Tech
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Space
50 years ago, NASA prepared to launch America’s first space station
In 1970, NASA was building Skylab. The orbiting laboratory led to many scientific firsts but was plagued by technical difficulties.
- Physics
A giant underground motion sensor in Germany tracks Earth’s wobbles
A giant underground gyroscope array has taken its first measurements of how the world goes ’round.
- Space
What will astronauts need to survive the dangerous journey to Mars?
Going to Mars, astronauts will need protections from microgravity and radiation, plus miniature medical devices to diagnose problems and help handle emergencies.
- Tech
Bubble-blowing drones may one day aid artificial pollination
Drones are too clumsy to rub pollen on flowers and not damage them. But blowing pollen-laden bubbles may help the machines be better pollinators.
- Tech
A new artificial eye mimics and may outperform human eyes
A new artificial eyeball boasts a field of view and reaction time similar to that of real eyes.
- Tech
Wiggling wheels could keep future rovers trucking in loose lunar soil
A rover that wriggles through soil could climb hills on the moon or Mars that are too steep for a simple wheeled bot.
- Science & Society
How materials science has changed humankind — for better and worse
As people began wielding new materials, the technologies fundamentally changed humankind, the new book ‘The Alchemy of Us’ argues.
- Space
New search methods are ramping up the hunt for alien intelligence
Six decades of radio silence hasn’t stopped scientists searching for intelligent life beyond Earth. In fact, new technologies are boosting efforts.
- Health & Medicine
You can help fight the coronavirus. All you need is a computer
With Folding@home, people can donate computing time on their home computers to the search for a chemical Achilles’ heel in the coronavirus.
- Artificial Intelligence
An AI that mimics how mammals smell recognizes scents better than other AI
An artificial intelligence modeled after the neural circuitry in mammalian brains can keep learning new aromas without forgetting others.
- Math
How a quantum technique highlights math’s mysterious link to physics
Verifying proofs to very hard math problems is possible with infinite quantum entanglement.
- Artificial Intelligence
Linking sense of touch to facial movement inches robots toward ‘feeling’ pain
Artificial systems that allow a robot to “feel” pain might ultimately lead to empathy.
