1st January 2016 2015 highlights Happy New Year! These were our top 10 most viewed blogs of 2015, in reverse order. What were your favourite science and technology stories of last year? Let us know in the comments below.
13th July 2015 7 nanometre chips enable Moore's Law to continue Despite the naysayers, Moore's Law just refuses to die. In 2015, it continued the exponential trend seen in computer speeds, with a new chip measuring just 7nm being unveiled by IBM. These new chips – packing 20 billion transistors onto a fingernail-sized area – are expected to start appearing in consumer devices from 2017-18. Read more »
27th October 2015 Could alien megastructures be orbiting a distant star? In October, the world of astronomy was abuzz with news about a star known as KIC 8462852. Highly unusual light fluctuations detected in this system appeared to defy all logical explanations, leading to speculation about a possible extraterrestrial presence. Read more »
4th August 2015 New memory technology is 1,000 times faster In August, Intel and Micron unveiled "3D XPoint" – a new generation of memory technology that is 1,000 times faster than NAND, and 10 times denser than conventional DRAM. Read more »
29th August 2015 Breakthrough in fusion energy In August, U.S. company Tri Alpha Energy revealed a breakthrough technique for stabilising the hot gas needed to generate fusion power. Read more »
3rd November 2015 A shape-shifting, self-driving concept car by Nissan In November, a new futuristic concept car was unveiled by Nissan at the 2015 Tokyo Motor Show. Read more »
17th February 2015 Mars One selects final 100 astronaut candidates Mars One is a Dutch company that claimed it would establish a permanent human colony on Mars by the mid-2020s. After a series of promising announcements regarding its progress towards that goal, it has faced mounting criticism from scientists, engineers and those in the aerospace industry regarding the project's schedule, technical and financial feasibility, as well as its ethics. In February 2015, MarsOne reported that its final 100 astronaut candidates had been selected from 200,000 applicants in countries around the world. Read more »
10th January 2015 Kepler telescope confirms 1000th exoplanet 2015 was another year of amazing exoplanet discoveries. The year began with NASA announcing the 1000th confirmed exoplanet discovered by the Kepler Space Telescope. Three of the newly confirmed planets were found to orbit within habitable zones of their parent stars. Read more »
19th October 2015 Malaria protein that kills cancers to begin human trials by 2019 In October, scientists identified a protein in malaria that can bind to cancer cells and attack more than 95% of tumour types. Human clinical trials are expected to begin by 2019. Read more »
14th March 2015 Alzheimer's breakthrough using ultrasound In March, a new method of treating Alzheimer's disease with ultrasound was demonstrated in mice, clearing the amyloid plaques in 75% of the animals. Human clinical trials are now planned for 2017. Read more »
8th March 2015 Futuristic tires could boost electric vehicles While only a concept at this stage, these futuristic tires could one day revolutionise electric vehicles. The first concept would generate electricity through the action of thermoelectric and piezoelectric materials, which capture and transform the energy created by heat and movement. The second concept would dynamically adapt to different road conditions. Read more »
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