The Earth has been hit by a powerful blast of energy from the very depths of the universe. The fast radio burst is the most distant of its kind of ever seen, coming from so far away that it has travelled eight billion years to get to Earth. It is also astonishingly powerful, one of the most energetic of its kind ever seen. In less than a second, it released the same energy that comes out of the Sun in more than 30 years. Fast radio bursts are intense, short bursts of energy that come from unknown but extreme activity in space. Scientists are still unsure of how they are formed, but explanations have included everything from extraterrestrial technology to neutron stars. The newly discovered burst appears to come from a small group of merging galaxies, scientists say, which helps support current theories about where they come from. But the intensity of the burst is harder to explain, which challenges our understanding of how they are actually emitted. “While we still don’t know what causes these massive bursts of energy, the paper confirms that fast radio bursts are common events in the cosmos and that we will be able to use them to detect matter between galaxies, and better understand the structure of the Universe,” said Ryan Shannon, from the Swinburne University of Technology. The blasts could be useful ways of answering some of the deepest questions about our cosmos, such as how much it actually weighs. At the moment, attempts to answer that have led to confusing results. “If we count up the amount of normal matter in the Universe — the atoms that we are all made of — we find that more than half of what should be there today is missing,” said Professor Shannon. “We think that the missing matter is hiding in the space between galaxies, but it may just be so hot and diffuse that it’s impossible to see using normal techniques. “Fast radio bursts sense this ionised material. Even in space that is nearly perfectly empty they can ‘see’ all the electrons, and that allows us to measure how much stuff is between the galaxies.” The blast was spotted last year, using a telescope in Japan. Researchers then used other telescopes to verify the find and examine it in more detail. “Using ASKAP’s array of dishes, we were able to determine precisely where the burst came from,” said Stuart Ryder, the first author on the paper. “Then we used the European Southern Observatory (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile to search for the source galaxy, finding it to be older and further away than any other FRB source found to date, and likely within a small group of merging galaxies.” The findings are reported in a new paper, ‘A luminous fast radio burst that probes the Universe at redshift 1’, published in the journal Science. Read More Scientists unveil radical new ‘missing law’ to explain the universe India’s Modi declares goal to land human on Moon by 2040 Researchers reveal source of largest ever Mars quake

Slowdown fears are weighing on Chinese tech stocks and even upbeat sales figures from the industry’s bellwethers can’t

BRUSSELS The U.S. branch of Belgian chemicals company Solvay has struck a deal with the New Jersey Department

Amazon Prime is a valuable service for many people. For $139 per year, you get

At a closed-door Senate forum on artificial intelligence, tech leaders are getting their chance to outline their views about possible oversight legislation

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 9, 2023--

Fortnite 24.40 update teases new 'Star Wars' challenges

A stark new discovery has revealed that cannibalism was a common practice in Europe to commemorate the dead 15,000 years ago. Research from London’s Natural History Museum (NHM) found human remains at a famed Paleolithic site in Cheddar Gorge that appeared to have bite marks across 100 of the bones. Scientists believe this is sufficient evidence of cannibalism in the Magdalenian group. "We interpret the archaeological evidence that cannibalism was practised on multiple occasions across northwest Europe over a short period of time as an indication that such behaviour was part of a funerary behaviour among Magdalenian groups, and not simply practised out of necessity," Dr Silvia Bello, paleoanthropologist and principal researcher said in a statement. Postdoctoral researcher William Marsh went on to say that the study contextualised the area by reviewing all sites "attributed to the Magdalenian culture." "During the terminal time period of the Palaeolithic, you actually see a turnover in both genetic ancestry and funerary behaviour, indicative of population replacement as Epigravettian groups migrated northwards," he said, as per IFL Science. "We believe that the change in funerary behaviour identified here is an example of demic diffusion where essentially one population comes in and replaces another population and that brings about a change in behaviour." Fast forward to 2023, and now people are having their bodies frozen in hopes they can "wake up" in the future. Cryonics "is the practice of preserving humans and animals at cryogenic temperatures in the hope that future science can restore them to a healthy living condition as well as rejuvenate them," according to the National Library of Medicine. "At present cryonics can only be performed after pronouncement of legal death of the cryonics subject." Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

TikTok star Breckie Hill claimed she is being “sued” by her ex-partner amid a recent Snapchat leak. The 20-year-old social media star addressed the ongoing issues of videos leaking from her phone, revealing in a TikTok that her mobile phone number had been shared online, and she was being bombarded with calls from her millions of fans. But it’s not the first time the influencer has been hacked. In fact, in one TikTok she claimed it is the third time it has happened to her. In another since-deleted video, she addressed the situation. According to HITC, Hill uploaded a video on 26 July in which she alleged her former partner is suing her over leaked files, which many have presumed to contain intimate content. She wrote: “POV your ex is now trying to sue you for being in something that was leaked which wasn’t even your fault.” Hill has deleted four recent videos from her TikTok that reference the leaks. In one of them, she claimed there were a total of 709 files that has been compromised. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter @breckiehill_ Responding to one commenter who suggested that Hill had leaked the files herself, she replied: “This comment is actually really disturbing to me. Why would I purposefully cause myself stress, anxiety, and tears to put photos of me as a child on the internet, including my number, including my email?” She added: “Maybe you should be more considerate next time and try putting yourself in that position.” @breckiehill Replying to @Alissa?? According to reports, Hill is working with a private investigator to discover the person that hacked her account and leaked the content to bring them to justice since she is only 17 years old in some of the images. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

South Africa may be able to raise as much as 1.13 trillion rand ($60 billion) over the next

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 10, 2023--

China has stepped up a feud with Washington over security by telling users of computer equipment deemed sensitive to stop buying products from the biggest U.S. memory chipmaker, Micron Technology Inc. The country's cyberspace agency says Micron products have unspecified “serious network security risks” that threaten China’s information infrastructure and affect national security