Seismic waves from quakes detected by NASA’s robotic InSight lander have helped scientists decipher the anatomy of Mars, including the first estimates of the size of its large liquid metal core, thickness of its crust, and nature of its mantle.
The Air Force Research Laboratory argues that we’ve hit a tipping point with directed energy technologies, bringing many science fiction concepts closer to reality.
Around 74,000 years ago, a “supereruption” on the island of Sumatra, Indonesia, blasted out an estimated 5,000 cubic kilometres of magma. This was the Toba eruption, the largest volcanic eruption of the past 2 million years. To put 5,000 cubic kilometres of magma in perspective, this is more than a hundred times as large as the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa, and included enough ash to blanket the entire United Kingdom about 1 millimetre deep.
The brain rarely fires on all cylinders even at the best of times – what more during a pandemic?
Turkey’s Marmara Sea is dying. Globs of feathery goo are literally choking the life out of the water. Scientists say rising sea temperatures and untreated wastewater being dumped into the sea combined to create the perfect conditions for phytoplankton to thrive. Now it’s thriving at the expense of everything else.
The hidden fragment, dating as old as 1.3 billion years, is helping scientists trace the history of the mysterious “lost continent” of Zealandia.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is proving very adept at certain tasks – like inventing human faces that don’t actually exist, or winning games of poker – but these networks still struggle when it comes to something humans do naturally: imagine.
“If they could squeal, I’m sure they would have done.”
What makes humans unique? Scientists have taken another step toward solving an enduring mystery with a new tool that may allow for more precise comparisons between the DNA of modern humans and that of our extinct ancestors.
He may not have solved the mystery yet, but one thing proven beyond doubt is that Steve Feltham is a very patient man.
