A globally cited statistic about the role of irrigation for food security that has formed foundational evidence for policy-making and scientific research is used on a hearsay basis and is based on weak evidence, according to a new study.

NIMS has been developing chemical sensors as a key component of artificial olfaction technology (olfactory sensors), with the aim of putting this technology into practical use. In a new study, explainable AI (XAI) was used to reveal how chemical sensors discriminate among various odorant molecules. The findings may help guide the selection of receptor materials for developing high-performance chemical sensors capable of detecting odorant molecules.

Quantum computers, machines that process information leveraging quantum mechanical effects, could outperform classical computers on some optimization tasks and computations. Despite their potential, quantum computers are known to be prone to errors and their ability to perform computations is easily influenced by noise.

Models help scientists understand everything from the particles that make up the universe to massive superstructures of galaxies at the beginning of time. But sometimes they model more mundane, though perhaps even more complex, features—including the course of human civilization. A new paper by Thomas Leppard of the International Archaeological Research Institute and his co-authors, all of whom are also archaeologists, proposes applying a model of how humans expanded to the different islands across the Pacific Ocean during their early migration to glean insights into how humanity should manage our colonization of space.

As a true milestone on the path to autonomous space systems, a research team at Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (JMU) has successfully tested an AI-based attitude controller for satellites directly in orbit—a world first. The test was carried out aboard the 3U nanosatellite InnoCube.

The PDF Association is adding JPEG XL (JXL) support to the PDF specification, giving the advanced image format a new path to relevance despite Google's decision to declare it obsolete and remove it from Chromium. The Register reports: Peter Wyatt, CTO of the PDF Association, said: "We need to adopt...

Slashdot reader alternative_right shares an exclusive BBC interview with Vyacheslav "Tank" Penchukov, once a top-tier cyber-crime boss behind Jabber Zeus, IcedID, and major ransomware campaigns. His story traces the evolution of modern cybercrime from early bank-theft malware to today's lucrative ra...

Investment in subsea cable projects is expected to reach around $13 billion between 2025 and 2027, almost twice the amount invested between 2022 and 2024, according to telecommunications data provider TeleGeography. Tech giants Meta, Google, Amazon and Microsoft now represent about 50% of the overal...

Japan's Innovation Center of NanoMedicine reports on a new stealth coating for tiny medicine-carrying particles that doesn't depend on PEG-style shields. By locking positive and negative charges together into a tight net, the coating prevents protein buildup and avoids pickup by immune cells, so the particles stay in the blood for more than 100 hours. Packed with the enzyme asparaginase, the particles act like small reactors that drain asparagine to starve difficult-to-treat cancers.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Privacy activists say proposed changes to Europe's landmark privacy law, including making it easier for Big Tech to harvest Europeans' personal data for AI training, would flout EU case law and gut the legislation. The changes proposed by the Europea...

A team led by University of Pittsburgh's Graham Hatfull has developed a method to construct bacteriophages with entirely synthetic genetic material, allowing researchers to add and subtract genes at will. The findings open the field to new pathways for understanding how these bacteria-killing viruses work, and for potential therapy of bacterial infections.

In a new study published in Nature Physics, researchers achieved the first experimental observation of a time rondeau crystal—a novel phase of matter where long-range temporal order coexists with short-time disorder.

Wikipedia on Monday laid out a simple plan to ensure its website continues to be supported in the AI era, despite its declining traffic. From a report: In a blog post, the Wikimedia Foundation, the organization that runs the popular online encyclopedia, called on AI developers to use its content "re...

Two of the world's biggest data center developers have projects in Nvidia's hometown that may sit empty for years because the local utility isn't ready to supply electricity. From a report: In Santa Clara, California, where the world's biggest supplier of artificial-intelligence chips is based, Digi...

Researchers from the Department of Molecular Physics at the Fritz Haber Institute have demonstrated the first magneto-optical trap of a stable "closed-shell" molecule: aluminum monofluoride (AlF). They were able to cool AlF with lasers and selectively trap it in three different rotational quantum levels—breaking new ground in ultracold physics.

Neighborhoods close to green parks and bodies of water are cooler throughout the year, according to a new UCL study focusing on the east of London, which also showed that low-cost weather sensors could provide usable research data in areas lacking climate data.

Artificial intelligence (AI) systems, particularly artificial neural networks, have proved to be highly promising tools for uncovering patterns in large amounts of data that would otherwise be difficult to detect. Over the past decade, AI tools have been applied in a wide range of settings and fields.

Understanding the properties of different materials is an important step in material design. X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) is an important technique for this, as it reveals detailed insights about a material's composition, structure, and functional characteristics. The technique works by directing a beam of high-energy X-rays at a sample and recording how X-rays of different energy levels are absorbed.

"Quantum computing is still years away, but Nvidia just built the bridge that will bring it closer..." argues investment site The Motley Fool, "by linking today's fastest AI GPUs with early quantum processors..." NVIDIA's new hybrid system strengthens communication at microsecond speeds — o...

An organization drafts a job listing with artificial intelligence. Droves of applicants conjure résumés and cover letters with chatbots. Another AI system sifts through those applications, passing recommendations to hiring managers. Perhaps AI avatars conduct screening interviews. This is increasingly the state of hiring, as people seek to streamline the stressful, tedious process with AI.

Researchers from Stockholm University and the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Mohali have reported a practical way to spot one of physics' strangest predictions: the Unruh effect, which says that an object speeding up (accelerating) would perceive empty space as faintly warm. But, trying to heat something up by accelerating it unimaginably fast is a nonstarter in the lab. The team has shown how to convert that tiny effect into a clear, timestamped flash of light.

It's almost become expected that many space telescopes and probes can have "extended missions." Both Voyagers are still sending data back 40+ years after their five-year primary mission ended. But figuring out what to do with those spacecraft after their primary mission takes some negotiation. One such craft that will reach its end-of-mission in 2030 is Euclid, which is currently on a mission to map the "dark universe" of dark energy and dark matter. According to a new paper from Luigi "Rolly" Bedin of the Astronomical Institute of Padua, which is available on the arXiv preprint server, for its second act we could turn Euclid into the most powerful astrometric telescope ever made.

As the everyday use of AI has exploded in recent years, so have the energy demands of the computing infrastructure that supports it. But the environmental toll of these large data centers, which suck up gigawatts of power and require vast amounts of water for cooling, has been too diffuse and difficult to quantify.

Should we leave space exploration to robots — or prioritize human spaceflight, making us a multiplanetary species? Harvard professor Robin Wordsworth, who's researched the evolution and habitability of terrestrial-type planets, shares his thoughts: In space, as on Earth, industrial stru...

A new method for measuring three different properties of light, at the same time, has been developed using an interferometry-based quantum sensing scheme capable of simultaneously estimating multiple parameters of an optical network.