Blog

Astronomers Detect Radio Signals Originating From an Exoplanet

Catwell — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 08:00:00 GMT

An April 2010 VLT image showing Beta Pictoris b located 6.5 AU from its star. (Image Credit: ESO) A gas giant called Beta Pictoris b, located about 63 light-years from Earth, has been emitting strongly circularly polarized bursts. Astronomers recent...(read more)

NASA Moves PRIMA Into Phase B Development

Catwell — Fri, 02 Oct 2026 12:21:54 GMT

Artist’s illustration of the PRIMA observatory. (Image Credit: NASA/JPC-Caltech) NASA recently chose the Probe Far-Infrared Mission for Astrophysics (PRIMA) to move from Phase A to Phase B, the next development stage. This brings PRIMA c...(read more)

Audio-Technica U841A Microphone Teardown

shabaz — Wed, 23 Sep 2026 23:39:48 GMT

It’s not everyday I take apart a (reasonably pricey) microphone! But, I was curious, and taking things apart is sometimes how one learns. A long time ago I took apart an Echo Dot, which contains very different microphone technology (MEMS d...(read more)

Harvard Researchers Discover That Lab-Grown Organoids Can Retain Developmental Stages

Catwell — Wed, 23 Sep 2026 18:35:43 GMT

Harvard’s lab-grown organoids. (Image Credit: Carlos Sanchez/Harvard FAS Staff Photographer) It takes years for the human brain to develop. And this makes it difficult to experimentally study some maturation stages. Harvard University researc...(read more)

Underwater Drone Deployed in The Baltic Sea

Catwell — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 08:20:00 GMT

Seaber’s YUCO-PHYSCICO underwater drone. (Image Credit: Seaber) Water layers in the Baltic Sea don’t always stay in the same place. In August, researchers from the Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research Warnemünde (IOW) used an u...(read more)

Anello Photonics Introduces New Technology for Navigation

Catwell — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 20:10:19 GMT

Small SiPhOG chip. (Image Credit: Anello Photonics) Today’s navigation systems must be accurate, especially when GPS signals aren’t available or reliable. Although jamming blocks those signals, spoofing can send false positioning data to...(read more)

An AI System Set Course to Our Nearest Star System

Catwell — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 12:46:34 GMT

Alpha Centauri. (Image Credit: European Southern Observatory/Digitized Sky Survey 2; Acknowledgment: Davide De Martin/Mahdi Zamani) By the end of 2029, the nonprofit Fermi Explorer Mission is aiming to launch an interstellar spacecraft to Alpha Cent...(read more)

Love Birds and Artwork? Try Out Fugleramme!

Catwell — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 05:27:43 GMT

The Fugleramme device captures bird songs and draws an illustration of the species on an e-ink display. (Image Credit: arnegiacomo/GitHub) I love love love this. It’s one of those project where you lean back and say, why didn’t I think o...(read more)

Sensor Array Discovers an Underground Reservoir at Old Faithful

Catwell — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 22:28:13 GMT

(Image Credit JillWellington/pixabay) The Old Faithful geyser has a secret. And University of Utah scientists uncovered it. Beneath the area around the geyser lies a network of fractures and pores that forms part of its hydrothermal system. This con...(read more)

Voyager 1 Signal Detected by Amateurs

Catwell — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 21:41:11 GMT

Artist’s rendering of Voyager traveling through space. (Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech) In late 2024, skilled radio amateurs with CAMRAS used the Dwingeloo Observatory to detect the carrier signal of Voyager 1 from over 15.5 billion miles away...(read more)

Engineers Develop Living Circuit Boards Using Bacteria That Work Like Transistors

Catwell — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 20:55:29 GMT

MIT has engineered bacteria to function like transistors for living circuit boards. (Image Credit: MIT) Transistors are used in circuitry to control electrical signal flow. But now there is a bio-inspired one. MIT engineers modified bacteria that ca...(read more)

Human Neurons to Power Data Centers in Australia and Scientists Create Virtual Fly

Catwell — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 12:45:02 GMT

(Image Credit: TheDigitalArtist/pixabay) Something about these developments makes me think we’re living in a dystopian science fiction timeline. Really unsettling. How much brain matter is needed for consciousness? Cortical Labs, an Austr...(read more)

Apollo 11’s Software Was Woven by Hand

Catwell — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 12:37:45 GMT

Launch of the Apollo 11 mission. (Image Credit: NASA) Before launching, the Apollo 11 software had to become physical. It wasn’t electronically written into its computer. After programmers wrote and verified the software, the binary instructi...(read more)

Two Laser Pulses Steer an Electron Beam

Catwell — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 20:12:03 GMT

Illustrating showing two colored laser pulses moving an electron beam in different directions. (Image Credit: Yiming Gong/University of Michigan) University of Michigan engineers recently developed a device that uses laser light to control electron ...(read more)

Wildlands Network is Tracking Pronghorn to See If Solar Projects Affect It

Catwell — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 17:50:52 GMT

A pronghorn. (Image: pixabay) Solar projects are spreading across landscapes, and researchers are investigating how wildlife adapts to them. Wildlands Network fitted 75 female pronghorns with GPS collars to understand how they move across areas with...(read more)