London, UK (SPX) Dec 18, 2025
A University of Cambridge philosopher argues that current evidence about consciousness is too limited to determine whether artificial intelligence becomes conscious, and that a reliable test for machine consciousness is unlikely to emerge for a long time, if at all. Dr Tom McClelland contends that as artificial consciousness moves from science fiction into an ethical concern, the only justifiabl

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Dec 18, 2025
Careful reanalysis of measurements gathered more than a decade ago indicates that Saturn's largest moon, Titan, likely lacks a vast liquid-water ocean beneath its ice, contrary to earlier interpretations of Cassini data. Instead, the work suggests that an icy journey downward from the surface would encounter extensive high-pressure ice, slushy layers, and pockets of meltwater closer to the rocky

Tokyo, Japan (SPX) Dec 18, 2025
A joint team from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology KAIST and the Unmanned Exploration Laboratory UEL has developed a transformable airless wheel designed to help small rovers access steep lunar pits and lava tubes. The wheel targets subsurface sites considered promising for future human habitats because they shield against cosmic radiation and extreme temperature swings.

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Dec 18, 2025
After nearly five years operating inside Mars Jezero Crater, NASA's Perseverance rover has logged almost 25 miles (40 kilometers) of driving while engineers certify that its mobility hardware and other subsystems can keep working for many more years. Built and operated by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, Perseverance is following up the long-running Curiosity rover

Berlin, Germany (SPX) Dec 17, 2025
An international collaboration of astronomers has used the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to detect a supernova at an unprecedented distance in the early universe, tied to a long-duration gamma-ray burst. The team observed the explosive death of a massive star when the universe was about 730 million years old, placing the event deep in the era of reionisation. The discovery offers a direct vi

Berlin, Germany (SPX) Dec 17, 2025
The Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) in the Chilean Andes is one of the most powerful radio telescope facilities used to probe cold and distant regions of the universe. Researchers use it to study how stars, planets, galaxies and potential precursors of life form by measuring millimeter and submillimeter radiation from cold molecular clouds. These molecular clouds are interste