List of All Articles with Tag 'science and tech'

It feels like there have been staggering science stories emerging every other day recently, all of which have blown our tiny little minds. First, there was the discovery of a terrifying black hole pointing right at us, then there was a huge hole found in the sun and a missing continent found after going missing for 375 years. Now, people are only just realising that there’s a massive ocean hidden under the Earth’s crust. It turns out there’s a huge supply of water 400 miles underground stored in rock known as 'ringwoodite'. Sign up to our new free Indy100 weekly newsletter Scientists previously discovered that water is stored inside mantle rock in a sponge-like state, which isn’t a liquid, solid or a gas, but instead a fourth state. The scientific paper titled ‘Dehydration melting at the top of the lower mantle’ was published in 2014 and laid out the findings. "The ringwoodite is like a sponge, soaking up water, there is something very special about the crystal structure of ringwoodite that allows it to attract hydrogen and trap water," said geophysicist Steve Jacobsen at the time. "This mineral can contain a lot of water under conditions of the deep mantle,” added Jacobsen, who was part of the team behind the discovery. He added: "I think we are finally seeing evidence for a whole-Earth water cycle, which may help explain the vast amount of liquid water on the surface of our habitable planet. Scientists have been looking for this missing deep water for decades." Scientists made the findings at the time after studying earthquakes and discovering that seismometers were picking up shockwaves under the surface of the Earth. From that, they were able to establish that the water was being held in the rock known as ringwoodite. If the rock contained just 1 per cent water, it would mean that there is three times more water under the surface of the Earth than there is in the oceans on the surface. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

When Tesla revealed its Cybertruck in 2019, it didn’t go so well. The supposedly bulletproof windows were smashed when hit by a metal ball, much to the embarrassment of chief executive Elon Musk. Now, the electric car company is nearing the point when it starts shipping the product – which it says is new and improved – but people still aren’t particularly impressed. Musk has said deliveries can be expected at the end of this year, with mass production set to begin in 2024. And during the firm’s latest earnings update this week, it gave a fresh sneak peak of the highly anticipated truck driving through a desert. But eagle eyed observers have already noticed a problem: the wiper doesn't cover the whole windscreen. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter The Tesla Cybertruck Is Officially HERE! www.youtube.com In the video, the Cybertruck’s enormous glass windscreen has been covered in muddy water, some of which is pushed away by the long, singular wiper. But the passenger’s side is still completely covered in mud. For $40,000 dollars, which is the Cybertruck’s expected cost, it’s probably safe to say you’d be disappointed. Meanwhile, the wiper also rests upright on the side of the windscreen, unlike most cars where it sits horizontally next to the bonnet. Tesla’s design chief Franz von Holzhause also shared a picture of him standing in front of a dust-covered Cybertruck at a construction site in Texas earlier this year, and the top part of the passenger side was again untouched by the wiper. Watch the Tesla Cybertruck's Windows Get Smashed www.youtube.com People took to Twitter to criticise the design. One person said: “Am I the only one who thinks that Tesla Cybertruck Windshield Wiper needs to be better? They can put two wipers, one on each side, just like it is now or at the bottom like a traditional one.” “They can even put a pushing motion on the one they have to get more coverage.” Another person added: “I can only imagine the visibility from inside this tin can is horrible.” Even Musk is aware of the issue. He told Fox News earlier this year: “The wiper is what troubles me most.” And on Twitter, he said there's “no easy solution” to the massive windshield, saying: “Deployable wiper that stows in front trunk would be ideal, but complex.” That said, at least there’s a wiper now. The famous 2019 version didn’t even have one. Keep plugging away, Tesla galaxy brains. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

A UFO hunter claims there is a huge spaceship hidden beneath one of the world’s major landmarks because it is “too big to move”. Ross Coulthart, an investigative journalist and UFO expert, said a “non-human” spacecraft is being stashed beneath a purpose-built structure – though he won't tell us where it is. Speaking in an interview, he said: “Some of these objects are not capable of being moved because they’re too bloody big.” Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter “I know exactly where it is. I thought it was b*****ks when I heard it, too.” Coulthart was previously a reporter on the news and current affairs program 60 Minutes on Channel Nine in Australia and has since gone on to write a number of books including In Plain Sight: An investigation into UFOs and Impossible Science. The UFO hunter community’s response to his claims has been a mixture of disbelief and desperation to find out where the landmark is. Some people seem to think it’s in South Korea, while others think it’s likely to be in an air defence military base. Coulthart has already made headlines this year after interviewing a whistleblower, who claimed that the US military had several crashed spacecraft in its possession, along with alien bodies. The Pentagon has said it hasn't discovered any information to substantiate this claim – but Congress is taking it seriously. In a twist that would have made even fans of The X Files raise an eyebrow, the Congressional House Oversight Committee is to hold a hearing on the issue next week after Republican congressmen and women promised to look deeper into the issue. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was asked on Monday if he believes in aliens, in light of the hearing. "I will continue to see," McCarthy said. "But I think if we had found a UFO, I think the Department of Defense would tell us because they would probably want to request more money." "I'd love to see whatever facts and information we have," McCarthy added. "I'm very supportive of letting the American people see what we have, where we go." Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

A Republican Congresswoman has shared an image of what appears to be a Batman balloon, claiming that it is an unidentified flying object, ahead of a debate on UFOs in Washington next week. Anna Paulina Luna tweeted about the material she has gathered for the House Oversight UFO hearing, consisting of pictures of several alleged sightings. But a number of Twitter users questioned the credibility of one of the images that shows an object in the air shaped like Batman’s face, leading to speculation that officials have confused a party balloon for a UFO. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter “The military ‘leaked’ a photo of a Batman party balloon and claimed it was a UFO. That seriously made me doubt their ability to analyze anything,” said one person. Another said: “My father was a pilot for 20 years, they make mistakes all the time. I just showed you a picture of when a fighter pilot confused a Batman party balloon for a UFO that had no signs of propulsion.” But, one user who believes it is a UFO, said: “I think there is a massive difference between a hot air balloon and a Batman balloon you buy at Dollar Tree for $4.99 and I am pretty sure you know that! Pilots are not mistaking a Batman balloon as a UFO & the balloon ain’t making it to 25-30 thousand feet” “The pic with a blue background near the center is definitely a UFO and not just a party balloon,” argued another. The debate around UFOs is gaining pace in the US. The House Oversight Committee will hold a hearing on the issue next week after Republican congressmen and women promised to look deeper into the issue. It comes after unconfirmed claims from a former intelligence official that the US military had found crashed alien spacecraft. The Pentagon has said it hasn't discovered any information to substantiate this claim. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was asked on Monday if he believes in aliens, in light of the hearing. "I will continue to see," McCarthy said. "But I think if we had found a UFO, I think the Department of Defense would tell us because they would probably want to request more money." "I'd love to see whatever facts and information we have," McCarthy added. "I'm very supportive of letting the American people see what we have, where we go." Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Researchers have revealed where in the UK has the most crop circles, in a significant victory for fans of chasing potential alien hotspots. The mysterious crop circle phenomenon is often attributed to unidentified flying object landings or other paranormal forces, with wannabe alien hunters travelling from far and wide to study the markings when they appear. According to Bonusfinder and ukcropcircles.co.uk, the southwestern county of Wiltshire has seen by far the most crop circles since 2005, with a whopping 380 instances of the strange event. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Hampshire was a distant second, with just 51 crop circles in the same period, followed by Oxfordshire with 35 crop circles. Monique Klinkenbergh, researcher and founder of the Crop Circle Visitor Centre and Exhibition, said the county’s sprawling landscape and relatively undisturbed countryside could be part of the reason for the flurry of potential extraterrestrial activity. “Crop circles seem to be attracted by ancient sites such as stone circles, long barrows, hill forts and other archaeological sites, for which Wiltshire is famous,” she said. “We have had so many different designs appearing, from small simple circles and ‘pictograms’ to extremely intricate and large patterns, sometimes with a very detailed and complex lay [the way the plants are flattened] on the ground. “Some crop circle patterns are familiar in design, suggesting they belong to a certain ‘school’ or ‘family-type’, such as Mathematical, Forms of Life, Religious, Astronomical, Codes and Mythology.” Klinkenbergh said invisible “Earth energies” are believed by some to run through ancient landmarks. That could be why the home of Stonehenge has so many crop circles, she said. However, she admitted that another far more mundane explanation could be at the heart of it: that they are manmade. Who would’ve thought it, eh? Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

We talk about climate change and the devastating effects of greenhouse gases on a daily basis, yet many of us have never heard of Eunice Newton Foote. The American scientist was the first person to realise the alarming impact of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, all the way back in 1856. So, to mark what would have been her 204th birthday, Google has dedicated today’s Doodle to the environmental pioneer. Head to the search engine and you’ll find an 11-part slideshow explaining Foote’s most significant work. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter It goes on to point out that her research was largely ignored for almost 100 years, and credits her with being the first person to “plant a seed of interest in the issue of climate change”. And for anyone wondering, her surname is no coincidence: her father was allegedly a distant relative of Sir Isaac Newton. In a blurb to its Doodle, Google points out that whilst science was Foote’s lifelong passion, she also dedicated time to campaigning for women’s rights. In 1848, she attended the first Woman’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York State and became the fifth signatory of the Declaration of Sentiments — which demanded equality for women in social and legal status. Back then, women were largely shunned from the scientific community, but this didn’t stop Foote from conducting experiments on her own. After placing mercury thermometers in glass cylinders, she noticed that the cylinder containing carbon dioxide heated up the most and took the longest to cool down. As a result, she became the first scientist to draw a connection between rising CO2 levels and the warming of the atmosphere. After publishing her findings, Foote wrote a second paper on atmospheric static electricity for the journal ‘Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science’. These were the first two physics studies to be published by a woman in the US, as Google notes. In 1856, a male scientist presented her work at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. This then lead to further experiments which uncovered what is now known as the Greenhouse effect. And whilst none of us relish the fact this phenomenon exists, we should be eternally grateful to Foote for flagging it to us, all those years ago. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

If you’re anything like us, the first coffee of the day is the only thing that can get us up on a morning – and it turns out, there’s real science behind it. Everyone knows that coffee can give us a welcome caffeine hit, but it’s now been revealed that the drink also gives us an extra ‘special boost’ too. Scientists have claimed that the act of drinking a cup of joe gives the body a lift, making us more alert, which can’t be replicated merely with caffeine. In fact, new research shows that drinking hot coffee activates additional areas of the brain. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Scientists from the University of Minho in Portugal and elsewhere looked into the effects of coffee outside of just caffeine content as part of a study – and they found that plain caffeine didn’t have the same impact. In fact, a cup of coffee also influenced working memory and goal-directed behaviour. “There is a common expectation that coffee increases alertness and psychomotor functioning. When you get to understand better the mechanisms underlying a biological phenomenon, you open pathways for exploring the factors that may modulate it and even the potential benefits of that mechanism,” study co-author Nuno Sousa explained. Experts said that drinking coffee actually increased the connectivity in the brain’s more advanced nerve network controlling vision, and other parts involved in working memory, cognitive control and goal-directed behaviour – something not found when participants only took caffeine. Researchers also said that if subjects wanted to not just feel alert but ready to go, caffeine alone might not do the job. “Acute coffee consumption decreased the functional connectivity between brain regions of the default mode network, a network that is associated with self-referential processes when participants are at rest,” study co-author Maria Picó-Pérez said. “The subjects were more ready for action and alert to external stimuli after having coffee,” she added. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Back in the day, it’s said that people looked a lot older earlier in life than they do now. As it turns out, there’s a few reasons why. A video essay exploring the phenomenon from Vsauce posits a few explanations why we notice people looking older at a younger age in old footage and photographs. For one, the improvements in standards of living and advancements in healthcare over the years offer an obvious factor. There’s also subconscious bias surrounding fashions from years gone by and their connection with older generations. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter However, a study from 2018 also explored how biological ageing has changed in a short space of time. Did People Used To Look Older? www.youtube.com It found that human beings are actually biologically “younger” now than ever when it comes to changes in things like blood pressure – so there’s an actual physical difference between the generations that explains why people looked older sooner back in the day. The study explained that this is down to factors such as a fall in smoking, reading: "Over the past 20 years, the biological age of the U.S. population seems to have decreased for males and females across the age range. "However, the degree of change has not been the same for men and women or by age. Our results showed that young males experienced greater improvements than young females. This finding may explain why early adult mortality has decreased more for males than females, contributing to a narrowing of the gender mortality gap. Additionally, improvements were also larger for older adults than they were for younger adults." Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

The floor of Crawford Lake in Ontario acts like a storybook, preserving Earth’s recent history in chronological order. Crawford Lake reveals the activities of local Iroquoian communities from the late 13th to 15th centuries, all the way through to the present day. This is because Crawford Lake is a meromictic lake, meaning that the dense bottom layer of water does not mix with the less dense upper layers. “The isolated bottom layer of water remains under disturbed, enabling the accumulation of clearly laminated valves which record precise information about the time during which they were deposited,” according to the Anthropocene Working Group. Experts have nominated Crawford Lake as representation for the start of the Anthropocene epoch, a proposed new geological era characterised by significant changes to the planet’s surface as a result of human behaviour. The Anthropocene is yet to be officially accepted as a unit of geologic time, but in 2016 a working group under the guidance of an International Commission on Stratigraphy subcommittee agreed that human behaviour has left scars so deep that they will remain evident even into the distant future. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter One of the most notable markers of the Anthropocene is the appearance of plutonium, a radioactive material that appeared in the mid-20th century as a result of hydrogen bomb tests. “The presence of plutonium gives us a stark indicator of when humanity became such a dominant force that it could leave a unique global ‘fingerprint’ on our planet,” explained Professor Andrew Cundy, Chair in Environmental Radiochemistry at the University of Southampton and member of the Anthropocene Working Group. “In nature, plutonium is only present in trace amounts. But in the early-1950s, when the first hydrogen bomb tests took place, we see an unprecedented increase and then spike in the levels of plutonium in core samples from around the world. We then see a decline in plutonium from the mid-1960s onwards when the Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty came into effect.” Agreeing on a simple measure that defines the boundary between chapters in Earth’s history is just the first step. This measure requires agreement among scientists on a single location to define the boundaries. Known as the Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point, or a golden spike, plays a crucial role in standardising these borders between epochs. The Anthropocene Working Group has been evaluating potential golden spike sites, from Oued Akrech, Morocco, to Alano di Piave, Italy. After spending three years assessing the qualities of a dozen potential golden spikes for the Anthropocene, finally the AGW has landed on Crawford Lake. “Crawford Lake is so special because it allows us to see at annual resolution the changes in Earth history throughout two separate periods of human impact on this small lake,” micropalaeontologist Francine McCarthy of Brock University in Canada, a voting member of the AGW, said at a press briefing. The lake’s unique properties, such as its small size, depth, and lack of water mixing create sediments that precisely record environmental changes over the past millennia. To officially establish the Anthropocene in the International Chronostratigraphic Chart, the golden spike at Crawford Lake must undergo a series of voting by various commissions and unions. If successful, it will mark the moment when human activities permanently altered the planet. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

If ever anyone needs proof that aliens exist, they need only turn to the bottom of the sea. No, we’re not talking about fragments of interstellar meteors or spacecraft, we’re not even talking about mysterious mermaids, we’re talking about the extraordinary creatures that lurk in the depths of our oceans. One of these incredible beasts has been captured on film, swimming more than 3,700ft (1,128m) below the surface of the Indian Ocean. What makes this “alien” so special is not just the fact it’s able to live so far beneath the waves, but the fact it can transform its appearance entirely in just the blink of an eye. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter The jaw-dropping metamorphosis was recorded thanks to a remotely operated vehicle (ROV), which was exploring the sea off the East coast of Africa. In the clip, the creature – which looks more like a strange logo than a living being – can be seen floating serenely in the water. Then suddenly, 40 seconds into the video, it seems to shrink into a small black dot. On closer inspection, it’s clear that this isn’t a black dot but a jet-black jelly, decked out with streams of pulsating, technicoloured lights. The video was posted to YouTube by the user CaptainJRD back in 2013. In a caption, he explained that it was taken “at a depth of 3753 ft in the Indian Ocean within close proximity to a drill wellhead. “Near the end of the footage you can see the creature getting caught up in the output from the ROV thrusters. The video has not been altered,” he added. Alien looking creature transforming near Ocean floor at over 3700 feet.Video from ROV www.youtube.com The recording has been watched more than 5.8 million times, with viewers agreeing that it was the most “alien-looking creature” they’d ever seen. “If this isn’t one of the coolest things ever, I’m not sure what is,” one wrote. “Is no one gonna talk about how it looked like a disco ball after it transformed? This is an amazing discovery,” commented another. “This is why I never go more than 1000 ft underwater when I go to the beach,” joked a third. And a fourth added: “I’m a strong believer that everything deep deep down in the ocean looks like an alien. I also bet that there’s a lot of crazy species we’ve never seen before, hell I wouldn’t be that surprised if a 900 million-year-old dinosaur dwells at the bottom of the ocean.” Meanwhile, other commentators were quick to identify the creature, with most agreeing that it was a unique form of comb jelly. “For those wondering, this is a Bloodbelly Comb Jelly also called Lampocteis. Really beautiful creatures,” one wrote. Viewers also shared their dismay at what became of the stunning beast. Watch till the end of the video and you’ll see that no sooner does it execute its glorious transformation than it is brutally torn apart, apparently by a valve on the wellhead. “I became absolutely mesmerized. It was one of the most beautiful creatures I've ever seen, and then it suddenly just got ripped apart,” one commented. Hailing it as a “powerful video” another lamented: “The camera catches the most amazing, beautiful creature never seen before, just to see it torn to shreds by the oil blowout valve. “So very sad and also fitting for what we do to nature every second, everywhere on Earth.” Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

A mysterious new set of stars has been detected by Nasa’s James Webb Space Telescope, which could shed new light on dark matter. Dark matter remains one of the most hotly debated elements in our solar system, and the new objects could change the way it is studied. Scientists believe the huge, newly-discovered stars are powered by illusive dark matter and shared their findings in the journal PNAS. “Discovering a new type of star is pretty interesting all by itself, but discovering it’s dark matter that’s powering this – that would be huge,” said study co-author Katherine Freese from The University of Texas in Austin. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter The dark stars, known as JADES-GS-z13-0, JADES-GS-z12-0 and JADES-GS-z11-0 – were first identified as galaxies last December. It’s thought that they existed about 320-400 million years after the Big Bang, making them some of the earliest objects ever seen. The nature of dark matter continues to fascinate and mystify the scientific community. It’s believed that it could be formed by a new type of undiscovered particle, and the theorised component of the universe does not absorb, reflect or emit light. It’s also thought that suspected dark stars like these could explain a potential anomaly surrounding the number of large galaxies in the early universe. Currently, there are too many to fit the predictions of the theories surrounding the origins and the future of the universe. “It’s more likely that something within the standard model [of cosmology] needs tuning, because proposing something entirely new, as we did, is always less probable,” Dr Freese said. “But if some of these objects that look like early galaxies are actually dark stars, the simulations of galaxy formation agree better with observations,” she explained. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Since Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, many controversial users who were previously banned from the platform have been allowed back on and are flourishing. Users such as Andrew Tate have regained a platform to spout his harmful views to millions of users. But, while it may feel satisfying to troll such users, engaging with their tweets actually earns them money. Here’s why: Twitter recently announced it was paying out thousands of dollars in advertising revenue to users to “benefit” from their high engagement on tweets, earning more money the higher their engagement is. As part of Twitter’s Ad Revenue sharing program, users require “5M+ Tweet impressions in each month for the last 3 months”. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter On Thursday (13 July), some eligible users began receiving notifications of how much money they would receive. The highest earner, Dogecoin co-founder Billy Markus, known online as Shibetoshi Nakamoto, earned $37,050. Tate also revealed in a tweet that he earned $20,379 from ad revenue generated in the reply threads under his posts. The money comes from the ad revenue generated in their replies below the content they post on the platform, and is paid out via the Stripe account that the user registered for creator subscriptions with. Twitter staffer, Patrick Traughber, said: “Excited to start sending our first payments to creators for ads revenue sharing today. “Creators are the lifeblood of this platform, and it's great to see so many creators I follow getting paid today. The program will be expanding soon—more to come!” The cash payouts come just a week after Meta launched its rival text-based platform, Threads. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.