When our universe was lower than half as outdated as it’s at present, a burst of energy that would cook dinner a solar’s value of popcorn shot out from someplace amid a compact group of galaxies. Some 8 billion years later, radio waves from that burst reached Earth and have been captured by a classy low-frequency radio telescope within the Australian outback.
The sign, which arrived in June 2022, and lasted for underneath half a millisecond, is one in every of a rising class of mysterious radio indicators referred to as quick radio bursts. In the final 10 years, astronomers have picked up practically 5,000 of them. This one was notably particular: practically double the age of something beforehand noticed, and three and a half occasions extra energetic.
No one is aware of what causes quick radio bursts. They flash in a seemingly random and unpredictable sample from everywhere in the sky. But regardless of the thriller, these radio waves are beginning to show terribly helpful. Read the total story.
—Anna Kramer
The miserable fact about TikTok’s impending ban
Trump’s 2020 government order banning TikTok got here to nothing ultimately. Yet the concept—that the US authorities ought to ban TikTok indirectly—by no means went away. It would repeatedly be advised in numerous types and shapes. And finally, on April 24, 2024, issues got here full circle with the invoice handed in Congress and signed into regulation.
So much has modified in these 4 years. Back then, TikTok was a rising sensation that many individuals didn’t perceive; now, it’s one of many largest social media platforms. But if the TikTok saga tells us something, it’s that the US is more and more inhospitable for Chinese firms. Read the total story.
—Zeyi Yang
