take electricity for granted – until the lights go out. The recent cold wave and storm in Texas have placed considerable focus on the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, the nonprofit corporation that manages the flow of electricity to more than 26 million Texans. Together, ERCOT and similar organizations manage about

Artificial intelligence (AI) is learning more about how to work with (and on) humans. A recent study has shown how AI can learn to identify vulnerabilities in human habits and behaviours and use them to influence human decision-making. It may seem cliched to say AI is transforming every aspect of the way we live and

In a significant move, Facebook has announced it will remove any misleading claims and misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccines from both Facebook and Instagram. It’s part of a broader move to help combat fake news about the pandemic. Since December, the platform has been removing claims about the coronavirus that have been debunked by health

Scientists have developed a new kind of cryogenic computer chip capable of functioning at temperatures so cold, it approaches the theoretical limit of absolute zero. This cryogenic system, called Gooseberry, lays the groundwork for what could be a revolution in quantum computing – enabling a new generation of machines to perform calculations with thousands of

A robot inspired by the shape and delicate underwater movements of a jellyfish, allowing it to safely explore endangered coral reefs, was unveiled by British scientists on Wednesday. According to research by teams at the universities of Southampton and Edinburgh and published in the journal Science Robotics, the small robot mimics “nature’s most efficient swimmer

To artists and romantics, the twinkling of stars is visual poetry; a dance of distant light as it twists and bends through a turbulent ocean of air above our heads. Not everybody is so enamoured with our atmosphere’s distortions. To many scientists and engineers, a great deal of research and ground-to-satellite communication would be a

The idea of artificial intelligence overthrowing humankind has been talked about for many decades, and scientists have just delivered their verdict on whether we’d be able to control a high-level computer super-intelligence. The answer? Almost definitely not. The catch is that controlling a super-intelligence far beyond human comprehension would require a simulation of that super-intelligence

Scientists have created new kinds of ‘living materials’ by tweaking the base ingredients of kombucha – the popular tea drink fermented with a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast (aka SCOBY). This kind of ‘tea fungus’ – sometimes called ‘kombucha mother’ – can do a lot more than just produce sour-tasting beverages, it seems. By

Bitcoin continues to trade close to its all-time high reached this month. Its price is at the time of writing around US$34,000 – up about 77 percent over the past month and 305 percent over the past year. First launched in 2009 as a digital currency, Bitcoin was for a while used as digital money

Scientists have just set a new world record for high-temperature sustained plasma with the Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) device, reaching an ion temperature of above 100 million degrees Celsius (180 million degrees Fahrenheit) for a period of 20 seconds. Known as Korea’s “artificial sun”, the KSTAR uses magnetic fields to generate and stabilise

Sometimes, science is all about the mind-aching big picture. Like the idea that our Universe is just a giant hologram, or that we’ve actually detected gravitational waves from a neutron star collision. Or that we might not actually have as much free will as we think… Those are really exciting concepts. But then there are other

The start of electric aviation is upon us, but it’s going to take many more years before the average environmentalist can fly guilt free on a fully electric long haul jet. In the meantime, scientists are trying to make the commercial planes we already have more sustainable, and one of the best ways to do

Within the next few decades, according to some experts, we may see the arrival of the next step in the development of artificial intelligence. So-called “artificial general intelligence“, or AGI, will have intellectual capabilities far beyond those of humans. AGI could transform human life for the better, but uncontrolled AGI could also lead to catastrophes

A newly developed glue that gets its stickiness from a magnetic field could lead to serious energy and cost savings for companies that need to stick things together on an industrial scale. To harden – or cure – the mix of chemicals in most epoxy-based glues, some kind of environmental effect like heat, light, or

Dropping your smartphone often means living with a cracked screen until your next upgrade, or footing an expensive repair bill – but researchers have been busy bringing self-healing display technology closer to a practical reality. A team from the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) has developed a self-healing electronic material that can repair

One of the central technologies of artificial intelligence is neural networks. In this interview, Tam Nguyen, a professor of computer science at the University of Dayton, explains how neural networks, programs in which a series of algorithms try to simulate the human brain, work. What are some examples of neural networks that are familiar to

If we’re going to get better at powering the planet with renewable energy, we need to get better at finding ways of efficiently storing that energy until it’s needed – and scientists have identified a particular material that could give us exactly that. The material is known as a metal-organic framework (MOF), in which carbon-based

Improving the efficiency of solar cells can make a huge difference to the amount of energy produced from the same surface area and the same amount of sunshine, and another world record has been beaten in the push for better yields. Researchers have now hit an efficiency of 29.15 percent in the perovskite/silicon tandem solar

A team of Chinese scientists have developed the most powerful quantum computer in the world, capable of performing at least one task 100 trillion times faster than the world’s fastest supercomputers. In 2019, Google said it had built the first machine to achieve “quantum supremacy,” the first to outperform the world’s best supercomputers at quantum calculation, Live Science

German divers who recently fished an Enigma encryption machine out of the Baltic Sea, used by the Nazis to send coded messages during World War II, handed their rare find over to a museum for restoration on Friday. The legendary code machine was discovered last month during a search for abandoned fishing nets in the

The dark web has a shady reputation. Hidden below the transparency and visibility of the internet’s surface, the complex anonymity networks that make up the dark web host and distribute all kinds of murky content: illicit drugs, child abuse material, illegal weapons, extremist paraphernalia, and more. But the dark web is also a misunderstood place,

A long-standing and incredibly complex scientific problem concerning the structure and behaviour of proteins has been effectively solved by a new artificial intelligence (AI) system, scientists report. DeepMind, the UK-based AI company, has wowed us for years with its parade of ever-advancing neural networks that continually trounce humans at complex games such as chess and

How might The Terminator have played out if Skynet had decided it probably wasn’t responsible enough to hold the keys to the entire US nuclear arsenal? As it turns out, scientists may just have saved us from such a future AI-led apocalypse, by creating neural networks that know when they’re untrustworthy. These deep learning neural

The Virgin Hyperloop made its first journey carrying passengers Sunday, in a test the company claimed represented a major step forward for the “groundbreaking” technology capable of transporting people at 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) an hour. The Hyperloop is intended to carry passengers in small pods through a vacuum tube, with proponents arguing it could

Between COVID-19 lockdowns and nail-biting elections, 2020 is certainly driving many of us to spend more time on social media than ever before.  We all know this habit isn’t necessarily a good thing, with studies suggesting it can have negative impacts on our mental health, especially in young people. In turn, this can affect our

Imagine, if you will, a microscopic submarine, motoring around inside your blood vessels, delivering medicine, or perhaps performing surgery all on its own. This is the sort of future theoretical physicist Richard Feynman used to fantasise about, and yet today, we’re still stuck on the swimming part. For a vessel at such a tiny scale,

Scientists have created a super white paint that is the yin to Vantablack’s yang.  While ultra black materials can today absorb more than 99.96 percent of sunlight, this new super white coat can reflect 95.5 percent of all the photons that hit it. Instead of warming up under direct light, objects painted with this new

A major renewable energy project in Australia billed as the world’s largest solar farm in development has had its proposed location revealed. The AUD$20 billion facility – the heart of an ambitious electricity network called the Australia–ASEAN Power Link – will be built at a remote cattle station in the Northern Territory, roughly halfway between

Solar panels offer huge potential to move more people away from electricity generated from burning coal, and a new innovation devised by scientists stands to more than double the amount of light captured by conventional solar cells. In a new study, a team of scientists from the UK, Portugal, and Brazil discovered that etching a

Scientists in Japan have developed a paper-based sensor equipped with an array of extremely tiny microneedles, which they say can painlessly penetrate human skin for a quick and easy method of conducting diagnostic tests for conditions like pre-diabetes. Microneedles are super tiny-spikes so small they’re measured in micrometres (one thousandth of a millimetre), designed to

Scientists have unveiled a new printing process that can turn just about any piece of paper or cardboard into a waterproof keyboard that you can fold up and put in your pocket – and it doesn’t require a power source. The tech makes use of a special coating that’s repellent to liquids and dust, which allows

Plants have a seemingly effortless skill – turning sunlight into energy – and scientists have been working to artificially emulate this photosynthesis process. The ultimate benefits for renewable energy could be huge – and a new approach based on ‘photosheets’ could be the most promising attempt we’ve seen so far. The new device takes CO2, water, and sunlight

Of the many high expectations we have of quantum technology, one of the most exciting has to be the ability to simulate chemistry on an unprecedented level. Now we have our first glimpse of what that might look like. Together with a team of collaborators, the Google AI Quantum team has used their 54 qubit

In 2020, we’re sadly used to hearing how disinformation campaigns are being waged to influence people’s thinking, spread fake news, and further political agendas But the same tactics aren’t solely a threat in terms of long-term social manipulation, scientists warn. In a new study, researchers demonstrate that weaponised disinformation campaigns could also hypothetically be exploited to

The internet has transformed most areas of our lives over the last few decades, and the technology keeps improving: researchers just set a new record for data transmission rates, logging an incredible speed of 178 terabits per second (Tbps). That’s around a fifth faster than the previous record, set by a team of researchers in

The sound of a key sliding into a lock could be enough information to potentially create a copy of that key and open the lock – that’s the conclusion of researchers who’ve been investigating “acoustics-based physical key inference”. It makes sense, if you think about it: the clicks and clacks of a key pushed into

Scientists are ironing out the kinks for an ‘anti-solar power’ cell, one that can harvest energy at nighttime, even when the sun isn’t shining. Instead of absorbing light from the Sun and converting it into electricity, like a normal solar panel would, this type of technology works in reverse. At night, when there’s no incoming

The world could be headed for an ‘information catastrophe’ as the rate of production of digital bits continues to accelerate with no sign of stopping, new research suggests. In a new study – one firmly positioned in the more abstract quarters of theoretical physics, it must be said – researcher Melvin Vopson from the University

The world has a new brightest fluorescent material, and it’s the first of its kind. Rather than trying to improve fluorescent molecules, a team of chemists have developed a new material that preserves the optical properties of fluorescent dyes. This effectively prevents one of the biggest problems in producing fluorescent materials – the tendency of

Fourteen years after receiving the official go-ahead, scientists on Tuesday began assembling a giant machine in southern France designed to demonstrate that nuclear fusion, the process which powers the Sun, can be a safe and viable energy source on Earth. The groundbreaking multinational experiment, known as the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), has seen components arrive in

We have developed four-winged bird-like robots, called ornithopters, that can take off and fly with the agility of swifts, hummingbirds and insects. We did this by reverse engineering the aerodynamics and biomechanics of these creatures. Our ornithopters have the potential to outperform and outmanoeuvre existing drone configurations with static wings or propellers. What are ornithopters?

US officials and scientists have begun laying the groundwork for a more secure “virtually unhackable” internet based on quantum computing technology. At a presentation Thursday, Department of Energy (DOE) officials issued a report that lays out a blueprint strategy for the development of a national quantum internet, using laws of quantum mechanics to transmit information