Your Daily Science News Source from Around the Globe
At 3.63 meters (12 feet) tall and 4.37 meters across, the painting known commonly as The Night Watch is Rembrandt’s largest painting. Centuries after its creation, we’re still uncovering the…
Losing focus for a brief moment might actually help boost learning by giving our brains a quick reprieve from the task at hand. According to a new study, this could…
If you check in regularly to ScienceAlert, you’ll be familiar with quite a few stunning space images, but a newly published picture has to be one of the best yet:…
Six minutes of high-intensity exercise is enough to produce a key protein in the brain, one that’s important in brain formation, function, and memory, and which has been implicated in…
The folds of the human brain are instantly recognizable. Snaking ridges and deep furrows give the squishy tissue inside our heads structure and the appearance of a wrinkly walnut. Into…
Australian rangers have killed an invasive “monster” cane toad discovered in the wilds of a coastal park – a warty brown specimen as long as a human arm and weighing…
There is no sea creature whose name inspires terror – rightly or wrongly – as much as the great white shark. With its sleek body optimized for hunting, its sharp…
Night is naturally suited for paranormal activity, with less light and sound to limit the imagination. While the relationship is still murky, new research shows an interesting link between paranormal…
The different parts of our bodies are intricately tied together, and good health in one area can often mean benefits in other areas too. Take, for example, a potential link…
One in nine Americans ages 65 and over had Alzheimer’s disease in 2022, and countless others were indirectly affected as caregivers, health care providers and taxpayers. There is currently no…
Ultraviolet (UV) rays are known to cause skin cancer at high exposures, and yet very little safety research has been done on the lamps used to dry nail polish in…
Undergoing a brush with death may sound terrifying. But people who have had a near-death experience (NDE) typically report feeling peace, comfort, and calm throughout the ordeal. Perhaps it’s the…
On a hot day in the Australian outback, a koala hugs the cool branches of a eucalypt, while a wombat hides underground in its burrow, and a kangaroo spits on…
Hydrogen is a key building block of the cosmos. Whether stripped down to its charged core, or piled into a molecule, the nature of its presence can tell you a…
It’s not just the flavor of chocolate that titillates our senses. The smooth texture of the sweet is also a big part of what keeps us coming back for more.…
Saturn’s own orbiting winter wonderland, Enceladus, could be in the midst of a relative dry spell, according to new measures on the thickness of its snowdrifts by a team of…
Frequently spending time in green spaces like parks and gardens could help reduce prescription drug use, according to a new study from Finland. If you’re lucky enough to live next…
A new report to Congress says the Pentagon’s task force on UFOs – now known as unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAPs – has processed more reports in the past couple…
Don’t try this at home, but beaming a laser into the sky could avert lightning strikes, according to a new study from a team of scientists who experimented with the…
Not much can be accomplished in a few hundred milliseconds. Yet for the neutron stars seen in the glints of two gamma-ray bursts, it’s more than enough time to teach…
To reduce the harmful health effects of sitting, take a 5-minute light walk every half-hour. That’s the key finding of a new study that my colleagues and I published in…
Sloths are surprisingly stronger than their adorably dopey expressions suggest, which makes sense given they live their lives dangling from trees literally by their bony fingernails. Puzzlingly, in spite of…
When it comes to discovering lost civilizations, it’s a pretty big find: close to 1,000 previously hidden Maya settlements have been found in northern Guatemala thanks to LIDAR (Light Detection…
One-third of Americans are wracking up a debt each night that they may never be able to pay back: sleep debt. That’s where the concept of “catching up on sleep”…
In the hustle and bustle of modern existence, it can be all too easy to skip a meal or two. You might even do it deliberately. A new study suggests…
The impact of vegan diets on our pets’ health produces heated debate from people on both sides. But until now, we haven’t had a formal assessment of the scientific evidence.…
When it comes to finding life outside of our Solar System, planets that closely resemble Earth seem like a good place to start. We can now welcome celestial object TOI…
After more than 200 years of being on public display, the 7-foot, 7-inch (2.31-meter) tall skeleton of ‘Irish giant’ Charles Byrne is being removed as an exhibit from the Hunterian…
Scientists have discovered a new way to identify the average ages when men and women reproduced throughout human evolutionary history. By studying DNA mutations in modern humans, they discovered a…
It turns out that time travel into the past is actually relatively easy. All you need to do is make the universe rotate. The famous mathematician Kurt Gödel was a…
In November of 2020, a freak wave came out of the blue, lifting a lonesome buoy off the coast of British Columbia 17.6 meters high (58 feet). The four-story wall…
The animal world is full of delightfully odd genitals, from argonauts that detach their own sperm-bearing arm and send it off to find a female to mate with, to echidna…
We all know our galaxy, the Milky Way, is big. Really big. But, exactly how far out does it extend? Where are the outer limits? Astronomers aren’t exactly sure, precisely.…
A name on the tip of your tongue. That fuzzy feeling when the fact you learned just yesterday has floated out of reach. Recalling memories and tidbits of information can…
Scientists from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in the US have coaxed light-sensitive eye cells grown in a lab to reconnect after separation, an important step for transplantation into patients to…
The global pandemic has forced entire populations around the world into working from home, often bringing people into close proximity with loved ones and relatives 24/7. According to a recent…
As the coronavirus pandemic has shown, it’s not just known viruses we’ve got to worry about: scientists and doctors also need to be looking out for new, emerging variants that…
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center has released an hour-long time-lapse video that shows 133 days of the Sun’s life. The video shows the Sun’s chaotic surface, where great loops of…
Fur is a defining feature of being a mammal. But bald is beautiful for several mammalian weirdos, including dolphins, mole rats, elephants, and of course, humans. Not to mention a…
COVID-19 is defined as a respiratory infection, but the effects of the novel coronavirus are certainly not confined to any one organ. Dozens of recent autopsies show persistent evidence of…
Inside your brain there is a map of every bedroom you’ve slept in. Every kitchen you’ve cooked in. Every city you’ve worked in, every country you’ve holidayed in. There’s even…
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Friday approved a highly anticipated new drug designed to slow cognitive decline in patients in mild and early stages of Alzheimer’s disease.…
Daily brain tests could reveal how prepared your immune system is to tackle a future viral infection. A study led by researchers at the University of Michigan (U-M) has shown…
A newly discovered comet could be visible to the naked eye as it shoots past Earth and the Sun in the coming weeks for the first time in 50,000 years,…
When the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope entered low-Earth orbit in 2008, it opened our eyes to a whole new Universe of high-energy radiation. One of its more curious discoveries was…
A lack of sexual interest may indicate an increased risk of an early death among men living in Japan, according to a newly published study. The exact relationship between mortality…
In a recent study published in Astronomy and Astrophysical Letters, a team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) used various computer models to examine 69 confirmed binary…
Compared to adults, kids learn fast, their developing brains sopping up information at a mind-boggling pace. Somehow their neurons not only incorporate new knowledge more easily, they hold onto it…