If you have a telescope, you might want to consider setting your alarm for Friday (May 31) around 4 a.m. local time (3 a.m. if you live in Hawaii, Arizona, or Puerto Rico that don’t observe daylight savings time). At that hour, if you go outside and look east-southeast, you’ll see what are probably the … Read more
Dwarf galaxy NGC 4449 is the star of the show The James Webb Space Telescopehis latest cosmic portrait. Located 12.5 million light-years away in the constellation of Canes Venatici, the Hunting Dogs, NGC 4449 has a lot in common with our own. Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), orbiting satellite galaxy Milky Way. Both are small and … Read more
Scientists have developed a quadrupedal robot that can use its two front legs to grasp and handle objects while walking on its hind legs. Quadruped robots usually take the form of robot dogs, including Boston Dynamics’ Spot. They can traverse challenging terrain at speed and usually have low centers of gravity. Most object-manipulating quadrupeds have … Read more
A spin (blue ball with arrow) interacts with surrounding bosons described by non-Gaussian states – a new computational method to accurately describe what happens inside quantum devices. Credit: Jiří Minář A new method developed by Amsterdam researchers uses non-Gaussian states to efficiently describe and configure quantum spin-boson systems, promising advances in quantum computing and feeling. … Read more
Sign up for a full roundup of all the best opinions of the week in our Voices Dispatches email Sign up for our free weekly Voices newsletter A mysterious plague of sea urchins has spread across the world, driving the creature to near extinction in some areas and threatening delicate coral reef ecosystems, a new … Read more
How did the evil creatures known as minnows achieve the evolutionary feat that allowed them to essentially colonize the sunless depths of the ocean? It took special sex—extremely special sex. Scientists at Yale University have discovered that an explosion of anglerfish diversification began about 50 million years ago after the ancestral line developed a strange … Read more
One study suggests that Earth’s D” layer, near the core-mantle boundary, was formed by a magma ocean created by a massive impact. The iron-magnesium peroxide, formed by the water in this ocean, explains the unique composition and heterogeneity of the D layer.” New research suggests that the mysterious D’ layer at Earth’s core-mantle boundary may … Read more
Human visitors to Mars need somewhere to shelter from the radiation, temperature changes and dust storms that plague the planet. If the planet is anything like Earth or the Moon, it may have large underground lava tubes that could house shelters. Collapsed sections of lava tubes, called roofs, may provide access to these underground shelters. … Read more
Larger / A rendering of Thales Alenia Space’s proposed European cargo reentry vehicle. Thales Alecia Space The European Space Agency has awarded initial contracts to a Germany-based startup and one of the continent’s established aerospace companies to develop spacecraft to transport cargo to and from space stations in low Earth orbit. ESA announced the two … Read more