Mysterious Mass Elephant Die-Off in Botswana Was Caused by Cyanobacteria Poisoning
Hundreds of elephants that died mysteriously in Botswana’s famed Okavango Delta succumbed to cyanobacteria poisoning, the wildlife department revealed on Monday. The landlocked southern African country boasts the world’s largest…
Supercooled Water Is Actually Two Different Liquids in One, Physicists Reveal
Water is a very strange thing. In our everyday experience, when liquid water drops below 0 °C (32 °F or 273.15 Kelvin), it freezes into a solid form, becoming ice.…
We May Finally Know Why Male Funnel Web Spiders Are So Deadly to Humans
Funnel webs are considered one of Australia’s most fearsome spiders, but their ability to kill humans is by accident rather than design, our new research shows. In findings published today,…
Two Extremely Rare Javan Rhino Babies Have Been Seen in Indonesia, Offering New Hope
Two extremely rare Javan rhinoceros calves have been spotted in an Indonesian national park, boosting hopes for the future of one of the world’s most endangered mammals. The rhino calves…
Scientists Say Jellyfish Should Become The Next Popular Seafood
According to the IUCN Red List 32,000 species are threatened with extinction – everything from birds and mammals, to reef corals and crustaceans. And that’s only the species we know…
This Tuesday Is The ‘Fall Equinox’. Here’s What That Means
The fall equinox comes this Tuesday at 9:30 am ET (1:30 pm UTC). Although not the best time to balance an egg (that’s an old wives’ tale), the equinox heralds…
Egyptian Authorities Just Found 14 More Coffins That Have Been Sealed For 2,500 Years
Egypt’s antiquities ministry announced Sunday the discovery of 14 sarcophagi in the Saqqara necropolis south of Cairo that had lain buried for 2,500 years. The coffins were found two days…
Washing Synthetic Clothes Spreads Microplastics Even Further Than We Thought
Human-made plastic isn’t just flooding the world’s oceans, it’s also piling up on the land and in the soil. For years now, the synthetic microfibres woven into our clothing have…
Are Humans Still Evolving? Scientists Weigh In
As a species, humans have populated almost every corner of the earth. We have developed technologies and cultures which shape the world we live in. The idea of ‘natural selection’…
This Experimental Patch Can Painlessly Check Your Glucose Levels, Scientists Say
Scientists in Japan have developed a paper-based sensor equipped with an array of extremely tiny microneedles, which they say can painlessly penetrate human skin for a quick and easy method…
Our View of Space Is Becoming Blurrier as Our Planet Heats Up, Astronomers Warn
The world’s most advanced telescopes were not made for today’s temperatures, and it’s messing with our observations of the night sky. Three decades-worth of data from the Paranal Observatory in…
A Strange New Magnetoelectric Effect Has Been Discovered in a Symmetrical Crystal
Magnetism and electricity are linked together in many weird and wonderful ways throughout science, including the fascinating magnetoelectric effect noticeable in some crystals – where the electrical properties of a…
Physicists May Have The First Experimental Evidence of a New Type of Dark Boson
Two experiments hunting for a whisper of a particle that prevents whole galaxies from flying apart recently published some contradictory results. One came up empty handed, while the other gives…
This Year’s Atlantic Hurricane Season Is So Bad We Ran Out of Names Two Storms Ago
Here’s how active this year’s Atlantic hurricane season has been: When Tropical Storm Wilfred formed on September 18, the National Hurricane Center exhausted its list of storm names for only…
Scientists Discover What Happens in Our Brains When We Make an ‘Educated Guess’
Making educated guesses is something we all do every day – but until now scientists haven’t fully understood how these leaps in logic are processed in the brain. Now new…
120,000-Year-Old Human Footprints Have Been Discovered in Saudi Arabia
Around 120,000 years ago in what is now northern Saudi Arabia, a small band of Homo sapiens stopped to drink and forage at a shallow lake that was also frequented…
IBM Just Committed to Having a Functioning 1,000 Qubit Quantum Computer by 2023
We’re still a long way from realising the full potential of quantum computing, but scientists are making progress all the time – and as a sign of what might be…
This Toxic Australian Plant Injects Scorpion-Like Venom. The Pain Can Last For Days
Australia is home to some of the world’s most dangerous wildlife. Anyone who spends time outdoors in eastern Australia is wise to keep an eye out for snakes, spiders, swooping…
Vast DNA Analysis of Hundreds of Vikings Reveals They Weren’t Who We Thought
What is a Viking? The word conjures an unmistakable mental image: the stereotype of bold Scandinavian invaders, fearsome marauders with white skin and pale hair, ruthlessly raiding and voyaging their…
Antarctica’s ‘Doomsday Glacier’ Is in Serious Danger, New Research Confirms
Scientists call it the doomsday glacier. That’s partly because the Thwaites, a Britain-sized glacier in western Antarctica, is melting at an alarming rate: It’s retreating by about half a mile…
Dust Determined The Early Rise of Human Civilisations More Than You’d Suspect
The spread of humans out of Africa through the Middle East may have been helped along by a very ordinary substance: dust. More specifically, the silty sediment known as loess…
Extinct Cave Bear, Roughly 30,000 Years Old, Has Emerged From Siberian Permafrost
High above the Arctic Circle lies a group of remote Siberian islands where ivory traders and scientists brave sub-zero temperatures to search for extinct creatures preserved in the melting permafrost.…