Commercialising quantum computers
Sep 26th 2020BIG, STABLE quantum computers would be useful devices. By exploiting the counterintuitive properties of quantum mechanics…
Tanks have rarely been more vulnerable
Sep 12th 2020TANK BATTLES are rare these days. Crews that wish to prove themselves can turn instead to the Tank Biathlon, part…
A burrowing dinosaur
Sep 26th 2020THIS DINOSAUR, a newly described species called Changmiania liaoningensis, was extracted from 123m-year-old rocks…
Why funnel-web spiders are so dangerous to people
Sep 26th 2020FUNNEL-WEB spiders have a fearsome reputation. People bitten by these Australian arachnids suffer extreme pain, breathing…
Natural disasters quicken an already precipitous global loss of species
Sep 19th 2020TROPICAL WETLANDS should be soggy and green, not lands of flaming vegetation. Yet the world’s largest tropical…
Scientists find possible signs of life in the clouds of Venus
Sep 14th 2020OF EARTH’S TWO planetary neighbours, Mars and Venus, it is Venus which shines brighter in the sky, comes closer…
A new global ranking of cyber-power throws up some surprises
Sep 19th 2020CHINA HAS the world’s largest army. Russia wields the most tanks. America owns the fanciest satellites. But who…
Davy Jones’s data-centre
Sep 19th 2020EARLIER THIS year a ship hauled a large, barnacle-covered cylinder sporting a Microsoft logo from the seas off the…
Anti-covid-19 medicines are being approved too easily
Aug 29th 2020WHAT DO A malaria drug, a Russian vaccine and the blood plasma of people who have recovered from covid-19 have in…