There’s only one planet we know of in the entire Universe that’s capable of hosting life. That’s Earth. So, when we search for exoplanets that might host life, it’s pretty much what we look for: a rocky exoplanet orbiting a Sun-like star at a distance that is neither too hot nor too cold for liquid
Synthetic gas, or syngas for short, is a crucial building block in the chemical manufacturing industry. Most people may never have heard of syngas, but every day it is used in the production of drugs, fertiliser, plastic, and biofuels. Unfortunately, even when syngas – a mix of hydrogen and carbon monoxide – is fermented to
High in the atmosphere of Mars, astronomers have found a phenomenon they’ve been hunting for decades: a faint green glow, caused by the interaction between sunlight and oxygen in the upper atmosphere. Previously, this glow has only been detected in one place: the sky above Earth. Its discovery in the Martian atmosphere will help
The fact of human existence is evidence that technologically advanced life is possible in the Universe, yet all our searches for other civilisations have turned up exactly nothing. Since Earth harbours the only proof of life we have, it’s difficult to know just how common – or rare – it is. A new method
Curiosity has been through some challenges. A two-year mission that’s now almost eight years and counting, storm seasons, getting covered in dust… and yet the rover is still rolling around the Red Planet and making amazing discoveries. But sometimes, even on Mars, it’s nice to just take a break and look up at the
Diego the giant Galapagos tortoise whose tireless efforts are credited with almost single-handedly saving his once-threatened species, was put out to pasture Monday on his native island after decades of breeding in captivity, Ecuador’s environment minister said. Diego was shipped out from the Galapagos National Park’s breeding program on Santa Cruz to remote and
For the first time, scientists have measured the lifespan of a neutron in the void of space. The margin of error means we can’t narrow it down yet, but once the technique is refined, it could prove to be a game changer. You see, when safely ensconced in the nucleus of an atom, the
Hummingbirds can perceive colours that the human eye cannot, thanks to the addition of an extra cone in the hummingbird’s eye that we don’t possess, new research reveals. The findings, demonstrated in experiments with wild broad-tailed hummingbirds (Selasphorus platycercus) in Colorado, suggest that the ability to discriminate non-spectral colours (including ultraviolet wavelengths) could play a
There’s simply no denying the fact that humans have drastically altered, developed, and ransacked much of the natural world for our own ends. But how much of the planet’s surface remains free of our often malign influence? If we were to map Earth looking only for signs of humanity’s footprint on landscapes, how much
A 2014 Mars photo that has strangely resurfaced in tabloids this month does not show a femur amidst the rubble of the Red Planet. Like all such photos to date, the object you see is just a plain old Mars rock. And NASA debunked it six years ago. The image was taken using the
In July 2015, the New Horizons spacecraft made history when it became the first robotic explorer to conduct a flyby of Pluto. This was followed by another first, when the NASA mission conducted the first flyby of a Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) on 31 December 2018 – which has since been named Arrokoth. Now, on the edge of the Solar
Trees marked by Aboriginal cultural practices are a distinctive part of the Australian landscape. A recent discovery on Wiradjuri country in New South Wales shows some of these “culturally modified trees” may be much younger than anybody thought. What are culturally modified trees? Aboriginal people have long used bark, wood, and trees for practical
For humans, getting whacked in the face by heavy raindrops is a mere annoyance. But for tiny and delicate organisms – like butterflies – drops of rainwater are the equivalent of a person being pummelled by bowling balls falling from the sky. Ouch. “[Getting hit with] raindrops is the most dangerous event for this
For well over 100 years hospitals have been putting people under with general anaesthesia to perform routine operations and surgeries. These days, it’s used all over the world, thousands of times every day. But although we know that it knocks us out and messes with our consciousness, the actual mechanism behind general anaesthesia was
Let us introduce you to one of the board games played by the ancient Romans some 1,700 years ago: it’s called ludus latrunculorum, and it looks like a version of it has been unearthed at a burial mound site in Norway. The find comprises 19 playing pieces in total, including elongated dice that look
Don’t you just hate it when you discover bits of yourself that seem to have a mind of their own? Like when you decide you really don’t want to like someone, but some other part of you does anyway. Well, bad news for all you fellow egg-bearers out there – turns out our ova
For the first time, astronomers were able to watch the entire process of a neutron star absorbing material and eventually unleashing a powerful blast of X-rays. Scientists have long wondered why neutron stars create these violent outbursts. This time around, it took 15 scientists from five institutes using seven observatories in order to gather the complete
Blobs of hot, dense material that curl around Earth’s core are much more widespread than previous research suggests. A new method of analysing earthquake data has found even more of the previously detected continent-sized zones at the boundary between the planet’s core and mantle. We still don’t know what these blobs are – they could
Archaeological excavations deep within the rainforests of Sri Lanka have unearthed the earliest evidence for hunting with bows and arrows outside Africa. At Fa-Hien Lena, a cave in the heart of Sri Lanka’s wet zone forests, we discovered numerous tools made of stone, bone, and tooth – including a number of small arrow points carved
Israeli scientists say they have produced hydrogen from plants in a development that they hope could eventually lead to using vegetation to produce electricity. The discovery was made by using microscopic algae, an aquatic plant, in research carried out at a Tel Aviv University laboratory. “To link a device to electricity, you just have
The NASA official who managed the inaugural private crewed flight into space last month has been promoted to become the first female head of human spaceflight, the agency said Friday, as it prepares to return people to the Moon in 2024. “Kathy Lueders has been selected to lead @NASA’s Human Exploration & Operations Mission
It’s a process that can take billions of years, but mountains do indeed grow – and exactly what factors control that growth has been the subject of an ongoing debate between scientists. Now it looks as though we may finally have a definitive answer. According to a new study, tectonic forces underneath mountains –
When Canadian astronomer Robert Weryk discovered ‘Oumuamua passing through our Solar System with the Pan-STARRS telescope, in October 2017, it caused quite a stir. It was the first interstellar object we’d ever seen coming through our neighbourhood. The excitement led to speculation: what could it be? There was lots of fun conjecture on its origins. Was it
Dystopian fiction has prepared us for all kinds of apocalypse. Shambling zombies, alien invasion, and, of course, deadly plagues. But not even the most twisted mind could predict the tragic depletion of the most valuable of resources – toilet paper. Why didn’t people buy up all the toothbrushes, or socks? We don’t have all the
It’s easy to take time’s arrow for granted – but the gears of physics actually work just as smoothly in reverse. Maybe that time machine is possible after all? An experiment from 2019 shows just how much wiggle room we can expect when it comes to distinguishing the past from the future, at least on
By this time next year, NASA expected to have a new observatory in orbit, one that would make the Hubble Space Telescope look like a kid’s toy. Unfortunately, we will need to wait a little longer for the next generation of stunning space photographs. The launch window for the James Webb Space telescope has been
A crater lake in India’s western Maharashtra state has turned pink overnight, delighting nature enthusiasts and surprising experts who attributed it to changing salinity levels and the presence of algae in the water. Lonar lake, formed some 50,000 years after a meteorite crashed into Earth, is located 500 kilometres (310 miles) from India’s financial
Scientists have developed a human embryo “blueprint” using human stem cells, in a breakthrough that could provide vital insight into the early stages of infant development, new research showed Thursday. Teams from the University of Cambridge and the Netherlands-based Hubrecht Institute said their model will allow them to observe never-before-seen processes underlying the formation
Slithering through their subterranean aquarium, three “baby dragons” have gone on display in a Slovenian cave, where they hatched in 2016 in a rare successful breeding, officials said Thursday. Only 30 visitors per day will be allowed to visit the so-called baby dragons – ancient underwater predators that can live up to 100 years
Two separate studies have identified the elusive brain ‘switches’ that send mice into a hibernation-like state of torpor. This discovery could lead us closer to figuring out how to put other animals – even humans – in the same suspended state, which can be incredibly useful for an organism to do. When an animal
A liquid phase originally proposed in the 1910s has finally been realised. Using a liquid crystal compound, scientists have discovered a new “ferroelectric nematic” phase that could open up an entire new class of materials and technological advances. There are many phases of liquid crystal, but one of the most common is the nematic
Yet again, scientists have validated a major component of Einstein’s theory of general relativity. Specifically, a trio of two white dwarf stars and a collapsed neutron star demonstrated the concept of freefall, according to research published this month in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics. That’s the idea, famously illustrated by Galileo’s Leaning Tower of Pisa thought experiment, that
An ancient giant crocodile may have once walked on only two legs, its tail held proudly in the air, its feet rolling heel-to-toe, not unlike our own. That scene is hard to imagine, especially since crocodiles have a misleading reputation for having gone relatively unchanged through millions of years of evolution. In fact, so
In July of 2018, NASA announced an incredible achievement. They had created the coldest spot in space – right there on the International Space Station, in orbit around Earth. They took atoms of a soft metal called rubidium, and cooled them to temperatures around 100 nanoKelvin – one ten-millionth of a Kelvin above absolute zero.
Scientists have found a potentially habitable exoplanet and its star that are more similar to the Earth and our Sun than any other known planet-star pair. The planet – which is still considered a planet candidate until further confirmation – is the right distance from its star to allow for the presence of liquid surface
Sunday marked the second time Kathy Sullivan made history. Nearly 25 years after she became the first US woman to walk in space, Sullivan became the first woman to ever reach Challenger Deep, the deepest point in our planet’s oceans. She’s the only person ever to do both. Challenger Deep lies nearly 7 miles
Once upon a time, Falerii Novi was a thriving community. For hundreds of years, generations of people strode its streets, lived out their lives under its roofs, shopped in its markets, and worshipped in its temples – from its founding in 241 BCE up until the Early Middle Ages. When Falerii Novi was abandoned
With the Black Lives Matter movement dominating headlines in the last week, systemic racial inequality in academia has also been brought to the forefront, with the hashtag #BlackintheIvory. Across social media, Black academics and educators are sharing countless stories on how they have been subjected to systemic racism, and blatant discrimination from White colleagues.
Some chimpanzees might be growing hard-hearted with age. A curious little bone has been found forming in the heart tissue of several chimpanzees, according to a newly published study. The size of this mineralised tissue, measuring no more than a few millimetres, appears to vary among individuals; but on the whole, researchers say it
A tiny carving of a bird, found in a discarded pile of soil, has now been declared the oldest work of art ever found in China. The figure is at least 13,000 years old, and hints at an original artistic tradition in the region. Roughly 12 millimetres tall (half an inch), this dainty figurine
With thousands of planets already discovered beyond our Solar System, astronomers are keen to figure out which ones might be habitable for extraterrestrial life. A new study has proposed an interesting method for doing this – by calculating the mineral dust on exoplanets. This airborne dust – made of carbon-silicate material lifted from the
On human timescales, things in the Solar System seem to be pretty set in place. Over cosmic timescales, it’s all gradually falling apart. The planets are very, very slowly moving away from the Sun; and most of the moons are slowly moving away from their planets in a process called tidal acceleration. The fact
The northern segment of the Great Wall of China was built not to block invading armies but rather to monitor civilian movement, an Israeli archaeologist said Tuesday. When researchers fully mapped the Great Wall’s 740-kilometre (460-mile) Northern Line for the first time, their findings challenged previous assumptions. “Prior to our research, most people thought
For the second time ever, astronomers have found a fast radio burst (FRB) that repeats on a regular, predictable cycle. This could mean that – at least in some cases – the wild unpredictability of mysterious deep-space FRBs could actually be a problem with our detection capabilities. FRB 121102 is already famous for being
From a distance, Saturn looks like a serene gas giant with stunning rings, going about its orbit with little to no fuss. If you creep as close as Cassini did, however, there’s a whole lot more going on. A turbulent hexagon-shaped storm has been raging near Saturn’s north pole for at least four decades –
Knowing more about what sharks eat is crucial in managing how we interact with them, and a new study looking at the diet of great white sharks off the east Australian coast has revealed some surprising findings. Based on a detailed analysis of shark stomach contents, these apex predators spend a lot more time
Astronomers don’t know exactly when the first stars formed in the Universe because they haven’t been observed yet. And now, new observations from the Hubble Space Telescope suggest the first stars and galaxies may have formed even earlier than previously estimated. Why? We *still* haven’t seen them, even with the best telescope we’ve got,
The famous cat-in-a-box thought experiment by Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger is an illustration of one of the defining characteristics of quantum mechanics – the unpredictable behaviour of particles at the quantum level. It makes working with quantum systems incredibly difficult; but what if we could make quantum predictions? A team of physicists believes it’s
- « Previous Page
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- …
- 311
- Next Page »