Warm Water Under The ‘Doomsday Glacier’ Threatens to Melt It Faster Than We Predicted
A confluence of warm water is threatening to topple the very pillars that keep the ‘Doomsday Glacier’ afloat. The first measurements ever performed below the icy tongue of Antarctica’s Thwaites…
AI Is Not Actually an Existential Threat to Humanity, Scientists Say
We encounter artificial intelligence (AI) every day. AI describes computer systems that are able to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence. When you search something on the internet, the…
Your Dog May Get Jealous Even if It Just Imagines You Petting Another Dog
Nearly 4 in 5 dog owners report instances of jealousy from their pooches, and new research suggests those behaviors can be triggered even if a supposed rival for affection and…
Methane-Munching Bacteria Could Be The Solution to ‘Treethane’ Emissions
Trees are the Earth’s lungs – it’s well understood they drawdown and lock up vast amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. But emerging research is showing trees can also…
New Zealand Survey Reveals The Positive Aspects of The Country’s Strict Lockdown
It’s easy to focus on all the negatives amid a traumatic global pandemic, but there are some positives, too. A new online survey has found the psychological outcomes of New…
New Type of Battery Can Charge 10x Faster Than Lithium-Ion Models
Rechargeable lithium-ion batteries are basically everywhere, powering everything from smartphones to notebooks, earbuds to gaming devices, and so much more. But while the convenience of this ubiquitous (and Nobel Prize-winning)…
A Mass Extinction Event Is on The Horizon if Marine Life Keeps Fleeing The Equator
The tropical water at the equator is renowned for having the richest diversity of marine life on Earth, with vibrant coral reefs and large aggregations of tunas, sea turtles, manta…
Remains of The 3,000-Year-Old ‘Lost Golden City’ Discovered Beneath Egyptian Sands
Archaeologists have found a “Lost Golden City” that’s been buried under the ancient Egyptian capital of Luxor for the past 3,000 years, the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities announced…
A Genius New Simulation Has Revealed More on How Whiskers Actually Work
Whiskers on cats and other mammals aren’t covered with sensors. Instead, the sensing is done at the base of the whisker, hidden inside a small follicle, and scientists just discovered…
Here’s Why Our Brains Solve Problems by Adding Things, Not Removing
Have you ever noticed how we usually try and solve problems by adding more, rather than taking away? More meetings, more forms, more buttons, more shelves, more systems, more code,…
These Bizarre Underground Microbes Haven’t Evolved For 175 Million Years
A bacterium that dwells deep underground, living off chemical reactions triggered by radioactive decay, has been doing so unchanged for millions of years, new research has found. A genetic analysis…
Ancient Cave Artists May Have Knowingly Deprived Themselves of Oxygen to Paint
Some of the oldest human art in Europe is entirely hidden from sight, tucked away in the narrow crawl spaces of deep, dark, and winding caves. To even see the…
How to Fix Your Phone if It Gets Water Damage (Hint, Rice Won’t Help)
If you’ve ever gotten your phone wet in the rain, dropped it in water or spilt liquid over it, you’re not alone. One study suggests 25 percent of smartphone users…
Earth Nearly Lost All Oxygen And Could Have Suffocated 2.3 Billion Years Ago
Earth’s transition to permanently hosting an oxygenated atmosphere was a halting process that took 100 million years longer than previously believed, according to a new study. When Earth first formed…
Early Humans Walked Upright While Still Having Surprisingly Simple Brains
Modern brains are younger than originally thought, possibly developing as recently as 1.5 million years ago, according to a study published Thursday – after the earliest humans had already begun…
Scientists Finally Isolated a Blue Food Coloring That’s Entirely Natural
Scientists have isolated and harnessed that rarest of things – an organic blue food coloring found in nature – and figured out a way to produce it at scale. The…
Scientists Warned Us The Pandemic Wouldn’t Solve The Climate Crisis. Guess What
Even after a year of coronavirus lockdowns and shutdowns, global emissions of greenhouse gases are still increasing at an unrelenting rate. Today, according to initial measurements from the National Oceanic…
A 17th Century Bishop Was Mysteriously Buried With a Fetus. We Finally Know Why
Bishop of Lund Peder Pedersen Winstrup, of the Churches of Sweden and Denmark, died in 1679. An important and well-respected man, his body was mummified and laid to rest in…
DNA Reveals Humans Interbred With Neanderthals a Surprisingly Short Time Ago
Genetic sequencing of human remains dating back 45,000 years has revealed a previously unknown migration into Europe and showed intermixing with Neanderthals in that period was more common than previously…
A Newly Reported Muon Wobble Could Break Physics as We Know It
The results from one of the most hotly-anticipated experiments in particle physics are in, and they could be about to fulfill every researcher’s wildest dreams: They maybe, perhaps, could break…
Something Is Killing Trees, Creating ‘Ghost Forests’ Along The Atlantic Coast
Trekking out to my research sites near North Carolina’s Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge, I slog through knee-deep water on a section of trail that is completely submerged. Permanent flooding…
Forgotten Stone Slab May Actually Be The Oldest Known Map in Europe
The markings are unfamiliar: carved contours that now only hint at a lost landscape from long ago. Nonetheless, a large, mysterious slab of stone recently rediscovered in France looks like…
Humans Were Actually Apex Predators For 2 Million Years, New Study Finds
Paleolithic cuisine was anything but lean and green, according to a recent study on the diets of our Pleistocene ancestors. For a good 2 million years, Homo sapiens ditched the…
Meet ‘Very Fast Death Factor’
While some blue-green algae (or more accurately – cyanobacteria) are critical to us for their nitrogen-fixing abilities, others can also become dangerous pests of our own making. Climate change and…
Florida Reservoir Leaking Toxic Wastewater May Have a Second Breach, Drone Finds
A possible second leak has been found in a Florida wastewater reservoir that risks flooding nearby communities with millions of gallons of contaminated water, authorities said Monday. “An infrared drone…
Scientists Discover Weird ‘Falgae’ in Cornwall That Are Genetically Unique
The mesmerizing red algal species Phymatolithon calcareum clumps together to form habitats called maerl beds in coastal regions across the northeast Atlantic, but researchers have discovered a pocket of the…
In a Comprehensive Test, The ‘Impossible’ EM Drive Has Failed to Produce Thrust… Again
The EM Drive is a hypothetical rocket that proponents claim can generate thrust with no exhaust. This would violate all known physics. In 2016, a team at NASA’s Eagleworks lab…
22 Ancient Pharaohs Have Been Carried Across Cairo in an Epic ‘Golden Parade’
A procession of floats carried the mummified remains of 22 pharaohs, including Egypt’s most powerful ancient queen, through Cairo Saturday evening, in an eye-catching parade to a new resting place.…
This Guy on YouTube Actually Cooked Meat by Slapping It… a Lot
Ever wondered if you can cook a chicken solely from the heat generated by slapping it? So did YouTuber Louis Weisz, and the verdict is… yes. Yes, you can. As…
EVs Are Great, But ‘Active Travel’ Is The Best Way to Achieve Net-Zero Cities
Globally, only one in 50 new cars were fully electric in 2020, and one in 14 in the UK. Sounds impressive, but even if all new cars were electric now,…
‘Parental Burnout’ in The US Is Among The Highest in The World, And We May Know Why
Nobody ever said parenting was easy, but depending on circumstances, some people can find it much harder than others. In recent years researchers have begun to recognize ‘parental burnout‘ –…
How Could Surface Minerals Get in Diamonds Found in The Deepest Depths of The Earth?
Diamonds that formed hundreds of kilometers deep below Earth’s surface contain traces of chemical reactions that took place on the bottom of the ocean. Given that the bottom of the…
The Chilling Story of The ‘Demon Core’ And The Scientists Who Became Its Victims
It was August 13, 1945, and the ‘demon core’ was poised, waiting to be unleashed onto a stunned Japan still reeling in fresh chaos from the deadliest attacks anyone had…
This Mystifying Underwater Blob Is Filled With Mucus And Thousands of Squid Eggs
Several years ago, divers exploring the western coast of Norway encountered an object they couldn’t explain: An enormous, jelly-like orb, more than 3 feet (1 meter) wide, was hovering in…
There Could Be a Beautiful Reason Why Constellations Are The Same in Many Cultures
Human cultures can see the world through very different lenses, but the way we sort stars in the night sky is surprisingly universal. Even when separated by vast differences in…
Fierce New Dinosaur Predator Unearthed in Patagonia
A dig in Argentina has unearthed a previously undiscovered species of dinosaur, and the tyrannosaur-like predator has been given a name to suit what we know about it so far:…
Mummified Birds in The Atacama Desert Reveal a Dark Side of History
The more we look into the harsh extremes of Chile’s Atacama Desert, the more we find. Phenomena both mystifying and wonderful, occasionally bordering on alien. But in this incredibly dry…
Scientists Finally Know How an Ancient Reptile Lived With Such an Absurdly Long Neck
Make a crocodile out of taffy. Take its head and tug on it until its neck extends a good few meters from its body. If you squint, this could be…
Melting Ice Sheets 14,600 Years Ago Caused Seas to Rise 10 Times Faster Than Today
Ice sheet melting at the end of the last ice age may have caused sea levels to rise at 10 times the current rate, a study published Thursday by a…
There Are Two Types of Narcissist, And The Difference Is Crucial, Researchers Say
In a time when flaunting your best self on social media has become a norm, narcissistic traits seem to be everywhere. In today’s slang, off-putting behaviors like entitlement, superiority and…
We Just Got Closer to Truly Determining Who Were The World’s First Animals
The tree of animal life had to begin somewhere. Finding that original branch amongst such a tangled canopy is harder than it sounds, though. A new analysis of genomic data…
Someone in The Kalahari Collected Crystals a Whopping 105,000 Years Ago
A rockshelter in South Africa’s Kalahari documents the innovative behaviors of early humans who lived there 105,000 years ago. We report the new evidence today in Nature. The rockshelter site…
We’ve Found Deep Parts of The Sea Where The Last Ice Age Never Actually Ended
Some of the deepest parts of the Black Sea are still responding to climate changes prompted by the last ice age, scientists have discovered – a period which officially ended…
We Finally Have Synthetic Mucus. Here’s Why That Matters
The day has finally come. Scientists have finally created synthetic mucus molecules that exhibit the structure and function of the real deal. Far from being a slime crime, though, it’s…
Physicists Just Crushed a New Record For Slowing Down Antimatter
In a mirror Universe where time runs backwards, swapping matter for antimatter should simply bring us full circle and reproduce the reality we’re all familiar with. Our Universe and the…