The “Eye of the Sahara” — also known as the “Eye of Africa” or the Richat structure — is a giant rock dome, carved with concentric rings, that looks like a giant bullseye when seen from above. The eye is visible from space and has been known to astronauts and scientists since the earliest crewed … Read more
A planet beyond the solar system that has been compared to Spock’s homeworld Vulcan in the Star Trek franchise may have been nothing more than an illusion caused by a jittery star. The extrasolar planet or “exoplanet” (a term for a planet outside of our solar system) was proposed to orbit a star called 40 … Read more
MIT researchers have developed a new method to help artificial intelligence (AI) systems conduct complex reasoning tasks in three areas including coding, strategic planning and robotics. Large language models (LLMs), which include ChatGPT and Claude 3 Opus, process and generate text based on human input, known as “prompts.” These technologies have improved greatly in the … Read more
One of the most extraordinary stories of human migration unfolded around 70,000 years ago, as humans crossed from Southeast Asia into modern-day Australia, traversing a now-submerged, Atlantis-like landscape, and becoming the first people to call that land home. A rich archaeological record provides ample evidence that this happened. But researchers have long been stumped by … Read more
For the first time, scientists have tested a messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine in a patient with a deadly form of brain cancer — and it triggered a strong immune response. The vaccine, which was described in a study published on May 1 in the journal Cell, was created by extracting genetic material called RNA from … Read more
Scientists have identified a water-loss mechanism on Venus that could explain how the once water-rich world became completely parched. In the newly identified process, linked to a previously overlooked molecule high in Venus’ atmosphere, water escaped Venus at double the rate previously estimated. As faster water loss means less time is needed to boil away … Read more
Ever wondered what it would be like to fall into a black hole? A new NASA simulation has the answer — including the inevitable, crushing end. Researchers created the new simulation using the Discover supercomputer at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation. It shows a viewer plunging through the accretion disk of glowing gas around … Read more
A private Japanese company has taken the world’s first close-up photo of an individual piece of space debris, by parking another satellite next to it in orbit. This orbital photo op is the first step in an ongoing mission to capture and destroy potentially hazardous pieces of space junk that are clogging up our sky. … Read more
A collection of rocks scattered on an ancient shoreline on Mars might indicate that the Red Planet was once far more Earth-like than scientists previously thought. The rocks, discovered by NASA’s Curiosity rover, are unusually rich in manganese oxide — a chemical that adds to growing evidence that the once-habitable Mars may have sported Earth-like … Read more
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
