Category: Science and Nature

Static electricity occurs in part due to nanoscale imperfections on object surfaces. Credit: Deposit Photos The first documentation of static electricity dates back to 600 BCE. Even after 2,600 years’ worth of tiny shocks, however, researchers couldn’t fully explain how rubbing two objects together causes it. But according to a team at Northwestern University, the

A possible painting of the dicynodont made by the San in the early 1800s. Credit: Julien Benoit, CC-BY 4.0 Somewhere in the Koesberg Mountains of South Africa, located deep in the arid Karoo region north-east of Cape Town, there’s an exquisite cave painting of a curious creature. The creature, known as the “Horned Serpent,” bears

Princeton engineers created a tougher cement-based material by mimicking the structure of human bone. The material uses tubes to control crack propagation, enhancing damage resistance without adding external materials. This innovation could lead to stronger construction materials for civil infrastructure. Engineers at Princeton have created a cement-based material…  » …

Recent research highlights the potential of microRNAs as cost-effective and less invasive biomarkers for early diagnosis and prognosis of Alzheimer’s disease. Studies by teams from Boston University and other institutions demonstrate that blood-based microRNAs can predict the progression from mild cognitive impairment to dementia and could align with existing Alzheimer’s biomarkers for earlier intervention…  » …

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but how many numbers is a word worth? The question may sound silly, but it happens to be the foundation that underlies large language models, or LLMs — and through them, many modern applications of artificial intelligence. Every LLM has its own answer. In Meta’s open-source Llama

Women. They are much tougher than many give them credit for. History has known some incredibly tough and unbelievably valiant women. Just think of the names that come to mind: Joan of Arc, Amelia Earhart, Rosa Parks, and Florence Nightingale. The list goes on, too, with modern-day tough women, including the likes of athletic heroes

“It’ s a long way to the top if you wanna rock ‘n’ roll.” Any successful rocker will tell you that it takes years of practice, hard work, and maybe even some luck if you want to reach the top of the music charts. Surprisingly, some of those famed rockers also found themselves interested in

The U.S. National Science Foundation is making awards of $48M to the NSF Broadening Participation in Computing Alliances (NSF BPC Alliances), which seek to increase the participation of underrepresented groups in computer and information science and engineering by addressing the unique challenges they face. Through their extended efforts, the alliances are not only increasing diversity

From the early telescopes made hundreds of years ago by Galileo to the sophisticated astronomical observatories of today, people have built increasingly innovative tools to probe and measure the cosmos. Soon, researchers at two new institutes funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the Simons Foundation will build a new breed of astronomical tools

A Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, carrying a pair of Galileo navigation satellites. Image: Adam Bernstein/Spaceflight Now Update 7:23 p.m. EDT: SpaceX landed its first stage booster, B1067, on the droneship, ‘Just Read the Instructions.’ SpaceX launched the latest pair of Galileo spacecraft