The newly-discovered space rock – dubbed Asteroid 2018 CB – is expected to zoom past our planet at around 10.30pm GMT. It will be travelling at a speed close to five miles per second and will pass at a distance of about 39,000 miles. That’s just one-fifth of the distance from Earth to the Moon …

Though photographic film still has its proponents, for the majority of snappers today, digital is now the medium of choice – whether through the tiny lenses of smartphones or courtesy of bigger sensors inside dedicated cameras. But older shutterbugs may still have a classic rangefinder or 35 mm SLR stowed away in a cupboard somewhere, …

There are already energy-saving “smart glass” windows that can be electronically tinted to block the sun’s hot rays, thus reducing the need to run air-conditioning systems. Such systems still require electricity to operate, however. Now, scientists from Australia’s RMIT University have developed a coating that allows existing glass to become smart … no power required. …

We’re so used to having our everyday devices powered by lithium-ion batteries that sometimes it’s hard to imagine using anything else. But there are plenty of teams working on alternatives like lithium-air, sodium-ion, lithium-metal and aluminum-ion designs that may help solve some of the drawbacks of lithium-ion batteries. The latest, an aqueous hybrid capacitor, is …

Ball lightning has been consistently reported for centuries, and yet we still know very little about it. Now, scientists at Amherst College and Aalto University have created quantum ball lightning by knotting together the magnetic spins of atoms, creating a quasiparticle that could help unlock the secrets of the strange phenomenon, or even make for …