Does time exist? The answer to this question may seem obvious: Of course it does! Just look at a calendar or a clock. But developments in physics suggest the non-existence of time is an open possibility, and one that we should take seriously. How can that be, and what would it mean? It’ll take a … Read more
An area of Pluto that researchers think was formed from the eruption of ice volcanoes is unique on the dwarf planet and in the solar system, a new study suggests. NASA’s New Horizons mission, which launched in 2006, took detailed photos of the surface of Pluto, a dwarf planet and the largest object in the … Read more
Between about 700,000 years ago and 60,000 years ago, a diminutive early human walked the island of Flores, in what is now Indonesia. Homo floresiensis, nicknamed the “hobbit” because it stood only about 3 feet, 6 inches (106 centimeters) tall, was a small-brained, large-footed toolmaker, and no one knows where it evolved from. Now, one anthropologist … Read more
In 1676, by studying the motion of Jupiter’s moon Io, Danish astronomer Ole Rømer calculated that light travels at a finite speed. Two years later, building on data gathered by Rømer, Dutch mathematician and scientist Christiaan Huygens became the first person to attempt to determine the actual speed of light, according to the American Museum … Read more
The mysterious Antikythera mechanism, thought by some to be the world’s first computer, was first “started up” on Dec. 22, 178 B.C., archaeologists have now found. Discovered by sponge divers in a Roman-era shipwreck near the Greek island of Antikythera in 1901, the elaborate ancient computer, which looks like a shoebox-size contraption with gears and … Read more
The unicorn is one of the most famous mythical creatures, often depicted as a white horse with a spiraling horn erupting from its forehead. It’s not hard to imagine a horse with a horn, and for much of the mythical creature’s history, people thought it actually existed. But where did this myth come from? Unicorn-like … Read more
For the first time, a patient in a completely locked-in state due to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) was able to communicate verbally using a brain-computer interface, according to a new study. This technology allowed the patient, a 37-year old man with ALS, to communicate by forming words and phrases, despite not having any voluntary muscle … Read more
Quantum computing is a new generation of technology that involves a type of computer 158 million times faster than the most sophisticated supercomputer we have in the world today. It is a device so powerful that it could do in four minutes what it would take a traditional supercomputer 10,000 years to accomplish. For decades, … Read more
Astronomers searching for our solar system’s elusive Planet Nine — a theoretical world that may lurk deep in a cloud of icy rocks far beyond the orbit of Neptune — have come up short once again. In a recent paper published Dec. 23, 2021 in The Astrophysical Journal, researchers pored over six years of telescope … Read more
Large galaxies may steal dark matter from smaller galaxies they nearly collide with, new research suggests. Scientists from the University of California, Irvine and Pomona College used computer models to simulate the evolution of a corner of the universe about 60 million light-years across. The new computer models, which weren’t designed to do so, created … Read more
