We know that global warming is forcing many animals around the world to flee their normal habitats, but now, an exhaustive analysis has shown marine species are booking it for the poles six times faster than those on land. Drawing together 258 peer-reviewed studies, researchers compared over 30,000 habitat shifts in more than 12,000 species
Month: May 2020
While it probably won’t make it to your dining table, a new scientific achievement might be able to help in everything from radar equipment to electric cars: scientists have been able to form salt, aka sodium chloride (NaCl), in a hexagonal shape. This is work done at the smallest of scales, with researchers able to get
This summer, the clean energy company SINN Power is showcasing “the world’s first floating ocean hybrid platform” – a high-tech buoy that produces electricity from not one, not two, but three sources of renewable energy. Using waves, wind, and the sun, the SINN Power floating structure, which can supposedly withstand waves up to six metres
A US Navy ship downed a flying drone with a “solid state laser” in the Pacific Ocean, the service branch announced on Friday. The USS Portland (LPD-27), a San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ship, deployed its Technology Maturation Laser Weapon System Demonstrator (LWSD) against an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) last week during a demonstration, the
Our neurons talk in melodies; understanding their rhythms has proved key to creating a new device that could join their conversations. Just as glasses can aid our struggling eyes, the hope is that artificial brain matter could one day aid our brain bits that aren’t working as well as they could be. An international team
Quantum physicists have set a new record for collecting a persistent group of entangled atoms together, getting 15 trillion atoms to co-exist in a “hot and messy” cloud of gas. Quantum entanglement is the phenomenon at the heart of quantum physics, where two particles can mysteriously influence each other, no matter what the distance is
A tiny device called a micro-comb could one day replace existing internet infrastructure to hit crazy new highs in download speeds, providing millions with ample data at the same time, even during the busiest periods. The lightweight technology has recently been put to the test in a field trial that measured data rates of an
Every time tabloids and social media dramatically mishandle a science news story, the urge to unplug the internet and plug it back in again is excruciatingly strong. If you’ve heard the recent claim that NASA detected a parallel universe (!) in Antarctica (!) where time runs backwards (!!), we’re glad you’ve now clicked on this
Here’s something you might not have expected to see Boston Dynamics’ robot dog Spot doing any time soon: herding sheep on a rugged New Zealand mountainside. The slightly bizarre sequence is part of a promotional video demonstrating Spot’s potential in the agricultural industry; it also includes footage of Spot checking on crops and clambering over
Cell phone towers across New Zealand are being set on fire and authorities believe the attacks are linked to the increasing proliferation of conspiracy theories connecting 5G networks to the coronavirus pandemic. As of May 18, 17 cell towers had been attacked in Auckland, Wellington, and Northland, causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage.
Graphene has already proven itself to be a weird and wonderful material in many different ways, but its properties get even more unusual and exotic when it’s twisted – and two new studies have given scientists a much closer look at this intriguing phenomenon. When two sheets of graphene are put together at slightly different
The chaos and uncertainty surrounding the coronavirus pandemic have claimed an unlikely victim: the machine learning systems that are programmed to make sense of our online behavior. The algorithms that recommend products on Amazon, for instance, are struggling to interpret our new lifestyles, MIT Technology Review reports. And while machine learning tools are built to
Scientists have developed a new type of self-assembling silver membrane that could be used to capture carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions before they have a chance to spread in the atmosphere. Using a technique the team says has never been attempted before, the researchers seeded their gas separation membrane with only a tiny deposit of the
Scientists are very keen to find effective ways of getting hydrogen from water, thus unlocking hydrogen’s potential as a clean fuel. A newly developed device manages the feat, using only sunlight as a power source. Using catalytic electrodes and perovskite solar cells fused together in a single unit, the clever contraption can hit sunlight-to-hydrogen efficiency