• Brain-inspired computer chip material could slash AI energy consumption

    A new kind of nanoelectronic device could dramatically cut the energy used by AI hardware through mimicking the human brain, according to a new study. In the study led by the University of Cambridge, researchers developed a form of hafnium oxide that acts as a highly stable, low‑energy ‘memristor’. This electronic component acts as a resistor with memory, mimicking the way neurons in the brain form and adjust connections. As AI adoption increases, this brain-inspired, or neuromorphic, computing could offer an energy-efficient way for AI systems to process information. Current AI systems rely on conventional computer chips that shuttle data back and forth between memory and processing units, utilising large amounts of electricity. According to the researchers, their device could reduce…

  • Uber strikes $1.25bn deal with Rivian to deploy 50,000 robotaxis in autonomous push

    Uber will invest up to $1.25bn (£930m) in electric vehicle maker Rivian as part of a deal to deploy 50,000 autonomous robotaxis across 25 cities in the US, Canada and Europe. An initial $300m investment will go towards the purchase of 10,000 fully autonomous R2 robotaxis, with the option of buying an additional 40,000 in 2030. Uber has struggled to transition to driverless vehicles in the past, even though the technology could be a major boon for the firm. In 2020, it sold its loss-making autonomous driving unit to start-up Aurora in a bid to accelerate its path to profitability. It finally achieved this in 2023, with a total profit of $1.1bn compared with a loss of $1.8bn the year before. But Waymo, a subsidiary of Google’s parent company Alphabet, is becoming an increasing threat to…

  • ESA regains contact with Sun-observing spacecraft after month-long radio blackout

    The European Space Agency (ESA) has restored contact with its Coronagraph spacecraft weeks after communications were lost following an anomaly. As part of the Proba-3 mission, two spacecraft – Coronagraph and Occulter – were launched in late 2024 with a mission to study the Sun’s corona in depth to gain a greater understanding of the inner workings of our closest star. The two craft worked together, with Occulter blocking out the brightest parts of the Sun’s disk, allowing the Coronagraph to study its faint outer atmosphere without being blinded. But an anomaly in February caused Coronagraph to lose orientation and drift away from Occulter. It also failed to enter safe mode. The incident led scientists at the ESA to fear they would never recover control over the spacecraft. The agency had…

  • Households could save £203 a year if link broken between gas and electricity prices

    The government has been urged to decouple the price of UK electricity from gas – which typically commands the highest cost per MW – to save households around £203 per year on energy bills. Even though gas only accounts for about a quarter of electricity production in Britain, it sets the electricity price around 85% of the time – including from renewables such as solar and wind. In the UK, electricity production from offshore wind typically costs around £44 per MWh compared to an average of £114 per MWh from gas when factoring in carbon costs. This means that cheaper renewables are given inflated prices, which helped companies to make billions in windfall profits during the last energy price crisis at the outbreak of the Ukraine war. The left-leaning Common Wealth think tank called on…

  • E+T Expert Engineering: Advanced nuclear technology PART 1: Why nuclear needs a rethink

    Electricity is increasingly powering our lives but we need more of it… and fast. The shift to electric transport and the growth of energy-intensive industries such as data centres and AI, is driving this rise in electricity demand. The challenge is: how do we meet this demand without increasing emissions? The simple answer is deploying low-carbon technologies at scale. Enter nuclear.

  • Meta winds down Horizon Worlds VR as metaverse push fades

    Meta has announced plans to shut down its virtual reality (VR) platform Horizon Worlds as the company continues to pivot away from the metaverse. The platform was envisaged as the primary online social hub for users to access through Meta’s series of Quest VR headsets. It also supported user-created content including environments and games. Meta spent an estimated $70bn to $80bn on its metaverse division, which was responsible for developing Horizon Worlds, as well as the associated hardware needed to access it. It was released in December 2021 following broad proclamations from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg that it would be the “next frontier” in human connection and could even reach around one billion people by the end of the decade. The launch saw a modicum of success, attracting somewhere…

  • £45m AI supercomputer set to accelerate UK fusion energy research

    A new AI supercomputer will enable the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) to tackle key fusion energy challenges such as plasma turbulence, materials development and tritium fuel breeding. Due to start operations in June, ‘Sunrise’ will be based UKAEA’s Culham Campus in Oxfordshire, with £45m in funding from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ). Fusion is a potential source of almost limitless clean energy, seen as vital for energy security and the climate crisis. However, fusion is as difficult to realise in practice as it is hard to harness. Researchers will test and iterate designs virtually, avoiding the cost, risk and time required for physical testing. With its 6.76 exaflops of AI-accelerated modelling, Sunrise will enable the creation of high-fidelity simulations…

  • Tweaking flight paths could cut aviation’s climate impact by half, study suggests

    Small changes to aircraft flight paths to avoid contrails could reduce aviation’s global warming impact by nearly half, according to a study. The study, led by researchers at the University of Cambridge, suggests that changing cruising altitude by a few thousand feet, either up or down, could prevent contrails from forming. Contrails, or vapour trails, are line-shaped clouds produced by aircraft engine exhaust or changes in air pressure, typically at aircraft cruising altitudes several kilometres above the Earth’s surface. While the exact warming effect of contrails is uncertain, it is believed to be greater than warming caused by aviation’s CO2 emissions. Although modern commercial aircraft emit less carbon than their predecessors, previous studies have shown they could be contributing…

  • Upgraded detector at Large Hadron Collider reveals elusive subatomic particle

    A new subatomic particle has been discovered at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC), known as the Ξcc⁺ (Xi‑cc‑plus), which could help scientists improve their understanding of the forces that hold matter together. The result is the first particle discovery made using the upgraded LHCb detector, a major international project involving more than 1,000 scientists across 20 countries. The LHCb group from the University of Manchester designed and built key components of the upgraded tracking system, including the silicon pixel detector modules that were assembled in the university’s Schuster Building. The detectors were central to precisely reconstructing the particle decays in which the Ξcc⁺ signal was observed. The detector is a form of camera that images the particles produced at the LHC and…

  • North Sea drilling will not lower UK energy bills – new analysis

    Draining the North Sea of all oil and gas would cost households more than a fully renewable-powered UK, according to a new Oxford Smith School analysis. Conflict in the Middle East has triggered renewed calls for the UK to restart drilling in the North Sea. The argument is that if we produce more of our own oil and gas, household energy bills would fall. However, analysis from the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment (Oxford Smith School), an interdisciplinary research centre of the University of Oxford, finds that the effect would be minimal. Their analysis shows that even if the UK maximised oil and gas extraction from the North Sea and returned revenues collected directly to households, the reduction in energy bills would be a modest £16 to £82 a year. In comparison, a…

  • $35,000 teepee brings modern, plug-and-play comforts to wilderness living

    An off-grid teepee – powered by solar panels – that contains a toilet, shower, satellite broadband and small kitchen with cooking capabilities to bring modern comforts to almost anywhere has been created by an architectural duo. Klumpen is a portable, teepee-shaped room costing $35,000 (£26,000 plus £2,200 shipping in the EU) that can be placed next to a remote cabin to provide 21st century comforts. The teepee was designed by architectural duo Himmelsfahrtskommando, who also plan to launch an aluminium, extreme-conditions edition designed for volcanoes and glaciers at a significantly pricier $198,000. The self-sufficient system includes a water storage tank and a greywater recycling system to collect run-off from the shower and kitchen to be repurposed through a process involving filtering…

  • £1.7bn boost for city-centre projects in northern England

    Mayors in city regions across the North are set to gain from £1.7bn in government investment to accelerate city‑centre regeneration. The investment will support housing, office and transport developments across the Northern Growth Corridor, including Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Newcastle and York. The funding is intended to help mayors accelerate both new and stalled schemes, supporting jobs and expanding opportunities in city centre regions. Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced the funding during her Mais Lecture on 17 March, a major annual speech on the economy. The Northern Growth Corridor is part of a plan revealed by Reeves in which she identified investment in towns, cities and areas previously overlooked as one of her top priorities to build a stronger and more secure…

  • Road repair backlog hits record £18bn despite major funding boost

    Local authorities in England and Wales face a record £18.6bn backlog of road repairs despite increases to funding last year. The annual ALARM study, published by the Asphalt Industry Alliance (AIA), shows that only half (51%) of the local road network is reported to be in good structural condition, with 15 years or more life remaining, up 3% from last year. Almost one in six local roads – equivalent to over 32,500 miles – are reported to have less than five years’ structural life remaining. When the Labour government came to power it pledged to repair an additional one million potholes across England in each year of the parliament. It also promised an extra £1.6bn investment to be distributed to local councils to help them cope with the high costs of backlogs. But the AIA said that although…

  • Total grid collapse deepens Cuba’s worsening energy crisis

    Cuba’s national electricity grid collapsed yesterday, leaving the majority of its near 11-million citizens without power. Grid operator UNE said it was still investigating the cause of the blackout, but the incident occurred less than two weeks after a sudden failure at the Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant, the island’s largest power station. This triggered a massive blackout stretching from Pinar del Río through central provinces, including Havana. The country is currently facing a major economic crisis that has been worsened with the advent of US attacks on Venezuela and Iran. While the Iran conflict has seen oil prices spike all over the world, Venezuela was one of Cuba’s primary oil suppliers, and that supply has now been cut off as the US took control of the domestic sector. This…

  • Sustainable aviation fuel could entirely replace jet fuel in breakthrough

    Washington State University (WSU) researchers have developed a technique to produce a form of aromatic kerosene directly from vegetable oils that, when blended with paraffinic sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), can entirely supplement fossil-fuel-derived jet fuels. SAF is touted as a way to lower emissions in the aviation sector in the short term – but it cannot be used on its own and needs to be mixed with regular jet fuel to act as a drop-in replacement. SAF is typically used to produce paraffinic fuels, while aircraft require aromatic molecules for proper performance. Made from sustainable sources, including materials such as household waste or used cooking oil, SAF produces on average 70% fewer greenhouse gas emissions than using fossil jet fuel on a life-cycle basis. The technique, known…

  • Giant TBM starts work on 2.2km electricity tunnel under the Thames

    A 271.5-tonne tunnel boring machine (TBM) has started excavating a 2.2km tunnel to carry electricity beneath the River Thames. The arrival of the ‘Caroline’ TBM marks a major milestone in the National Grid’s Grain to Tilbury project. Launched from a 48.7 metre-deep shaft in Tilbury, Essex, it will begin tunnelling its way towards a reception shaft in Gravesend, Kent. The project is a new high-voltage electricity link that will replace the existing 1960s Thames Cable Tunnel. It forms part of The Great Grid Upgrade, the largest overhaul of the electricity grid in generations. Energy minister Michael Shanks, who officially launched the TBM on site in Essex, said: “This major engineering project is part of the biggest upgrade in Great Britain’s electricity network in a generation. “Not…

  • UK’s ‘most powerful’ quantum computer heading to Cambridge

    A 256-qubit quantum computer housed at the University of Cambridge is set to ‘supercharge’ quantum research in the UK. In partnership with US quantum technology firm IonQ, the project will see the first commercial-scale quantum computer installed at a UK university. The system will be housed in the new IonQ Quantum Innovation Centre located on campus and marks the university’s largest-ever corporate research partnership. “This is a true partnership, with long-term investment, shared research and co-development in all areas of quantum technology, bringing together physics, engineering, medicine, computer science, policy and more,” said Professor Mete Atatüre, head of the Cavendish Laboratory, the physics department of the University of Cambridge. As part of the collaboration, Innovate…

  • From tractors to satellites, digital technology moves deeper into agriculture

    Farming’s rural nature has long been an obstacle to technology adoption in the sector – but more accessible communications, together with AI, are opening the door. Agriculture is one of the UK’s key strategic industries but has not traditionally been seen as a leading user of digital technologies. However, that is starting to change thanks to increasing functionality in farm machinery, satellite connectivity, the incoming 6G hybrid communications standard and, inevitably, AI. According to NFU Mutual’s Agri-Tech Report, around 60% of farmers were using some form of precision agriculture by 2023 – although many remained cautious about the costs of adoption. A 2024 survey by the National Farmers Union found its members wanted to see more research and results in AI, alongside measures to reduce…

  • Average EU electric car price drops €1,800 as affordable models arrive

    The average price of an electric vehicle in the EU has fallen for the first time since 2020, with consumers saving an average of €1,800 (£1,500) as carmakers release affordable models to meet climate targets. But according to non-profit Transport and Environment (T&E), the recent easing of carmakers’ 2030 obligations could delay the point at which EVs reach price parity with combustion vehicles. The price has dropped for the first time since 2020, driven by the release of more affordable models to comply with the bloc’s car CO2 targets. The average price of EVs decreased by €1,800 to €42,700 (–4%) in the EU last year – a stark contrast to the period between 2020 and 2024 when the price climbed by €5,000. Lucien Mathieu, cars director at T&E, said: “The EU targets are delivering cheaper…

  • Advanced radiation-blocking material could shield astronauts on deep space missions

    A nanotechnology-based material developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) could block harmful space radiation, enabling safer human spaceflight. Researchers at MIT in the US have developed boron nitride nanotubes that are able to block dangerous ionising radiation. This could make long-duration, deep-space missions to Mars possible. Ionising radiation in deep space cannot currently be fully mitigated by traditional shielding. When space radiation hits the aluminium used in most spacecraft it creates secondary neutrons. Exposure to these high-energy particles could damage an astronaut’s DNA and cause serious long-term health risks. Ionising radiation is not an issue in missions closer to Earth as our magnetic field provides protection from this radiation. But if humans…

  • 1,140-lens telescope set to uncover the universe’s hidden structure

    Construction has begun on a next-generation telescope, dubbed MOTHRA, that is designed to reveal the cosmic web – a largely unknown network of gas and dark matter that connects galaxies across the universe. MOTHRA is a distributed-aperture telescope composed of 1,140 high-end Canon telephoto lenses, which together synthesise the power of a single giant telescope. This design has grown out of the Dragonfly Telephoto Array concept which initially demonstrated the capability to find and study extremely faint, extended structures. Dark matter is still little understood by scientists but appears to make up most of the matter in the universe. Astronomers know it exists because of the way its gravity affects galaxies and the movement of stars. By studying it, scientists hope to explain how galaxies…

  • Inaccessible rail network ‘locking millions out’, report warns

    Upgrading outdated stations and infrastructure should take priority over building new railway schemes, argues a report from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE). The report – En route to inclusive public transport – is calling on the government to integrate the retrofitting of stations and disabled access points directly into the procurement process. It argues that the government cannot build its way out of the current inaccessible transport system with impressive new projects while old barriers remain embedded across the network. These barriers mean that passengers with disabilities or reduced mobility cannot easily navigate stations due to lack of step-free access – for instance, steep stairs, narrow passageways, no elevators to reach platforms and big gaps between the train…

  • Government unveils package to boost girls and women in tech careers

    Measures aimed at attracting and retaining girls and women in the tech sector have been launched by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT). The package aims to boost female participation in tech through supporting girls and women at every stage of their careers. It includes initiatives to attract more girls into considering tech as a future career, a £4m placement programme to help women in tech advance their careers and a pilot ‘returnship’ scheme supporting those re-entering jobs after a career break. Secretary of state for science, innovation and technology Liz Kendall said: “I am very aware of the reality women face in tech. Women aren’t being given a fair shot – whether that’s getting into the sector, staying in it or returning after time away. If we don’t address…

  • Major UK study shows clinicians and AI working together to cut breast cancer deaths

    The use of AI in breast cancer screening could save many lives, according to a landmark study. The research, led by Imperial College London, involved 175,000 women – the largest NHS study to date. The findings clearly show the advantages of using AI to identify breast cancer earlier, reduce errors and help deliver life-saving treatment sooner. Breast cancer is the most common cancer in the UK, with one woman diagnosed every 10 minutes and roughly 55,000 new cases per year. Diagnosis usually follows a mammogram or breast screening, with images assessed by clinical radiologists. The NHS is under pressure as there is currently a 29% shortfall of radiologists in the UK – almost 2,000 – and this is predicted to rise to 39% by 2029. The study looked at the potential of using AI technology…

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