Two men flew between New York and London at three times the speed of sound. No
other aircraft has since been as fast as the Blackbird SR-71, explains crew
member Noel Widdifield
On 1 September 1974 two men made the fastest ever journey between New York and
London. The astonishing trip – at three times the speed of sound – took less
than two hours and set a record that still stands 50 years later.
Even the mighty Concorde, which set the record for the fastest commercial
transatlantic flight in 1996, straggled in almost an hour behind.
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Tag - Science
A writer with no technical background recounts his incredible journey into the
realm of coding and the invaluable lesson it taught him about the modern world
One day in 2017 I had a realisation that seems obvious now but had the power to
shock back then: almost everything I did was being mediated by computer code.
And as the trickle of code into my world became a flood, that world seemed to be
getting not better but worse in approximate proportion. I began to wonder why.
Two possibilities sprang immediately to mind. One was the people who wrote the
code – coders – long depicted in pop culture as a clan of vaguely comic,
Tolkien-worshipping misfits. Another was the uber-capitalist system within which
many worked, exemplified by the profoundly weird Silicon Valley. Were one or
both using code to recast the human environment as something more amenable to
them?
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In isolation, Alexander Grothendieck seemed to have lost touch with reality, but
some say his metaphysical theories could contain wonders
One day in September 2014, in a hamlet in the French Pyrenean foothills,
Jean-Claude, a landscape gardener in his late 50s, was surprised to see his
neighbour at the gate. He hadn’t spoken to the 86-year-old in nearly 15 years
after a dispute over a climbing rose that Jean-Claude had wanted to prune. The
old man lived in total seclusion, tending to his garden in the djellaba he
always wore, writing by night, heeding no one. Now, the long-bearded seeker
looked troubled.
“Would you do me a favour?” he asked Jean-Claude.
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As multinationals and researchers harvest rare organisms around the world, anger
is rising in the global south over the unpaid use of lucrative genetic codes
found on their land
Even in the warm summer sun, the stagnant puddles and harsh rock faces of
Ribblehead quarry in North Yorkshire feel like an unlikely frontier of the AI
industrial revolution. Standing next to a waterfall that bursts out from the
fractured rock, Bupe Mwambingu reaches into the green sludge behind the cascade
and emerges with fistful of algae.
Balancing precariously on the rocks, the researcher passes the dripping mass to
her colleague Emma Bolton, who notes their GPS coordinates and the acidity,
temperature and light exposure on a phone app.
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Exclusive: Some fellows fear tech billionaire could bring institution into
disrepute with incendiary comments
The Royal Society is facing calls to expel Elon Musk from its fellowship over
concerns about the tech billionaire’s conduct.
The Guardian understands Musk, who owns the social media site X, was elected as
a fellow of the UK’s national academy of sciences in 2018 in recognition of his
work and impact in the space and electric vehicle industries, with some
considering him a “modern Brunel”.
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Researchers say their creation has memory, which it can use to perform better by
gaining experience
Researchers have found a soft and squidgy water-rich gel is not only able to
play the video game Pong, but gets better at it over time.
The findings come almost two years after brain cells in a dish were taught how
to play the 1970s classic, a result the researchers involved said showed
“something that resembles intelligence”.
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Brain implants to treat epilepsy, arthritis, or even incontinence? They may be closer than you think
Startups around the world are engaging in clinical trials in a sector that could
change lives – and be worth more than £15bn by the 2030s
Oran Knowlson, a British teenager with a severe type of epilepsy called
Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, became the first person in the world to trial a new
brain implant last October, with phenomenal results – his daytime seizures were
reduced by 80%.
“It’s had a huge impact on his life and has prevented him from having the falls
and injuring himself that he was having before,” says Martin Tisdall, a
consultant paediatric neurosurgeon at Great Ormond Street Hospital (Gosh) in
London, who implanted the device. “His mother was talking about how he’s had
such a improvement in his quality of life, but also in his cognition: he’s more
alert and more engaged.”
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Jools Lebron has become TikTok’s satirical Emily Post, with etiquette for
everything from job interviews to drag shows
Rest in peace, brat summer. There’s a new buzzword-slash-ethos hitting TikTok,
and it’s basically the opposite of Charli xcx’s party-girl character. Now, it’s
all about being demure.
At least, that’s according to Jools Lebron, the content creator behind the
catchphrase, who advises her followers on how to come off as “very demure, very
mindful” in various life situations.
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The 35-nation Iter project has a groundbreaking aim to create clean and
limitless energy but it is turning into the ‘most delayed and cost-inflated
science project in history’
It was a project that promised the sun. Researchers would use the world’s most
advanced technology to design a machine that could generate atomic fusion, the
process that drives the stars – and so create a source of cheap, non-polluting
power.
That was initially the aim of the International Thermonuclear Experimental
Reactor (Iter) which 35 countries – including European states, China, Russia and
the US – agreed to build at Saint-Paul-lez-Durance in southern France at a
starting cost of $6bn. Work began in 2010, with a commitment that there would be
energy-producing reactions by 2020.
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Science secretary backs five quantum technology hubs in push for UK to transform
healthcare and industry
Britain’s plans to create advanced devices based on the mind-bending physics of
the quantum world have received a £100m boost, in a move ministers hope will
have a transformative impact on healthcare, transport and national security.
Peter Kyle, the science secretary has announced funds to establish five quantum
technology hubs across England and Scotland. They will work with industry and
government to develop and commercialise devices and ultimately drive a new
economy.
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