Kepler planet-hunting telescope goes dark after sending last light image
After a ten year career of discovering exoplanets and gathering the most detailed ever view of a dying star, NASA's Kepler spacecraft has sent its final image back to Earth. This "last light" image draws its remarkable journey to a close and shows both the TRAPPIST-1 system and the GJ 9827 system.
Ultima Thule’s peculiar shape is a puzzle for scientists
Ultima Thule, the farthest object ever explored, has yet more mysteries to reveal. Forget the debates about whether it is looks most like a snowman or more like Star Wars' BB-8 -- NASA scientists have revealed that it is even more oddly shaped than previously thought, with two uneven non-spherical lobes.
Epic storms rage across Neptune and Uranus in new Hubble images
Hubble has made a discovery about the planets in our Solar System during its routine yearly monitoring -- unexpected weather formations that give clues about the atmospheres of Uranus and Neptune. The images captured show a huge cloud cap over the north pole of Uranus and a dark storm vortex over Neptune.
Chang’e 4 rover spotted on the moon’s surface by Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
China's Chang'e 4 mission has been exploring the far side of the moon, taking images and recording temperature readings, and now the rover has come into view of NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) which has captured images of the Chinese craft perched on the floor of the Von Kármán crater.
The next big challenge for Google’s A.I. is a card game you’ve never heard of
DeepMind, the Alphabet-owned deep learning company, has previously built machines that can master games like Go. What does it think is the next big frontier for machine intelligence? Mastering a cooperative card game about fireworks, called Hanabi. Here's why it's such a challenge.
Tokyo 2020 is on track to create Olympic medals with recycled electronics
The committee behind the Tokyo 2020 Olympics has revealed that it is on target to be able to forge all winning athletes’ gold, silver and bronze medals from recycled electronics waste, consisting of discarded and obsolete electronic devices such as smartphones and laptops.
Magical new nanotube-infused fabric cools you in summer, warms you in winter
Scientists at the University of Maryland have developed a next-generation textile that's able to automatically change its properties to either trap in or release heat, depending upon the conditions. In doing so, it promises to keep us at the perfect temperature year-round.
FDA hails ‘Tumor Monorail’ that coaxes aggressive tumors away from the brain
Researchers have developed a so-called 'Tutor Monorail' which can successfully fool aggressive brain tumors into exiting the brain and instead migrating into an external container. The groundbreaking development has just received a 'Breakthrough Device' nod from the FDA.
Energy-harvesting gizmo powers medical implants using your own heartbeat
Engineers at Dartmouth College have built a tiny energy-harvesting gadget that's able to convert the heart’s kinetic energy into electricity which could be used to power an assortment of implantable devices. Here's how it works -- and why it could finally make the cyborg dream a reality.
U.K.’s ‘advanced’ self-driving car trials won’t require human safety drivers
The U.K. government has announced that it is moving toward 'advanced' trials of self-driving cars -- meaning trials that do not have human safety drivers on board. This is the latest part of the United Kingdom's promise to have fully self-driving cars on the road by 2021.
In the future, welding robots could be controlled by operators’ thoughts
Researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have developed a brain-computer interface system that makes it possible for a person to control a welding robot using only their thoughts. Here's how it works, and why it could turn out to be useful in the workplace.
We’re another step closer to made-to-order human kidneys
Researchers from Japan have demonstrated that it is possible to successfully grow functional mouse kidneys inside rats using donor stem cells. The medical breakthrough could one day lead to human kidneys being grown in other animals and then transplanted into patients.
Smart toilet seat is flush with possibilities to monitor patients’ health
Researchers from the Rochester Institute of Technology have developed a smart toilet seat that can monitor the heart health of users during their time spent sitting on it. Here's how it works, and why it could prove to be as effective as some hospital monitoring equipment.
MIT pill inflates in your gut so you can’t digest it. Here’s why that’s awesome
Researchers at MIT have developed a new ingestible smart pill which can rapidly expand into a soft hydrogel object the size of a ping-pong ball after it’s been consumed. It can then monitor your body's core temperature -- and perhaps one day other medical conditions -- from the inside.
Real-time fact-checking is coming to live TV. But will networks use it?
Forget closed captioning; how about an automated fact-checker on your TV? That's something researchers from Duke University are hoping to introduce in time for 2020's election year. Here's how it might work, and why the truth problem could be A.I.'s biggest challenge yet.
Breakthrough A.I.-powered stethoscope diagnoses pneumonia like a robot doctor
Researchers from Johns Hopkins University have invented a new, 21st-century version of the stethoscope, which can help better diagnose conditions like pneumonia using some smart machine-learning technology. Here's how it works and why it could turn out to be such a game-changer.
Grab a magnifying glass and feast your eyes on the world’s tiniest walking robot
Researchers at the University of Maryland have developed what may well be the world’s tiniest four-legged crawling robot. measuring just 2.5 mm x 1.6 mm x 0.7 mm. For those keeping track at home, that's smaller than the size of an ant’s head. Check it out in diminutive action.
China’s new robotic submarine doesn’t just chase typhoons, it dives into them
Scientists in China really have developed an unmanned submarine that’s designed to travel into potentially deadly typhoons and other extreme weather types and fire off weather-monitoring rockets. Here's how it works, and what could make it such a useful weather-monitoring tool.
New technique could allow astronomers to send messages through the void of space
What do you do when you really want to send a message, but your smartphone just isn’t up to the job? Simple: You vibrate space itself so as to harness it as a communication method. At least, that's one method of future space communication put forward by researchers in a new paper.
Real-life version of Star Trek’s ‘replicator’ 3D prints full objects in seconds
Researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and University of California, Berkeley, have developed a new type of 3D printer that ditches layer-by-layer printing in favor of using projected light to print entire objects at once. Here's how the new approach works.
A.I. system seeks to turn thoughts of people unable to talk into speech
A new system developed by neuroengineers can turn thoughts into intelligible speech. Powered by speech synthesizers and A.I., the technology lays the groundwork for helping individuals who are unable to speak due to disability regain their capacity to communicate verbally.
Rocket java roasts on reentry for coffee that is literally out of this world
Coffee lovers have been known to go to some impressive extremes for a cup o' joe, but here's a concept that will raise eyebrows of even the most dedicated java enthusiast: coffee beans that are shot hundreds of miles into the air and are roasted by the heat of reentering Earth's atmosphere.
Astronomers make an accidental discovery: The tiny dwarf galaxy Bedin 1
Astronomers were using data from the Hubble Space Telescope to study white dwarf stars in the Milky Way, but in the process they found something unexpected: a very faint group of stars millions of light-years away which turned out to be a new galaxy named Bedin 1, a dwarf spheroidal galaxy.
Drone pilots are already getting caught ignoring Super Bowl flight ban
A restriction on drone flights is already in place around Atlanta's Mercedes-Benz Stadium ahead of Sunday's Super Bowl, but cops have already confiscated six quadcopters from those ignoring the temporary ban. Those responsible could face hefty cash fines, and even jail time.
As law enforcement gets increasingly high-tech, is privacy being compromised?
Are we finally close to living in the crime-free future promised to us in the movie Minority Report… and how much privacy will we have to give up to get there? Police departments around the world are incorporating evermore advanced tech into their arsenals, and that could turn society into a surveillance state.
Boeing’s astronaut taxi is a go, will launch a test flight next month
Boeing had problems with the development of their spacecraft, the Starliner, when a propellant leak occurred during testing last year. But now the craft is ready for its first test flight, according to Boeing. Eventually the craft will ferry astronauts from Earth to the International Space Station.
Curiosity rover learns a new trick: Measuring the gravity of mountains
NASA's Curiosity rover has provided unexpected insight into the gravity on Mars by using its sensors as a makeshift gravimeter. Scientists realized that they could use the rover's accelerometers and gyroscopes to gather data on the mountain that Curiosity is currently exploring, called Mount Sharp.
See our galactic neighbor, the orderly Triangulum galaxy, in high definition
Take some time out of your day to ooh and ahh at the beauty of the universe - Hubble has shared another stunning image of a nearby galaxy. The Hubble Space Telescope has produced a gorgeous high resolution image of the Triangulum galaxy (M33), made up of 25 million viewable stars.
Wrap up warmly on the moon — lunar nights are colder than expected
China's Chang'e 4 mission to the far side of the moon touched down a few weeks ago and has been investigating rarely-seen parts of the lunar surface since then. And it has released a surprising finding -- apparently the lunar nights are colder than expected, with temperatures of -310 degrees Fahrenheit.
Little Sophia is the pint-sized robot buddy that promises to teach kids to code
Intended for kids aged 7 to 13, Little Sophia is a 14-inch robot, capable of walking, talking, recognizing faces, and pulling a variety of different facial expressions. Oh, and teaching kids the all-important skill of coding. Here's how you can get your hands on one as soon as possible.
Swarms of drones will soon keep tabs on our aging city infrastructure
Could drones one day be used to inspect aging infrastructure? Researchers from Sweden's Lulea University of Technology have been testing how teams of autonomous drones could be used to keep tabs on wind turbines, potentially alerting authorities of any impending problems.
San Francisco could be the first city in the U.S. to ban facial recognition
This week, a San Francisco lawmaker introduced new legislation which could see one of America's major tech cities become the first in the United States to officially ban the use of facial recognition technology by law enforcement. Here's why some people want it banned.
Shark attack: Drone-based research may help ease swimmers’ fears
Researchers in Australia used drones to learn more about what kinds of sea creatures come close the shore, and their findings may go some way to easing the fears of swimmers worried about shark attacks. Fact is, that mysterious creature you saw glide by is far more likely to be a dolphin.
Puma’s self-lacing sports shoe gives Nike’s Adapt BB a run for its money
Puma has unveiled a self-lacing shoe to take on Nike's Adapt BB. The fit can be adjusted via a smartphone app or the Apple Watch, with additional changes possible via a small touchpad on the top of the shoe. Puma's "Fi" footwear launches with a $330 price tag, $20 cheaper than Nike's offering.