Aedan O'Brien

Scientists continue to push the boundaries of what cameras are capable of – like a newly developed phase-sensitive compressed ultrafast photography (pCUP) device, which is capable of snapping an impressive one trillion frames every second.   That’s mind-boggling, but it’s not a record, because some of the same researchers developed a camera that can take

Could a massive barrier erected in the ocean shield New York from the devastation of superstorm surges like Hurricane Sandy in 2012? The truth is, nobody knows for sure, but a giant sea wall is nonetheless one serious proposal being looked at in a long-term research project designed to prevent a repeat of the deaths

Scientists at the University of Colorado, Boulder have created what The New York Times calls a “living concrete”, teeming with photosynthetic bacteria, that can grow itself and regenerate itself – much like a living organism.   The concrete is a mixture of gelatin, sand, and cyanobacteria that cools similarly to Jell-O, the Times reports. The resulting structure was able to regenerate itself

In another lifetime, if they had been allowed to follow their natural development, the stem cells taken from embryonic frogs would have turned into skin and heart tissue within living, breathing animals.   Instead, in configurations designed by algorithms and constructed by humans, those cells have been assembled into something new: the first-ever robots constructed

Scientists may have solved one of the great Leonardo da Vinci painting mysteries – why the glass orb in the Salvator Mundi painting (dated to around 1500 CE) shows no signs of the refraction and reflection of light that might be expected.   The answer, according to computer models run by a team from the

To protect its hosts, Airbnb is now using an AI-powered tool to scan the internet for clues that a guest might not be a reliable customer. According to patent documents reviewed by the Evening Standard, the tool takes into account everything from a user’s criminal record to their social media posts to rate their likelihood

Something strange has been happening in eastern Colorado at night. Since the week of Christmas, giant drones measuring up to 6 feet (1.8 metres) across have been spotted in the sky at night, sometimes in swarms as large as 30.   The Denver Post first reported these mysterious drone sightings in northeastern Colorado on December

The future had arrived. There was only one problem: it was deafening. In the 1960s, the development of supersonic passenger aircraft promised to revolutionise the concept of international travel, teasing flights from New York to Paris in under 3.5 hours – less than half the duration of conventional subsonic jaunts.   With the famed Concorde,

In March, Chinese researchers predicted that the nation’s HL-2M tokamak – a device designed to replicate nuclear fusion, the same reaction that powers the Sun – would be built before the end of 2019.   No word yet on whether that’s still the case, but in November, Duan Xuru, one of the scientists working on

The world’s first fully electric commercial aircraft took its inaugural test flight on Tuesday, taking off from the Canadian city of Vancouver and offering hope that airlines may one day end their polluting emissions.   “This proves that commercial aviation in all-electric form can work,” said Roei Ganzarski, chief executive of Seattle-based engineering firm magniX.

Scientists said Wednesday they have come up with an environmentally-friendly method that uses artificial sunlight to transform plastic into power-generating chemicals, as countries worldwide battle to reduce waste.   Huge quantities of plastic have piled up on land and been dumped in the sea across the world, with many nations facing criticism for failing to

Quantum computing has the potential to revolutionise the processing power at our fingertips, but for the moment a lot of it is just potential. Researchers have been uncertain on whether we’ll ever be able to harness quantum computing in a practical, affordable, realistic way. But we might have an exciting new lead.   Two new

Artificial flesh is growing ever closer to the real thing. Scientists in Australia have now created a new jelly-like material which they claim has the strength and durability of actual skin, ligaments, or even bone.   “With the special chemistry we’ve engineered in the hydrogel, it can repair itself after it has been broken like

Cyborg super soldiers enhanced by advancements in bioengineering and other research fields are coming, but the Department of Defence is not prepared for what that will mean for the warfighter, the military as a whole, and civilians.   “In the next 30 years, you’re going to need to have to deal with these legal and

Nearly 3,000 feet (900 metres) below the surface of Monterey Bay, a network of deep sea cables helps scientists to study marine life. Spanning 32 miles (51 kilometres) across the floor of the Pacific Ocean, the cables record sounds like the high-pitched squeal of a dolphin or the deep moans of a humpback whale. They

A long-awaited international deal governing how the world’s technology companies should roll out 5G technology poses serious risks to weather forecast accuracy, according to data from federal agencies and the World Meteorological Organization.   Negotiators from around the world announced a deal Friday at a meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, for how to roll out

Artificial intelligence, it seems, can figure out how to do just about anything. It can simulate the Universe, learn to solve a Rubik’s Cube with just one hand, and even find ghosts hidden in our past.   All these kinds of advancements are meant to be for our own good. But what about when they’re

The brain is the ultimate computing machine, so it’s no wonder researchers are keen to try and emulate it. Now, new research has taken an intriguing step in that direction – a device that’s able to ‘forget’ memories, just like our brains do.   It’s called a second-order memristor (a mix of “memory” and “resistor”). The