IBM's Quantum Computer Completes in 19 Seconds What Could Take a Supercomputer a Century
ScienceAlertby Michelle Starr10d ago
Some computations are so hardcore that it takes a facility of extraordinary power to even think about running them.
ScienceAlert
sciencealert.comadded August 2026
top 20%Earth's Mysterious Black Diamonds May Have Begun With an Ancient Cosmic Impact
ScienceAlertby Esra Öz10d ago
Imagine picking up a black stone from an old riverbed in Brazil. Its surface shines like glass, but inside it is riddled with tiny holes.
America's Oldest Person Just Turned 116 – Here's What Science Says About How to Live That Long
ScienceAlertby Carly Cassella10d ago
The oldest known person in the United States and the second-oldest person in the world just celebrated her 116th birthday.
Dogs Share a Speech Trick Once Thought Uniquely Human
ScienceAlertby Esra Öz10d ago
Your dog may prick up its ears at its name or run to the door when it hears "walk." But can its brain separate unfamiliar words when it hears them without a pause?
The Sun And Moon Can Trigger Earthquakes, And Scientists May Finally Know How
ScienceAlertby Ivan Farkas10d ago
Cosmically, Earth can be likened to a planetary puppet 'tugged' by the gravitational strings of the Sun and Moon.
Ultrasound Reveals a Deadly Cancer Building Its Own 'Nest' Inside The Brain
ScienceAlertby Michelle Starr10d ago
When you move to a new place, one of the first things you might do is build yourself a cozy nest – a space of your own where everything is just the way you want it to be.
A Single Ball on a Billiard Table Can Theoretically Perform Any Computation
ScienceAlertby Michelle Starr17d ago
It's hard to imagine a system of physics simpler than a billiard table. Send a ball across the table, and its path follows a simple rule: It travels in a straight line until it hits a wall, then...
The Vivid Dreams Stage of REM Sleep Is Linked With a Lower Risk of 83 Diseases
ScienceAlertby David Nield17d ago
There's a lot more to sleep than just the amount of time that passes between you drifting off and waking up again – and the different facets of our slumber also have different implications for our...
Engineered Probiotic Wipes Out 43% of Colorectal Tumors in Mice
ScienceAlertby Michelle Starr17d ago
Chemotherapy has a problem with precision. It's one of the most effective ways we have to treat aggressive cancer – but it isn't very good at discriminating between the cancer cells it's targeting...
'Rusty Treasure' in Austria Revealed as Europe's Largest Cache of Iron Age Iron Bars
ScienceAlertby David Nield17d ago
In 2019, workers at a gravel extraction plant in Deinham, close to the Danube River in Austria, discovered a vast haul of iron bars in amongst the underwater gravel.
Scientists Have Ranked Which Exercises Are Best For Your Bones
ScienceAlertby David Nield18d ago
Exercise is good for you – that much we can all agree on – but which exercises work best for which types of benefit?
Depression May Affect Two Key Brain Regions – But Change Is Not Inevitable
ScienceAlertby Esra Öz18d ago
Depression can affect the brain, but not in the same way for everyone. A 10-year study suggests that what matters may not be whether someone has depression, but how the illness unfolds over time.
A 100-Year-Old Physics Effect Doesn't Work How We Thought It Did, Study Finds
ScienceAlertby David Nield18d ago
Non-physicists might hear of 'the Hall effect' and think it relates to the way time elongates when trying to get young children out of the front door, or the phenomenon where you always forget your...
Snails Carry a Surprising Record of Extreme Weather on Their Backs
ScienceAlertby Jess Cockerill18d ago
The rhythms of prehistoric cyclones and other extreme weather events could be mapped using the shell on a land snail's back, according to new research led by a team at the University of Queensland...
Menopause May Temporarily Alter Your Brain's Normal Aging, Scans Reveal
ScienceAlertby Carly Cassella18d ago
The female brain does something unexpected in the transition to menopause. It's entirely natural for gray matter in the brain to gradually shrink as a person ages.
Mountains That Helped Complex Life Flourish May Lie Hidden Beneath Antarctic Ice
ScienceAlertby Starre Vartan18d ago
Antarctica is famous for being a continent buried under ice. But beneath those frozen expanses may lie evidence of mountains that once rivaled today's Himalayas, and which profoundly shaped the...
Simple Diet Change Shifted People's Biological Age Markers in Just 4 Weeks
ScienceAlertby Esra Öz18d ago
Could changing your diet really turn back your body's clock? Not the wrinkles on your face or the gray in your hair.
Earth's Magnetic Field Flipping Heard as a Sound Is an Unnerving Horror
ScienceAlertby Fiona MacDonald20d ago
You can now listen to the exact sound of Earth's magnetic field falling apart. Around 41,000 years ago, our planet's magnetic field did something dramatic: It flipped.
Textbook Rewrite: The Human Brain Has Two Distinct Origins, Scientists Discover
ScienceAlertby Jess Cockerill20d ago
The brain is an immeasurably complex organ, and we're only just scratching the surface of how it even comes into existence.
Physicists Build a 'Mad-Scientist' Antimatter Beam to Test Einstein's Theory of General Relativity
ScienceAlertby Michelle Starr20d ago
According to Einstein's theory of general relativity, gravity does not discriminate. Matter, antimatter – it's all the same as far as gravity is concerned, and it all should fall in exactly the...