Astronomy

Previous attempts at building a chemical computer have been too simple, too rigid or too hard to scale, but an approach based on a network of reactions can perform multiple tasks without having to be reconfigured

Previous attempts at building a chemical computer have been too simple, too rigid or too hard to scale, but an approach based on a network of reactions can perform multiple tasks without having to be reconfigured

For years, a French mathematician searched for a proof that a gigantic number is prime. His method is still used 150 years later

Astronauts lose significant amounts of muscle mass during any prolonged stay in space. Despite spending 2-3 hours a day exercising in an attempt to keep the atrophy at bay, many still struggle with health problems caused by low gravity. A new paper and some further work done by Emanuele Pulvirenti of the University of Bristol’s Soft Robotics Lab and his colleagues, describe a new type of fabric-based exoskeleton that could potentially solve at least some of the musculoskeletal problems astronauts suffer from without dramatically affecting their movement.

When measuring yourself against your partner, which traits do you prefer to have compared with your significant other? A survey that forced people to choose has found that men and women have different preferences when it comes to being smarter, funnier or more attractive

When measuring yourself against your partner, which traits do you prefer to have compared with your significant other? A survey that forced people to choose has found that men and women have different preferences when it comes to being smarter, funnier or more attractive

IBM revealed two new quantum computers, called Loon and Nighthawk – the qubits they use are connected in newly intricate ways and may enable a way to run error-free computations

IBM revealed two new quantum computers, called Loon and Nighthawk – the qubits they use are connected in newly intricate ways and may enable a way to run error-free computations

Science writer David Berreby shares his personal journey with griefbots and discusses how they can offer unexpected comfort, insight and connection in the wake of loss.

Travelling up from Mars’s equator towards its north pole, we find Coloe Fossae: a set of intriguing scratches within a region marked by deep valleys, speckled craters, and signs of an ancient ice age.

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The year 2025 marked three decades of satellite navigation in Europe. To celebrate this milestone, on 2 September, the European Space Agency (ESA) opened the doors of ESTEC, its research and technology centre. Partners from across the continent joined a sensational event that took the audience on a journey through time, honouring the achievements and collaboration that have shaped the success story of the systems we rely on today: Galileo and EGNOS. 

In 2023, gravitational wave detectors caught two black holes colliding 7 billion light years away, both spinning at nearly the speed of light and both existing in a mass range where black holes simply cannot form. The mystery baffled astronomers until researchers discovered what everyone else had missed, magnetic fields in the chaotic aftermath of a supernova can eject half a star's mass into space, creating black holes that defy the rules of physics.

When astronomers detected potential biosignatures in the atmosphere of exoplanet K2-18 b, it raised a critical question, ‘could this world's atmosphere even survive its host star's radiation?’ A new study using the Very Large Array searched for radio emissions from the K2-18 system and found something surprising, it was absolutely silent. That absence of radio signals reveals K2-18 is an unusually quiet star, suggesting the planet's atmosphere faces minimal erosion from stellar activity.

NASA's plans for a permanent lunar base face the threat of up to 23,000 micrometeoroid impacts per year travelling at speeds of 70 kilometres per second. A new study quantifies this relentless bombardment for the first time, revealing that even microscopic particles carry enough energy to puncture equipment and even threaten astronaut safety. The research shows impact rates vary dramatically by location with the lunar south pole, NASA's chosen site for the first Artemis base, fortunately experiencing the lowest bombardment.

The sun just spat out several coronal mass ejections that could trigger a serious solar storm on Wednesday

A large international study suggests that being multilingual can slow down cognitive aging

Google's Project Suncatcher is fascinating solution to AI's massive energy demands…. building data centres in space powered directly by the solar power. The company's new research explores the possibility of constellations of satellites equipped with processors flying in tight formation just hundreds of meters apart, connected by terabit per second laser links to distribute information. Early testing shows their chips are surprisingly radiation resistant, while falling launch costs could make space based computing economically viable by the mid 2030s. With a prototype mission planned for 2027, this could fundamentally change where our most powerful computing infrastructure is located.

Weather forecasting is notoriously wonky - climate modeling even more so. But their slowing increasing ability to predict what the natural world will throw at us humans is largely thanks to two things - better models and increased computing power. Now, a new paper from researchers led by Daniel Klocke of the Max Planck Institute in Germany, and available in pre-print form on arXiv, describes what some in the climate modeling community have described as the “holy grail” of their field - an almost kilometer-scale resolution model that combines weather forecasting with climate modeling.

The Omo-Turkana basin in Africa is home to a treasure trove of ancient human fossils and tools that span 300,000 years – today it is still yielding new discoveries about our species