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The clock’s accuracy would be as high as one second for every 300 billion years.

A collaboration between researchers from various institutes in Germany has brought us a step closer to building the first-ever nuclear clock. In experiments carried out at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), the researchers measure the radiative decay of thorium-229 nuclear isomer, the first instance of having achieved this feat and a critical component for building nuclear clocks.

For years atomic clocks have been our standard of accuracy when it comes to clocks.


Blackjack3D/iStock.

If rising oceans aren’t worry enough, add this to the risks New York City faces: The metropolis is slowly sinking under the weight of its skyscrapers, homes, asphalt and humanity itself.

New research estimates the ’s landmass is sinking at an average rate of 1 to 2 millimeters per year, something referred to as “subsidence.”

That happens everywhere as ground is compressed, but the study published this month in the journal Earth’s Future sought to estimate how the massive weight of the city itself is hurrying things along.

Meet the house that diapers built.

Researchers have designed and erected a house that has shredded, disposable diapers mixed into its concrete and mortar. A single-story home of about 36 square meters can pack nearly 2 cubic meters of used diapers into its floors, columns and walls, the team reports May 18 in Scientific Reports.

Using recycled diapers as composite building materials would not only shrink landfill waste but also could make such homes more affordable, the team says, a particular need in developing countries like Indonesia where the demand for low-cost housing far outstrips the supply.

The Meta chief has drawn up plans for Instagram to introduce a Twitter competitor that would allow users to share text, per reports last week. Zuckerberg is reportedly already going out of his way to get high-profile influencers onboard.

This is not the first time Zuckerberg has taken a leaf out of his rivals’ books. In the span of almost two decades, he has been able to create – and keep intact – his $630 billion social-media empire by copying ideas from plucky upstarts building competing social networks.

Musk’s new Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino seems ready for the challenge from Zuckerberg, but if she and Musk are really serious about turning Twitter into a money-making machine, they may need to do some brazen copycatting of their own.

The new amphibious drone has a light design and weighs just 1.63 kilograms.

China’s researchers have unveiled the creation of a one-of-a-kind “aerial-aquatic hybrid drone” capable of performing a wide range of tasks. Named TJ-FlyingFish, it is a hybrid drone that can both fly and dive underwater.

This remarkable drone has the potential to be a game-changing tool in various sectors of life. As per the developers, it could include assisting with offshore construction, monitoring marine habitat, conducting aerial and aquatic surveys, remote sensing, and search-and-rescue operations, among other things.

Space startup Vast has announced that it intends to launch what it calls the world’s first commercial space station, Haven-1, sometime after August 2025 atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket as the first element of a 100-m (330 ft) rotating station.

With its increasing emphasis on lunar and deep-space missions, NASA has decided to leave low-Earth orbit to private companies when it comes to human spaceflight. The idea is that when the International Space Station (ISS) is retired in 2030, the space agency will buy time on some of the commercial stations currently on the drawing board.

A new contender in this is Vast, which says it is developing a self-contained habitat module with a large viewing port that can fit in the payload section of a Falcon 9. It’s capable of docking with a SpaceX Dragon and can accommodate up to four people aboard for up to 30 days. Also planned is a much larger module that can fit inside a SpaceX Starship.