Physics

Alaska Airlines Flight 1282: How could iPhones survive a 16,000-foot drop?

X user Seanathan Bates documented how he had found an iPhone on the side of the road that came from an Alaska Airlines passenger and had seemingly survived the 16,000-foot drop "perfectly intact."

PassiveLogic, which creates digital twins of building systems, raises $15M

PassiveLogic, a startup developing a platform to autonomously control building systems, today announced that it raised $15 million from Brookfield Growth, the investment arm of asset management firm B

Metalenz PolarEyes upgrades digital sensing with polarized light

Tech sees differently, and can fuse multiple types of data we can’t even perceive: lidar, IR, ultrasonic and so on. Metalenz, maker of highly compact “2D” cameras for advanced sensin

Virgin Orbit, Relativity Space and Astra dish on the economics and efficiencies of space launches

Relativity Space CEO Tim Ellis, Astra CEO Chris Kemp and VOX Space (Virgin Orbit’s national-security-focused subsidiary) President Mandy Vaughn all joined us at TC Sessions: Space to jointly dis

Tiny water-based robot is powered by light and can walk, move cargo and even dance

A new robot created by researchers at Northwestern University looks and behaves like a tiny aquatic animal, and could serve a variety of functions, including moving things place to place, catalyzing c

Quantum photonics startup Nu Quantum raises £2.1M from Amadeus Capital Partners

For quantum cryptography and simulation to become real, the technology requires high-performance light-emitting and light-detecting components that operate at the single-photon level and at ambient te

With $84 million in new cash, Commonwealth Fusion is on track for a demonstration fusion reactor by 2025

Commonwealth Fusion Systems closed on its latest $84 million in new funding two weeks ago. The U.S. was still very much in the lockdown phase and getting a deal done, especially a multimillion dollar

A Boston startup developing a nuclear fusion reactor just got a roughly $50 million boost

After twenty five years of research, scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology think that they have finally cracked the code for the commercialization for nuclear fusion reactions. Commo

Lambs, the radiation-proof underwear company formerly known as Spartan, is now selling beanies

Earlier this year, Spartan, the French manufacturer of a silver-lined underwear designed to block EMF radiation from cell phones and wireless routers, relocated to the U.S. and raised some capital fro

CERN’s plan for 100-km collider makes the LHC look like a Hula Hoop

The Large Hadron Collider has produced a great deal of incredible science, most famously the Higgs Boson — but physicists at CERN, the international organization behind the LHC, are already looking

Quantum computing, not AI, will define our future

The word “quantum” gained currency in the late 20th century as a descriptor signifying something so significant it defied the use of common adjectives. At best, that is an imprecise (though ente

Stephen Hawking’s final paper about black holes is now online

Stephen Hawking passed away earlier this year at the age of 76, but his incredible intellect isn’t yet done contributing to the scientific community. The acclaimed physicist’s final paper

Nobel Prize goes to laser-wrangling physicists, including first woman to be honored in 55 years

The 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to a trio of researchers whose work in lasers enabled all kinds of new experiments and treatments. Arthur Ashkin is the primary recipient, sharing the

Researchers create a real cloaking device

Researcher Amanda D. Hanford at Pennsylvania State University has created a real cloaking device that can route sound waves around an object, making it invisible to some sensing techniques. From the r

Particle physics gets the machine learning treatment as collider data multiplies

The volume of data particle physicists have to sort through at the Large Hadron Collider is staggering, and it's about to increase by an order of magnitude. To cope with this torrent of data, CERN is

Researchers find a new material for quantum computing

Rumors of commercial quantum computing systems have been coming hot and heavy these past few years but there are still a number of issues to work out in the technology. For example, researchers at the

Stephen Hawking has died at 76

Stephen Hawking, whose work advanced the state of physics as much as the popular understanding of it, has died at the age of 76, his family has said. Hawking's brilliant intellect and unflinching pers

Meet top startups from Alchemist Class 17

Yesterday Alchemist Accelerator, best known for working with enterprise startups, held its 17th demo day at the SRI International in Menlo Park, California. Twenty-four startups pitched ideas ranging

Don’t keep cell phones next to your body, California Health Department warns

The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) issued a warning against the hazards of cellphone radiation this week. Yes, the thing we are all addicted to and can't seem to put down is leaking ele

This DIY project lets you catch a falling muon

Physicists at MIT have developed and released a $100 muon detector that you can build at home, allowing you to sense deep space bombardment on something that looks like a TV remote. The CosmicWatch is
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