All posts tagged: Created

Edison may have unknowingly created graphene with his 1879 light bulb

Edison may have unknowingly created graphene with his 1879 light bulb

Published by Jenni Sidey

According to new research from Rice University, while Edison’s goal was simply to create a longer-lasting electric lamp, the extreme conditions created inside Edison’s carbon filament bulbs in those early light bulbs may have inadvertently produced the same conditions needed to create graphene. The study by James Tour and his former graduate student Lucas Eddy, who was the lead researcher, shows that when the authors recreated Edison’s original incandescent light bulb, they also discovered that the same electrical heating caused by the filament could convert the carbon filament into turbostratic graphene, the name for a type of graphene with loosely stacked atomic layers. Graphene is a single layer of carbon arranged in a two-dimensional honeycomb shape. It is incredibly strong, highly conductive, and transparent. While P.R. Wallace, a physicist in the 1940s, had proposed the theoretical existence of graphene, it was not until the early 2000s that graphene was isolated and characterized by Konstantin Novoselov and Andre Geim, who won the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics for their work on graphene. Edison’s Filaments And Extreme …

AI music has created a dilemma for the Grammys. Here’s why

AI music has created a dilemma for the Grammys. Here’s why

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the latest entertainment news, reviews and star-studded interviews with our Independent Culture email Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter At its best, artificial intelligence can assist people in analyzing data, automating tasks and developing solutions to big problems: fighting cancer, hunger, poverty and climate change. At its worst, AI can assist people in exploiting other humans, damaging the environment, taking away jobs and eventually making ourselves lazy and less innovative. Likewise, AI is both a boon and a bane for the music industry. As a recording engineer and professor of music technology and production, I see a large gray area in between. The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences has taken steps to address AI in recognizing contributions and protecting creators. Specifically, the academy says, only humans are eligible for a Grammy Award: “A work that contains no human authorship is not eligible in any categories.” The academy says that the human component must be meaningful and significant to …

How India and the EU created a common market to counter Trump

How India and the EU created a common market to counter Trump

Published by Sam Flores

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (center), European Council President Antonio Costa and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in New Delhi, India, January 27, 2026. MANISH SWARUP / AP “We have concluded the mother of all deals,” announced Ursula von der Leyen on X on Tuesday, January 27, as India and the European Union wrapped up negotiations on a free trade agreement. The Commission president, along with her counterpart from the European Council, Antonio Costa, traveled to New Delhi to mark the creation of a market encompassing nearly two billion people and the commercial union of two continents, which together account for a quarter of global gross domestic product. This agreement between the world’s second- and fourth-largest economies must now be formalized legally before being ratified by the member states and by the European Parliament. Burned by the precedent set by the Mercosur deal – which faced fierce opposition in Paris and deeply divided the European Parliament – the Commission, which negotiates on behalf of the 27 member states, was careful to avoid controversy. …

How a solar radiation storm created January 2026’s aurora

How a solar radiation storm created January 2026’s aurora

Published by Jenni Sidey

Sign up for the Starts With a Bang newsletter Travel the universe with Dr. Ethan Siegel as he answers the biggest questions of all. Starting on the night of January 19, 2026, planet Earth was treated to a global show that had only been seen once before in the 21st century: a spectacular auroral display that wasn’t triggered by a solar flare or by a coronal mass ejection, but instead by a completely different form of space weather known as a solar radiation storm. Whereas solar flares normally involve the ejection of plasma from the Sun’s photosphere and coronal mass ejections typically involve accelerated plasma particles from the Sun’s corona, a solar radiation storm is simply an intensification of the charged ions normally emitted by the Sun as part of the solar wind. Only, in a radiation storm, both the density and speed of the emitted particles get greatly enhanced. We’re currently still in the peak years of our current sunspot cycle: the 11-year solar cycle that’s been tracked for centuries, where “peak years” see …

Doni Nahmias Explains How He Created “Natural Cool” Designs for Timothée Chalamet

Doni Nahmias Explains How He Created “Natural Cool” Designs for Timothée Chalamet

Published by Sam Flores

Nahmias was born and raised in Santa Barbara, California. “I grew up a bit of a surfer, skater, cruising around town, and that’s pretty much all I did,” he recalls, laughing. “I sucked at school.” He describes his upbringing as “really chill” and remembers that he was in high school when he started to “oddly pay attention” to what people were wearing. There are generally two kinds of fashion designers: those who get into the business with an adoration for garment making and the history of the craft—by way of legendary designers like Cristóbal Balenciaga and Alexander McQueen—and those who find their way into fashion by way of a fascination with style. Nahmias is, self-admittedly, the latter. “I started to just digest what classmates were wearing, how someone’s oversized T-shirt or their Pro Club double-layered fit, and I would think it was so cool,” Nahmias recalls. He started thinking in the back of his head that it “could be cool to have a brand,” he says, “like any other kid, for the most part.” With …

Discover Michelangelo’s First Painting, Created When He Was Only 12 or 13 Years Old

Discover Michelangelo’s First Painting, Created When He Was Only 12 or 13 Years Old

Published by José Betancourt

Think back, if you will, to the works of art you cre­at­ed at age twelve or thir­teen. For many, per­haps most of us, our out­put at that stage of ado­les­cence amount­ed to direc­tion­less doo­dles, chaot­ic comics, and a few unsteady-at-best school projects. But then, most of us did­n’t grow up to be Michelan­ge­lo. In the late four­teen-eight­ies, when that tow­er­ing Renais­sance artist was still what we would now call a “tween,” he paint­ed The Tor­ment of Saint Antho­ny, a depic­tion of the tit­u­lar reli­gious fig­ure beset by demons in the desert. Though based on a wide­ly known engrav­ing, it nev­er­the­less shows evi­dence of rapid­ly advanc­ing tech­nique, inspi­ra­tion, and even cre­ativ­i­ty — espe­cial­ly when placed under the infrared scan­ner. For about half a mil­len­ni­um, The Tor­ment of Saint Antho­ny was­n’t thought to have been paint­ed by Michelan­ge­lo. As explained in the video from Inspi­rag­gio just below, when the paint­ing sold at Sothe­by’s in 2008, the buy­er took it to the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Muse­um of Art for exam­i­na­tion and clean­ing. “Beneath the lay­ers of dirt accu­mu­lat­ed over the cen­turies,” says the …

“Regulatory Theater”: Meta Created ‘Playbook’ To Obscure Scam Ads From Regulators, Avoid Forced Verification

“Regulatory Theater”: Meta Created ‘Playbook’ To Obscure Scam Ads From Regulators, Avoid Forced Verification

Published by Jenni Sidey

Last month Reuters revealed that roughly 10% of Meta’s annual revenue, or $16 billion, comes from advertising scams and banned goods – as the company only bans advertisers when its systems detect a 95% probability of fraud, while charging higher ad fees to suspicious buyers – a system critics describe as “pay to play.” Data from fraud-reporting firm SafelyHQ shows Facebook is cited in 85% of scam reports that identify a platform, with more than 50,000 verified complaints collected so far, which CEO Patrick Quade suggests an implied victim count in the “tens of millions.” Now, internal documents reviewed by Reuters indicate that Meta developed tools to both reduce scam advertising, and to limit regulators’ visibility into said ads after governments threatened measures that could severely cripple advertising revenue by forcing the company to reveal the identity of advertisers. The efforts began last year after Japanese regulators highlighted a surge of scam advertising on Facebook and Instagram. The fraudulent ads included fake investment opportunities and artificial-intelligence-generated celebrity endorsements. Fearing that Japanese authorities might impose strict verification and transparency requirements that would …

‘And God Created Woman’ Star Was 91

‘And God Created Woman’ Star Was 91

Published by Daniella Wilson

Brigitte Bardot, the enchanting French starlet with the marvelous pout who became a carefree icon of sexuality in the 1950s and ’60s after her liberated performance in the scandalous And God Created Woman, has died. She was 91. Bardot died Sunday at her home in southern France, according to a representative from animal protection charity Foundation Brigitte Bardot, who confirmed her death to the Associated Press. No cause or time of death was specified. She was reportedly hospitalized in November. French president Emmanuel Macron was among the immediate mourners, calling her “a legend of the century.” He said on social media: “Her films, her voice, her dazzling glory, her initials, her sorrows, her generous passion for animals, her face that became Marianne, Brigitte Bardot embodied a life of freedom. French existence, universal brilliance. She touched us. We mourn a legend of the century.” Bardot was one of the most famous French actresses of her time, celebrated for her beauty and fiery performances in such films as Henri-Georges Clouzot’s The Truth (1960) and Jean-Luc Godard‘s Contempt (1963). With …