3rd January 2019

2018 highlights

Goodbye 2018, and hello 2019!

These were our top 20 most viewed blogs of 2018, in reverse order.

What were your favourite science and technology stories of the year? What are your predictions for 2019? Let us know in the comments below!

20

21st August 2018

New alloy is 100 times more durable than high-strength steel

A team at Sandia National Laboratories in the U.S. engineered a platinum-gold alloy believed to be the world's most wear-resistant metal. Read more »

19

9th June 2018

U.S. unveils world's fastest supercomputer

The U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) unveiled 'Summit' as the world's fastest supercomputer, with a peak performance of 200,000 trillion calculations per second, or 200 petaflops. Read more »

18

3rd May 2018

New material offers 50 times greater current density than conventional copper

Engineers at the University of California, Riverside, demonstrated prototype devices made of an exotic material able to conduct a current density 50 times greater than conventional copper interconnect technology. Read more »

17

22nd February 2018

The Future of Humanity, by Michio Kaku

In his latest book, Michio Kaku made bold predictions about the future fate of humankind. This was also our first competition. Read more »

16

9th December 2018

The 100,000 Genomes Project is completed

In December, the pioneering 100,000 Genomes Project reached its goal, as predicted on our timeline. Read more »

15

28th September 2018

First video from the surface of an asteroid

The Japanese Hayabusa2 probe, which arrived at Ryugu in June, returned the first ever video from the surface of an asteroid. Read more »

14

8th September 2018

World's largest offshore wind farm officially opens

The 659-megawatt (MW) Walney Extension became operational off the coast of North West England. Read more »

13

22nd December 2018

World's first lab-grown sirloin steak

An Israeli startup became the first company in the world to produce a slaughter-free sirloin steak, grown in the laboratory. Read more »

12

28th November 2018

Fusion experiment in China exceeds 100 million °C

In November 2018, China's Institute of Plasma Physics officially confirmed that plasma in the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) exceeded 100 million degrees Celsius. Read more »

11

1st November 2018

World's first commercial foldable smartphone

Royole Corporation introduced the world's first commercial foldable smartphone, a combined mobile phone and tablet with a flexible screen, called the Royole FlexPai. Read more »

10

14th September 2018

Fusion breakthrough: improved control of plasma

Researchers predicted the entire set of beneficial 3-D distortions for controlling edge localised modes (ELMs) in tokamak plasma. Read more »

9

12th April 2018

Next-gen optical disk holds 10TB of data for 600 years

Scientists from Australia and China used gold nanomaterials to demonstrate a new high-capacity optical disk able to hold data securely for over 600 years, while using 1,000 times less power. Read more »

8

19th October 2018

Life expectancy trends predicted for 2040

In October, a comprehensive analysis of demographic trends, published in The Lancet, predicted that all countries are likely to experience at least a slight growth in life expectancy by 2040. Spain will overtake Japan as it rises from fourth to first place, with a life expectancy of 85.8 years. Read more »

7

7th August 2018

The pre-singularity period is exciting in its own way

Much like our ancestors, we live in an epoch of two worlds that compete and coexist. A guest blog by Yuli Ban. Read more »

6

20th June 2018

Japanese probe returns images of asteroid

As it prepared for orbital insertion and a surface landing, the Japanese Hayabusa2 probe returned images of the asteroid 162173 Ryugu from only a few hundred kilometres away (a more recent image with higher resolution is shown below). Read more »

5

3rd November 2018

World's largest neuromorphic supercomputer is operational

In November, the world's largest neuromorphic supercomputer, the million-core 'SpiNNaker' machine, was switched on by the University of Manchester, England. Read more »

4

28th October 2018

Future "superhumans" predicted in Stephen Hawking's final essays

In a posthumous book, Stephen Hawking left us with his final thoughts on the universe's biggest questions. He predicted the future of humanity including a race of "superhumans" that could emerge as people choose to upgrade themselves. Read more »

3

25th September 2018

Human-level artificial intelligence could be achieved "within five to ten years", say experts

At the Human-Level AI (HLAI) Conference in Prague, Czech Republic, a poll was conducted by the full-stack AI startup SingularityNET and general AI research and development company GoodAI. The results indicated that industry leaders are extremely optimistic about the emergence of artificial general intelligence (AGI). Read more »

2

7th December 2018

AI can solve CAPTCHA tests in under 0.05 seconds

Researchers created a new algorithm, based on deep learning, able to solve text-based CAPTCHA tests in less than 0.05 seconds. Read more »

1

30th June 2018

New standard allows SD cards to reach a theoretical maximum of 128TB

A new technical specification will enable SD cards to achieve a theoretical maximum storage capacity of 128 terabytes (TB), with transfer speeds of up to 985 megabytes per second (MB/s). Read more »

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