Scientists have spotted the brightest and fastest-growing quasar ever seen — a monster black hole that’s devouring a sun’s-worth of material every day. The brightly burning object, named J0529-4351, weighs between 17 billion and 19 billion solar masses and is located 12 billion light-years from Earth — meaning it dates to a time when the … Read more
Smiling humanoid robots have been shown to sort objects, drop off packages and even tidy up a child’s toys in eerie new footage. The near-silent video, released by robotics company 1X, shows dozens of the company’s EVE robots performing these various tasks in a large test environment that simulated office spaces and a living room. … Read more
Putting a computer inside someone’s brain used to feel like the edge of science fiction. Today, it’s a reality. Academic and commercial groups are testing “brain-computer interface” devices to enable people with disabilities to function more independently. Yet Elon Musk’s company, Neuralink, has put this technology front and center in debates about safety, ethics and … Read more
In science fiction, people often find a way to move at the speed of light. But you might find yourself asking, could your body survive going so fast? What would happen to it? First, let’s assume that it is possible — though it is not — for a human to move at the speed of … Read more
Voyager 1, one of NASA’s longest-lived space missions, is suffering a communication malfunction, and the mission team is growing concerned that the far-flung spacecraft may not recover. Engineers are currently working to fix a computer error that is preventing the craft from transmitting data back to Earth, but software limitations and distance are making it … Read more
Fear passed in front of the sun last week, and a NASA rover saw it fly. The Mars moon Phobos, whose name means “Fear” in ancient Greek, was caught on camera by the NASA Perseverance rover on Feb. 8. The potato-shaped moon was visible in front of the sun from Percy’s current perch in Jezero … Read more
Scientists are working to build blood vessels from human cells using tiny ice sculptures — these frigid 3D forms twist and branch like real arteries and can be used as temporary scaffolds that later get melted away, to be replaced by living cells. The researchers demonstrated the first step of this blood-vessel-building process in a … Read more
For the first time, scientists have generated functional human brain tissue using a 3D printer. Scientists printed the tissue to be less than 0.01 inch (0.02 centimeter) thick, and it contains both nerve cells and supporting cells called glia. All of these cells can communicate with one another and form networks, as they would in … Read more
Researchers have discovered four gigantic seamounts towering above the seafloor surrounding South America after detecting “gravitational anomalies” given off by the massive underwater mountains. The tallest rises more than 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometers) from the seafloor, making it three times taller than the world’s tallest building Scientists aboard the Schmidt Ocean Institute’s Falkor (too) research … Read more
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
