Recently Facebook, Reddit, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Twitter and YouTube committed to removing coronavirus-related misinformation from their platforms. COVID-19 is being described as the first major pandemic of the social media age. In troubling times, social media helps distribute vital knowledge to the masses. Unfortunately, this comes with myriad misinformation, much of which is spread through

The world is only just getting used to the power and sophistication of virtual assistants made by companies like Amazon and Google, which can decode our spoken speech with eerie precision compared to what the technology was capable of only a few short years ago.   In truth, however, a far more impressive and mind-boggling

With the right mechanical contraption attached, human running speeds could rival those of cyclists, according to new research – getting runners up to 20.9 metres per second, or more than 46 miles per hour.   It’s worth noting that these are theoretical calculations for now, and the team responsible is hoping to have their prototype

Electric cars absolutely do produce less CO2 than gas guzzlers, a new study has confirmed – countering claims that carbon emissions from the manufacture of electric cars and the production of electricity outweighed the savings on the road.   Crunching the numbers on data collected from 59 different regions in the world that represent 95

The zero-emissions option of hydrogen fuel holds a lot of promise for reducing our reliance on fossil fuels – if only we could find a way to produce it cheaply and without needing insane amounts of energy input. Now, scientists have found a way to efficiently produce hydrogen fuel by using rust and a light

We may not be as lucky as birds, but the human eye does pretty well when it comes to colour perception; typically, we can distinguish around 1 million colours. A new type of contact lens could now restore some of that range in people with colour blindness, whose colour perception is limited in some parts of

Recent reports from scientists pursuing a new kind of nuclear fusion technology are encouraging, but we are still some distance away from the “holy grail of clean energy”. The technology developed by Heinrich Hora and his colleagues at the University of NSW uses powerful lasers to fuse together hydrogen and boron atoms, releasing high-energy particles

The effect that fossil fuels are having on the climate emergency is driving an international push to use low-carbon sources of energy. At the moment, the best options for producing low-carbon energy on a large scale are wind and solar power.   But despite improvements over the last few years to both their performance and

To cram ever more computing power into your pocket, engineers need to come up with increasingly ingenious ways to add transistors to an already crowded space. Unfortunately there’s a limit to how small you can make a wire. But a twisted form of rare earth metal just might have what it takes to push the

Scientists have ‘puppeteered’ the movements of a jellyfish and made it even faster than the real thing. Taking artificial control with a microelectronic implant, researchers have increased the natural swimming speed of a live moon jellyfish (Aurelia aurita) by nearly threefold.   What’s more, they achieved this with only a little bit of external power

Last month, SpaceX became the operator of the world’s largest active satellite constellation. As of the end of January, the company had 242 satellites orbiting the planet with plans to launch 42,000 over the next decade.   This is part of its ambitious project to provide internet access across the globe. The race to put

An Australian fusion startup called HB11, a spin-off from the University of New South Wales, claims to have found a way to revolutionize current nuclear fusion technology, potentially laying the groundwork for a new era of power generation — without running the risk of a nuclear meltdown.   The startup’s leadership doesn’t mince words. “We

If humanity fails to find a way through this train wreck of a climate crisis, we might want a form of record-keeping that doesn’t decay after a generation or two. You know, just to let future intelligences know we had some redeeming qualities.   Artist Joe Davis from Harvard University thinks he has a solution.

Randomness is not always as random as you think. It’s actually very challenging for computers to generate true randomness, because algorithms introduce subtle patterns that can be detected, meaning the numbers they come up with are pseudorandom, and not ultimately unpredictable.   Which is not to say machines can’t play a part. What if we

They found it buried in the muddy shores of the Potomac River more than three decades ago: a strange “sediment organism” that could do things nobody had ever seen before in bacteria.   This unusual microbe, belonging to the Geobacter genus, was first noted for its ability to produce magnetite in the absence of oxygen, but with

Solar panels are fantastic pieces of technology, but we need to work out how to make them even more efficient – and last year, scientists solved a 40-year-old mystery around one of the key obstacles to increased efficiency.   The 2019 study outlined a material defect in silicon used to produce solar cells that has

In the half-century since the historic Apollo 11 Moon landing in 1969, computer technology has evolved in some pretty giant leaps itself. So much so, that even simple devices today are more powerful, in terms of raw processing power, than the Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) was – a machine that helped us to pull off

Have you ever used a public charging station to charge your mobile phone when it runs out of battery? If so, watch out for “juice jacking”. Cybercriminals are on the prowl to infect your mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers and access your personal data, or install malware while you charge them.  

Tapping into the water cycle and generating electricity from rainy days could be one way to grow our renewable energy use. Until now, scientists have been unable to get water droplets to produce a significant amount of power – but we may finally have a breakthrough.   While we’re still a long way from umbrellas

Released in 1896, L’arrivée d’un train en gare de La Ciotat is one of the earliest examples of movie-making we have – the 50-second silent short, which shows a mail train pulling into La Ciotat station, seems humdrum by today’s standards, but would have wowed 19th century crowds seeing moving pictures for the first time.

A team of researchers at the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research in Bordeaux have grown yarn from human skin cells that they call a “human textile” – and they say it could be used by surgeons to close wounds or assemble implantable skin grafts.   “These human textiles offer a unique level

As beneficial as current solar panel technology has been in our quest to switch to renewable energy, such panels can’t generate electricity at night. Now, new research suggests it could be possible to design panels that can operate around the clock.   Under optimum conditions, at night these specially designed photovoltaic cells could generate a

Scientists have developed a new type of smart bandage that can signal the type of bacterial infection it’s protecting, just like a traffic light, as well as release the right type of drugs on demand.   The researchers behind the design hope it could help to fight back against antibiotic resistance, as well as heal

Scientists continue to push the boundaries of what cameras are capable of – like a newly developed phase-sensitive compressed ultrafast photography (pCUP) device, which is capable of snapping an impressive one trillion frames every second.   That’s mind-boggling, but it’s not a record, because some of the same researchers developed a camera that can take

Could a massive barrier erected in the ocean shield New York from the devastation of superstorm surges like Hurricane Sandy in 2012? The truth is, nobody knows for sure, but a giant sea wall is nonetheless one serious proposal being looked at in a long-term research project designed to prevent a repeat of the deaths

Scientists at the University of Colorado, Boulder have created what The New York Times calls a “living concrete”, teeming with photosynthetic bacteria, that can grow itself and regenerate itself – much like a living organism.   The concrete is a mixture of gelatin, sand, and cyanobacteria that cools similarly to Jell-O, the Times reports. The resulting structure was able to regenerate itself

In another lifetime, if they had been allowed to follow their natural development, the stem cells taken from embryonic frogs would have turned into skin and heart tissue within living, breathing animals.   Instead, in configurations designed by algorithms and constructed by humans, those cells have been assembled into something new: the first-ever robots constructed

Scientists may have solved one of the great Leonardo da Vinci painting mysteries – why the glass orb in the Salvator Mundi painting (dated to around 1500 CE) shows no signs of the refraction and reflection of light that might be expected.   The answer, according to computer models run by a team from the

To protect its hosts, Airbnb is now using an AI-powered tool to scan the internet for clues that a guest might not be a reliable customer. According to patent documents reviewed by the Evening Standard, the tool takes into account everything from a user’s criminal record to their social media posts to rate their likelihood

Something strange has been happening in eastern Colorado at night. Since the week of Christmas, giant drones measuring up to 6 feet (1.8 metres) across have been spotted in the sky at night, sometimes in swarms as large as 30.   The Denver Post first reported these mysterious drone sightings in northeastern Colorado on December

The future had arrived. There was only one problem: it was deafening. In the 1960s, the development of supersonic passenger aircraft promised to revolutionise the concept of international travel, teasing flights from New York to Paris in under 3.5 hours – less than half the duration of conventional subsonic jaunts.   With the famed Concorde,

In March, Chinese researchers predicted that the nation’s HL-2M tokamak – a device designed to replicate nuclear fusion, the same reaction that powers the Sun – would be built before the end of 2019.   No word yet on whether that’s still the case, but in November, Duan Xuru, one of the scientists working on

The world’s first fully electric commercial aircraft took its inaugural test flight on Tuesday, taking off from the Canadian city of Vancouver and offering hope that airlines may one day end their polluting emissions.   “This proves that commercial aviation in all-electric form can work,” said Roei Ganzarski, chief executive of Seattle-based engineering firm magniX.

Scientists said Wednesday they have come up with an environmentally-friendly method that uses artificial sunlight to transform plastic into power-generating chemicals, as countries worldwide battle to reduce waste.   Huge quantities of plastic have piled up on land and been dumped in the sea across the world, with many nations facing criticism for failing to

Quantum computing has the potential to revolutionise the processing power at our fingertips, but for the moment a lot of it is just potential. Researchers have been uncertain on whether we’ll ever be able to harness quantum computing in a practical, affordable, realistic way. But we might have an exciting new lead.   Two new

Artificial flesh is growing ever closer to the real thing. Scientists in Australia have now created a new jelly-like material which they claim has the strength and durability of actual skin, ligaments, or even bone.   “With the special chemistry we’ve engineered in the hydrogel, it can repair itself after it has been broken like

Cyborg super soldiers enhanced by advancements in bioengineering and other research fields are coming, but the Department of Defence is not prepared for what that will mean for the warfighter, the military as a whole, and civilians.   “In the next 30 years, you’re going to need to have to deal with these legal and

Nearly 3,000 feet (900 metres) below the surface of Monterey Bay, a network of deep sea cables helps scientists to study marine life. Spanning 32 miles (51 kilometres) across the floor of the Pacific Ocean, the cables record sounds like the high-pitched squeal of a dolphin or the deep moans of a humpback whale. They

A long-awaited international deal governing how the world’s technology companies should roll out 5G technology poses serious risks to weather forecast accuracy, according to data from federal agencies and the World Meteorological Organization.   Negotiators from around the world announced a deal Friday at a meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, for how to roll out

Artificial intelligence, it seems, can figure out how to do just about anything. It can simulate the Universe, learn to solve a Rubik’s Cube with just one hand, and even find ghosts hidden in our past.   All these kinds of advancements are meant to be for our own good. But what about when they’re

The brain is the ultimate computing machine, so it’s no wonder researchers are keen to try and emulate it. Now, new research has taken an intriguing step in that direction – a device that’s able to ‘forget’ memories, just like our brains do.   It’s called a second-order memristor (a mix of “memory” and “resistor”). The

Tesla finally revealed its outrageous Blade Runner-style pickup truck, the “Cybertruck”, at an event in LA on Thursday evening. But an on-stage demonstration by Tesla CEO Elon Musk seemingly backfired, The Guardian reports: Tesla’s chief designer Franz von Holzhausen lobed a hefty metal ball at the window — and smashed it.   “Oh my f**king

Having insults hurled our way is never going to do wonders for our self-esteem, but it turns out that disparaging remarks can cut us even when they’re delivered by a robot. You might think that critical comments from robots – droids only saying what they’ve been programmed to say, with no consciousness or feelings of

A new startup backed by Bill Gates says it has managed to harness solar energy to greater effect than ever before, generating enough heat from a field of mirrored panels to drive the production of cement, steel and glass – processes that are usually reliant on fossil fuels.   In keeping with our modern age,

When it comes to cutting water consumption to be kinder to the planet, changing the coating on your loo might not be the first step you think of – but a team of scientists has given this some very serious consideration indeed.   They’ve come up with a new type of coating that means a

It took just 2 1/2 hours for the Titanic to sink after it collided with an iceberg in 1912. Before the disaster, the ship was said to be unsinkable thanks to the design of its below-deck compartments. But the Titanic’s engineers hadn’t anticipated that a disaster would puncture six of those compartments.   More than

Next to the famous Global Seed Vault in Svalbard, Norway, is an abandoned coal mine protecting a different kind of resource against the end of the world: all of GitHub’s open source code.   Now, if the world ends, whatever survivors crawl out of the ashes will be able to access and use the software

Artificial intelligence is already making great strides forward, but taking it to the next level might require a more drastic approach. According to two researchers, we could try giving AI a sense of peril and the fragility of its own existence.   For now, the machines we code don’t have a sense of their own