Rapid Loss of Sunlight Could Have Unleashed Snowball Earth Events in The Past
Not all ice ages are equally brutal. In the most extreme glaciation events known to science, ice stretches out from Earth’s polar regions and extends all the way into lower…
Yep, Starlink Totally Photobombed a Beautiful Image of Comet Neowise
Elon Musk‘s growing constellation of internet satellites has been sending streaks of bright light across night skies around the world. Even the biggest comet to pass Earth in 25 years…
We Finally Know Where The Megaliths of Stonehenge Really Came From
Stonehenge, a Neolithic wonder in southern England, has vexed historians and archaeologists for centuries with its many mysteries: How was it built? What purpose did it serve? Where did its…
By Pollinating Just a Handful of Crops, Wild Bees Contribute Over $1.5 Billion Per Year
It’s not just honeybees that pollinate our crops and put food on our plates. In North America alone there are roughly 4,000 species of native bee, and new research has…
Scientists Detect Giant ‘Megaripple’ Structures Moving Across Mars
For the first time, scientists have observed that ‘megaripples’ on Mars – huge sand waves seen on the Martian surface – are moving structures, and not ancient relics stuck in…
Scientists Have ‘Woken Up’ Microbes Trapped Under The Seafloor For 100 Million Years
Researchers have successfully revived tiny microbes trapped dormant in a seemingly lifeless zone of the seabed for more than 100 million years. A team of scientists from Japan and America…
Scientists Start Assembling The World’s Largest Nuclear Fusion Experiment
Fourteen years after receiving the official go-ahead, scientists on Tuesday began assembling a giant machine in southern France designed to demonstrate that nuclear fusion, the process which powers the Sun,…
New Report Identifies The ‘Greatest Risk’ to Human Health, And It’s Not a Virus
Air pollution cuts life expectancy for every man, woman, and child on Earth by nearly two years, according to data released Tuesday which experts said showed poor air quality is…
Mysterious Chinese Seed Packets Are Showing Up All Over The US, Here’s Why
Dozens of US states have reported mysterious seeds showing up in packages from China and are warning citizens not to plant them because they could be an invasive species. The…
A New ‘Forever Chemical’ Has Been Detected in Arctic Seawater For The First Time
Common chemicals nicknamed ‘forever chemicals‘ for their tendency to stick around in the environment for a disconcertingly long time have been detected in Arctic seawater. PFAS (per and polyfluoroalkyl substances)…
MIT Tests ‘Dream Incubation’ Device That Manipulates The Content of People’s Dreams
Scientists have developed an experimental device and protocol for manipulating the content of people’s dreams while they are sleeping, by making them recall specific cues that can trigger targeted dream…
Humans Are About to Return a Rock to The Surface of Mars After 600,000 Years
Humans are about to make history by sending a little piece of a Martian rock back to the surface of Mars for the first time ever. The meteorite fragment Sayh…
AI Analysed Over 11,000 Couples’ Relationships. This Is What It Found
A first-of-its-kind artificial intelligence (AI) study of romantic relationships based on data from thousands of couples has identified the top predictors that make partners feel positively about their relationship –…
Svalbard, Home of The ‘Doomsday’ Vault, Just Recorded Its Highest Ever Temperature
Norway’s Arctic archipelago Svalbard on Saturday recorded its highest-ever temperature, the country’s meteorological institute reported. According to scientific study, global warming in the Arctic is happening twice as fast as…
NASA’s Next Mission to Mars Has Been Cleared For Launch This Thursday
NASA on Monday gave its latest Mars rover Perseverance the all clear to launch later this week on a mission to seek out signs of ancient microbial life. “The launch…
Carbon Emissions Are Chilling The Atmosphere 90 Km Above Antarctica
While greenhouse gases are warming Earth’s surface, they’re also causing rapid cooling far above us, at the edge of space. In fact, the upper atmosphere about 90 kilometres (56 miles)…
For Only The Second Time, Astronomers Detect a Strange Flash of Light During Supernova
A stunning flash of ultraviolet light from an exploding white dwarf has been detected by astronomers for only the second time, and could give researchers important clues about what spurs…
A ‘Journey Mindset’ Can Help Us Get Through This Pandemic. Here’s What That Means
Living in the present can be a present in itself, but during a global pandemic, when the world is in crisis, reflecting only on the ‘now’ might not be your…
Mesmerising Animation Reveals Our Entire Solar System Doesn’t Exactly Orbit The Sun
It’s common knowledge that the Sun is the centre of the Solar System. Around it, the planets orbit – along with a thick belt of asteroids, some meteor fields, and…
Hubble Just Took an Astonishingly Detailed Image of Saturn
The Hubble space telescope has spent the past 30 years orbiting 547 km (340 miles) above Earth. The ageing satellite has had a couple of hiccups in the last few…
Engineers Create Strange Four-Winged Flapping Drones Inspired by Bird Wings
We have developed four-winged bird-like robots, called ornithopters, that can take off and fly with the agility of swifts, hummingbirds and insects. We did this by reverse engineering the aerodynamics…
Scientists Show How Bad Our Plastic Waste Problem Could Get by 2040
During a visit to a bookstore a few weeks ago, we couldn’t help but stare at a display unit featuring no fewer than 10 books telling you how to rid…
Interestingly, Toddlers Tend to Deal With Uncertainty The Same Way The Rest of Us Do
Understanding what’s going on in the mind of toddlers is helpful in improving everything from education and parenting to pre-school entertainment, and new research sheds light on how these young…
Experiments Show Bacteria Grow More Lethal And Antibiotic-Resistant in Space
China has launched its Tianwen-1 mission to Mars. A rocket holding an orbiter, lander and rover took flight from the country’s Hainan province earlier this week, with hopes to deploy…
This Is The First-Ever Photo of Quantum Entanglement
This stunning image captured last year by physicists at the University of Glasgow in Scotland is the first-ever photo of quantum entanglement – a phenomenon so strange, physicist Albert Einstein…
Plant Roots Are Melting Permafrost And Unearthing Vast Stores of Carbon Emissions
As plants begin to spread across melting permafrost, scientists are growing ever more worried their roots will stir microbes into unleashing vast stores of carbon. To scientists, roots are known…
New Research Is Rewriting The Very Timeline of How Earth Was Born
In the very early days of the Solar System, baby Earth may have taken a much shorter time to form than we previously thought. According to an analysis in February…
Physicists Find a New Way to Reveal The Strange, Wave-Like Nature of Massive Molecules
Nearly a century after experiments confirmed that atoms, matter’s smallest building blocks, have ethereal, wave-like characteristics, physicists have just found a new way to show how mammoth-sized molecules ripple with…
Satellites Capture a Massive Dust Storm in Namibia Streaming Over The Atlantic Ocean
Landsat 8 strikes again. Landsat 8 is the United States Geological Survey’s most recently launched satellite, and it holds the powerful Operational Land Imager (OLI.) The OLI is a powerful…
Breathtaking Image Reveals The Colossal Magnetic Field of a Distant Spiral Galaxy
Spiral galaxies look nice and tidy, with most of their stars and gas confined to a disc neatly arranged in swirling spiral arms. But there’s a lot more to a…
Chemists Just Worked Out How to Recycle Some of Our Toughest Single-Use Plastics
Thermosets are some of the toughest plastics around. They’re used in products that have to be particularly durable and heat-resistant – but that also makes them very difficult to break…
Bats Can Survive Carrying Deadly Viruses, And We’re Starting to Figure Out How
Our collective pandemic experience has made us keenly aware that bats have an uncanny ability to carry around deadly viruses, but somehow still survive. There is a lot we don’t…
US Just Unveiled Its Blueprint For a “Virtually Unhackable” Quantum Internet
US officials and scientists have begun laying the groundwork for a more secure “virtually unhackable” internet based on quantum computing technology. At a presentation Thursday, Department of Energy (DOE) officials…
Male Seahorse Pregnancy Has Some Eerie Similarities to Human Childbearing
Many expecting fathers claim they’d love to take on the aching back, cramped organs, and painful contractions of their partner’s pregnancy. But so far, the male seahorse is the only…
Physicists Just Showed How to Overcome a Huge Obstacle For Fusion Generator Efficiency
Energy generated from nuclear fusion holds plenty of potential as a clean and almost limitless source of power, but many obstacles need to be overcome before it’s a practical reality…
Juno Delivers First Images of The North Pole of Ganymede, Where It Rains Plasma
It’s been busily orbiting and observing Jupiter and its moons for four years now, but the scientific spacecraft Juno still has some surprises to share. For the first time, it…
US Has Accused Russia of Firing an Anti-Satellite Weapon in Space
The United States accused Russia on Thursday of test-firing an anti-satellite weapon in space, warning that the threat against Washington’s systems was “real, serious and increasing.” US Space Command “has…
Sharks Are Now ‘Functionally Extinct’ in 19% of Earth’s Ocean Reefs
A massive survey of the world’s coral reefs has turned up a shocking decline in the populations of reef sharks. Over a three year period, almost no sharks at all…
A Mutated Neanderthal Gene Could Make Some People More Sensitive to Pain
Scattered through the genomes of humans around the world we can find remnants of a Neanderthal ancestry. In some, this bestows resilience to illness, or even a unique head shape.…
New DNA Study Lays Bare The Horrific History of The Transatlantic Slave Trade
A new DNA study published Thursday sheds fresh light on the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade, from the legacy of rape that can be seen in today’s genetics to…
China Successfully Launches a Mars Rover Mission, Joining The New Space Race
China launched a rover to Mars on Thursday, a journey coinciding with a similar US mission as the powers take their rivalry into deep space. The two countries are taking…
The Entire Earth Is Vibrating Less Due to COVID-19 Lockdowns, Study Reveals
We humans are a rowdy, disruptive bunch. Our very day-to-day living causes the planet to hum. Quite literally – driving and travelling, digging and construction, industry, and even sports events…
Ancient Viral DNA From Viking Age Corpses Just Got Us Closer to The Origin of Smallpox
As scientists scramble to figure out where exactly the coronavirus pandemic emerged, other virologists are still chasing the origins of another once-devastating disease – smallpox. Now, they’ve found viral DNA…
Warped Starlight Could Be The Signpost That Points to Dark Matter in The Milky Way
When we peer out into intergalactic space, evidence for dark matter is everywhere. It’s in the rotation of galaxies, which cannot be accounted for by observable matter alone. It’s in…
First Methane Leak Found on Antarctic Sea Floor Confirms Researchers’ Fears
Scientists have, for the first time, discovered an active leak of methane gas from the sea floor in Antarctica. It is a process that’s likely to accelerate the process of…
Stunning Cave Discovery Just Changed The Timeline of Human Presence in North America
Tools excavated from a cave in central Mexico are strong evidence that humans were living in North America at least 30,000 years ago, some 15,000 years earlier than previously thought,…
Analysis of 200 Years of Human Activity in Antarctica Reveals an Unsettling Picture
Antarctica is known for its remote and pristine wilderness, as one of the last intact expanses of land on our planet. But after just two centuries of exploration, new research…
Astronomers Use Supercomputer to Model a Hypernova For 300 Days After Explosion
The answers to many questions in astronomy are hidden behind the veil of deep time. One of those questions is around the role that supernovae played in the early Universe.…