Science

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Sep 27, 20265

Google Is Sending Its AI Chips to Orbit for Project Suncatcher's First Test

On 1 October, Google will launch four Trillium TPUs aboard a SpaceX rideshare with Planet, testing whether AI hardware survives launch vibration, cosmic radiation and vacuum cooling — the first in-orbit step toward solar-powered data centres in space.

Gravity Seems Holographic — What Does That Mean for Reality?

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Sep 25, 20261

Gravity Seems Holographic — What Does That Mean for Reality?

Quanta Magazine explores the holographic principle — the profound theoretical physics discovery that gravity allows the contents of a 3D volume to be fully encoded on a 2D surface. The finding challenges our understanding of space, reality, and the fundamental relationship between gravity and quantum mechanics.

Single photons confirm Feynman's path-integral postulates, 78 years on

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Sep 25, 20261

Single photons confirm Feynman's path-integral postulates, 78 years on

A team in Guangzhou measured the probability amplitudes of more than 1.4 million photon paths and found both postulates of Feynman's 1948 path-integral formulation hold, with fidelities above 94%.

Anthropic says its Claude agents found a CRISPR-like enzyme system; genome-mining veterans call it routine

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Sep 25, 20265

Anthropic says its Claude agents found a CRISPR-like enzyme system; genome-mining veterans call it routine

Anthropic says about 950 Claude agents spent 21 hours and 210 million tokens scanning a DNA database and flagged a previously uncharacterised system it calls ART, found mainly in bacteriophages. A CRISPR pioneer calls the preprint intriguing; a researcher who trained under Jennifer Doudna says genome mining is decades old and the system's function remains unknown.

Donald Duck's uncle was part rocket scientist: Ludwig von Drake turns 65

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Sep 25, 20262

Donald Duck's uncle was part rocket scientist: Ludwig von Drake turns 65

On September 24, 1961, Walt Disney introduced Professor Ludwig von Drake — Donald Duck's "brilliant and eccentric" uncle and the first character Disney created specifically for television. Per Ars Technica and collectSPACE, his name and character were shaped by the scientists Disney hired as consultants for his space programmes: Wernher von Braun, Heinz Haber and Willy Ley. The 1963 episode "Inside Outer Space" reused animation from the 1957 space episodes, and Walt Disney himself slipped up introducing the professor as "Wernher von …".

CDC opens state ordering for COVID-19 vaccines after unexplained delay

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Sep 25, 20261

CDC opens state ordering for COVID-19 vaccines after unexplained delay

Nearly a month after the FDA approved this season's COVID-19 shots, states can again order them through the Vaccines for Children program. US health officials still have not clearly explained why the ordering was held up.

New Classical Attack Forges RSA Signatures Without Factoring the Key

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Sep 25, 20261

New Classical Attack Forges RSA Signatures Without Factoring the Key

Researchers have discovered a new classical method to forge RSA digital signatures without factoring the private key — a mathematical attack that undermines one of the foundational assumptions of RSA cryptography.

DLR's WiValdi Research Wind Farm Gets a Third Turbine

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Sep 24, 20261

DLR's WiValdi Research Wind Farm Gets a Third Turbine

heise reports that DLR's WiValdi research wind farm is being expanded with a third turbine, adding capacity to test rotor, blade and control concepts under real-world conditions.

Faster Cryogenics System Cuts Quantum Computer Testing Time

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Sep 24, 20261

Faster Cryogenics System Cuts Quantum Computer Testing Time

A new cryogenics system dramatically reduces the time needed to cool and test quantum processors, potentially accelerating the development cycle for next-generation quantum computers by cutting a key bottleneck in hardware validation.

$Biology Isn't Quantum, but Its Math Keeps Looking Quantum$

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Sep 23, 20261

Biology Isn't Quantum, but Its Math Keeps Looking Quantum

Quanta Magazine examines the argument that quantum mechanics' mathematics — interfering amplitudes, non-commuting questions, Hilbert spaces — is the right language for biology even where nothing quantum is happening. The useful versions of the idea have to beat classical models, not just borrow their vocabulary.

SETI Turns to the Moon: A Hunt for Microscopic Alien Technology

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Sep 23, 20261

SETI Turns to the Moon: A Hunt for Microscopic Alien Technology

Instead of scanning the sky for signals, researchers are discussing a different approach: examining lunar soil and shadowed polar craters for microscopic traces of extraterrestrial technology, preserved for eons on an almost untouched surface.

Small Undersea Volcanoes Can Unleash Outsized Tsunamis

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Sep 23, 20261

Small Undersea Volcanoes Can Unleash Outsized Tsunamis

New research reported by Ars Technica suggests relatively small, shallow submarine volcanoes can drive tsunamis far larger than their size implies — a warning for coastlines that classic, earthquake-centred models may underestimate.