Lifeboat Foundation

Ancient continents were found under Antarctic ice, thanks to old data from a now-dead European satellite.

New analysis of data from the Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) mission has revealed rocky zones called “cratons” in the Earth’s lithosphere, a zone between our planet’s crust and mantle. GOCE plunged into Earth’s atmosphere five years ago this month after the craft ran out of orbital-maneuvering fuel. While scientists were unable to predict exactly where GOCE would fall, no debris dropped into populated areas.

Tokamaks like EAST could help us do just that. They’re devices that use magnetic fields to control plasma in a way that could support stable nuclear fusion, and it’s this plasma that EAST heated to such an incredible temperature.

Going Nuclear

Not only is EAST’s new plasma temperature milestone remarkable because, wow, it’s really hot, it’s also the minimum temperature scientists believe is needed to produce a self-sustaining nuclear fusion reaction on Earth.

Lancaster students win £30,000 prize for O-Wind turbine after scooping UK equivalent.

The team produced particulars for three distinct dwellings; an apartment aimed at young professionals, a family home and a luxury mansion.

The day of clean, limitless energy from nuclear fusion has taken another step closer thanks to China’s Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST). During a four-month experiment, the “Chinese artificial sun” reached a core plasma temperature of over 100 million degrees Celsius – that’s more than six times hotter than the interior of the Sun – and a heating power of 10 MW, enabling the study of various aspects of practical nuclear fusion in the process.

A new planet, more than three times the mass of Earth, has been discovered orbiting our closest single star. The discovery, which took more than 20 years to make, marks a change in the way we look for new planets.

This is the first time a planet of its size, known as a super-Earth, with an orbital period of 200 days, has been found using a well-established method; by measuring the fractional changes in the speed of the star caused by the planet orbiting around it.

The U.S. is now home to the two fastest supercomputers in the world, according to a newly released ranking of the top 500 systems.

Practices to enable more-thorough, earlier analyses of failed developments should be adapted to treatments for other challenging diseases, and should be part of regulators’ responsibilities. This will ensure that clinical research evaluates treatments faster and with more certainty.

Access to evidence from disappointing drug-development programmes advances the whole scientific process, explain Enrica Alteri and Lorenzo Guizzaro.