European researchers tested four-legged semi-autonomous rovers that carry only two instruments. These capable and agile robots could be part of the future exploration of Mars and the Moon. Their autonomy means they can do more with fewer instructions.
April flowers mean one thing to springtime sky-watchers: it’s time for the Lyrid meteor shower. The Lyrids are always a good bet, and always make the top ten list for annual meteor showers. And to top it off, 2026 is a favorable year for the Lyrids, with the waxing crescent Moon mostly out of the way.
Today’s Jesus and Mo strip, called “rock2“, comes with a note that says this: “An oldie from 2006 today. Next week’s will also be a resurrection.” The artist must be on hols.
Is Mo right about the black silk and the meteorite? Well, at least half right. The Kaaba is indeed covered with a cloth made of silk, but the meteorite is questionable. Here’s what Wikipedia says, along with a picture. (The stone is called Ajar al-Aswad.)
The Black Stone (Arabic: الحجر الأسود, romanized: al-Ḥajar al-Aswad) is a rock set into the eastern corner of the Kaaba, the ancient building in the center of the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. It is revered by most Muslims as an Islamic relic which, according to tradition, dates back to the time of Adam and Eve.
The stone was venerated at the Kaaba in pre-Islamic Arabia. It is sometimes considered a baetyl. According to tradition, it was set intact into the Kaaba’s wall by Muhammad in 605, five years before his first revelation. Since then, it has been broken into fragments and is now encased in a silver frame on the side of the Kaaba. Its physical appearance is that of a fragmented, dark rock, polished smooth by the hands of pilgrims. It has often been described as a meteorite, but it has never been analysed with modern techniques, so its scientific origins remain the subject of speculation.
Muslim pilgrims circle the Kaaba as a part of the tawaf ritual during the Hajj and many try to stop to kiss the Black Stone, emulating the kiss that Islamic tradition records that it received from Muhammad.While the Black Stone is revered, theologians emphasize that it has no divine significance and that its importance is historical in nature.
Saudi Press Agency (SPA), CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia CommonsLarge language model artificial intelligence applications (LLM AIs) seem poised to have a significant effect on the practice of medicine, both good and bad, which is why we are giving it as much attention as we are here. LLMs give impressive results when tested on medical knowledge, able to pass multiple-choice exams designed for general medical and specialty certification. In fact it […]
The post New Study on AI Clinical Decision-Making first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.Venus has been hiding a secret for fifty years. Just below its main cloud deck sits a mysterious layer of haze that spacecraft first detected in the 1970s and nobody could explain where it came from. Now a research team in Japan has finally cracked it, and the answer comes from the last place most people would think to look!
Every star you've ever looked at is hiding a magnetic secret and it may have been hiding it since birth. A new theoretical study has connected, for the first time, the magnetic fields detected deep inside dying red giants with the magnetism found at the surfaces of their long dead remnants. These fields may be ancient fossils, born early in a star's life and surviving billions of years of violent transformation completely intact.
The Sun is the most studied star in the universe, yet some of its most violent behaviour remains stubbornly out of reach. Solar flares, explosive eruptions that can disrupt satellites, knock out power grids and bathe astronauts in radiation release enormous bursts of X-rays that carry vital clues about what drives them. Now, a team of Japanese engineers has built the sharpest X-ray telescope ever to fly on a solar mission, and the technology it has pioneered could soon fit inside a satellite the size of a shoebox.
Thirty four years ago, a group of Cornell scientists looked at a remote Chilean mountaintop and imagined what might be built there one day. That day has arrived. The Fred Young Submillimeter Telescope has just opened its eyes on the universe from one of the most extreme observatory sites ever chosen, and the science it promises to deliver from the first moments after the Big Bang to the hidden nurseries of newborn stars.
In 1937, Ettore Majorana asked a question nobody else was even thinking about: does a particle have to have a distinct antiparticle? For neutrinos — which carry no charge — the answer might be no. They might be their own antiparticles. Deep underground right now, experiments are watching atoms decay, waiting for the signal that would prove it. So far: nothing. But the case is not closed.
Rovers equipped with Radioisotope Power Systems (RPSs), aka. nuclear reactors, could effectively explore the craters in the Moon's southern polar region.
They are the most abundant particles in the universe, yet we barely know they exist. Neutrinos stream through everything, through walls, through planets and even through you…. in their billions every second, leaving no trace. We've known for decades that they have mass, but pinning down exactly how much has defeated physicists for years. Now, the most sensitive experiment ever built has pushed our knowledge to a new frontier, and what it found raises a profound question about why these ghostly particles are so extraordinarily light.
The lunar south pole is where humanity plans to build its first permanent outpost but we still don't fully understand what lies beneath the surface. A new study has used radar to peer below the ground in one of the Moon's most complex and battered regions and what it's finding raises important questions about the geological minefield that future astronauts will be navigating. Ancient impacts, frozen melt sheets, and billions of years of overlapping debris may complicate our plans more than we thought.
When a massive star explodes on the far side of the universe, the light from that explosion normally fades long before it reaches us. But occasionally, the universe conspires to help. A newly discovered supernova has been caught using the gravity of an entire galaxy as a natural magnifying glass, boosting its light by at least a hundred times and revealing a stellar death that would otherwise have been completely invisible. It is the most magnified supernova ever found, and it opens a remarkable new window onto the distant universe.