An 81-year-old man from Surrey became the first patient in the U.K. to receive a new “vaccine” designed to treat solid-tumor cancers, such as the skin cancer melanoma. Therapeutic cancer vaccines act as a kind of immunotherapy, meaning they help train the immune system to fight cancer cells. They’re different from vaccines that prevent cancer, … Read more
Scientists are now inspecting snagged, bagged and tagged bits and pieces from asteroid Bennu, the cosmic mother lode delivered by NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security — Regolith Explorer mission. Known in acronymic astro-speak as OSIRIS-REx, that seven-year-long voyage brought home the goods via a sample return canister that came to full stop … Read more
A puppy has spontaneously regrown his jawbone after part of it was surgically removed because of a cancerous tumor. It is believed to be the first reported case of a dog regenerating its mandible. Veterinarians at Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine’s Dentistry and Oral Surgery Service first diagnosed Tyson, a 3-month-old French bulldog, with … Read more
A new study has claimed that we may breach the 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) climate change increase threshold by the late 2020s — almost two decades earlier than current projections. The study, published Feb. 5 in the journal Nature Climate Change, claims global surface temperatures had increased by 1.7 C (3 F) above … Read more
Very soon, a robot surgeon may begin its practice in orbit — and though it won’t quite be a metallic, humanoid machine wearing a white coat and holding a scalpel, its mission is fascinating nonetheless. On Tuesday (Jan. 30), scientists sent a slew of innovative experiments to the International Space Station (ISS) via Northrop Grumman’s … Read more
A malicious technology can trick self-driving cars into “hallucinating” phantom vehicles and veering dangerously off-course to get out of their way, researchers have discovered. The new hack, dubbed “MadRadar,” can also hide real cars from on-vehicle radar sensors and fool a self-driving car into thinking a real car has jerked off course. The scientists reported … Read more
Tens of thousands of years ago, prehistoric humans in Europe adorned themselves with such a wide variety of beads that researchers have classified nine distinct cultural groups across the continent based on their location and distinctive styles. The researchers focused on the Gravettian period, which stretched between 34,000 and 24,000 years ago and was defined … Read more
Scientists have built a qubit, or quantum bit, that can achieve “quantum coherence” at room temperature — something normally only possible at temperatures close to absolute zero. To achieve quantum coherence — a stable state in which the weird laws of quantum mechanics can be observed — qubits must normally be cooled down to minus … Read more
NASA’s Perseverance rover has found that Mars’ Jezero crater was at one point filled with water, offering a tantalizing hope that it may have already unearthed fossilized life on the planet. The rover, which first touched down on the crater in February 2021 along with its now-retired helicopter companion Ingenuity, made the discovery using ground-penetrating … Read more
When NASA attempted to return to the Moon for the first time in 50 years on January 8, more was at risk than just US$108 million worth of development and equipment. The agency earned the ire of the Native American Navajo people, who made a bid to stop the launch because of an unusual inclusion … Read more
