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Stellarium 1.0
The Stellarium team did it. Stellarium 1.0 is here!
Topics /
Science & Space
The most popular blog posts about science & space on Hacker News. 2,418 posts.
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Study finds billions of nanoplastics released when microwaving containers
The fastest way to heat food and drink might also rank as the fastest route to ingesting massive quantities of minuscule plastic particles, says new research led by Husker engineers.
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What's a virus, anyway? The bare-bones basics
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, viruses are getting a lot of attention; here's an inside look into the most abundant life form on Earth.
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Ants recognise infected wounds and treat them with antibiotics
The African Matabele ants are often injured in fights with termites. Their conspecifics recognise when the wounds become infected and initiate antibiotic treatment.
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The human genome is, at long last, complete
Results of automated DNA sequencing, displayed on the screen of a tablet computer. (Turtle Rock Scientific/Science Photo Library)
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Nearly 1k mysterious strands revealed in Milky Way’s center
More than 35 years ago, a Northwestern astrophysicist discovered mysterious, giant filaments in the center of the Milky Way. Now, he uncovered 10 times more than previously known.
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WiFi signals can measure heart rate
Engineers prove their technique is effective even with the lowest-cost WiFi devices
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Galois Theory
Note: These pages make extensive use of the latest XHTML and CSS Standards . They ought to look great in any standards-compliant modern browser. Unfortunately, they will probably look horrible in older browsers, like Netscape 4.x and IE 4.x. Moreover, many posts use MathML, which is, currently only supported in…
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A global workspace in language models
Interpretability research on Claude's internal thoughts.
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New CRISPR-based map ties every human gene to its function
A new CRISPR-based map ties every human gene to its function using a tool called Perturb-seq. The work was led by Jonathan Weissman and colleagues at MIT and the Whitehead Institute, and is free for other scientists to use.
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Caffeine boosts problem-solving ability but not creativity, study indicates
While the drug is known to increase focus, alertness and motor skills, its effect on creative thinking had not been studied previously.
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We Are Now In Command of the ISEE-3 Spacecraft
The ISEE-3 Reboot Project is pleased to announce that our team has established two-way communication with the ISEE-3 spacecraft and has begun commanding it to perform specific functions. Over the coming days and weeks our team will make an assessment of the spacecraft’s overall health and refine the techniques…
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Bar-tailed Godwits regularly travel more than 7,000 miles non-stop
Bar-tailed Godwits regularly travel more than 7,000 miles non-stop. One enthusiast is spreading the word of their amazing migrations, with the help of a research project tracking 20 tagged birds in...
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Human brains are preconfigured with instructions for understanding the world
Assistant Professor of Biomolecular Engineering Tal Sharf's lab used organoids to make fundamental discoveries about human brain development.
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IBM open sources fully-functional Lego microscope design (2020)
By Katia Moskvitch
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All 12 moonwalkers had "lunar hay fever" from dust smelling like gunpowder (2018)
When the Apollo astronauts returned from the Moon, the dust that clung to their spacesuits made their throats sore and their eyes water. Lunar dust is made of sharp, abrasive and nasty particles, but how toxic is it for humans?
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Microsoft unveils Majorana 1 quantum processor
Majorana 1 from Microsoft is the world’s first Quantum Processing Unit (QPU) built with a topoconductor. Discover more.
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Trillion-frame-per-second video
By using optical equipment in a totally unexpected way, MIT researchers have created an imaging system that makes light look slow.
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What is happening in the Arctic is now beyond words, so here are the pictures
The climate emergency requires actions at emergency speed for a rapid transition to a post-carbon, safe-climate future.
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Catching the Great American Eclipse at 35,000 Feet
There’s nothing Alaska Airlines pilots like more than a challenge. As a company that started out flying between remote airfields deep in the Alaskan “bush,” safely navigating where other airlines can’t is in Alaska’s blood. So, for Alaska, putting a flight in the path of the Great American Eclipse wasn’t really a…
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Johns Hopkins Launches Center for Psychedelic Research
The center, believed to be the first and largest of its kind, will use psychedelics to study the mind, identify therapies for diseases such as addiction, PTSD, Alzheimer's
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Amazon Braket – Get Started with Quantum Computing
Nearly a decade ago I wrote about the Quantum Compute Cloud on April Fool’s Day. The future has arrived and you now have the opportunity to write quantum algorithms and to run them on actual quantum computers. Here’s what we are announcing today: Amazon Braket – A fully managed service that allows scientists…
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DeepMind's WeatherNext model achieves breakthrough forecasting cyclones
WeatherNext enables accurate cyclone forecasts that can give an extra day of warning. Now we are open sourcing the model.
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Sauna effect on heart rate
We analyzed 59,000+ daily records from 256 sauna users to quantify what saunas actually do to your body. Using paired t-tests on same-day wearable data, we…
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UCLA discovers first stroke rehabilitation drug to repair brain damage (2025)
A new study by UCLA Health has discovered what researchers say is the first drug to fully reproduce the effects of physical stroke rehabilitation in model mice.
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Air pollution linked to “huge” reduction in intelligence
Air pollution can have a “huge” negative effect on cognitive intelligence – especially amongst older men – according to a study released this past August.