The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is to stage a production inspired by the faerie realm of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which will allow audiences to remotely interact with characters. The Midsummer Night’s Dream-inspired performance, ‘Dream’, had originally been scheduled to be staged as a more conventional live performance in spring. However, with most large theatres … Read more
A quantum sensor has been developed that can analyse the full spectrum of radio frequencies, which could enable new options for military communication. Researchers for the US army built the quantum sensor, which can sample from zero frequency up to 20GHz, detecting AM and FM radio, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and other communication signals along the way. … Read more
The UAE’s Hope probe is expected to reach Mars tomorrow, just hours before China’s orbiter-rover combo and a week ahead of Nasa’s probe. The Hope Probe, which was launched from Japan last year, will orbit Mars for more than two years and beam back data about the Martian atmosphere. It will observe the Martian atmosphere from an … Read more
Experts at the United Nations have accused North Korea of modernising its nuclear weapons by flouting UN sanctions, using cyberattacks to help finance its programmes, and continuing to seek material and technology overseas for its arsenal. The panel of experts monitoring sanctions on the north-east Asian nation say in a report sent to UN Security … Read more
Researchers in the US have developed a low-cost method for soft, deformable robots to detect physical interactions, from pats to punches to hugs, without relying on touch. The method, devised by a team at Cornell University in New York, uses a USB camera located inside the robot that “captures” the shadow movements of hand gestures on … Read more
A new way to create ‘food inks’ from fresh and frozen vegetables that enables 3D-printed food has been developed by Singapore researchers. The research team claims their method preserves the nutrition and flavour better than existing methods. Food inks are usually made from pureed foods in liquid or semi-solid form, then 3D-printed by extrusion from … Read more
A global team of experts has put together a list of the most urgent biosecurity threats, with bioengineering threats such as DNA-based surveillance among the top-ranked concerns. The exercise was facilitated by the Centre for Existential Risk (CSER) and the BioRISC project, both based at the University of Cambridge. A group of 41 academics and … Read more
An AI has been developed that can reportedly use wireless signals to reveal peoples’ inner emotions. According to researchers from Queen Mary University of London, the use of radio waves to measure heartrate and breathing signals can be used to predict how someone is feeling even in the absence of any other visual cues, such … Read more
A team of researchers from the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS), Quebec, Canada, have developed an electrolytic process for treating wastewater, degrading microplastics at the source. Microplastics are fragments of plastic less than 5mm long, often contained in toiletries or shedding from polyester clothing. They are present in virtually every corner of the … Read more
Researchers at the University of Barcelona have developed an open-access web app, based on deep learning techniques, which enables the detection and quantification of floating marine litter from aerial photography. Floating marine plastic is a serious threat to the conservation of marine ecosystems. For instance, marine plastics can cause damage to marine animals through ingestion, suffocation, restraint … Read more