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Smart News / Smart News Ideas & Innovations

A rendering of a Sunbird rocket detaching from its station to dock onto an approaching spacecraft.

Fusion Rockets Could Theoretically Cut Our Travel Time to Mars in Half. This U.K. Startup Wants to Give It a Try

The company’s ambitious new Sunbird design aims to harness nuclear fusion in space, despite the fact that commercializing such energy on Earth remains a faraway dream

The far side of the moon—seen here, captured by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter—could be much drier than expected.

The Moon’s Far Side Is Strangely Dry—Lunar Samples Suggest It’s Much More Parched Than the Side That Faces Earth

Chinese researchers analyzed the first-ever soil samples returned from the far side of the moon, but further samples will be needed to verify their findings

Matteo Paz with Caltech President Thomas F. Rosenbaum after winning the Regeneron Science Talent Search award.

High School Student Discovers 1.5 Million Potential New Astronomical Objects by Developing an A.I. Algorithm

The 18-year-old won $250,000 for training a machine learning model to analyze understudied data from NASA’s retired NEOWISE telescope

In hopes that they could control destructive cane beetles, people introduced cane toads to Australia in 1935. Instead, the amphibian's population exploded, and today, cane toads number roughly 200 million.

Scientists Create Gene-Edited ‘Peter Pan’ Tadpoles That Could Control Invasive Cane Toads Through Cannibalism

To combat one of Australia’s most troublesome species, researchers are developing hungry tadpoles that never grow up

Biomass will monitor the Earth's tropical forests over the next five years.

A New Satellite Will Map the Carbon Content of Rainforests From Space, and It’s Set to Launch This Month

The European Space Agency’s new probe, Biomass, will spend five years orbiting the planet and gathering radar imagery of forests across multiple continents

A subset of more than 1,000 neurons, representing just a snapshot of the complexity mapped within a cubic millimeter of mouse brain tissue

In a World First, Researchers Mapped Part of a Mouse’s Brain in Incredible Detail. It’s a Leap Forward for Neuroscience

The 3D brain map includes more than 200,000 cells, 523 million synapses and over two miles of axons, representing the most detailed wiring diagram of a piece of mammal brain ever constructed

A cup of pour-over coffee is prepared by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania.

Here’s the Secret to Making the Perfect Cup of Pour-Over Coffee, According to Physicists

By adjusting the pouring technique and height, the new method could use 10 percent fewer coffee grounds without compromising on strength or flavor

Romulus and Remus, pups that the company Colossal Biosciences says are the first dire wolves to roam the planet in several thousand years, are seen at one month old.

Have Dire Wolves, Which Went Extinct More Than 10,000 Years Ago, Really Been Brought Back to Life?

Pioneers in the science of “de-extinction,” an American company has announced the births of three pups whose genes resemble those of a species that hasn’t roamed Earth for millennia

A new, temporary pacemaker is smaller than a grain of rice.

Researchers Develop the World’s Smallest Pacemaker, and It Could Be Revolutionary for Newborn Babies With Heart Defects

The new device is smaller than a grain of rice and gets absorbed by the patient’s body when it’s no longer needed, eliminating the risks of an extraction surgery

The Quina technology discovered in East Asia was a set of stone tools for making other tools. Prehistoric sites in Europe that host similar tools are associated with Neanderthals.

Cool Finds

Stone Tools Discovered in China Resemble Neanderthal Technology Used in Europe, Creating a Middle Stone Age Mystery

Archaeologists previously assumed that East Asia did not see considerable tool development during the Middle Paleolithic, but new findings might change that widely held idea

Delacroix mural at the Palais Bourbon, home to the French National Assembly

Art Meets Science

Can A.I. Resurrect a Delacroix Mural That Was Destroyed in a Fire More Than 150 Years Ago?

A new project called Digital Delacroix is training cutting-edge technology on the French painter’s style to unravel the lost artwork’s secrets

"Torpedo bats," like the one shown here used by New York Yankees player Jazz Chisholm Jr., have a slightly bulbous shape that's similar to a bowling pin.

Trending Today

The Science Behind the MLB ‘Torpedo’ Bats That Everyone’s Talking About—How Do They Work? And Are They Really Better?

Developed by a physicist, these bats have their widest part, called the barrel, closer to the player’s hands to offer a better chance of hitting the ball on their “sweet spot”

Researchers connect stroke survivor Ann Johnson's brain implant to the experimental computer, which will allow her to speak by thinking words.

Enhanced Brain Implant Translates Stroke Survivor’s Thoughts Into Nearly Instant Speech Using Artificial Intelligence

The system harnesses technology similar to that of devices like Alexa and Siri, according to the researchers, and improves on a previous model

The Fram2 mission captured this view of polar ice from orbit.

Four Civilian Astronauts Capture Imagery of Earth’s Icy Poles on Fram2, the First Crewed Mission to Polar Orbit

The mission, funded and commanded by a cryptocurrency entrepreneur, was launched by SpaceX on Monday and has grabbed headlines for its flight path

Spectrum launched from the Andøya Space Center in Norway before plumetting into the icy sea.

First Orbital Rocket Launched From Western Europe Crashes Into Sea After Roughly 30-Second Flight

Isar Aerospace, the company behind the rocket, is still heralding the launch as a success due to the data it provided

Developed by Australian biomedical engineer Daniel Timms, the titanium heart device is being used as a stopgap until patients can undergo transplant surgery with a donor heart.

Australian Man Makes History by Living With a Titanium Heart for More Than 100 Days Before Receiving a Transplant

The man, who was in his 40s and suffering from severe heart failure, was also the first person to leave the hospital with a titanium heart. He is recovering well after getting a new, donor heart

A "diamond ring" appears around the Earth, as seen by the Blue Ghost lander on the moon.

See Last Week’s Stunning Eclipse From the Moon in Photos Captured by the Blue Ghost Lander, Now at the End of Its Mission

The spacecraft carried out the longest commercial operation on the moon to date—and also made history during its rare chance to document this celestial event

The new SPHEREx telescope and PUNCH satellites took off aboard a Falcon 9 rocket on March 11.

NASA’s New Space Telescope Launches to Explore the Origins of the Universe After a Series of Delays

Called SPHEREx, the instrument will map 450 million galaxies and search for water molecules that may be clinging to space dust

Greenhouse gas emissions will decrease the amount of satellites that can safely orbit Earth, according to a new study.

Climate Change Might Increase Satellite Collisions, Limiting How Many Can Safely Orbit Earth, Study Finds

Greenhouse gas emissions could reduce drag in the upper atmosphere, leaving more space debris in orbit and making satellites more vulnerable to damage, according to new research

Surgeons operated on three patients in Canada.

Surgeons Are Conducting Rare ‘Tooth-in-Eye’ Surgeries to Restore Vision to Blind Patients in Canada

The complex procedure involves extracting a patient’s canine tooth, adding a plastic optical lens to it and surgically embedding it in the eye

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