Technology
Quantum Computing Has a Noise Problem
Today’s devices can be thrown off by the slightest environmental interference. Algorithmiq is developing ways to counteract this and...
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Lasers Are Mapping Scotland’s Mysterious Iron Age Passages
Digitized archaeology is making souterrains—subterranean passages in the Highlands—accessible in a way Indiana Jones could only dream...
This Seriously Hipster Bean Is Coffee’s Best Hope for Survival
Climate change is straining the world’s two favorite coffee species. Could a resilient 19th-century alternative solve the brew’s existential...
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The Tonga Eruption Is Still Revealing New Volcanic Dangers
One year later, researchers are still marveling at the power of the Hunga Tonga explosion—and wondering how to monitor hundreds of...
A Teenager Solved a Stubborn Prime Number ‘Look-Alike’...
In his senior year of high school, Daniel Larsen proved a key theorem about Carmichael numbers—strange entities that mimic the primes.
When Did the Anthropocene Actually Begin?
Scientists want to pinpoint the technology that marked when humanity became a “geological superpower.” On the short list: the H-bomb...
The Key to California’s Survival Is Hidden Underground
The state is ping-ponging between severe drought and catastrophic flooding. The solution to both? Making the landscape spongier.
How Airports Catch Illicit Radioactive Cargo
Hidden screening devices are used to track the movement of dangerous materials—and recently caught a shipment of uranium at London’s...
Why the Search for Life in Space Starts With Ancient Earth
Need to estimate, from trillions of miles away, how likely another world is to host life? There’s a flowchart for that.
2022 Wasn't the Hottest on Record. That’s Nothing to Celebrate
Last year was one of the warmest measured, say NASA and NOAA. It would have been even more sweltering if not for La Niña, which will...
