In the battle to build the world’s first useful quantum computers, one company has taken an entirely different approach to the other frontrunners. The conventional approach is to gradually increase the size and power of these devices and test as you go. But PsiQuantum, a startup based in Palo Alto, California, is gambling on the opposite approach. The company is investing heavily in quantum technologies that are compatible with chip-making fabrication plants that already exist. By using these ...read more

If you’re concerned about getting back to or maintaining a healthy weight, the world is full of companies who are happy to lighten your wallet, at least, by selling you miracle drugs and supplements that they promise will help curb appetite, reduce fat, and cut weight. Unfortunately, far too many weight-loss aids and supplements are heavy on hype and light on evidence. That only adds to the frustration of people struggling with their weight — of whom there are many. According to the Centers ...read more

Pop culture often associates “cave men” with meat eaters. So researchers investigating people who lived in a Moroccan cave 13,000 years to 15,000 years ago were somewhat surprised to find the extent to which they relied on a plant-based diet, according to a report in Nature Ecology & Evolution.The findings may move up the time when agriculture became favored over hunting and gathering — or at least provide a clearer picture of the transition. “Our findings not only provide insights i ...read more

Cicadas emerging in 2024 are part of a historic double brood. Both 13-year and 17-year-old cicada broods are uprising simultaneously. An event like this happens once every 221 years and double broods like the ones emerging in the spring have not been seen since 1803. But 13-year and 17-year-old broods emerging in the same year do happen every 5 to 6 years — just not at the same time as this year’s cicadas. As the cicadas emerge as nymphs and later molt into winged cicadas, they will do a var ...read more

The story has been told many times. At the beginning of the 20th century, physics seemed essentially solved. One or two puzzling phenomena like the photoelectric effect and concerns over black body radiation had scientists scratching their heads but a general feeling prevailed that solving these issues would be dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s.In the event, these seemingly minor problems required an entire revolution for the laws of physics. And the result — quantum theory and relativi ...read more

Many people with pets can relate — on sick days, their dog or cat seems to know something is wrong. More so, they refuse to leave their side. They follow them from the bed to the couch and back again.When pets keep close to their ailing humans, researchers have found it is possible to pass on the pathogen. Although scientists typically focus on animal-borne diseases that spread to humans (like the Avian flu), researchers are increasingly considering how diseases can spread in the reverse.Scien ...read more

An international team of scientists released a sort of brain cell audit that counters last year’s controversial claims of high Tyrannosaurus Rex intelligence. A 2023 Journal of Comparative Neurology report calculated that the dinosaur's brain held over 3 billion neurons. A new paper in The Anatomical Record calls that an over-estimation.That 2023 study put T. rex’s intelligence potentially on par with monkeys and suggested the dinosaurs could perhaps use tools and teach social behaviors to t ...read more

There’s nothing worse than a trip to the outhouse in cold weather. But for Arctic bumblebees, potty breaks outside their regular burrow cavities may help keep their living space relatively clean and orderly.“A lot of social insects have this kind of behavior,” says Hailey Scofield, director of climate change mitigation at Kawerak, a nonprofit organization serving tribes in eastern Alaska.In a study published recently in Ecosphere, Scofield and her colleague Leah Valdes, a Ph.D. student in ...read more

In 1894, French immunologist Albert Calmette produced the first successful antivenom by injecting horses with small doses of Indian cobra venom, then harvesting their antibodies. For 130 years afterwards, these life-saving concoctions — along with their considerable defects — have remained fundamentally the same. Each one works only against a single species, making treatment tricky if you can’t identify the snake that bit you. Plus, because they originate in animals, the foreign antibodies ...read more

A critical NASA mission in the search for life beyond Earth, Mars Sample Return, is in trouble. Its budget has ballooned from US$5 billion to over $11 billion, and the sample return date may slip from the end of this decade to 2040.The mission would be the first to try to return rock samples from Mars to Earth so scientists can analyze them for signs of past life.NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said during a press conference on April 15, 2024, that the mission as currently conceived is too expens ...read more