Tag: Science

Matter can become energy. You might have seen this in the film Oppenheimer or in videos of nuclear explosions. Just as the nuclei fuse, a blinding light fills the air and sky, so bright that simply closing your eyelids does not help. Physics allows physicists to do the opposite as well: to create matter from...

For most of the last two centuries, we have not had to think much about electricity. At the start of this period, we were just beginning to understand what it was. And towards the end, climate change and renewable energy has rendered it a constant thought in our minds. But for many decades in between,...

The recent success of Ensitrelvir at preventing COVID-19 is a milestone in a drug quest that began with a singular development at the start of the pandemic. In January 2020, the full-length genome sequence of a strain of the SARS-CoV-2 virus was posted on an online discussion forum for virologists. The sequence revealed that SARS-CoV-2,...

AI agents Co-Scientist, Robin could accelerate research Two new AI agents, Google Co-Scientist and FutureHouse Robin, offer to help researchers accelerate science work. Rather than replace scientists, they are intended as virtual collaborators. By generating and refining hypotheses, while scientists steered the process and gave feedback, Co-Scientist could identify drug combinations for leukaemia. Robin automated...

SpaceX launched its biggest, most powerful Starship yet on a test flight Friday (May 22, 2026), an upgraded version that NASA is counting on to land astronauts on the moon. The redesigned mega rocket made its debut two days after SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced he’s taking the company public. It blasted off from the...

By >Josephine Lethbridge , The Conversation  Human foetuses begin to hear sounds outside the womb at about 27 weeks. But whether foetuses can learn from these sounds in ways that shape speech perception and development during infancy has remained unclear. >New research from the University of Helsinki suggests that humans begin to distinguish between sounds...

If you’ve ever been frustrated by erratic memories, spare a thought for the mice involved in a study published in the journal >Science . Researchers have been able to consistently create a “false memory”, making a mouse fearful of a place it has no reason to fear. The memory was implanted by shining blue light...

By >Daniel Zadik , Leicester University  The DNA of Albert Perry may change the story of human origins. Perry, an African-American, approached a DNA testing company to find out more about his ancestry. >The results would have come as quite a surprise (had he lived to see them), and have raised questions >for geneticists around...

Astronomers have been searching for a mysterious substance called “dark matter” since the 1930s. Most scientists still believe it exists, despite many fruitless decades. Now we propose a new theory of general relativity that may ultimately get rid of the need for dark matter, and perhaps get physicists to think in terms of things we...

A previously unknown canyon has been discovered in Greenland, hidden beneath the ice. It is at least 750 kilometres long. To put that in perspective, imagine a ten kilometre wide gorge, up to 800 metres deep, running from the Southern coast of England and into Scotland. This is on the same scale as parts of...