A nearby star that exploded some 3 million years ago could have removed all dust smaller than a millimetre from the outer solar system

Complex carbon-based molecules crucial to life on Earth originated somewhere in space, but we didn't know where. Now, huge amounts of them have been spotted in a huge, cold cloud of gas

A small world in the outer solar system appears to have volcanic activity possibly spurred by liquid water

A Spot robot equipped with a blowtorch can locate weeds on farms and precisely heat them up to stop them growing, offering a possible alternative to herbicides

Combining two neural networks has helped researchers predict potentially disastrous collapses in complex systems, such as financial crashes or power blackouts

Anil Ananthaswamy's Why Machines Learn: The elegant maths behind modern AI explores the mechanics of the AI revolution, but doesn't examine its ethics

AlphaProof, an AI from Google DeepMind, came close to matching the top participants in a prestigious competition for young mathematicians

Researchers trained a polymer gel to play the computer game Pong by passing electric current through it and measuring the concentration of ions

An AI-powered model found that approaching intersections more slowly could lower yearly US carbon emissions by up to around 123 million tonnes

As misinformation about the upcoming US elections rockets across social media, creating chaos, companies need to be honest about where this content is coming from, says Annalee Newitz

A quantum computing protocol makes it possible to extract energy from seemingly empty space, teleport it to a new location, then store it for later use

It has become trivially easy to use artificial intelligence to edit images or generate video to remove unwanted objects or beautify scenes, but doing so leads to people misremembering what they have seen

Hurricane Helene hit a quartz mine in North Carolina that is key to global semiconductor production, which could impact the entire tech industry. Here is everything we know so far

A type of mathematical problem that was previously impossible to solve can now be successfully analysed with artificial intelligence

A lithium-ion battery made from three droplets of hydrogel is the smallest soft battery of its kind – and it could be used in biocompatible and biodegradable implants

Just under 5 per cent of the Wikipedia pages in English that have been published since ChatGPT's release seem to include AI-written content

“It’s not funny,” he told her while hosting Saturday Night Live.

Express Sport writers have decided who should replace Gary Lineker

Gary Lineker is the longest-serving Match of the Day host since the BBC first aired the show in 1964.

Match of the Day presenter Gary Lineker has sealed a new agreement with the BBC just hours after his exit was confirmed.

Emma Raducanu struck a deal to return to one of her favourite tournaments.

Former FIA race director Niels Wittich has rejected the motorsport governing body's version regarding his departure.

At ICRA 2024, Spectrum editor Evan Ackerman sat down with Unitree founder and CEO Xingxing Wang and Tony Yang, VP of Business Development, to talk about the company’s newest humanoid, the G1 model.

Smaller, more flexible, and elegant, the G1 robot is designed for general use in service and industry, and is one of the cheapest—if not the cheapest—of a new wave of advanced AI humanoid robots.

The water column is hazy as an unusual remotely operated vehicle glides over the seafloor in search of a delicate tilt meter deployed three years ago off the west side of Vancouver Island. The sensor measures shaking and shifting in continental plates that will eventually unleash another of the region’s 9.0-scale earthquakes (the last was in 1700). Dwindling charge in the instruments’ loggers threatens the continuity of the data.

The 4-metric-ton, C$8-million (US $5.8-million) remotely operated vehicle (ROV) is 50 meters from its target when one of the seismic science platforms appears on its sonar imaging system, the platform’s hard edges crystallizing from the grainy background like a surgical implant jumping out of an ultrasound image. After easing the ROV to the platform, operators 2,575 meters up at the Pacific’s surface instruct its electromechanical arms and pincer hands to deftly unplug a data logger, then plug in a replacement with a fresh battery.

This mission, executed in early October, marked an exciting moment for Josh Tetarenko, director of ROV operations at North Vancouver-based Canpac Marine Services. Tetarenko is the lead designer behind the new science submersible and recently dubbed it Jenny in homage to Forrest Gump, because the fictional character named all of his boats Jenny. Swapping out the data loggers west of Vancouver Island’s Clayoquot Sound was part of a weeklong shakedown to test Jenny’s unique combination of dexterity, visualization chops, power, and pressure resistance.

Jenny is only the third science ROV designed for subsea work to a depth of 6,000 meters.

By all accounts Jenny sailed through. Tetarenko says the worst they saw was a leaky O-ring and the need to add some spring to a few bumpers. “Usually you see more things come up the first time you dive a vehicle to those depths,” says Tetarenko.

Jenny’s successful maiden cruise is just as important for Victoria, B.C.–based Ocean Networks Canada (ONC), which operates the NEPTUNE undersea observatory. The North-East Pacific Time-series Undersea Networked Experiments array boasts thousands of sensors and instruments, including deep-sea video cameras, seismometers, and robotic rovers sprawled across this corner of Pacific. Most of these are connected to shore via an 812-kilometer power and communications cable. Jenny was custom-designed to perform the annual maintenance and equipment swaps that have kept live data streaming from that cabled observatory nearly continuously for the past 15 years, despite trawler strikes, a fault on its backbone cable, and insults from corrosion, crushing pressures, and fouling.

NEPTUNE remains one of the world’s largest installations for oceanographic science despite a proliferation of such cabled observatories since it went live in 2009. ONC’s open data portal has over 37,000 registered users tapping over 1.5 petabytes of ocean data—information that’s growing in importance with the intensification of climate change and the collapse of marine ecosystems.

Over the course of Jenny’s maiden cruise, her operators swapped devices in and out at half a dozen ONC sites, including at several of NEPTUNE’s five nodes and at one of NEPTUNE’s smaller sister observatories closer to Vancouver.

Inside Jenny

ROV Jenny aboard the Valour, Canpac’s 50-meter offshore workhorse, ahead of October’s NEPTUNE observatory maintenance cruise.Ocean Networks Canada

What makes Jenny so special?

• Jenny is only the third science ROV designed for subsea work to a depth of 6,000 meters.
• Motion sensors actively adjust her 7,000-meter-long umbilical cable to counteract topside wave action that would otherwise yank the ROV around at depth and, in rough seas, could damage or snap the cable.
• Dual high-dexterity manipulator arms are controlled by topside operators via a pair of replica mini-manipulators that mirror the movements.
• Each arm is capable of picking up objects weighing about 275 kilograms, and the ROV itself can transport equipment weighing up to 3,000 kg.
• 11 high-resolution cameras deliver 4K video, supported by 300,000 lumens of lighting that can be tuned to deliver the soft red light needed to observe bioluminescence.
• Dual multibeam sonar systems maximize visibility in turbid water.

Meghan Paulson, ONC’s executive director for observatory operations, says the sonar imaging system will be particularly invaluable during dives to shallower sites where sediments stirred up by waves and weather can cut visibility from meters to centimeters. “It really reduces the risk of running into things accidentally,” says Paulson.

To experience the visibility conditions for yourself, check out recordings of the live video broadcast from the NEPTUNE maintenance cruise. Tetarenko says that next year they hope to broadcast not only the main camera feed but also one of the sonar images.

3D video could be next, according to Canpac ROV pilot and Jenny codesigner, James Barnett. He says they would need to boost the computing power installed topside, to process that “firehose of data,” but insists that real-time 3D is “definitely not impossible.” Tetarenko says the science ROV community is collaborating on software to help make that workable: “3D imagining is kind of the very latest thing that’s being tested on lots of ROV systems right now, but nobody’s really there yet.”

More Than Science

Expansion of the cabled observatory concept is the more certain technological legacy for ONC and NEPTUNE. In fact, the technology has evolved beyond just oceanography applications.

ONC tapped Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN) to design and build the Neptune backbone and the French firm delivered a system that has reliably delivered multigigabit Ethernet plus 10 kilovolts of direct-current electricity to the deep sea. Today ASN deploys a second-generation subsea power and communications networking solution, developed with the Norwegian international energy company Equinor.

ASN’s “Direct Current/Fiber Optic” or DC/FO system provides the 100-km backbone for the ARCA subsea neutrino observatory near Sicily, in addition to providing control systems for a growing number of offshore oil and gas installations. The latter include projects led by Equinor and BP where DC/FO networks drive the subsea injection of captured carbon dioxide and monitor its storage below the seabed. Future oil and gas projects will increasingly rely on the cables’ power supply to replace the hydraulic lines that have traditionally been used to operate machinery on the seafloor, according to Ronan Michel, ASN’s product line manager for oil and gas solutions.

Michel says DC/FO incorporates important lessons learned from the Neptune installation. And the latter’s existence was a crucial prerequisite. “The DC/FO solution would probably not exist if Neptune Canada would not have been developed,” says Michel. “It probably gave confidence to Equinor that ASN was capable to develop subsea power and coms infrastructure.”

To restore the rule of law, Trump's Department of Justice must investigate those who subverted our constitutional order.

Hours after Donald Trump wins the most conclusive mandate in 40 years, Mitch McConnell engineers a coup against his agenda by calling early leadership elections in the senate.

Even though that perception is partly the creation of right-wing media, the Democrats surely need to hone their identity.

Other Democrats lambasted him. The Tufts political science department spurned him. But Moulton is raising concerns the left needs to take seriously.

Elon Musk has joined the chorus of conservative and MAGA voices online backing Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) for Senate GOP leader - after calling Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) the "top choice of Democrats."

The election is over and the economy had a huge impact. An AP analysis said 96% of those surveyed admitted that prices of gas and groceries had an influence on their vote.

Who Will Fill the Democratic Vacuum?

From Goats to airplanes, Xbox Game Pass has another bumper month in store for subscribers. Here's everything you need to know about what is heading to PC and console this November 2024

PlayStation 5 Pro is out, and with plenty of availability, scalpers are shifting the £700 console at a loss and turning their attention to a key accessory instead

Destiny 2's Exotic vendor, Xur, is back again this week. Here's how to find him, what he's selling, and whether we recommend his offerings before he vanishes again.

PS5 owners can play some great games this month, including a Bethesda hit and more. Here's what's free for PS Plus subscribers for November, with more to be announced.

The Pokemon Company is teaming up with content creators to stage a 24-hour unboxing live stream for its new Scarlet & Violet - Surging Sparks card set as you Gotta Catch 'Em All

One fan has been rebuilding Final Fantasy 8 but it's not going quickly enough for some people who suggested they cut out things like relationships to focus on the game.

Pikachu ex, found in the new Pokemon TCG set Surging Sparks, has seen its value soar with players spending over $500 for the latest card. Here's why.

Online group Girls Who Chase has created a global community of women who head into severe weather to record images, report damage and help scientists understand the impact of storms to be better prepared

Cement is ubiquitous, but the process of making it emits carbon into the atmosphere. The industry says there's no easy way to avoid that, which is why it's turning to carbon capture and storage technology as a way to decarbonize.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency supervisor who was fired after she told her staff to skip hurricane-damaged homes with Trump signs in their yards says it wasn't an isolated incident and is a "colossal event."

House Republicans on Tuesday demanded that each member of President Biden's cabinet preserve all relevant documents and communications, a move that signals future investigations into the Biden administration.

President-elect Donald Trump announced a flurry of appointments Tuesday for key posts in his new administration, including former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe to lead the CIA and the expected nomination of South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem to head the Department of Homeland Security.

A new Government Accountability Office report says that the Justice Department kept FBI employees in the dark for seven years after Congress updated whistleblower protections for bureau personnel in 2016.

A judge recused himself Tuesday from presiding over Arizona's fake electors case after an email surfaced in which he told fellow judges to speak out against attacks on Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign for the presidency.

Republican Rep. David Valadao has won reelection in California's 22nd Congressional District, defeating Democrat Rudy Salas for the second time.

Tech expert Kurt “CyberGuy" Knutsson says opening emails is safe, but risks arise from interacting with links, attachments or HTML content.

OpenAI recently introduced a new memory feature for ChatGPT that enables it to remember information about people, including age, gender and beliefs.

Shameless scammers trick veterans into giving personal info or cash. Tech expert Kurt “CyberGuy" Knutsson explores five common scams.