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Writer Fuel: Will 6G Run on Curving Rays of Light?

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The future of cellular data transfer could lie in “curving” light beams midair to deliver 6G wireless networks with blazing-fast speeds — bypassing the need for line of sight between transmitter and receivers. In a new study published March 30 in the journal Nature’s Communications Engineering, researchers explained how they developed a transmitter that can … Read more

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Writer Fuel: 32 Weird Technological Ideas That Never Took Off

Monowheel - editorial use - Deposit Photos

We love outlandish ideas and companies that take risks — that, after all, is how science and technology progress. But with every success comes a dozen failures and that’s what this list celebrates. These are some ideas that could have been the next big thing: concepts that got backing but ultimately failed to take flight. … Read more

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Writer Fuel: NASA’s Mini Rovers That Will Soon Map the Moon’s Surface

NASA Moon Rovers

NASA test drove the mini autonomous rovers that will soon fly to the moon and collectively map the lunar surface. The rovers are part of a technology demonstration called Cooperative Autonomous Distributed Robotic Exploration (CADRE), which is designed to show that a group of robotic spacecraft can work together without direct human control. NASA took … Read more

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Writer Fuel: Scientists Create AI Models That Can Train Each Other – What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

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The next evolution in artificial intelligence (AI) could lie in agents that can communicate directly and teach each other to perform tasks, research shows. Scientists have modeled an AI network capable of learning and carrying out tasks solely on the basis of written instructions. This AI then described what it learned to a “sister” AI, … Read more

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Writer Fuel: One in Twelve “Twin” Stars Has Likely Eaten a Planet

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About one in every 12 stars may have swallowed a planet, a new study finds. Previous research had discovered that some distant stars possess unusual levels of elements, such as iron, which one would expect to make up rocky worlds such as Earth. This and other evidence suggested that stars may sometimes ingest planets, but much remained uncertain … Read more

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Writer Fuel: The Moon Shakes a Lot More Than We Knew

A photograph of the moon's surface. (Image credit: NASA)

The moon is much more seismically active than we realized, a new study shows. A reanalysis of abandoned data from NASA’s Apollo missions has uncovered more than 22,000 previously unknown moonquakes — nearly tripling the total number of known seismic events on the moon. Moonquakes are the lunar equivalent of earthquakes, caused by movement in … Read more

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Writer Fuel: Asteroid Bennu Contains Building Blocks of Life

his mosaic image of asteroid Bennu is composed of 12 PolyCam images collected on Dec. 2, 2018 by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft from a range of 15 miles (24 km). NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona

Nearly four years after NASA’s OSIRIS-Rex spacecraft collected a sample from an asteroid, scientists are finally revealing the intriguing composition of the space rock. Among them, the near-Earth asteroid, known as Bennu, contains a surprising reservoir of a mineral called magnesium phosphate. These bright-white particles sprinkled in a sea of Bennu’s dark rocks is a … Read more

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Writer Fuel: Why Aren’t All Orbits Circular?

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Many maps of the solar system make it look as though everything in space moves in perfect, concentric circles. Planets orbit the sun, and moons orbit the planets. So that must be the case for everything in space, right? Not quite. Orbits form all sorts of shapes. “Planets and other bodies rarely go around in … Read more

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Writer Fuel: Giant Volcano Discovered Hiding In Plain Sight on Mars

Giant Volcano - Mars

Scientists have discovered a giant volcano on Mars that has been “hidden in plain sight” for more than 50 years. The volcano is around 280 miles (450 kilometers) wide and more than 29,600 feet (9,000 meters) high. It is located in the eastern part of Mars’ Tharsis volcanic province near the planet’s equator, scientists revealed … Read more

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Writer Fuel: Are “Unparticles” Pushing the Universe Apart?

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The ever-accelerating expansion of the universe may be driven by a mysterious form of matter called “unparticles,” which do not obey the Standard Model of particle physics, a new theoretical paper suggests. Scientists widely acknowledge that the universe is expanding, though the cause of that expansion remains elusive. One of the most popular proposed explanations … Read more