When our universe was lower than half as outdated as it’s in the present day, a burst of power that might cook dinner a solar’s value of popcorn shot out from someplace amid a compact group of galaxies.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 had 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 certainly one of a rising class of mysterious radio indicators referred to as quick radio bursts. Within the final 10 years, astronomers have picked up almost 5,000 of them. This one was notably particular: almost double the age of something beforehand noticed, and three and a half occasions extra energetic. 

Nobody is aware of what causes quick radio bursts. They flash in a seemingly random and unpredictable sample from all around the sky. However regardless of the thriller, these radio waves are beginning to show terribly helpful. Learn the complete story.

—Anna Kramer

The miserable fact about TikTok’s impending ban

Trump’s 2020 govt order banning TikTok got here to nothing in the long run. But the concept—that the US authorities ought to ban TikTok in a roundabout way—by no means went away. It could repeatedly be advised in several types and shapes. And finally, on April 24, 2024, issues got here full circle with the invoice handed in Congress and signed into legislation.

Rather a lot has modified in these 4 years. Again then, TikTok was a rising sensation that many individuals didn’t perceive; now, it’s one of many largest social media platforms. But when the TikTok saga tells us something, it’s that the US is more and more inhospitable for Chinese language firms. Learn the complete story.

—Zeyi Yang