David Gelernter, a pioneering computer scientist, foresaw the modern internet but thinks computers are still too hard to use
The amount of fresh water consumed for world energy production is on track to double within the next 25 years, the International Energy Agency (IEA) projects. And even though fracking—high-pressure hydraulic fracturing of underground rock formations for natural gas and oil—might grab headlines, IEA sees its future impact as relatively small. By far the largest…
Since 1995, astronomers have been hunting in earnest for possible havens for life outside the solar system. So far, they’ve detected more than 550 extrasolar planets, or exoplanets. Another 2,000-plus possible planets are waiting in the wings for confirmation. Researchers are working on ways to identify a “potentially Earth-like” planet – even if it isn’t…
Even though bacteria in Lechuguilla Cave have been cut off from the surface for millions of years and were never exposed to antibiotics for medicine or agriculture, most of the 93 strains analyzed in a new study are resistant to several antibiotics. Bacteria found in the cave have ways of fighting off up to 21…
We know we got here from somewhere, but who would have suspected it was by way of a fish that used electrical currents to hunt and communicate and locate itself? Author Metanexus Editors
Astronomers in Germany have developed an artificial intelligence algorithm to help them chart and explain the structure and dynamics of the universe around us with unprecedented accuracy. The team, led by Francisco Kitaura of the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics in Potsdam, report their results in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Scientists…
U.S. astronomers say they’ve observed a young star with a rotating dust disk considered the youngest still-forming planetary system ever found. The infant star surrounded by a swirling disk of dust and gas is more than 450 light-years from Earth in the constellation Taurus, the National Radio Astronomy Observatory reported. While just one-fifth the mass…