Most years, skywatchers have to wait patiently for different celestial events to arrive one at a time. An eclipse might dominate one month, while a meteor shower steals attention weeks later. This August, however, the calendar has produced a rare overlap. On 12 August 2026, a solar eclipse will unfold across parts of the Northern…
The Cambridge team behind the living algae-powered bio-battery: Lucia Giron, Dr Paolo Bombelli and Professor Chris Howe. Researchers at the University of Cambridge have developed a living bio-battery that generates electricity continuously using photosynthetic algae, offering a potential alternative to millions of disposable batteries used in everyday electronics. Unlike conventional batteries that gradually run out…
For decades, scientists believed the world’s tallest trees faced a fundamental disadvantage during drought. The higher a tree grows, the harder gravity makes it for water to travel from the roots to the leaves, leading researchers to assume that towering rainforest giants would be especially vulnerable as the climate becomes hotter and drier. A new…
Australia’s renewable energy boom has reached a remarkable milestone. The country now generates so much electricity from rooftop solar panels that, during the middle of the day, wholesale power prices frequently fall to zero or even below zero. Instead of allowing surplus electricity to go to waste, eligible households in parts of Australia can now…
Football has a habit of borrowing the language of space. Players become stars, matches are described as astronomical, and careers are measured by how brightly they shine. Every so often, though, the comparison drifts into something more literal. More than a decade ago, astronomers studying one of the earliest known galaxies in the universe chose…
Archaeologists have deciphered a 1,700-year-old inscription at an ancient Roman temple in Turkey that offers rare written evidence of the shift from Mithraism to Christianity during the Roman period.The inscription was found at an underground Temple of Mithras inside Zerzevan Castle, a Roman fortification about 40 miles from the Syrian border. It was written in…
Picture credit: True Anomaly For decades, space battles have belonged to the world of Star Wars and science fiction. But as more satellites fill Earth’s orbit, military powers are now preparing for a future where satellites may have to track, approach and respond to rival spacecraft in orbit.That idea moved a step closer to reality…
Carl Jung (Image: Wikipedia) Carl Jung is widely credited with this line: “The first half of life is devoted to forming a healthy ego, the second half is going inward and letting go of it.” It splits a human life into two very different jobs. In your younger years, the task is building a self,…
Quote of the day by John Locke (AI-generated image) You cannot know something you have never actually encountered in some form. That is the whole idea behind John Locke’s line, “No man’s knowledge here can go beyond his experience.” He wrote it in 1689, in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, while arguing against the idea…
Among the many industries that China and the USA are competing in, space is a rising battleground. The two countries that have tried their best to form a bond in trade and truth but remain contentious in spirit. China is rapidly advancing its lunar exploration program and is expected to eventually send taikonauts to the…
Artificial intelligence is driving an unprecedented surge in demand for computing power. Still, the data centres behind today’s most advanced AI models face a growing challenge: keeping millions of processors cool without consuming vast amounts of energy and water. On Earth, cooling systems can account for a significant share of a facility’s electricity use while…
For many people, the Milky Way is something they have seen only in photographs. Under most urban skies, the galaxy’s faint glow is washed out by artificial light, leaving only the brightest stars visible overhead. Yet there are a few nights each month when conditions become much more favourable, and July offers one of those…
