If we’re to reach another star, chemical propulsion will not get us there in any reasonable time frame. We’re going to need a different propulsion technology, and one of the most promising seems to be a solar sail. These giant reflective surfaces form the basis of many interstellar mission concepts. Combined with giant lasers pushing them, they can be accelerated to speeds unreachable by any other current technologies.

However, according to a new paper posted to the arXiv preprint server by Chao Shen and Jiaze Li of the Harbin Institute of Technology, once those missions start reaching a significant percentage of the speed of light, they’re going to run into a drag force from the light itself.

The paper ...

AI data centers are power-hungry. Not only do artificial intelligence computations consume enormous amounts of electricity, but a significant amount of energy is also required to cool the semiconductor chips that heat up during operation. As AI chips continue to deliver higher performance, the amount of heat they generate increases rapidly. As a result, conventional air cooling and external copper heat spreaders are approaching their practical limits. To address this challenge, a KAIST research team has developed an ultra-high-efficiency liquid-cooling technology that cools semiconductor chips from within.

A joint research team led by Professor Sung Jin Kim of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Professor Ikjin Lee of the School of AI and Computing has developed a highly e...

Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, is a unique environment in our solar system. It is the only moon (or body beyond Earth) to have a dense, nitrogen-rich atmosphere, and its methane cycle is very similar to Earth’s hydrological cycle, in which solid and liquid methane evaporate to form clouds and return to the surface as precipitation. In addition, its prebiotic surface environment and rich organic chemistry make it a prime destination for astrobiology missions, such as NASA’s Dragonfly mission (set to launch no earlier than July 2028).

And as Robert Zubrin said in his book, “Entering Space: Creating a Spacefaring Civilization,” Saturn’s moons could become the “Persian Gu...

Eliminating sugar from your diet may be more detrimental than previously thought, according to an animal study presented at ENDO 2026, the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting in Chicago.

“Completely removing sucrose from a low-fat diet may unexpectedly disrupt gut health and promote inflammation and metabolic dysfunction, highlighting that balanced nutrition is more important than simply eliminating sugar,” said Rasheed Ahmad, Ph.D., principal scientist and head of the Immunology & Microbiology Department at the Dasman Diabetes Institute in Kuwait City, Kuwait. The institute was founded by Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences.

Researchers investigated the effects of a sucrose-free low-fat diet compared with a sucrose-containing low-fat control diet in two groups of m...