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Click-click-click: This is what you hear when having a conversation with Stephen Hawking. No voice, no other sounds, no facial expressions. For those who know him, Hawking may be able to communicate through his eyes; but for the rest of us, his sole means of communicating is through infrared connection to his computer. January 8…
Near the crowded center of a mysteriously dense galactic cloud, where billowing clouds of gas and dust cloak a supermassive black hole three million times as massive as the sun — a black hole whose gravity is strong enough to grip stars that are whipping around it at thousands of kilometers per second — one…
Textbooks might have to be re-written when it comes to some of the earliest creatures, a study suggests. Researchers have found that our understanding of the anatomy of the first four-legged animals is wrong. New 3D models of fossil remains show that previous renderings of the position of the beasts’ backbones were actually back-to-front. The…
UK tides could provide more of the UK’s electricity than previously thought. Until now, the Department for Energy and Climate Change estimated that tidal energy could help to provide up to 12% of the UK’s electricity, but a new paper, published in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society reports that it is probably…
A clock based on just a single atom — the simplest clock yet — has now been devised, researchers say. This new device to measure time could help lead to a radically new way to define mass as well, scientists added. In addition, this achievement suggests that researchers might one day build even more exotic…
Polymer film could be used in artificial muscle and to power micro- and nanoelectronic devices.
A federal advisory panel released a massive draft report detailing the extent to which climate change is already transforming the nation’s landscape and Americans’ way of life, warning that these impacts will intensify in the coming decades, given the current rate of global carbon emissions. The draft of the third National Climate Assessment– more than…
In this search for the origin of one of the world’s most common genetic diseases, emerging research in evolutionary medicine raises new questions about our history, development, and future as a species.
When it comes to climbing waterfalls, the Nopili rock-climbing goby really puts its teeth into it. The inch-long fish uses suckers in its mouth and belly to move up steep cliffs in its rugged Hawaiian habitat. Because its freshwater habitat is easily disturbed—by a big storm, for instance—the fish often crawl up waterfalls to return…
An international team of astronomers has found the largest known structure in the universe – a group of quasars four billion light years across. Quasars are the nuclei of extremely ancient galaxies that can flare up brightly, making them visible across huge distances, for comparatively brief period of between 10 and 100 million years. They…