NASA abruptly shut down a Russian cosmonaut who appeared to be describing an incoming UFO, that could be spotted moving on the ISS live stream. The cosmonaut seemed to acknowledge the presence of an approaching UFO, that was “slowly moving upwards,” before he was interrupted by the NASA ground control, according to theorists online. The
Month: November 2019
Researchers have identified a metal that conducts electricity without conducting heat – an incredibly useful property that defies our current understanding of how conductors work. The metal, found in 2017, contradicts something called the Wiedemann-Franz Law, which basically states that good conductors of electricity will also be proportionally good conductors of heat, which is
Dr Klein said: “For example, Reddit attracted a whole new set of users following the election of US President Donald Trump. “He also generates quite a lot of in-fighting amongst users. “This is what makes it such a great way to study social dynamics.” Dr Klein’s study also looked at how people are drawn to
Between news of devastating natural disasters, horrifying scientific predictions, and the infuriating lack of political will to do anything about it all, it seems we can’t catch a collective breath at the moment. Some days, news about the climate crisis feels like a heavy weight on my chest. And I’m not alone. Some of
The bizarre Mars anomalies spotted on Terra Sabaea were shot in high definition by the NASA Mars Orbiter. Self-proclaimed alien life expert Scott Waring took to his etdatabase.com blog to discuss his findings. Waring said: “I have found some alien structures in a Mars photo. These are absolute proof aliens exist, yet NASA has never
Black holes are vast, matter-annihilating objects that seem to defy physics by their very existence. They’re so weird, that when Albert Einstein’s equations first predicted the existence of these beasts, he didn’t believe they could actually be real. And you can’t really blame him, because the idea that we have these matter-sucking singularities of space-time scattered
When a huge dust storm on Mars—like the one in 2018—reaches its full power, it can turn into a globe-bestriding colossus. This happens regularly on Mars, and these storms usually start out as a series of smaller, runaway storms. NASA scientists say that these storms can spawn massive towers of Martian dust that reach 80
After observing a part of the sky near the Southern Constellation of Ara for about two months using MeerKAT, a radio telescope based in the Karoo desert in South Africa, our team of scientists noticed something strange. The radio emission of an object brightened by a factor of three over roughly three weeks. Intrigued,
If you were just to look at his head – eyes closed, chin resting gently on the surface in front of him, with slightly outstretched paws – you might think the puppy were only sleeping. But the tiny canine, newly delivered from the permafrost in Yakutsk in eastern Siberia, died 18,000 years ago, at
If you have turned on a TV or read the news during the past few months, you have probably heard of the widespread fires that wrought havoc on the Amazon rainforest this year. Fires occur in the rainforest every year, but the past 11 months saw the number of fires increase by more than 70
A team of scientists working with the Murchison Widefield Array (WMA) radio telescope are trying to find the signal from the Universe’s first stars. Those first stars formed after the Universe’s Dark Ages. To find their first light, the researchers are looking for the signal from neutral hydrogen, the gas that dominated the Universe
Even when our dreams are scary or distressing, new research suggests they could work like “overnight therapy“, recalibrating our brains so they cope better with fear the next day. By mapping human brain activity during sleep, the findings reinforce the idea that rehearsing bad events as we dream prepares us for the real thing.
Chess has been entertaining and frustrating players for close to 1,500 years, though its origins aren’t all that clear. Now one archaeologist thinks he has discovered the oldest chess piece in existence, at around 1,300 years old. The sandstone object, which has a passing resemblance to a rook, was excavated in 1991 at Humayma (or
We have seen the depths of hell, and it is a sloth. A cheerful-faced, slow-moving two-toed sloth, peering out of its comfortable position, snugly ensconced in… a human toilet. Yes. We may be slightly late to the party on this one, but we have finally been introduced to the natural wonder that is the
Finding safety in numbers is a key survival strategy for many animals. It’s deployed in spectacular fashion by turtles when they’re at their most vulnerable – as tiny hatchlings on land. Before this life stage, turtle mothers gather offshore in phenomenal swarms to synchronise their egg laying. Thus, they provide at least some of
Most models of the Solar System aren’t completely accurate, and there’s a good reason for that. It’s not laziness or scientific misunderstanding – an accurate, to-scale portrayal of the Solar System just wouldn’t look that interesting. You have to zoom in to see what’s going on. James O’Donoghue, a planetary scientist at the Japanese
A newly theorised type of time crystal could revolutionise the potential of these fascinating structures. Unlike the time crystals that have been created to date, it would not require the application of an external stimulus to keep the atoms ticking. The method hinges on inducing entangled particles to affect each other’s ‘spin’ (a property
Several active ‘tipping points’ of irreversible change in the world’s climate system threaten to unleash a global cascade of events that amounts to a planetary emergency, scientists warn. The concept of tipping points was introduced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) just over 20 years ago, but researchers now warn that already
A long-awaited international deal governing how the world’s technology companies should roll out 5G technology poses serious risks to weather forecast accuracy, according to data from federal agencies and the World Meteorological Organization. Negotiators from around the world announced a deal Friday at a meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, for how to roll out
In the wild and inhospitable Arctic, there’s no greater companion than a dog, although not just any breed will do. New genetic research now suggests that when the ancient Inuits migrated from Siberia to North America, all those thousands of years ago, they brought along a special group of canines to help them hunt, herd
Mantis shrimps have eyes that put our peepers to shame. The small creatures can detect not just visible, but ultraviolet and polarised light, too – and they can even see cancer. No, you didn’t misread that. But just how a finger-sized arthropod processes so much visual detail with such a tiny brain has been something
They disappeared about 40,000 years ago. Despite their rich culture, their robust anatomy, and the many similarities we shared, Neanderthals vanished from the face of the Earth. Why? The reasons have long been debated, with many hypotheses suggesting that competition with the potentially superior anatomically modern humans (AMHs) drove the Neanderthals’ decline. But new
A new black hole search method has just yielded fruit, and boy is it juicy. Astronomers have found a stellar-mass black hole clocking in at around 70 times the mass of the Sun – but according to current models of stellar evolution, its size is impossible, at least in the Milky Way. The chemical
We spotted it in August: a mysterious object shooting through our Solar System on a strange, hyperbolic trajectory implying that, whatever this thing was, it wasn’t from around here. Subsequent analysis confirmed this visitor from deep space, now designated 2I/Borisov, was only the second interstellar object ever detected in our Solar System (and the
The vast majority of humans are right-handed, something that’s hard-wired into the architecture of our brain. When it comes to animals, their ‘sidedness’ tends to vary a bit more – now, we have evidence that in dolphins, lefties are a minority, too. Researchers working with the Dolphin Communication Project in the US spent six years
Starlink has had its fair share of critics in the last few months. The ambitious SpaceX project to launch up to 42,000 satellites and provide worldwide internet access has the International Astronomical Union, scientists, and stargazers nervous about the implications of such a huge number of satellites in our orbit. The recent Monocerotid meteor
In the immediate vicinity of a supermassive black hole‘s event horizon, conditions are pretty wild. But travel a little farther out, and other objects can be snared in its gravitational influence – like the stars orbiting the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy, Sagittarius A*. According to a new paper, it’s
The French icebreaker L’Astrolabe was set to deliver supplies and a fresh batch of explorers to the Dumont d’Urville research station south of Australia, but on November 15, France’s Polar Institute announced the ship’s propeller had been damaged. “In the ice you have to take no risk with the security of the passengers and of
When you opened your eyes for the very first time, the first thing you ‘saw’ was light. It was your mother’s second trimester, and you were still snuggled up inside her womb. Your brain, at the time, was rapidly developing, your lungs were fully formed (although not yet breathing), and your retinas were already detecting
Chinese scientist He Jiankui shocked the world by claiming he had helped make the first gene-edited babies. One year later, mystery surrounds his fate as well as theirs. He has not been seen publicly since January, his work has not been published and nothing is known about the health of the babies. “That’s the
Despite what you might have heard, Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is probably not on the point of total disintegration. The most powerful storm in our Solar System has been shrinking for at least a hundred years, computational physicist Philip Marcus says, but that doesn’t mean it’s actually dying. “I don’t think its fortunes were
If you venture too close to one of Earth’s poles, you’ll notice something rather strange happening to any gadgets using radio waves, satellite connections, or GPS. Now, NASA is on a mission to find out why. Well, three missions to be exact. NASA is backing a range of initiatives to investigate the northern polar
A rediscovered journal from the 1960s reveals the coal industry has understood the dangers of human-caused climate change for over 50 years, and may constitute the earliest known evidence of such fateful insider knowledge. It’s become clear in recent years how oil giant Exxon was aware of the causes and consequences of climate change
A meteorite found in the Algerian desert in 1990 is yielding new clues about the formation of the Solar System. New analysis of meteorite Acfer 094 has revealed tiny pores distributed throughout the rock – ancient fossilised holes where ice crystals once sat. We don’t know when Acfer 094 fell to Earth, but we
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Using a bright orange electrocardiogram machine attached with suction cups to the body of a blue whale, scientists for the first time have measured the heart rate of the world’s largest creature and came away with insight about the renowned behemoth’s physiology. The blue whale, which can reach up to 100
Greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere, the main driver of climate change, hit a record high last year, the UN said Monday, calling for action to safeguard “the future welfare of mankind”. “There is no sign of a slowdown, let alone a decline, in greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere despite all the commitments
On Saturday, China’s space agency launched a Long March 3B rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center. The mission was a success in that it resulted in the delivery of two satellites into orbit. But when the rocket’s first stage booster returned to Earth, it landed on a populated area, Ars Technica reported, destroying
If El Niños were dangerous before, they are looking to become especially destructive in the near future. Already severe and unpredictable, recent research indicates these natural weather events are now swinging to even greater extremes. Since humans started burning fossil fuels on an industrial scale, coral records from the past 7,000 years indicate that heat waves,
It is at this point a member of NASA ground control can be heard saying: “Copy all, it’s with you, thanks.” She adds: “Did you do anything that is part of the source maintenance, in addition to what has been reported on?” Waring claims the NASA ground control cut him off when he spied the
Artificial intelligence, it seems, can figure out how to do just about anything. It can simulate the Universe, learn to solve a Rubik’s Cube with just one hand, and even find ghosts hidden in our past. All these kinds of advancements are meant to be for our own good. But what about when they’re
Once again, crows have demonstrated their wicked smarts by passing a cognitive test to prove they can exercise self control almost as well as a human child. Offered treats, they were able to hold off devouring available snacks if they could see an even better snack coming. The research, conducted on New Caledonian crows
Of the myriad galaxies we’ve seen in the night sky, NGC 6240 has always stood out for its peculiar shape and unusual infrared brightness. It was thought to be the result of two galaxies colliding – until now. All the way back in 1983, astronomers reported evidence of a double active nucleus – two
Not all rovers are designed to roam around on the surface of other worlds like Mars. One rover, at least, is aquatic; a necessary development if we’re going to explore Enceladus, Europa, and the Solar System’s other watery worlds. This rover is called the Buoyant Rover for Under-Ice Exploration, or BRUIE. This is not
Egypt on Saturday unveiled a cache of 75 wooden and bronze statues and five lion cub mummies decorated with hieroglyphics at the Saqqara necropolis near the Giza pyramids in Cairo. Mummified cats, cobras and crocodiles and scarabs were also unearthed among the well-preserved mummies and other objects discovered recently. The Antiquities Ministry announced the
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 went missing on March 8, 2014, en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board. The official investigation concluded it most likely ended up at the bottom of the southern Indian Ocean, but two expensive search attempts in the suspected area came up empty handed. Without recovering the
The brain is the ultimate computing machine, so it’s no wonder researchers are keen to try and emulate it. Now, new research has taken an intriguing step in that direction – a device that’s able to ‘forget’ memories, just like our brains do. It’s called a second-order memristor (a mix of “memory” and “resistor”). The
NASA has released photographs of an unexplained soundwaves moving across Earth at high-velocity speeds. High-tech cameras on the International Space Station captured the phenomenon above the Atlantic ocean. The bizarre images have sparked a frenzy of speculation over its origins. The images show a strange cloud pattern that looks as if it was produced by
Hundreds of years ago, the west coast of South America was ruled by the Incas – a mysterious empire considered to be the most elaborate society to exist in the Americas before the arrival of Columbus. This is not their story. For long before the Incas held dominion over the sweeping lands stretching from
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