The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Distinctive Collections archive is quiet while the blizzard blows outside. Silence seems to be accumulating with the falling snow. I am the only researcher in the archive, but there is a voice that I am straining to hear. I am searching for someone –Continue Reading
NASA/CXC/M.Weiss Our Sun is both our best friend and our worst enemy. On the one hand, we owe our very existence to our star. Earth and the other planets in the Solar System formed out of the same cloud of gas and dust as the Sun. And without its light,Continue Reading
SuperBIT waiting for launch while its giant helium balloon is inflated. Bill Rodman/NASA An astronomical telescope designed to complement the ageing Hubble Space Telescope lifted off from New Zealand’s south island on April 16 2023. But as a sphere the size of a football stadium rose silently and slowly overContinue Reading
Richard Branson, next to White Knight Spaceship 2. Jared Ortega/Shutterstock In a decade or two, journeys into space could become as normal as transatlantic flights. In particular, the number of humans travelling into space with the help of commercial companies, such as Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin, will increase significantly.Continue Reading
A recent study by Indian scientists outlined cases of elephant burials. worradirek/Shutterstock The myth of elephant graveyards has pervaded popular culture, and recent observations of buried Asian elephant calves may finally give that legend some credence. In the research published in the Journal of Threatened Taxa, two scientists describe fiveContinue Reading
Elon Musk’s company called Neuralink, launched in 2016, aims to implant a piece of technology in people’s brains that would allow them to control a computer or phone by thought alone. This is otherwise known as a brain-computer interface. After years of experimenting on animals, Neuralink recently announced the implantationContinue Reading
Lysenko Andrii/Shutterstock If you’re in your 20s and 30s, you probably watch pornography. Millennials and gen Z are watching more pornography than any other age group and are also more likely than any other demographic to experiment with AI pornography. As technology advances, AI-generated tools and techniques are becoming increasinglyContinue Reading
Males are bigger than females, right? Generally, this is true of humans – imagine the extremes of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and singer Kylie Minogue. It is also true of other familiar mammals including pets, such as cats and dogs, and livestock such as sheep and cows. But a newContinue Reading
The 2024 Academy Awards recognised several amazing acting performances, including Cillian Murphy’s portrayal of the physicist Robert Oppenheimer, which won him the award for Best Actor. But what is it that drives such peak performances? When an actor fully embodies the character to the extent that it creates an immersive,Continue Reading
It has been ten years since Malaysian airlines flight MH370, carrying 239 passengers and crew on board, disappeared less than one hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur on 8 March 2014. It has become one of the great unsolved mysteries of modern times and is a puzzle that hasContinue Reading
