Smartwatches worn on millions of wrists today pack vastly more processing power than the computers that helped Apollo astronauts land on the moon. But the scientific drive to go tiny has come at a cost: It means heat, electricity and energy now have much less room to flow through devices.
Author: Michael
The same plastic that keeps marathon runners warm could help future moon bases withstand extreme temperatures and years of rough treatment. Engineers at the University of Pennsylvania have developed an insulating material by stacking hundreds of thin sheets of Mylar. In laboratory tests, the stacks combined effective insulation in a vacuum with flexibility and resistance […]
For 20 years, a small green-and-white logo has helped convince shoppers that Scottish salmon bearing it was the better choice. More space to swim, fewer chemicals, a better life for the fish. That was the promise behind the organic label. Now the organization responsible for that logo is walking away, having concluded that two decades of work have not delivered the standards it set out to achieve. Twenty Years, One Verdict On November 9, the Soil Association, the UK’s leading organic charity and certifier, announced it would stop setting standards for organic farmed salmon. The decision came after a two-year…
The incoming Democratic majority in Congress appears to be eager to reel in an AI industry that’s been allowed free rein under Donald Trump’s second administration. On top of a slew of regulations meant to address data center electricity use and AI product liability, Democrats are reportedly eying additional preventative regulations aimed at curbing the tech industry’s excesses before they cause harm. In a post on social media, Arizona Democratic representative Yassamin Ansari urged that “top of the Democratic agenda on day one needs to be a pause on advanced AI development, regulation of this out of control industry, and…
Samples from the Bennu asteroid, which is currently more than 200 million miles (322 million kilometers) from Earth, and the Murchison meteorite, which fell to Earth in 1969, both contain molecules that build proteins necessary for life. New research has found that the molecules may have formed through the same process but originated far from one another in the solar system.
Thousands of years after disappearing beneath the ocean, ancient forests off Mozambique’s coast are full of life again. Their remains have turned into underwater reefs packed with fish and other marine animals, supporting a level of biodiversity that rivals nearby coral reefs, even though there’s no living coral in sight. The discovery comes from the Bazaruto Archipelago, where researchers found that the remains of ancient coastal forests and swamps have become an unexpected home for marine life. These formations, known as peat reefs, developed as rising seas swallowed the land and waves gradually uncovered the old forest floor. The findings,…
Researchers at the Xinjiang Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry (XTIPC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) have developed a core-shell confined iron-based single-atom catalyst that combines high Fenton-like catalytic activity with structural stability, enabling nearly complete removal of 2,4-dichlorophenol (2,4-DCP) within 20 minutes under mildly acidic conditions.
The same metal can have many faces, and each tells a different chemical story. At the atomic scale, those different faces can push the same reaction along very different paths.
Like the end-to-end models trained to drive cars, AI agents are probabilistic systems operating in unpredictable environments.
A pair of California-based engineers have built what they say may be the largest Game Boy Color ever. Standing more than nine feet and weighing around 300 pounds, the Pokémon-yellow goliath requires a U-Haul to transport and took over 1,500 collective hours in a makerspace to create. And it isn’t just for show. The giant handheld plays real Game Boy games, thanks to a pixel-perfect display scaled up from the original and software written from scratch. The designers even fabricated an assortment of to-scale accessories, including game cartridges, a cable link, and AA batteries. The console has already appeared at…