Humanoid robots are now faster than the world’s best runners
A year after mishaps dominated the race, Chinese humanoids are outrunning professional half-marathon athletes.
Science/Tech
Starwatch: Lyrid meteor shower returns to the spring skies
First recorded in 687BC, the meteoroids were once part of the tail of a comet discovered in 1861
This week, the annual Lyrid meteor shower returns to the spring skies. Although active since 16 April, the shower peaks during the late evening of Wednesday 22 April and early the next morning.
The chart shows the view looking east from London at 00.01 (BST) on Thursday 23 April. The origin point of...
Brave Browser Introduces ‘Origin’, a Pay-Once ‘Minimalist’ Browser
The Brave browser “has introduced Brave Origin, a stripped-down version of its browser that removes built-in monetization features like Rewards and other extras tied to its business model,” writes Slashdot reader BrianFagioli”The stripped-down browser is available either as a separate browser download or as an upgrade to the existing Brave install, unlocked through a one-time purchase that can...
‘The Moon and The Zoo’: Simon Armitage poem celebrates 200 years of ZSL
Zoological Society of London commissions poet laureate for animation to mark its 200th anniversary
Over its two centuries, acclaimed writers and artists have found inspiration at London zoo, from Edwin Landseer’s Trafalgar Square lions, to AA Milne’s naming “Winnie” after resident bear Winnipeg, and Sylvia Plath’s poem Zoo Keeper’s Wife.
Plath’s husband, Ted Hughes, who would become poet...
Blue Origin Rocket Launches, Successfully Reuses Booster – But Loses Satellite
SpaceNews reports:Blue Origin’s New Glenn suffered a malfunction of its second stage on the rocket’s third flight April 19, stranding its payload in an unrecoverable “off-nominal” orbit and dealing the company a setback as it seeks to increase its flight rate… AST SpaceMobile had planned to launch 45 to 60 satellites this year for its D2D constellation, but BlueBird 7 is the first to launch...
Voyager 1 is Running Out of Power. NASA Just Switched Part of It Off
After 49 years of space travel, Voyager 1 “is running out of power,” reports NPR:The spacecraft runs on a radioisotope thermoelectric generator — a device that converts heat from decaying plutonium into electricity. It carries no solar panels, no rechargeable batteries. Just the slow, steady release of nuclear warmth, which diminishes by about 4 watts each year. After nearly five decades,...
Nobel Prize-Winning Physicist Predicts Humankind Won’t Survive Another 50 Years
Live Science spoke with physicist David Gross, who today received the $3 million “Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics”. He was part of a trio that won the 2004 physics Nobel prize for research that helped complete the Standard Model of particle physics. But when asked if physics will reach a unified theory of the fundamental forces of nature within 50 years, Gross has a surprising...
Is the Iran War Driving a Surge of Interest in Electric Cars?
In October and through November, America’s EV sales reached their lowest point since 2022 after government subsidies expired, remembers Time. “But first-quarter data for 2026 shows that used EV sales were 12% higher than the same time last year and 17% higher than the previous quarter. “One factor likely helping push buyers toward these cars is high gas prices, which recently topped $4.00 a...
Pancreatic Cancer MRNA Vaccine Shows Lasting Results In Early Trial
NBC News reports on a 16-person clinical trial of “personalized messenger RNA vaccines” which use the immune system to fight cancer cells. “The goal is not to eliminate existing tumors, but instead to stamp out lingering, undetected cancer cells, and later any new cells that form before they can cause a recurrence.”Patients still have surgery to remove tumors. After that, the mRNA vaccines are...
Motorola Sues Social Media Platforms and Creators in India
“Motorola has filed a lawsuit in India against social media platforms and content creators,” reports TechCrunch, “over posts it alleges are defamatory…”The lawsuit, filed in a Bengaluru court and obtained by TechCrunch, names platforms such as X, YouTube, and Instagram along with dozens of content creators, and seeks takedown of the content as well as broader restraint on what it describes as...
Nevada Police Can Now Track Cellphones Without a Warrant
“Nevada quietly signed an agreement earlier this year with a company that collects location data from cellphones, allowing police to track a device virtually in real time,” reports the Associated Press. “All without a warrant.”The software from Fog Data Science, adopted this January in Nevada through a Department of Public Safety contract, pulls information from smartphone apps in order to let...
HP Will Discontinue ‘HP Anyware’ Remote Desktop, Trusted Zero Clients
kriston (Slashdot reader #7,886) writes:HP Anyware, the new name of the Teradici PCoIP remote desktop solution that was acquired by HP in 2021, is being discontinued. “Maintenance and support for customers and partners with multi-year terms will continue until 31 October, 2029,” a href=”https://anyware.hp.com/hp-anyware-end-of-life”>according to HP’s announcement. But HP is also announcing the...
The Physical-to-Financial Handshake: Capitalization Discipline at the Center of AI Infrastructure
Artificial intelligence infrastructure is usually described through the most visible parts of the buildout. The discussion centers on megawatts, land, chips, and the pace at which hyperscalers can expand the physical footprint required to support increasingly compute-intensive workloads. That story is real, but it is incomplete. Beneath the visible race sits a second discipline that […]
The Public Sector’s Cloud Modernization Gap: Why Government Grant Systems Are Still Running on Legacy Infrastructure
The federal government directs more than $100 billion annually toward information technology, yet roughly 80% of that spending feeds the operation and maintenance of existing systems rather than building new ones. A July 2025 Government Accountability Office audit surfaced 11 critical federal legacy IT systems in urgent need of replacement, with some running on programming […]
Disney Creates Its Own IMAX for ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ After Losing Screens to ‘Dune: Part 3’
Ahead of December’s release of Avengers: Doomsday, Disney has unveiled “Infinity Vision,” reports Kotaku, which they describe as “a new theater-going experience that will be certain to transform your pedestrian $15 night out into an exotic $43 one.” (Though those prices appear to be estimates…) Disney’s announcement calls it “a new certification for premium large format (PLF) theaters,” helping...
Canadian astronaut’s bon mots help heal wounds from French language row
Jeremy Hansen praised for speaking French in space after Air Canada chief’s linguistic snub exposed tensions and drew rebuke from PM
Few people foresaw humanity’s quest for the moon as accurately as the 19th-century French author Jules Verne, whose two works –From the Earth to the Moon and Around the Moon – anticipated many of the features of modern lunar exploration.
But Verne’s language had...
How to train your brain to see possibility instead of doom
Our minds evolved to minimise unpredictability. But if we learn to live with doubt, a world of opportunities opens up
It can feel as though the world is tilting towards chaos: political shocks, economic instability, technological upheaval and a constant stream of bad news. Faced with so much uncertainty, many of us default to a sense of impending doom. But is that reaction hardwired – or can...
Don’t knock small talk. It has the power to mend a world ripped apart by rage | Bidisha
All good? Busy day? Small talk is a social good with a bad reputation. We dread it, but it’s vital for human connection
Hi there, how’re you? How’s it going? You alright? All good?
As any Briton knows, none of these questions is an inquiry into your emotional state, the material conditions of your life or your opinion on anything. Respond positively – “all good so far, touch wood” is nice...
Remembering Zip Drives – the Trendy Storage Technology of the 1990s
Back in the 1990s, floppy disks “had a mere capacity of 1.44MB,” remembers XDA Developers, “which would soon become absolutely tiny for the increasingly large pieces of software that would come about.”Floppy disks also felt quite fragile, and while we got “superfloppy” formats that were physically larger and had more capacity, those were pretty unwieldy as portable storage. Enter 1994, when a...
‘The Oscar of science’ awarded to scientists behind genetic treatment that restores lost vision win
Breakthrough prize in Life Sciences awarded to team who developed Luxturna therapy, which helped a patient see their child’s face for the first time
A married couple who met over a dissected brain and went on to create the first approved gene therapy for blindness have been awarded one of the most lucrative prizes in science.
Molecular biologist Jean Bennett and ophthalmologist Albert Maguire...
From sleeping lions to spitting snakes: a year in the life of London zoo vets
As the zoo celebrates its 200th birthday, photographer David Levene captures the people keeping their (sometimes very dangerous) patients healthy and happy. Introduction: Patrick Barkham
• Some images may be upsetting to young audiences
How do you shift a sedated rhino? Can a dormouse be drugged? What happens to a lion with an unusually small ear canal? How does the world’s longest venomous...