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Jan 17, 2025 | 
sunshineradio.co.uk | Tom Clarke
"This is superconducting magnetic levitation," says magnet scientist Greg Brittles. "The closest you'll get to magic in the real world."And magical it is. The ceramic-like substance, called rare-earth barium copper oxide (REBCO), is suspended - half a centimetre-or-so - in mid-air above a strip of copper. Poke it with a finger and it won't budge, give it a push and it will spin without wanting to stop. REBCO is what's known as a superconductor. Materials that have near-zero electrical resistance.
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Jan 9, 2025 | 
news.sky.com | Tom Clarke |Mark Wyatt
'Wayward boat' causes delay The countdown clock has now been pushed back to 35 minutes, with a new estimated launch time of 7.03am. In a post on X, Blue Origin says the "unplanned hold" and subsequent pushback is due to a "wayward boat". This can be a common problem for rockets. Safety officials need all nearby vessels to vacate in case the rocket malfunctions during takeoff.
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Nov 24, 2024 | 
news.sky.com | Tom Clarke
Don't be fooled by the applause. After two weeks of deadlock over a climate finance deal, when it finally came, it was a standing ovation of relief, not rejoicing. This was a deal so bad, and so unpopular, that this year's COP host Azerbaijan was forced to gavel it through without allowing objections.
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Nov 19, 2024 | 
news.sky.com | Tim Jones |Tom Clarke
Elon Musk's SpaceX has successfully performed another launch of its Starship rocket in front of President-elect Donald Trump, but the test flight did not go perfectly. The 400ft (122m) high rocket system, designed to land astronauts on the moon and ferry crews to Mars, lifted off from Boca Chica, Texas. The first stage, called Super Heavy, unexpectedly made a splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico instead of attempting to return to its launchpad, indicating something went wrong.
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Nov 12, 2024 | 
news.sky.com | Tom Clarke
Keir Starmer's arrival at COP29, with a promise to drastically cut the UK's carbon emissions by 81%, will be a small ray of sunshine in an otherwise gloomy start to the climate talks. The election of Donald Trump, who has vowed to drag the world's largest economy out of the negotiations, was a colossal setback for a round of talks dedicated to raising ambition - and cash - for the transition away from fossil fuels.
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Oct 9, 2024 | 
originalfm.com | Tom Clarke
What prompted the moment, said NBC's John Morales afterwards, was atmospheric pressure. "It's funny how millibars can get a nerd to lose it," he said. Falling barometric pressure is the best predictor of the growing intensity of a storm. Hurricane Milton latest updates - tourists strandedThe forecaster had just received an update from US weather services that revealed Milton's pressure had dropped 50 millibars in just 10 hours. "It just absolutely dropped like a rock," said Mr Morales.
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Jul 2, 2024 | 
blackcountryradio.co.uk | Tom Clarke
That's according to researchers who found it improved care in many cases - and provided more benefits than current tests. Doctors studied the whole genome sequence of cancers in 281 children. In nearly a third of cases, it provided additional information about their illness and future treatment. For 20 children, it improved decisions about their care that couldn't have been made without "gold standard" whole genome sequencing.
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May 17, 2024 | 
vibe1076.co.uk | Tom Clarke
To have infected patients with HIV and Hepatitis C in the course of treating them "is the worst thing you can imagine," he says. Prof Tuddenham went on to be one of the UK's leading haematologists, isolating the gene that makes the key "factor 8" protein lacking in many people suffering bleeding disorders. His discovery led to safe treatments for haemophilia that don't require the use of potentially contaminated donated human blood - the ultimate cause of the infected blood scandal.
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Nov 1, 2023 | 
news.sky.com | Tom Acres |Tom Clarke
Elon Musk will head to Downing Street for talks with Rishi Sunak today following the prime minister's AI safety summit. China and the US, the world's leading AI powers, were among 28 countries to endorse the Bletchley Declaration. It said nations should work together to research the safety of so-called frontier AI models, which some experts - including Musk - believe could one day threaten humanity.
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Oct 31, 2023 | 
news.sky.com | Tom Acres |Tom Clarke
Rishi Sunak has been warned not to ignore the "here and now" threats to people's jobs posed by artificial intelligence, as Elon Musk and the creator of ChatGPT jet in for a landmark UK summit. Bletchley Park is set to welcome more than 100 figures from politics and business from today, including the likes of OpenAI's Sam Altman, Google DeepMind's Demis Hassabis, and billionaire Musk.
