A robot can recreate the mechanism plants use to transport water to bend itself towards the sun and open its leaves like a real plant

A self-powered device that generates electricity from the wind can also absorb and break down harmful nitric oxide and nitrogen dioxide from the air

This image of an enormous ship under construction features in a new book and show that challenge common ideas about beauty - while the real ship may help cut carbon emissions

An artificially intelligent eco-assistant can persuade hotel guests and staff to reduce their electricity use by up to a third

Qubits are often stabilised by being supercooled, which makes quantum computer chips hard to scale up. Now they have been operated at above -272°C for the first time

An image-editing program designed by researchers at Abode uses AI to let you quickly transform the shape of objects in images and change the lighting

In TV series Devs, a tech company has built an extremely powerful quantum computer. The show is both beautiful and captivating, says Rowan Hooper

This film gives us insight into a community that’s already endured plenty even before the zombies arrived.

Marissa Guale is like all too many Americans right now. Her husband and father of her two children, Raul, is on a ventilator in a hospital on Long Island, fighting for his life while sick with COVID-19. Raul, a 34-year-old nurse, likely caught the disease while working in a nursing home. When the National Institutes of Health announced an emergency use authorization for the experimental antiviral drug remdesivir, Marissa scrambled friends and family on Facebook to figure out how to get access for Raul, emailing hospital administrators, senators, and doctors. They pressed the Guale family’s case for a potentially lifesaving treatment on social media to anyone who would listen.

Her confusion about where and how to get access to the drug isn’t unique. All over the country, families, doctors, and hospitals are wondering how to get the drug and on what basis it’s being distributed. The Trump administration, which is in charge of allocation, hasn’t published any guidance on how it’s making decisions about the scarce supplies of the drug.

So who decides which hospitals get remdesivir? And what’s the most ethical way to prioritize access?

Read more at The Daily Beast.

This post contains spoilers for Dead to Me Season 2.

Maybe it’s the surreality of, well, everything lately—or maybe it’s just aged like the fine wines all of its characters toss back by the bottle. Whatever the reason, Dead to Me Season 2 hits even better than Season 1—fighting off a sophomore slump with a fresh batch of twists, dramatic ironies, and, most importantly, some more Christina Applegate angsting out to metal. Perhaps this season’s smartest move, however, is a trope pulled straight out of Soapy Dramas 101: Bringing James Marsden back to play his own twin.

Series creator Liz Feldman was sending the usual thank-you notes back and forth with cast and crew after Season 1 wrapped when she received a particularly amusing message from Marsden.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

I bloody love me some Figrin D'an and the Modal Nodes. So for Star Wars Day I thought it would be funny to see if a decent cover of their most famous tune existed. It does. Oh how it does. More »

Over the past few years plant-based meat has become increasingly popular. Thanks to the popularity of brands such as Impossible, we;re now seeing increasingly more vegan-friendly meat alternatives in the supermarkets and even being sold by fast food chains. Meal kit delivery service Marley Spoon has even begun offering plant-based options, using v2food mince. This is what they taste like. More »

Watford chairman Scott Duxbury has questioned whether the Premier League should return amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The Quadrantid meteor shower has a short peak period that lasts only a few hours, so midnight on 3 January is the best time to view in the UK

China has connected the world’s first portable ground station for quantum communication to the Mozi satellite, and has plans to launch another quantum satellite soon

A tiny meteorite found in Antarctica doesn’t match any asteroid or comet we know of. Instead, it must have come from a mystery parent body that’s full of water

The interstellar comet Borisov, which flew past Earth in December, is full of carbon monoxide ice that implies its home star is smaller and colder than our sun

Mars could have had an ancient ocean in its northern hemisphere, and a large raft of volcanic rock may have floated across it to settle into mounds we can see today

Faraway galaxies have been spotted unexpectedly flashing up to 100 times their usual brightness, and it seems to be caused by eddies in Earth’s atmosphere

In light of the newly declassified documents, it is clear that understanding what happened in that January 5 Oval Office meeting is essential to understanding the corrupt operation against the Trump administration.

Start harnessing the power of data today – learn how in this whitepaper

Ready-to-connect readycables® save you time on cable assembly and are guaranteed to last 36 months

FarmWise is using AI and robotics to enhance farming efficiency by taking care of each plant individually

The creators of Kiki believe they can build an emotionally engaging social home robot that is also "completely useless"

John Deere, the nearly 200-year-old tractor manufacturer, now considers itself a software company

Can an online game that combines human brainpower with AI solve intractable problems?

A new two-way teleoperation system sends your motions to the robot and the robot's motions to you

Flying this $999 obstacle-dodging drone is a magical experience

It could be a matter of time before a Chinese airline tries to buy a strategic stake in Qantas.

Because we don't have enough on our plates as it is, now we've got 'murder hornets' flying around the United States. Murder hornets (actually Asian Giant Hornets, but that name didn't strike enough fear into the masses) have a sting powerful enough that China recommends medical treatment if stunk more than ten times, and emergency treatment if stung more than 30. *pours out a little liquor for Macaulay Culkin in My Girl*. And where is his glasses?! He can't see without his glasses! Put his glasses on! Here's a video of Coyote Peterson getting stung by one (the Japanese Giant Hornet was previously believed to be a subspecies of the Asian Giant Hornet, but has since been recategorized as a color morph). This is a video of a praying mantis eating a Giant Asian hornet until it's just a pile of limbs. So yeah, praying mantises -- start breeding them. And make sure to selectively breed them too so we can produce them bigger and bigger until they're preying on us because the way things are going how is that not how this ends? Keep going for the video while I surround my Animal Crossings town with preying mantises to protect my villagers and keep my five-star rating (okay, three).

Free-floating observatories record seismic waves to help study Earth's interior.

Faked 'entanglement' result challenges cryptographic technique.

RPGamer puts this episode out to pasture, along with Marc Whitten and Koji Igarashji. In the meantime, you can go play Star Trek Online on...

Alright folks, it's out so it's time to feel out if the Dexit folks were right or wrong. We also hear about Path of Exile 2 and more RPG news than you'd expect at this time of year. But let's be honest, we just want to go back to leveling up our starters.

Sales of underwear are reported to have increased since lockdown began. If you too are shopping for pants, here’s how to do it ethically

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Researchers have announced the isolation and characterization of a unique antibody that can bind to the virus that causes COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2). The team has established that the antibody binds to a conserved epitope on the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2.

New research finds that sleep problems in a baby's first 12 months may not only precede an autism diagnosis, but also may be associated with altered growth trajectory in a key part of the brain, the hippocampus.

To avoid arsenic contamination, many Bangladeshi households access water via private wells drilled to 300 feet or less, beneath impermeable clay layers. Such clay layers have been thought to protect groundwater in the underlying aquifers from the downward flow of contaminants. However, a new study suggests that such clay layers do not always protect against arsenic, and could even be a source of contamination in some wells.

A world-first study has demonstrated significant benefits to a premature baby's heart and brain function when held by the parent in skin-to-skin contact. Parent-infant skin-to-skin care (SSC) or kangaroo care, started in the late 1970s in Columbia when incubators to keep babies warm were not available. It is now widely recognized as a beneficial component of holistic care provided for pre-term infants.

Jihadists burst into the gold mine where Moussa Tambura worked in Burkina Faso, forbidding everyone from smoking and drinking. “They attacked the site, killed people and burned houses,” said Tambura, 29, clenching his fists. Jihadists linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State organization have been overrunning gold mines like Tambura’s one by one as they try to gain control of Burkina Faso’s most lucrative industry.

As novel coronavirus spreads throughout the United States, millions of Americans are spending more time at home.MORE: Here's everything coming to Disney+ in AprilBut whether you're doing so because of a job loss, working from home situation or otherwise taking part in the mass effort to stay safe, chances are you've been bored once or twice while living under quarantine.Thankfully, some very talented people have been creating extra-special performances and experiences that you can enjoy to help you cope with the new normal and that don't break any social distancing rules. ...

The novel coronavirus pandemic has now killed more than 275,000 people worldwide. Over 3.9 million people across the world have been diagnosed with COVID-19, the disease caused by the new respiratory virus, according to data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. The actual numbers are believed to be much higher due to testing shortages, many unreported cases and suspicions that some governments are hiding the scope of their nations' outbreaks.

The tech giant has often been accused of mistreating workers, but our desire for instant gratification is part of the problem

Tim Bray resigned as an Amazon vice-president last week. “Who he?” I hear you say. And why is this news significant? Answers: first, Bray is an ubergeek who’s an alumnus of many of the outfits in tech’s hall of fame (including DEC, Sun Microsystems, the OED project at the University of Waterloo, Google’s Android team and, eventually, Amazon Web Services); and second, he resigned on an issue of principle – something as rare as hen’s teeth in the tech industry.

In his blog, he wrote: “I quit in dismay at Amazon firing whistleblowers who were making noise about warehouse employees frightened of Covid-19.” It was an expensive decision. Bray said the decision to resign would probably cost him more than a million dollars in salary and shares, and that he regretted leaving a job he enjoyed, working with good colleagues. “So I’m pretty blue.”

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Desmond Mombeyarara, 34, was with his son when officers shot him with a stun gun

Anti-racism protesters have gathered outside a petrol station in Greater Manchester to demonstrate against the stun gun shooting by police of a black man in the company of his distressed son.

Desmond Mombeyarara, 34, was shot with a stun gun by police on Wednesday evening after officers stopped him for allegedly speeding.

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Julia Garner excels as a junior assistant to a predatory media mogul boss in Kitty Green’s powerfully understated #MeToo drama

A performance of few words but immense physical eloquence by Julia Garner anchors this impressively chilling #MeToo-era drama about workplace harassment and abuse. Following a day in the life of a young woman with dreams of making her mark in the film and television industry, it’s a sobering portrait of a dirty little secret that was brought into the news spotlight by the Harvey Weinstein scandal. All the more powerful for its understated tone, this low-key piece packs a hefty punch as it exposes the web of silence that enabled a very modern horror story.

Garner (who won an Emmy for her work on TV’s Ozark) is Jane, a high-achieving college graduate who finds herself on the bottom rung of the ladder as a junior assistant to an unnamed entertainment mogul in New York. The appointment may hold promises of great opportunities ahead, but for now it’s fairly soul destroying. An opening sequence, played out to the lonely strains of Tamar-kali’s sparse score, finds Jane being driven to the office before dawn, turning on the lights above her colleagues’ desks – first in, last out. Her tasks are menial yet weirdly demanding: making coffee, changing the paper in the photocopier, ordering lunch, and arranging travel and accommodation for an ever-changing roster of offhand executives and needy clients.

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