All articles tagged with #science and technology
Truffles, underground fruiting bodies of fungi, cannot release spores into the air. Instead they rely on animals eating them and transporting the spores through digestion, depositing them elsewhere and enabling the fungi to spread across ecosystems.
A Nature Medicine study shows that positive expectations can enhance the immune response to vaccines, illustrating a neural mechanism behind the placebo effect and suggesting mind-over-matter strategies could improve vaccination efficacy.
A viral claim that Earth will briefly lose gravity for seven seconds on August 12, 2026 is false. NASA says gravity is determined by Earth's mass and cannot vanish without a mass change; a total solar eclipse will occur that day but it will not affect gravity. The rumor traces to a dubious post and there’s no credible evidence supporting it.
China has developed the CHIEF1900, the world's most powerful hypergravity machine capable of generating forces nearly 2,000 times Earth's gravity, enabling researchers to simulate extreme conditions for studying materials, structures, and catastrophic events, surpassing previous centrifuge records and opening new avenues for scientific discovery.
A 15-year-old named Laurent Simons, who completed a PhD in quantum physics through conventional academic channels, is now pursuing a second PhD in medical science and AI with the goal of creating superhumans, raising both scientific and ethical questions about human enhancement and interdisciplinary research.
Researchers have developed a new metal material that could enable aircraft wings to change shape during flight, allowing for improved aerodynamics and efficiency.
China's Chinese Space Station Telescope (CSST), also known as Xuntian, has completed a high-quality scientific data simulation, marking a key step toward its 2026 launch. The telescope features advanced optical systems with a 2-meter aperture, designed for wide-field, multi-color imaging to study galaxies, stars, and exoplanets, promising significant contributions to astrophysics and cosmology. It will operate independently and dock with China's space station for maintenance, supporting long-term space-based scientific exploration.
A billionaire-backed organization, Schmidt Sciences, is developing a suite of four observatories, including Lazuli, a large space telescope comparable to Hubble but at a fraction of the cost and in a shorter timeframe, aiming for launch around 2028 to advance astrophysics and cosmology research.
A new 'CRASH Clock' study warns that in a worst-case scenario, Earth-orbiting satellites could start colliding within less than three days, a significant decrease from previous estimates, driven by the rapid increase in satellite numbers and potential space weather events, raising concerns about space debris and the Kessler Syndrome.
China has developed the world's most powerful hypergravity centrifuge, the CHIEF1900, which surpasses previous models by generating extreme g-forces for simulating space and planetary conditions, enabling faster, more accurate experiments in material science, geology, and biomedicine, and reducing reliance on field tests and space missions.
The House and Senate Appropriations Committees have agreed on a FY2026 budget for NASA, approving a slight reduction of $400 million from the previous year, which is a significant improvement over earlier proposed cuts, and supporting NASA's broad range of programs including Artemis, SLS, and lunar missions, with additional funding from the reconciliation bill. The agreement reflects bipartisan support but still needs to pass through Congress and be signed into law.
Scientists have used AI to design viruses from scratch and to modify toxins to bypass safety checks, raising concerns about the potential for AI-assisted bioweapons. While these advances can aid in medical treatments like phage therapy, they also pose dual-use risks, prompting efforts to strengthen screening protocols, regulatory policies, and international standards to prevent misuse. Despite technological progress, significant challenges remain before AI-designed pathogens could become a real threat, emphasizing the need for robust biosecurity measures.
A new multilingualism calculator developed by NYU researchers quantifies how multilingual a person truly is by combining age of language acquisition with self-rated proficiency across multiple modalities, providing accurate and streamlined assessments of language strength and dominance across nearly 50 languages, validated against more complex methods.
China has unveiled the world's most powerful hypergravity centrifuge, CHIEF1900, capable of generating 1,900 times Earth's gravity, to advance research in materials, biological systems, and engineering by simulating extreme gravitational conditions efficiently.
Scientists have discovered significant amounts of helium-3 underground in Minnesota, a rare isotope valuable for fusion energy, quantum computing, and scientific research, potentially providing an alternative source to lunar mining and impacting future energy and technology developments.