SCIENCE

Quantum computer quickly mines cryptocurrency while using less energy

The Advantage2 quantum processing unitD-Wave A quantum computer is successfully mining cryptocurrency in the first experiment of its kind, while…

1 day ago

Iron Age Britons may have removed the brains of the dead

Fragments of the skull (left) and shoulder blades (right) of a woman buried at Loch Borralie, UKRebecca Ellis-Haken A woman…

4 days ago

Are we getting to the point where it’s safe to gene-edit babies?

Light micrograph of a human egg cell after fertilisationCC STUDIO/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY When a rogue researcher in China revealed in…

1 week ago

The looming El Niño could be bad – but much worse is to come

Waves supercharged by El Niño hit the California coast in 2016Eliason/Zuma Wire/Shutterstock A “Godzilla El Niño” is coming, according to…

1 week ago

Climate Fiction prize winner Helen Phillips: ‘The book is in the future, but everything is seeded from our present’

Hum is set in an over-heated near-future metropolisIngram Publishing / Alamy Hum by Helen Phillips, the story of a mother’s…

2 weeks ago

Mathematical AI helps researchers crack 50-year-old problem

Paul Erdős made many conjectures about numbers in his lifeOliver Helbig/Getty Images Just a week after an AI disproved an…

2 weeks ago

Mars astronauts may do laundry by blasting clothes with a plasma beam

White shirt material being cleaned with cold plasmaUniversity of Alabama in Huntsville, Propulsion Research Center Astronauts in space can’t do…

3 weeks ago

Mercury may have gained all of its unexpected water in a single day

We may now know how Mercury gained its ice depositsNASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio Around 100 million years ago, the surface…

3 weeks ago

We may finally know why dinosaurs like T. rex evolved tiny arms

Tyrannosaurus rex wasn’t the only predatory dinosaur with small armsROGER HARRIS/Getty Images/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY With jaws like these, who needs…

4 weeks ago

Will burying dead trees after a wildfire keep their carbon locked up?

Charred trees still standing after a wildfire in Glacier National Park, MontanaGorski/NurPhoto/Shutters​tock In 2021, a smouldering underground coal seam ignited…

4 weeks ago