On Thursday morning, NASA’s Juno spacecraft flew within 219 miles of the surface of Europa, a large icy moon that orbits Jupiter. It’s humanity’s closest look at the frozen world in more than 20 years. The Juno mission launched in 2011 to study Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system. After it successfully completed
The James Webb and Hubble telescopes on Thursday revealed their first images of a spacecraft deliberately smashing into an asteroid, as astronomers indicated that the impact looks to have been much greater than expected. The world’s telescopes turned their gaze towards the space rock Dimorphos earlier this week for a historic test of Earth’s ability
Based on its market share, the world’s most notorious cryptocurrency Bitcoin results in more climate damage than the production of beef and nearly as much damage as crude oil, researchers in the United States have calculated. The findings of the new three-pronged analysis suggest Bitcoin is potentially unsustainable and could have disastrous social and environmental
The very first deep field image from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has just delivered a new treasure from the early Universe. In a splash of light that has traveled for 9 billion years to reach us, astronomers have spotted clusters of stars sparkling around a distant galaxy they have named the Sparkler. These
A new look at an extremely rare infant burial in Europe suggests humans were carrying around their young in slings as far back as 10,000 years ago. The findings add weight to the idea that baby carriers were widely used in prehistoric times, although archaeological evidence of such cloth is not usually preserved in the
Imagine growing up tormented by fears and life-consuming rituals that make no sense to you or those around you. Then imagine the shame of being told by mental health providers that, because you understand that your behaviors are illogical but keep doing them anyway, you must want to stay sick. One of my patients, Moksha
Planet-heating methane spewing into the atmosphere from the damaged Nord Stream pipelines only has a modest impact on climate change, say scientists, but sharply highlights the risks of fossil-fuel-driven greenhouse gas emissions. The European Union has said it believes the leaks to the strategically important pipelines, Nord Stream 1 and 2, were caused by a
Road excavations in China’s Guizhou Province have unearthed a trove of ancient fish fossils. As a part of rock layers known as the Rongxi Formation, the new fossil bed is filled with never-before-seen species that push back the dates of our first jawed animal ancestors by about 15 million years. “Until this point, we’ve picked
Electrons whizzing through a grid-like lattice don’t behave at all like pretty silver spheres in a pinball machine. They blur and bend in collective dances, following whims of a wave-like reality that are hard enough to imagine, let alone compute. And yet scientists have succeeded in doing just that, capturing the motion of electrons moving
It’s a hair condition that has frustrated parents for decades, now scientists believe they have found the genes responsible for “uncombable hair syndrome”. Yes, it really is a thing. Uncombable hair syndrome is more than just difficult hair. As its name suggests, it’s hair that sticks out at all angles, making it almost impossible to
What scientists thought were lakes of liquid water hiding under the southern polar ice cap of Mars could turn out to be… just regular old rock. New analysis has found that the brightly shining radar signal interpreted as underground water on the red planet could also have been produced by geological layering. It’s not a
Bullseye: A NASA spaceship on Monday struck an asteroid 7 million miles away in order to deflect its orbit, succeeding in a historic test of humanity’s ability to prevent a celestial object from devastating life on Earth. The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) impactor hit its target, the space rock Dimorphos, at 7:14 pm Eastern
South Australia’s Naracoorte Caves is one of the world’s best fossil sites, containing a record spanning more than half a million years. Among the remains preserved in layers of sand are the bones of many iconic Australian megafauna species that became extinct between 48,000 and 37,000 years ago. The reasons for the demise of these
Deep below the surface of our world, far beyond our feeble reach, enigmatic processes grind and roil. Every now and then, the Earth disgorges clues to their nature: tiny chthonic diamonds encasing skerricks of rare mineral. From these tiny fragments we can glean tidbits of information about our planet’s interior. A diamond recently unearthed in
Toxic levels of a pollutant commonly associated with the wastes of modern industry have been uncovered amid the most unlikely of archaeological sites. Long before conquistadors from far-off lands introduced the decay of war and disease, Maya cultures were dusting the soils of their urban centers with the heavy metal mercury. The element’s levels are
“I just can’t do what I used to anymore.” As pulmonologists and critical care doctors treating patients with lung disease, we have heard many of our patients recovering from COVID-19 tell us this even months after their initial diagnosis. Though they may have survived the most life-threatening phase of their illness, they have yet to
In one of the more unusual experiments we’ve seen recently, researchers attached a large pair of cartoonish googly eyes to the front of a small, self-driving vehicle – and it turns out that this kind of anthropomorphic tweak could actually improve pedestrian safety. A roving pair of peepers on the front of driverless vehicles could,
Scientists have created a robot that can transform from a black glob into a swarm of tiny beads and back again. The inventors say that the robot’s ability to split itself into many pieces and then snap back together makes it potentially useful for drug delivery. The human body is full of winding, narrow passages
When we consider termites, we may think of the danger they can pose to our houses once they settle in and start eating wood. But in fact, only about 4 percent of termite species worldwide are considered pests that might, at some point, eat your house. In nature, wood-eating termites play a broad and important
The twisty eruption of a dying star has finally been revealed in all its 3D glory. A team of scientists led by a high school graduate has reconstructed the complicated and mysterious nebulae that make up one of the most famous stellar ghosts in the sky – the Cat’s Eye Nebula. Their model revealed the
More than eight months after the underwater volcano near Tonga erupted on Jan. 14, scientists are still analyzing the impacts of the violent blast, and they’re discovering that it could warm the planet. Recently, researchers calculated that the eruption of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apa spewed a staggering 50 million tons (45 million metric tons) of water
Few animals show as much affection and loyalty as dogs. But a new study offers evidence that the same human-to-animal attachment can develop in wolves, too. While earlier studies have suggested something similar, there isn’t much previous research on the attachment between wolves and humans, and the results have varied. Here, the study team wanted
We have detected a strange new signal from across the chasm of time and space. A repeating fast radio burst source detected last year was recorded spitting out a whopping 1,863 bursts over 82 hours, amid a total of 91 hours of observation. This hyperactive behavior has allowed scientists to characterize not just the galaxy that
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is now warning that breast implants filled with either silicone or saline may, on rare occasions, give rise to cancer in the scar tissue around breast implants. The safety notice was published this month and is based on an extensive review of the emerging literature on breast implants.
Lakes appearing in Alaska because of melting permafrost are “belching” methane into the atmosphere, a scientist working with NASA said. These lakes, called thermokarsts, are so full of the climate-damaging gas that it can be seen bubbling to the surface. More and more of these lakes are appearing as Alaska’s permafrost thaws with rising temperatures
The next time a fly lands on your food, you might want to consider throwing that bite away. A new review suggests the muck that flies regurgitate could very well be infected with a pathogen. When you think of a disease-carrying insect, chances are you imagine a blood-sucking mosquito or tick. But recent findings suggest
In the wacky gravitational environment in the heart of our galaxy, astronomers have found a gas blob orbiting our supermassive black hole at superspeed. Its characteristics are helping astronomers probe the space immediately surrounding Sagittarius A* in the search for answers about why the galactic center flickers and flares across the entire electromagnetic spectrum. Their
The first picture of Neptune to be taken by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope reveals the latest, greatest details of the ice giant’s atmosphere, moons, and rings in infrared wavelengths. Some of those details – for example, faint bands of dust that encircle Neptune – haven’t been brought to light since the Voyager 2 probe
Many of us are familiar with the idea that as we get older, we become less mentally agile; but is this something that can be measured – does our IQ decrease with age? If it does, at what speed does it do so? Do different types of intelligence decline at different rates? In order to
Human history has unfolded largely in bucolic settings, with sprawling savannas and forested river valleys hosting our ancestors for millions of years. By comparison, cities represent a radical new kind of habitat, one that despite its many perks often strains our mental health. Research has linked urban environments with increased risk for anxiety, depression, and
Archaeologists digging near Prague have discovered the remains of a Stone Age structure that’s older than Stonehenge and even the Egyptian pyramids: an enigmatic complex known as a roundel. Nearly 7,000 years ago during the late Neolithic, or New Stone Age, a local farming community may have gathered in this circular building, although its true
While the Pando colony looks like a tightly packed swathe of aspen trees, it’s largely considered to be one gigantic plant. One of the heaviest, oldest, and largest organisms in the world, in fact, emerging from a single, complex root system covering some 100 acres (more than 430,000 square meters). Known as The Trembling Giant,
We all know the routine by heart: “Please ensure your seats are in the upright position, tray tables stowed, window shades are up, laptops are stored in the overhead bins, and electronic devices are set to flight mode”. Now, the first four are reasonable, right? Window shades need to be up so we can see
Among the laundry list of health problems COVID has inflicted on the world’s population, one of the more perplexing could be an increase in the number of girls experiencing what is known as idiopathic precocious puberty – abnormally early onset of puberty. More than one study has spotted the spike in numbers during the early
Unidentified deep-sea “blue goo” creatures recently left scientists scratching their heads after they spotted the mysterious blobs hanging out on the seafloor in the Caribbean. During a live stream of the expedition, team members discussed what the gloopy globules could be, but none of the researchers could come up with a definitive answer. Multiple blue
Since the global pandemic began in 2020, the world has become ever more aware that the health of our species is closely intertwined with other animals. Today, the conversation is mostly focused on birds and mammals, with amphibians rarely considered – but that may be a dangerous oversight. A newly published study on frogs and
In 1916, Karl Schwarzchild theorized the existence of black holes as a resolution to Einstein’s field equations for his Theory of General Relativity. By the mid-20th century, astronomers began detecting black holes for the first time using indirect methods, which consisted of observing their effects on surrounding objects and space. Since the 1980s, scientists have
The James Webb Space Telescope has made incredible headway, peering farther across space and time than any telescope that came before. But it’s also showing us the Universe closer to home… and now it’s turned its gold-plated eye to Earth’s next-door-neighbor, Mars. The resulting images show Mars in a very different light – infrared, in
The most powerful laser in the US right now is getting turned on to send its first pulses this week – enabling researchers to get a new level of insight into plasma physics and particle accelerators. Known as the Zetawatt-Equivalent Ultrashort pulse laser System (ZEUS), it produces an ultra-short, extremely powerful pulse of just 25
Have you ever wondered exactly how many ants live on Earth? Possibly not, but it’s certainly a question we’ve asked ourselves. Our research published today provides an approximate answer. We conservatively estimate our planet harbors about 20 quadrillion ants. That’s 20 thousand million millions, or in numerical form, 20,000,000,000,000,000 (20 with 15 zeroes). We further
An instrument designed to detect seismic activity on Mars has just revealed an incredibly cool new ability, detecting faint tremors from meteorites impacting the red planet. By combining data collected from the NASA’s Mars InSight lander with information from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter researchers have successfully linked those ground-shaking booms with freshly formed craters. Not
Even if the content of your dreams isn’t hot or steamy, slipping into rapid eye movement (REM) sleep might still warm you up from the inside, according to a new review. In nature, warm-blooded creatures with lower body temperatures tend to have longer periods of REM sleep; while those with higher body temperatures, like birds,
Burning the world’s remaining fossil fuel reserves would unleash 3.5 trillion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions – 7 times the remaining carbon budget to cap global heating at 1.5 degrees Celsius – according to the first public inventory of hydrocarbons released Monday. Human activity since the Industrial Revolution, largely powered by coal, oil, and gas,
Researchers at the University of Bristol in the UK have taken a major step forward in synthetic biology by designing a system that performs several key functions of a living cell, including generating energy and expressing genes. Their artificially constructed cell even transformed from a sphere shape to a more natural amoeba-like shape over the
The idea of artificial intelligence overthrowing humankind has been talked about for decades, and in 2021, scientists delivered their verdict on whether we’d be able to control a high-level computer super-intelligence. The answer? Almost definitely not. The catch is that controlling a super-intelligence far beyond human comprehension would require a simulation of that super-intelligence which
In a recent study submitted to High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, a team of researchers from Japan discuss strategies to observe, and possibly predict precursor signatures for an explosion from Local Type II and Galactic supernovae (SNe). This study has the potential to help us better understand both how and when supernovae could occur throughout the
It begins with plants sucking synthetic contaminants up from the soil. Then insects munching on those greens get their fill of nanoplastics, followed by anything that eats them. Just as with heavy metals in the ocean, it turns out nanoplastics – plastic particles less than one micrometer in size – can also move up the
Doctors in Ireland removed 50 batteries from a woman’s gut and stomach after she swallowed them in an apparent act of deliberate self-harm. The woman, 66, was treated at St. Vincent’s University Hospital in Dublin after ingesting an initially “unknown number” of cylindrical batteries, according to a report of the case, published Thursday (Sept. 15)
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