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 that that its final resting place was the southern Indian Ocean based on data collected by British satellite telecommunications company Inmarsat. Inmarsat’s satellite 3F1 had been communicating with MH370
Month: January 2020
You would think that ensuring the survival of the human race is something you can’t put a price on, but one of the reasons that governments aren’t always keen to take action on climate change is the economic costs of doing so. But new research investigating the future costs of dealing with a warming
“The MoD may have stopped investigating UFOs in 2009 when they axed their UFO project, but people didn’t stop having sightings. “While most FOIA responses are standard replies, some can be more revealing, if people ask smart questions. “And while most UFO sightings are reports of lights in the sky, some cases can be truly
One pastor and conspiracy theorist has claimed he has analysed the texts of Revelation 8 and concluded Earth will end in a fiery death when an asteroid strikes it at the end of the decade. Christian author Thomas Thorn stated one of the signs of the plagues of Exodus is “scorching and setting ablaze fields
It sounds like something straight out of a sci-fi thriller, but sub-quantum kinetics is a theory that Thomas Townsend Brown spent most of his life trying to prove. Also known as electrogravitics, the idea is said to be an anti-gravity force created by an electric field’s effect on a mass. Instead of being an antigravity force, what
Earlier this week British tourist was trying to cross Nahuel Huapi Lake in a kayak when he reportedly got into trouble. The 34-year-old male was found on Wednesday nearly 20 miles away from where he was last seen. Local authorities had reportedly closed the lake because of weather conditions. The mystery giant creature was spotted
The ISS is an artificial satellite in low-Earth orbit, serving as a microgravity and space environment research laboratory for astronauts in space. It was a joint project between NASA, Roscosmos, JAXA, ESA and CSA, and cost more than £150billion when it was launched in 1998. The space agencies carry out various experiments on board, as well
Deep inside our DNA lurks a legacy of lust and romance between estranged human bloodlines reconnecting on an epic journey around the globe. It now seems we might have been misreading key details in this erotic tale. A new method for analysing our genomes for traces of Neanderthal genes has revealed modern African populations
Four ancient skulls discovered in a submerged Mexican cave system have archaeologists wondering if they were right about the earliest humans on the American continents. It’s thought that ancient populations settled these continents last, having crossed the Bering Strait from Siberia to Alaska during the last Ice Age, but the full story is far from
After 6,002 days in space, NASA has finally retired its groundbreaking Spitzer Space Telescope. On January 30, mission control downloaded the last of Spitzer’s data, and sent through the final command to enter safe mode. At 2:34 pm PST, Spitzer Project Manager Joseph Hunt officially declared the Spitzer Space Telescope decommissioned. Spitzer was one
One of the predictions of Einstein’s general theory of relativity is that any spinning body drags the very fabric of space-time in its vicinity around with it. This is known as “frame-dragging”. In everyday life, frame-dragging is both undetectable and inconsequential, as the effect is so ridiculously tiny. Detecting the frame-dragging caused by the
It appears we have missed another close call between two satellites – but how close did we really come to a catastrophic event in space? It all began with a series of tweets from LeoLabs, a company that uses radar to track satellites and debris in space. It predicted that two obsolete satellites orbiting Earth
If a swarm of locusts is indeed a symbol of wrath, then the climate in northern Africa must be seriously bent out of shape. Today, Kenya is experiencing the worst outbreak of desert locusts in 70 years, with a plague so thick in some areas, locals say they can barely see through the hundreds of
Scientists have donned their Sherlock Holmes caps to solve a mystery that’s been running for decades – the origins of a huge, layered expanse of CO2 ice and water ice at the south pole of Mars, and its link to the CO2 in the Martian atmosphere. One leading hypothesis is that these layers were
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 that the plane was likely hijacked and that it ended up at the bottom of the southern Indian Ocean west of Perth, Australia. Its path was tracked using a
A couple of years ago, astronomers marvelled over the discovery of the hottest planet in the known Universe. And just when you thought KELT-9b couldn’t get even more insane, it goes and outdoes itself. New research shows that not only is this planet hotter than most stars, with vaporised iron and rare Earth metals in
In Aztec mythology, the god Xolotl was a symbol of many things: fire and lightning, but also dogs, sickness, and more. A melange of a deity, basically – and the strange salamander named after him is, aptly enough, an unusual hybrid too. Axolotls (Ambystoma mexicanum), sometimes known as Mexican walking fish, are not actually
Hydrocarbon gases bubbling from the bottom of the Red Sea are polluting the atmosphere at a rate equivalent to the emissions of some large fossil fuel exporting countries, researchers said Tuesday. The gases seeping from the waters – which are ringed by the resorts and ports of several countries, including Egypt, Israel, Jordan and
Australians all know the advice by now: when it comes to the threat of a bushfire, don’t wait and see. Make a plan long before those first flames are visible, and stick to it. As this dash-cam video below shows, every second matters when it comes to making a safe escape and avoiding being swallowed
A new telescope built to study the Sun has released its first images, and they are just breathtaking. They show the surface of the Sun in the most exquisite detail we’ve ever seen – revealing convection granules the size of Texas, and tiny magnetic features – the roots of fields that extend far into space.
The internet loves an art restoration gone wrong. A few years ago the ‘Monkey Christ’ debacle – also known as ‘Potato Jesus’, or, more historically, Ecce Homo – became such a laughable sensation, it actually increased tourism to the Spanish town of Borja by more than four-fold. That particular mess was done by an amateur.
Worrying about what other people think at work is something women have to contend with far more than men, a small new study suggests. The experiment included only 32 participants, but economists in Germany say their “clear and consistent” findings are thorough evidence of a newly-identified gender discrepancy. Experiments have found that when people
A ship, that went missing almost 100 years ago which helped build the mystery surrounding the infamous region, has now been located. The SS Cotopaxi departed from Charleston in South Carolina on November 25, 1925 and was headed for Havana, Cuba. The ship is believed to have been carrying a cargo of coal. On December
Scientists have developed a new type of smart bandage that can signal the type of bacterial infection it’s protecting, just like a traffic light, as well as release the right type of drugs on demand. The researchers behind the design hope it could help to fight back against antibiotic resistance, as well as heal
American merchant steamer, the SS Cotopaxi went missing in 1925 while on a routine voyage. The ship was on its way to Cuba before it vanished, leading to many believing it had become lost in the phenomenon until recently. Now, however, marine biologist and underwater explorer, Michael Bernette has revealed his team has finally found
A collaboration between physicists and amateur stargazers has yielded the discovery of what researchers say is a previously unknown kind of aurora phenomenon. Called ‘the dunes’, this stunning apparition of luminous, rippling wave patterns does not appear to fit within any established categories of aurora – and it’s only been documented now because of a
It crashed into Earth in 1969, ending an epic journey that had lasted for billions of years, and maybe even much longer than that. Inside this mysterious space rock – the Allende meteorite, which rained down over Mexican desert in a hail of fiery fragments a half-century ago – scientists have now identified interstellar material
We all know that cephalopods are wicked smart, and their complex nerve systems go some way to explain their aptitudes. Now, a first-of-its-kind magnetic resonance imaging study of squid brains confirms just how rich the connections in their brains truly are. Using high-resolution MRI and a suite of staining techniques, researchers have discovered and
The days of Antarctica’s Pine Island glacier are numbered, but no one really knows what that number is. New models could help to shed some much-needed light on the matter. In the past four decades, this slow-moving monstrosity of ice has contributed more to sea level rise than any other glacier on Earth, and recently,
Nestled on the banks of the Mississippi River, the forgotten city of Cahokia was once a bustling metropolis, the largest and most cosmopolitan hub north of Mexico, home to the Mississippian indigenous culture. Today, no one knows what happened to it. Tens of thousands of its inhabitants are merely said to have ‘disappeared’, leaving
Just days ago, the Doomsday Clock’s big hand was pushed 20 seconds forward, placing the world just 100 seconds from complete devastation. Announced by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the statement cited nuclear war and climate change as “two simultaneous dire existential dangers” facing the world. Chillingly, a computer simulator from 1973 predicted this decline
Scientists have developed a new technique for turning almost any carbon-based rubbish – from banana skins to car tyres – into graphene flakes, a process that may provide hugely positive environmental impacts. The ‘flash graphene’ technique is quick and cheap, and involves heating up waste products to 3,000 Kelvin (2,727 degrees Celsius or 4,940
According to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, the “Calming of the Storm” miracle tells how Jesus Christ was woken during a “furious tempest” by his disciples. Jesus is reported to have said “Peace! Be still” to which the wind eased and the waves calmed before they travelled to “the land of the Gadarenes,” a destination long debated
There’s a lot of stuff up there, whizzing around in low-Earth orbit. Given the thousands of old, defunct satellites that can no longer communicate with Earth, it’s surprising how seldom they collide; but just such a collision might happen this week. According to space debris tracking service LeoLabs, IRAS (a decommissioned space telescope launched
They were the largest animals to ever walk the Earth: sauropods, a dinosaur clade of such immense size and stature, they’re sometimes dubbed ‘thunder lizards’. These towering hulks – including Brontosaurus, Brachiosaurus, and Diplodocus among others – needed four thick, powerful legs to support and transport their massive bodies. At least, most of the time.
The typefaces you see on yard signs and bumper stickers might hold a hidden meaning for voters. A new psychological study suggests some typefaces read more conservative, or right-leaning, while others come across as more liberal, or left-leaning. In two different surveys, the authors identify four font changes that seem to convey ideological qualities.
To us humans, one paper wasp looks pretty much like any other paper wasp. Most insects can’t tell each other apart visually either – which makes the evolutionary path of one particular wasp species all the more intriguing. The northern paper wasp (Polistes fuscatus) has evolved the ability to recognise the faces of its
Super-luminous supernovae are the brightest explosions in the Universe. In just a few months, a super-luminous supernova can release as much energy as our Sun will in its entire lifespan. And at its peak, it can be as bright as an entire galaxy. One of the most-studied super-luminous supernovae (SLSN) is called SN 2006gy.
Here on Earth, we pay quite a lot of attention to the sun. It’s visible to us, after all, and central to our lives. But it is only one of the billions of stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way. It’s also quite small compared to other stars – most are at least eight times
Our planet is in a tight spot. We’re not hitting the targets we know we need to hit, and we’re breaking all the wrong kinds of records. What’s it going to take for us to get out of this mess? Researchers have long known the answers, at least on a purely scientific front: we
SpaceX is poised to launch its first astronauts into space this spring: Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley. Their flight on the company’s Crew Dragon spaceship will mark the first time an American spacecraft has carried NASA astronauts since the Space Shuttle program ended in 2011. Behnken and Hurley’s liftoff is expected to launch a
The first-ever direct image of a black hole‘s event horizon was a truly impressive feat of scientific ingenuity. But it was extremely difficult to achieve, and the resulting image was relatively low-resolution. Techniques and technology will be refined, and it’s expected that future direct images of black holes will improve with time. In September
NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has been in orbit around Mars for almost 14 years. It carries a variety of instruments with it, including the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) instrument. That instrument has collected thousands of images of Mars. CRISM’s main purpose is to created detailed maps of the surface mineralogy
The past decade (2010-2019) was the hottest on record and five of the top 10 warmest single years have all occurred since 2015, according to reports released by the UK Met Office and the World Meteorological Organisation. The current Australian bushfire crisis is also the worst on record, having emerged due to a combination
Many think of dogs as loyal, love-filled companions, and cats as cute beasts that tolerate us – but we might have to rethink that a little. According to 2019 research, cats can get just as bonded to their human friends as dogs do. This may not come as a huge surprise to those who
Sightings of Bigfoot have surged in recent days, after traffic cameras in Washington state appear to capture a mysterious creature. Footage from the Washington State Department of Transportation revealed an ape-like human walking on its foot across a snowy field. The video, which was posted on Twitter, sent the Internet into a meltdown, as conspiracy
Over the years, Star Trek has been responsible for inspiring real world innovations from tablet computers to needleless injection devices and real time translators. Now, the science fiction franchise appears to have influenced Space Force, the US military’s newest branch, in its choice of logo: a symbol resembling an arrowhead ringed by an orbiting object
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 that the plane most likely ended up at the bottom of the southern Indian Ocean, after being hijacked shortly after take-off. However, no wreckage was ever found in the
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