Even walls can evolve. A survey of the oldest section of the Great Wall of China not only bumps back its age by 300 years but shows waves of architectural innovations. The oldest section is in the Changqing District, Jinan, Shandong Province and is sometimes called the Great Wall of Qi.Revisiting the Great WallThe survey, conducted last year by the Shandong Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, employed a host of tools to investigate the wall’s origins. They sampled soil fro ...read more

Freelance software engineering is a lucrative and dynamic field where skilled developers tackle diverse challenges, from bug fixes to full-stack feature development. In recent years, these workers have been among the first to incorporate AI systems into their workflow to help write code. That raises an interesting question: could an AI system do the same job by itself? In other words, have software engineers effectively developed themselves out of their own jobs?Now we get an answer of sorts tha ...read more

Explorers have long trusted compasses to navigate Earth’s land and oceans, using our planet’s global magnetic field as their guide. But what happens when you take a compass beyond Earth — into orbit, to the Moon, to other planets, or even beyond our solar system? Would it still point north, or would it aimlessly spin in the absence of a dominant magnetic field? The answer depends on where you are in the cosmos and what other magnetic fields are at play.On Earth, a compass needle aligns wit ...read more

An experimental Microsoft computer chip under development will deliver a one-two tech punch, according to the company.The first blow is a statement that Microsoft scientists have developed the first-ever quantum-computing chip in its class. This form of computing could theoretically make, ahem, quantum leaps in both speed and number of calculations a computer could perform simultaneously.The physics that theoretically would power such a chip is hard to understand — even for some physicists.“ ...read more

Feelings of exclusion aren’t all that fun. And they aren’t all that unusual, either, at least not for narcissists. According to a new study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, narcissists are more likely to feel left out than non-narcissists, partially due to their actual exclusion and partially due to their perceived exclusion.“Feeling ostracized is a subjective experience based on the perception of social cues by the individual,” said Christiane Büttner, a study autho ...read more

In a hopeful step for medicine, a 2-and-a-half-year-old child born with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) has shown no symptoms of the genetic condition, all thanks to a gene-targeting drug that the mother took during late pregnancy.A new study details this breakthrough case of prenatal therapy that holds promise for future treatment of the neurodegenerative disorder, which leads to the wasting of muscles over time and is usually diagnosed in infancy or early childhood. Prenatal Treatment for Spina ...read more

Health officials have identified a new variant of monkeypox (mpox) and are concerned about changes in its transmission.In a study published in Nature Medicine, a team of international researchers from across six different countries are warning that the newly-discovered mpox variant has mutated and that these mutations have concerning implications for human populations in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and beyond. Increase in InfectionOne of the major concerns about the new mpox variant ...read more

Archaeologists have unearthed King Thutmose II’s tomb — the most significant Egyptian discovery since King Tut’s resting place was found in 1922.A team of British and Egyptian archaeologists located the burial place west of Luxor’s “Valley of the Kings,” according to Egyptian officials. Thutmose II was a member of King Tut's complicated family tree. The find fills in a major gap; it represents the last missing tomb of 18th Dynasty Egyptian royalty.“This is the first time funerary f ...read more

If you’ve ever been in labor, or know someone who has, you’ve heard of an epidural. The term is an adjective that has also become a noun, describing one of the most common analgesic procedures available in modern medicine. But epidurals are used widely and effectively outside of the delivery room as well. Decades of practice, refinement of the tools and drugs used in the procedure, and significant amounts of research have shown epidurals to be a safe and effective way of easing severe pain a ...read more

The song “Little Fluffy Clouds” was a breakout hit during the dawn of techno music. Turns out, it may also be an apt description of stellar nurseries — the birthplace of stars.These nurseries contain high concentrations of gas and dust and are also called molecular clouds. A study now provides evidence that some stars may have been born from some fluffy versions of these clouds in the early years of our universe, they report in The Astrophysical Journal.“Even today our understanding of s ...read more