Science & TechnologyS


Robot

Man accidentally gains command of 7,000 robot vacuums

Mack DeGeurin
Popular Science
Tue, 24 Feb 2026 20:53 UTC
robot army graphic cute
© Getty ImagesA robot vacuum army is less cute and potentially more dangerous.
A software engineer's earnest effort to steer his new DJI robot vacuum with a video game controller inadvertently granted him a sneak peak into thousands of people's homes.

While building his own remote-control app, Sammy Azdoufal reportedly used an AI coding assistant to help reverse-engineer how the robot communicated with DJI's remote cloud servers. But he soon discovered that the same credentials that allowed him to see and control his own device also provided access to live camera feeds, microphone audio, maps, and status data from nearly 7,000 other vacuums across 24 countries. The backend security bug effectively exposed an army of internet-connected robots that, in the wrong hands, could have turned into surveillance tools, all without their owners ever knowing.

Luckily, Azdoufal chose not to exploit that. Instead, he shared his findings with The Verge, which quickly contacted DJI to report the flaw. While DJI tells Popular Science the issue has been "resolved," the dramatic episode underscores warnings from cybersecurity experts who have long-warned that internet-connected robots and other smart home devices present attractive targets for hackers.
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Beaker

A tiny, 45 base long RNA can make copies of itself

John Timmer
Ars Technica
Fri, 13 Feb 2026 21:42 UTC
rna self replication small 45 base pairs
© Laguna DesignBy base pairing with themselves, RNAs can form complex structures with enzymatic activity.
Self-copying RNAs may have been a key stop along the pathway to life.

There are plenty of unanswered questions about the origin of life on Earth. But the research community has largely reached consensus that one of the key steps was the emergence of an RNA molecule that could replicate itself. RNA, like its more famous relative DNA, can carry genetic information. But it can also fold up into three-dimensional structures that act as catalysts. These two features have led to the suggestion that early life was protein-free, with RNA handling both heredity and catalyzing a simple metabolism.

For this to work, one of the reactions that the early RNAs would need to catalyze is the copying of RNA molecules, without which any sort of heritability would be impossible. While we've found a number of catalytic RNAs that can copy other molecules, none have been able to perform a key reaction: making a copy of themselves. Now, however, a team has found an incredibly short piece of RNA — just 45 bases long — that can make a copy of itself.
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Light switch

Three Key Constraints That Could Derail The Data Center Buildout Story

Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge
Thu, 19 Feb 2026 08:22 UTC
Data centre
The data center investment macro story centers on hyperscalers such as Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta, and Amazon Web Services, whose massive cloud computing services are becoming the backbone for AI workloads, including ChatGPT and others. However, as we've previously noted, the data center buildout has run into supply-chain snarls, including memory chip shortages, power-grid constraints, and even a shortage of turbine blades for natural-gas generators.

The data center boom powering the AI revolution is certaintly impressive to watch unfold, but it won't be a straight line from here as the US attempts to hold the number one spot in the global AI race. Challenges are mounting, and the latest coverage on this comes from a conversation Goldman analyst Brian Singer had with Mark Monroe, a former principal engineer in Microsoft's Datacenter Advanced Development Group, who warned that data center buildouts face three major headwinds.

Here's a recap of the conversation between Singer and Monroe, which focused on three key constraints: power, water, and labor.

Comment: To get a down to earth understanding of some of the problems with data centres, watch this video from Scottiestech.info



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Black Cat 2

How cat eyes made roads safer

Clarissa Brincat
Popular Science
Wed, 18 Feb 2026 20:52 UTC
black cat
© Anita Kot / Getty ImageCat eyes have even inspired some life-saving tech.
One foggy night in 1933, a businessman named Percy Shaw was driving home from the pub in Yorkshire, England. The road was twisty and hard to see. Suddenly, two bright dots flashed back at him from the roadside. Percy slammed on the brakes.

The glowing dots belonged to a cat — and they probably saved his life. If he'd kept driving, he could have gone straight off the road.

That's when Percy got his eureka moment. What if roads could "shine back" at drivers the same way cats' eyes do? Within a year, he had invented Catseye® reflectors — those studs you still see embedded in roads today. They bounce your own headlights back at you, helping you see where you're going in the dark.

But why do cats' eyes glow like that?
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Sun

Researchers create a fluid that can store solar energy and then release it as heat months later

Jacek Krywko
Ars Technica
Tue, 17 Feb 2026 19:29 UTC
solar heater system
© Kypros /GettyThe system works a bit like existing solar water heaters, but with chemical heat storage
Sunlight can cause a molecule to change structure, and then release heat later.

Heating accounts for nearly half of the global energy demand, and two-thirds of that is met by burning fossil fuels like natural gas, oil, and coal. Solar energy is a possible alternative, but while we have become reasonably good at storing solar electricity in lithium-ion batteries, we're not nearly as good at storing heat.

To store heat for days, weeks, or months, you need to trap the energy in the bonds of a molecule that can later release heat on demand. The approach to this particular chemistry problem is called molecular solar thermal (MOST) energy storage. While it has been the next big thing for decades, it never really took off.

In a recent Science paper, a team of researchers from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and UCLA demonstrate a breakthrough that might finally make MOST energy storage effective.
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Info

How wood records the sun's most violent outbursts

Mark Thompson
Universe Today
Fri, 13 Feb 2026 09:22 UTC
Tree Ring
© ArnoldiusTree rings seen in a cross section of a trunk of a tree.
Somewhere around the year 774 CE, the Sun erupted with extraordinary violence. High energy particles slammed into Earth's atmosphere, triggering nuclear reactions that produced radioactive carbon-14. Trees across the planet absorbed this carbon and locked it into their wood, preserving a record of that ancient solar storm that scientists can still read today.

These extreme events, called Miyake events, represent space weather far more powerful than anything measured in the modern era. They dwarf even the 1859 Carrington Event, which created auroras near the equator.

Understanding these ancient storms matters because similar events could devastate our technology dependent civilisation, knocking out satellites, disrupting GPS and damaging power grids.

Tree rings have become invaluable for studying these storms. When cosmic rays hit Earth's atmosphere, they create carbon-14 that trees incorporate into their wood. During a Miyake event, radioactive carbon production spikes dramatically, leaving signatures in tree rings that persist for millennia.

But there's a problem. Scientists have noticed frustrating inconsistencies when comparing trees from the same event. Some show sharp carbon-14 spikes while others show gradual increases. The timing varies between species and locations, making it difficult to pinpoint exactly when storms occurred or determine their true intensity.
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Robot

Humanoid Robot Nails Perfect Backflip As Mobility Progress Accelerates At Scary Pace

Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge
Mon, 09 Feb 2026 15:41 UTC
Boston Dynamics robot Atlas
Boston Dynamics has released new footage of its flagship humanoid robot program, "Atlas," showcasing next-level mobility and reinforcing our greatest fears that when these bots are paired with "brains," adoption can quickly move from factory floors to offensive defense missions.

"Now that the Atlas enterprise platform is getting to work, the research version gets one last run in the sun. Our engineers made one final push to test the limits of full-body control and mobility, with help from the RAI Institute," Boston Dynamics, which is owned by Hyundai Motor Group, wrote in the description of a video titled "Atlas Airborne."

The video shows Atlas pulling off an impressive cartwheel, capped by a near-perfect backflip landing, at the Robotics & AI Institute testing facility. The institute is a research organization focused on solving fundamental challenges in robotics and AI. The video also highlights several other mobility accomplishments.

Comment: Just five years ago Boston Dynamics had dancing robots: 'We've learned nothing from sci-fi movies': Boston Dynamics' advanced dancing robots both amuse & scare

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Info

Could ionospheric disturbances influence earthquakes?


Kyoto University
Fri, 06 Feb 2026 16:07 UTC
Earthquake
© Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain
Kyoto, Japan -- Researchers at Kyoto University have proposed a new physical model that explores how disturbances in the ionosphere may exert electrostatic forces within the Earth's crust and potentially contribute to the initiation of large earthquakes under specific conditions.

The study does not aim to predict earthquakes but rather presents a theoretical mechanism describing how ionospheric charge variations -- caused by intense solar activity such as solar flares -- could interact with pre-existing fragile structures in the Earth's crust and influence fracture processes.

In the proposed model, fractured zones within the Earth's crust are assumed to contain high-temperature, high-pressure water, potentially in a supercritical state. These zones behave electrically like capacitors and are capacitively coupled with both the ground surface and the lower ionosphere, forming a large-scale electrostatic system.

When strong solar activity increases electron density in the ionosphere, a negatively charged layer can form in the lower ionosphere. Through capacitive coupling, this space charge may induce strong electric fields inside nanometer-scale voids within fractured crustal regions. The resulting electrostatic pressure could reach magnitudes comparable to tidal or gravitational stresses known to affect fault stability.

Quantitative estimates in the study suggest that ionospheric disturbances associated with large solar flares -- corresponding to increases in total electron content of several tens of TEC units -- could generate electrostatic pressures on the order of several megapascals within crustal voids.
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Bizarro Earth

Earth is 'missing' lighter elements. They may be hiding in its solid inner core

Rachel Brazil
LiveScience
Sun, 01 Feb 2026 00:00 UTC
earth layers to core
© CHRISTOPH BURGSTEDT/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/Getty ImagesThe iron of the inner core of our planetary home may exist in an unusual state known as an electride.
These chemical oddities may explain why Earth seems to be deficient in certain elements — and could prove useful in catalysts and more.

For close to a century, geoscientists have pondered a mystery: Where did Earth's lighter elements go? Compared to amounts in the Sun and in some meteorites, Earth has less hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen and sulfur, as well as noble gases like helium — in some cases, more than 99 percent less.

Some of the disparity is explained by losses to the solar system as our planet formed. But researchers have long suspected that something else was going on too.

Recently, a team of scientists reported a possible explanation — that the elements are hiding deep in the solid inner core of Earth. At its super-high pressure — 360 gigapascals, 3.6 million times atmospheric pressure — the iron there behaves strangely, becoming an electride: a little-known form of the metal that can suck up lighter elements.

Comment: The research discusses ammonium crystal as an essential component in Earth's inner core.

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Blue Planet

See a rare, bus-sized giant phantom jelly wade through ocean waters off the coast of Argentina

Sara Hashemi
Source
Fri, 06 Feb 2026 17:21 UTC
giant phantom jelly
© ROV SuBastian / Schmidt Ocean InstituteA giant phantom jelly documented by a recent deep-sea expedition.
During an expedition off the coast of Argentina, scientists saw something unexpected. In December, they spied a rare jellyfish roughly the length of a school bus, known as the giant phantom jelly, wading through Atlantic waters at about 820 feet below the surface.

"There was a mixture of excitement and disbelief," says María Emilia Bravo, a marine biologist at the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina and the expedition's chief scientist, to Alexa Robles-Gil at the New York Times. "Its ethereal and delicate presence in such an extreme environment was deeply surprising."

The researchers stumbled upon the massive jellyfish while using a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) called SuBastian on an expedition spanning Argentina's entire coast. Unlike some jellyfish, giant phantom jellies lack stinging tentacles. Instead, they use ribbon-like arms to grab prey, typically plankton or small fish, and pull them into their mouths.
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