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New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 2,419 posts.
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Caltech to launch space solar power technology demo into orbit
The launch represents the first in-situ test of the technology to harvest solar energy in space and transmit it to Earth.
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Scientists have discovered the first virovore – an organism that eats viruses
Husker researchers have found that a single-celled microorganism can eat huge numbers of viruses that share its aquatic habitat. For the first time, the team’s lab experiments have also shown that a virus-only diet, which the team calls “virovory,” is enough to fuel the physiological growth and even population…
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Discovering which parts of the brain are engaged when coding
Researchers from MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) found that the Multiple Demand and Language brain systems encode specific code properties and uniquely align with machine-learned representations of code.
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Time to redefine normal body temperature? (2020)
Is 98.6˚ F still the norm for body temperature? Data collected over almost 160 years show that the normal body temperature has been declining and is now roughly one degree lower....
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Picture This: The Periodic Table
Philip Ball on the visual ordering of all the elements known to humankind—and how we might order them differently.
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Wild mammals are making a comeback in Europe
Hunting and habitat loss drove many large mammals in Europe close to extinction. New data shows us that many of the continent’s mammal populations are flourishing again.
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Tandem solar cell achieves 32.5 percent efficiency
The tandem solar cell converts 32.5% of the incident solar radiation into electrical energy. This value is now officially certified and included in the NREL chart.
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Pollution cleanup method destroys toxic “forever chemicals”
An insidious category of carcinogenic pollutants known as “forever chemicals” may not be so permanent after all. University of California, Riverside, chemical engineering and environmental scientists recently published new methods to chemically break up these harmful substances found in drinking water into smaller…
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Research reveals ways lead and cadmium in chocolate may be reduced
Chocolate Industry and As You Sow release three-year, collaborative study BERKELEY, CA –A new report released today by As You Sow and the National Confectioners Association is the result of a three-year effort by a multi-disciplinary panel of four experts...
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Na-S Battery: Low-cost with four times the capacity of lithium
Researchers are hoping that a new, low-cost battery which holds four times the energy capacity of lithium-ion batteries and is far cheaper to produce will significantly reduce the cost of transitioning to a decarbonised economy.
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What comes up when you flush
Germophobes, brace yourselves. A team of CU Boulder engineers has revealed how tiny water droplets, invisible to the naked eye, are rapidly ejected into the air
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Soil in Midwestern US is eroding 10 to 1k times faster than it forms
In a discovery that has repercussions for everything from domestic agricultural policy to global food security and the plans to mitigate climate change, researchers at UMass Amherst recently announced that the rate of soil erosion in the Midwestern US is 10 to 1,000 times greater than pre-agricultural erosion rates.
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100 Gbps achieved from space to Earth
MIT Lincoln Laboratory, in partnership with NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, built and designed a communications payload, TBIRD, which is demonstrating space-to-ground laser communications at unprecedented data rates.
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New process allows 3-D printing of microscale metallic parts
Engineers infuse a hydrogel structure with a metal solution and then use heat and chemical reactions to leave only the metal behind.
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CT scan shows there's still lots of toner left in an “empty” cartridge
CT scans of a new and "empty" toner cartridge reveal a 5% operating window, an 80% air hopper, and the real reason shaking the cartridge always works.
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Gore-TEX, a lightweight, waterproof fabric made from the expanded form of PTFE
By literally stretching materials science to the limit, Gore invented Gore-Tex, a lightweight, waterproof fabric made from the expanded form of the polymer PTFE.
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Earth might be experiencing 7th mass extinction, not 6th
New research suggests environmental changes caused the first mass extinction event in history, which occurred millions of years earlier than scientists previously realized.
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Decades of air pollution undermine the immune system
The diminished power of the immune system in older adults is usually blamed on the aging process. A new study shows that decades of inhaled particulates due to air pollution also take a toll.
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Aerobic exercise can reduce the risk of metastatic cancer in mice: study
Tel Aviv University researchers find that exercise defeats cancer by increasing glucose consumption
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Study urges caution when comparing neural networks to the brain
Neuroscientists often use neural networks to model the kind of tasks the brain performs, in hopes that the models could suggest new hypotheses regarding how the brain itself performs those tasks. But a group of MIT researchers urges that more caution should be taken when interpreting these models.
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Electrolyser development: 200 times less iridium needed
Researchers at TNO have been the first to develop a method that will require 200 times less iridium for electrolysis.
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Wild mammal biomass has declined by 85% since the rise of humans
Explore the diversity of wildlife across the planet. What are species threatened with? What can we do to prevent biodiversity loss?
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Vasa's sister ship Äpplet found
Marine archaeologists from Vrak - Museum of Wreck have found the wreck of the naval vessel Äpplet, Vasa's sister ship. The ship was first launched in 1629 and was built by the same master shipbuilder who completed the Vasa. The discovery was made within the research programme