Science and Technology

The object, 2026 ED138, could be one of the largest bodies known in the outer solar system, but its size and status still need confirming.The NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory has found its first candidate dwarf planet: an icy body orbiting the Sun beyond Neptune, currently about 46 times farther from the Sun than Earth is. The object, provisionally designated 2026 ED138, was announced on October 27 by the observatory and the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center.Its exact size is still unknown. If the upper end of current estimates holds, it would rank among the largest bodies discovered beyond…

A Cambridge-led modeling study finds that comets rarely, if ever, delivered intact hydrogen cyanide to the young Earth, weakening a 1960s idea about where life's raw materials came from.For more than six decades, scientists have entertained the idea that comets helped start life on Earth by delivering ready-made organic ingredients.A new modeling study argues that this delivery route was, at best, a rare accident.The research, published October 28 in Scientific Reports, focused on hydrogen cyanide (HCN), a simple molecule that is common in comets and serves as a starting material in many laboratory recipes for the building blocks of RNA…

Investment outside artificial intelligence is flowing most visibly into technologies that produce electricity, move it, store it, connect people, and improve health and security. Clean energy dominates the largest publicly tracked totals: the International Energy Agency expects global investment in clean energy technologies and infrastructure to reach about $2.2 trillion in 2025.There is no definitive global top-ten ranking. Industry reports count different things: a purchased electric vehicle, a new semiconductor factory, a venture-capital round, and a power-grid upgrade are not directly comparable. The ten technologies below are therefore major investment magnets, not a precise league table. The order broadly reflects…

The most effective energy-saving technologies do not simply switch one fuel for another. They deliver the same lighting, comfort, mobility, computing, or industrial output with less energy. Their impact depends on how widely they are adopted, what equipment they replace, and how they are operated.These ten innovations stand out because they target major drivers of energy consumption or enable massive savings at scale. The figures below serve as typical comparisons rather than guarantees, as local conditions and baseline selections play a crucial role.1. LED LightingLight-emitting diode, or LED, lamps produce far more light per unit of electricity than incandescent bulbs.…

The answer depends on what counts as a cost. A global computer worm can generate billions of dollars in estimated cleanup and lost productivity across many organizations. A breach at one company produces a narrower, often better-documented bill. The ranking below uses commonly cited nominal dollar estimates to compare both kinds of attack. It is a guide to their reported economic scale, not an audited league table: estimates for older worms are especially uncertain, and the figures have not been adjusted for inflation.1. MyDoom: approximately $38 billionFirst detected in 2004, MyDoom spread through email attachments and infected computers at remarkable…