- SpaceX is gearing up for the fifth launch of its massive Starship rocket, following four increasingly successful tests. What is the company hoping for, and what can we expect?
- Between 2005 and 2021, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube were more likely to make policy changes in the weeks after negative stories in the media
- Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for...
- Scientists have identified an automatic behavior in flies that helps them assess wind conditions -- its presence and direction -- before deploying a strategy to follow a scent to its source. The fact that they can do this is surprising...
- A mission to the sun’s closest neighbouring star, Alpha Centauri, could be made faster thanks to a tiny light sail punctured with billions of tiny holes
- A team of computer scientists and roboticists with members from Texas A&M University in the U.S., and the Mohamed Bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence in Abu Dhabi, working with a colleague from Boston Dynamics, has configured...
- Astrophysicists aren’t sure how supermassive black holes get close enough to merge, a mystery called the final parsec problem – but an exotic form of dark matter may explain it
- Electromagnetic radiation leaking from the cable between your computer and monitor can be intercepted and decoded by AI to reveal what you are looking at
- The largest tree nursery in North America is helping scale up efforts to inoculate seedlings with native fungi and other soil microbes, a treatment that helps trees grow faster and capture more carbon
- A robot can hold a squash, pumpkin or melon in one hand, while it is peeled by the other
- Biodegradable plastic that gets broken down into microplastics may decrease soil nitrogen levels more than conventional ones, which stunts plant growth
- The Perseverance rover has found some of the most promising hints of ancient Martian life yet, but we can’t know for sure until its samples are sent back to Earth
- Artificial intelligence (AI) is hot right now. Also hot: the data centers that power the technology. And keeping those centers cool requires a tremendous amount of energy. The problem is only going to grow as high-powered AI-based...
- Mouse pups have increased activity in certain neurons in the centre of their brains when they interact with their mothers, which is linked to them showing fewer signs of distress
- The gamma ray burst known as GRB221009A is the biggest explosion astronomers have ever glimpsed and we might finally know what caused the blast
- Being immunised against shingles has been linked to a reduced dementia risk before and now a study suggests that the newer vaccine wards off the condition more effectively than an older one
- AlphaProof, an AI from Google DeepMind, came close to matching the top participants in a prestigious competition for young mathematicians
- Muscle cells that spent a week on the International Space Station revealed changes in gene expression that suggest microgravity can speed up ageing
- A new type of valve that makes soft robots more resilient to damage, has been developed by engineers at the University of Sheffield.
- Self-amputation may seem like a drastic move, but it's a survival tactic that's proved particularly handy for numerous creatures. Yale roboticists have drawn inspiration from lizards, crabs, and other animals who shed parts of themselves...
- Forests and other land ecosystems emitted almost as much carbon dioxide as they absorbed in 2023 – if this persists it will be much harder to restrict global warming to agreed targets
- It is becoming clear that any amount of alcohol is harmful, so why do so many studies claim that moderate drinking could help you live longer?
- The praying mantis is one of the few insects with compound eyes and the ability to perceive 3D space. Engineers are replicating their visual systems to make machines see better.
- Engineers have shown that something as simple as the flow of air through open-cell foam can be used to perform digital computation, analog sensing and combined digital-analog control in soft textile-based wearable systems.
- Self-driving cars occasionally crash because their visual systems can't always process static or slow-moving objects in 3D space. In that regard, they're like the monocular vision of many insects, whose compound eyes provide great...
- Using a newly-devised complex algorithm, the researchers have created a perfectly choreographed "dance" using two robotic arms, continuously retaining a clear space between them—where a patient's body would fit—as well as ensuring a...
- Ancient Egyptians may have relied on a vertical shaft that could be filled with water, along with a network of water channels and filtration structures, to build the Step Pyramid of Djoser 4500 years ago
- Elephant-like species started going extinct faster when early humans evolved, and the rate of extinction rose even higher when modern humans appeared
- By analysing lunar samples from NASA's Apollo missions, researchers calculated exactly when – and why – the moon was once covered with magma
- Anil Ananthaswamy's Why Machines Learn: The elegant maths behind modern AI explores the mechanics of the AI revolution, but doesn't examine its ethics
- Events like the Olympics and Paralympics can be inspiring. But to get more kids moving, we need to address the "enjoyment gap" by shifting the emphasis from competitive sport to activity and play
- Amazing images of an open-air library, underground lab and design museum show the reincarnation of dead mines, captured in a new book, 102 Things to Do With a Hole in the Ground
- From a police detective to an orthopaedic surgeon, Daniel Tammet shows that there is no such thing as a single neurodiverse experience in his book, Nine Minds: Inner lives on the spectrum
- Ants and other insects are capable of astounding navigational feats. Perhaps an appreciation of this could aid conservation efforts, says Robert Barrie
- Feedback is amused that marine researchers worried about microplastics dressed up as coral polyps and a Greek sea goddess to visit a Comic-Con. Their awareness-raising went down a storm
- To find out what happens at the centre of a black hole, we may need to consider its event horizon - and think about where we're looking from, says Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
- Carnegie Mellon University researchers at the Biohybrid and Organic Robotics Group (B.O.R.G.) led by Victoria Webster-Wood, in collaboration with researchers at Case Western Reserve University, are studying the sea slug feeding structure...
- Better fitness in children is linked to better cognition and health in later life, but the majority in the US and UK don't get nearly enough. Here's what parents can do
- The 166-million-year-old fossils of an adult and a juvenile of the same extinct mammal species reveal that they had longer "childhoods" and lifespans than similar species today
- Methane, a potent greenhouse gas, is converted to CO2 by microbes in tree bark, meaning trees are even better for the climate than we thought
- Humans are interacting more than ever with artificial intelligence (AI)—from the development of the first "social robots" (a robot with a physical body programmed to interact and engage with humans) like Kismet in the 1990s to smart...
- When we take a break from exercise, it can feel like we quickly go back to square one. But this isn't the case, and there are various ways to minimise the decline
- A brain circuit discovered in mice could explain why placebo treatments ease pain in people
- If the idea of exercise is more attractive than the reality, you aren't alone. But there are ways to train your motivation and develop better habits
- To keep long-term moon residents safe from harmful radiation, lunar bases will need to be built several metres under the surface or inside caves or lava tubes
- Combining two neural networks has helped researchers predict potentially disastrous collapses in complex systems, such as financial crashes or power blackouts
- An orange layer on the tips of Komodo dragons’ teeth may give the enamel extra strength for ripping apart their prey
- Most robotic systems developed to date can either tackle a specific task with high precision or complete a range of simpler tasks with low precision. For instance, some industrial robots can complete specific manufacturing tasks very...
- Researchers are calling for greater protection for basking sharks after a camera on a tagged shark recorded a collision for the first time
- In an effort to understand ancient Neanderthal food preparation techniques, researchers butchered five wild birds using flint stone tools and roasted them