Mini Games

Scientists are using a radar-like weather system to watch as a storm of pathogens brew inside living tissue. The strategy is entirely novel, according to the authors, and relies on a technique very similar to Doppler radars, which can detect the motion of precipitation and predict upcoming weather patterns.   Doppler ultrasounds, which use sound

Sometimes, while waiting for quantum computers to become ubiquitous, or wondering whatever happened to flying cars, it’s easy to forget just how far technology has come over the past 50 years.   Sure, we can all list off a bunch of innovations that have changed the way the world works – the Internet, smartphones, radio

Americans often take electricity for granted – until the lights go out. The recent cold wave and storm in Texas have placed considerable focus on the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, the nonprofit corporation that manages the flow of electricity to more than 26 million Texans.   Together, ERCOT and similar organizations manage

Artificial intelligence (AI) is learning more about how to work with (and on) humans. A recent study has shown how AI can learn to identify vulnerabilities in human habits and behaviours and use them to influence human decision-making.   It may seem cliched to say AI is transforming every aspect of the way we live

In a significant move, Facebook has announced it will remove any misleading claims and misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccines from both Facebook and Instagram. It’s part of a broader move to help combat fake news about the pandemic. Since December, the platform has been removing claims about the coronavirus that have been debunked by health

Scientists have developed a new kind of cryogenic computer chip capable of functioning at temperatures so cold, it approaches the theoretical limit of absolute zero. This cryogenic system, called Gooseberry, lays the groundwork for what could be a revolution in quantum computing – enabling a new generation of machines to perform calculations with thousands of

A robot inspired by the shape and delicate underwater movements of a jellyfish, allowing it to safely explore endangered coral reefs, was unveiled by British scientists on Wednesday.   According to research by teams at the universities of Southampton and Edinburgh and published in the journal Science Robotics, the small robot mimics “nature’s most efficient

To artists and romantics, the twinkling of stars is visual poetry; a dance of distant light as it twists and bends through a turbulent ocean of air above our heads. Not everybody is so enamoured with our atmosphere’s distortions. To many scientists and engineers, a great deal of research and ground-to-satellite communication would be a

The idea of artificial intelligence overthrowing humankind has been talked about for many decades, and scientists have just delivered their verdict on whether we’d be able to control a high-level computer super-intelligence. The answer? Almost definitely not.   The catch is that controlling a super-intelligence far beyond human comprehension would require a simulation of that

Scientists have created new kinds of ‘living materials’ by tweaking the base ingredients of kombucha – the popular tea drink fermented with a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast (aka SCOBY).   This kind of ‘tea fungus’ – sometimes called ‘kombucha mother’ – can do a lot more than just produce sour-tasting beverages, it seems.

Bitcoin continues to trade close to its all-time high reached this month. Its price is at the time of writing around US$34,000 – up about 77 percent over the past month and 305 percent over the past year.   First launched in 2009 as a digital currency, Bitcoin was for a while used as digital

Scientists have just set a new world record for high-temperature sustained plasma with the Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) device, reaching an ion temperature of above 100 million degrees Celsius (180 million degrees Fahrenheit) for a period of 20 seconds.   Known as Korea’s “artificial sun”, the KSTAR uses magnetic fields to generate and

Sometimes, science is all about the mind-aching big picture. Like the idea that our Universe is just a giant hologram, or that we’ve actually detected gravitational waves from a neutron star collision. Or that we might not actually have as much free will as we think…   Those are really exciting concepts. But then there are

The start of electric aviation is upon us, but it’s going to take many more years before the average environmentalist can fly guilt free on a fully electric long haul jet. In the meantime, scientists are trying to make the commercial planes we already have more sustainable, and one of the best ways to do

Within the next few decades, according to some experts, we may see the arrival of the next step in the development of artificial intelligence. So-called “artificial general intelligence“, or AGI, will have intellectual capabilities far beyond those of humans.   AGI could transform human life for the better, but uncontrolled AGI could also lead to

A newly developed glue that gets its stickiness from a magnetic field could lead to serious energy and cost savings for companies that need to stick things together on an industrial scale.   To harden – or cure – the mix of chemicals in most epoxy-based glues, some kind of environmental effect like heat, light,

Dropping your smartphone often means living with a cracked screen until your next upgrade, or footing an expensive repair bill – but researchers have been busy bringing self-healing display technology closer to a practical reality.   A team from the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) has developed a self-healing electronic material that can

One of the central technologies of artificial intelligence is neural networks. In this interview, Tam Nguyen, a professor of computer science at the University of Dayton, explains how neural networks, programs in which a series of algorithms try to simulate the human brain, work.   What are some examples of neural networks that are familiar