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Cryptic crossword #103: Tellurium coated in copper? Uncertain (11)

16 February 2023

Challenge your brain by solving New Scientist's weekly crosswords on your mobile, tablet or desktop
Tom Gauld on the palchemists

Tom Gauld on the palchemists

15 February 2023

Tom Gauld's weekly cartoon
Twisteddoodles puts a ring on it

Twisteddoodles puts a ring on it

15 February 2023

This week's cartoon from Twisteddoodles
The strange story of the nuclear submarine and the super glue repair

The strange story of the nuclear submarine and the super glue repair

15 February 2023

Feedback ponders reports that a nuclear submarine was fixed with everyone’s favourite adhesive, while also detailing the latest thinking on the life-saving properties of coffee and the squeaky windscreen wiper problem
Farmer harvesting organic rhubarb from her kitchen garden. Rhubarb can be harvested many times through the year. Photographed at an ???off grid??? home on the island of Moen in Denmark. Colour, horizontal format with some copy space.

This week’s new questions

15 February 2023

How was rhubarb discovered to be edible when it isn’t palatable raw? Why do flames go out when blown?
CX3N1D three 3 old men friends talking arguing discuss

How much of my body from 40 years ago is part of me today? (part 2)

15 February 2023

While much of your body gets recycled, one reader points out why this isn't true for the brain
Would a tug of war be possible over 42 km between France and England?

Would a tug of war be possible over 42 km between France and England?

15 February 2023

This transnational tug of war might be possible, depending on if the rope goes through the Channel Tunnel or you don’t mind it going in the water, say our readers
2CTJXXG Male fitness instructor with women lifting weights while standing in yard

Doing strenuous exercise, it helps to shout the number of reps. Why?

15 February 2023

Calling out the number of repetitions when doing exercise such as a weightlifting could have numerous benefits, say our readers - both physical and psychological
Puzzle #209: Can you work out how many houses there are on Long Road?

Puzzle #209: Can you work out how many houses there are on Long Road?

15 February 2023

Can you solve this week’s arithmetical puzzle, Postman’s knock? Plus the answer to puzzle #208
The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) ??? a planet-scale array of eight ground-based radio telescopes forged through international collaboration ??? was designed to capture images of a black hole. In coordinated press conferences across the globe, EHT researchers revealed that they succeeded, unveiling the first direct visual evidence of the supermassive black hole in the centre of Messier 87 and its shadow. The shadow of a black hole seen here is the closest we can come to an image of the black hole itself, a completely dark object from which light cannot escape. The black hole???s boundary ??? the event horizon from which the EHT takes its name ??? is around 2.5 times smaller than the shadow it casts and measures just under 40 billion km across. While this may sound large, this ring is only about 40 microarcseconds across ??? equivalent to measuring the length of a credit card on the surface of the Moon. Although the telescopes making up the EHT are not physically connected, they are able to synchronize their recorded data with atomic clocks ??? hydrogen masers ??? which precisely time their observations. These observations were collected at a wavelength of 1.3 mm during a 2017 global campaign. Each telescope of the EHT produced enormous amounts of data ??? roughly 350 terabytes per day ??? which was stored on high-performance helium-filled hard drives. These data were flown to highly specialised supercomputers ??? known as correlators ??? at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy and MIT Haystack Observatory to be combined. They were then painstakingly converted into an image using novel computational tools developed by the collaboration.

Don’t Miss: Learning about how the first black hole image was taken

15 February 2023

New Scientist's weekly round-up of the best books, films, TV series, games and more that you shouldn’t miss

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