For times when wind and solar fall short, some utilities are turning to an old technology called pumped storage hydropower
Before he disappeared, Ettore Majorana made a strange prediction. Researchers are still hunting for the truth about him—and his namesake particles
Light pulses with specific quantum properties could be harnessed to send digital ‘contracts’ between buyer and seller.
Mice that work out regularly have higher levels of a molecule that promotes muscle regeneration than sedentary mice do.
Next-generation plants that respond to demand could be key to making a low-carbon energy source more economically appealing.
Links between the complement and coagulation systems could lead to Long Covid therapies
To zoom in farther, Event Horizon Telescope wants to add more radio dishes to its network—and go to space
A dormant immune system before receiving the BCG vaccine is tied to a greater innate immune response afterwards.
Detectors at the Large Hadron Collider spot the famed particle decaying into a photon and a ‘Z boson’.
Greenhouse gases, El Niño, and cleaner air fueled record heat in 2023
Peeled-apart Indian Plate could be affecting earthquake hazards
Scientists are devising ways to edit the genomes of immune cells without having to extract them from the people being treated.
A massive quake that triggered tsunamis, fires and multiple aftershocks was the largest on the country’s west coast in more than a century.
Studies of the microbes living on and in our bodies are conducted mainly in a few rich countries, squandering opportunities to improve the health of people globally.
Every year, we look for promising technologies poised to have a real impact on the world. Here are the advances that we think matter most right now.
We now live in the age of AI. Hundreds of millions of people have interacted directly with generative tools like ChatGPT that produce text, images, videos, and more from prompts. Their popularity has reshaped the tech industry, making OpenAI a household name and compelling Google, Meta, and Microsoft to invest heavily in the technology.
Solar power is being rapidly deployed around the world, and it’s key to global efforts to reduce carbon emissions. But most of the sunlight that hits today’s panels isn’t being converted into electricity. Adding a layer of tiny crystals could make solar panels more efficient. WHY IT MATTERS
Apple will start shipping its first mixed-reality headset, the Vision Pro, this year. Its killer feature is the highest-resolution display ever made for such a device. Will there be a killer app? It’s early, but the world’s most valuable company has made a bold bet that the answer is yes. WHY IT MATTERS
The global rise in obesity has been called an epidemic by the World Health Organization. Medications like Mounjaro and Wegovy are now among the most powerful tools that patients and physicians have to treat it. Evidence suggests they can even protect against heart attacks and strokes. WHY IT MATTERS
Specific brain pathways can lower or raise the willingness of monkeys to take risks
Rethink of familiar object may boost odds that its name, offensive to some, will be changed
Researchers at the National Ignition Facility are consistently creating reactions that make more energy than they consume.
In December 2022, after more than a decade of effort and frustration, scientists at the US National Ignition Facility (NIF) announced that they had set a world record by producing a fusion reaction that released more energy than it consumed — a phenomenon known as ignition. They have now proved that the feat was no accident by replicating it again and again, and the administration of US President Joe Biden is looking to build on this success by establishing a trio of US research centres to help advance the science.
Large language model improves on efforts to solve combinatorics problems inspired by the card game Set.
The card game Set has long inspired mathematicians to create interesting problems.
Now, a technique based on large language models (LLMs) is showing that artificial intelligence (AI) can help mathematicians to generate new solutions.
On the outskirts of Brandenburg an der Havel, Germany, nestled among car dealerships and hardware shops, sits a two-storey factory stuffed with solar-power secrets. It’s here where UK firm Oxford PV is producing commercial solar cells using perovskites: cheap, abundant photovoltaic (PV) materials that some have hailed as the future of green energy. Surrounded by unkempt grass and a weed-strewn car park, the factory is a modest cradle for such a potentially transformative technology, but the firm’s chief technology officer Chris Case is clearly in love with the place. “This is the culmination of my dreams,” he says.
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