Here’s How to Stop ‘Zoombombers’ From Trolling Your Virtual Meetings
“Zoombombing” in case you haven’t heard, is the unsavoury practice of posting distressing comments, pictures or videos after gatecrashing virtual meetings hosted by the videoconferencing app Zoom. With hundreds of…
Spanish Conquerors Used Indigenous Technology to Build Their Weapons, Evidence Reveals
During the invasion of Mesoamerica in the early 16th century, Spanish armies may have wielded the more powerful weapons, and yet when push came to shove, their troops had no…
People Can Experience Psychedelic Effects From Taking a Placebo, Study Shows
The placebo effect is weird. When it takes place, people who haven’t taken anything stronger than a sugar pill appear to respond as if they’d actually taken a real drug.…
Forget Your Troubles by Looking at These Weird But Totally Real Science Illustrations
Some scientific concepts are so intricate and discombobulating, they are difficult to convey in words – but a good, old-fashioned visual aid can make it crystal clear. Scientific illustration is…
Scientists Just Discovered Penguins Actually ‘Talk’ Under Water
Penguins, like all seabirds, are known to be highly vocal on land where they come to breed. They use these vocalisations to help them recognise their mate and kin. Outside…
This Prototype System Could Theoretically Transmit Data at 10 Terabits Per Second
Scientists have developed a prototype system that could hypothetically see data transfer rates hit 10 terabits per second – or many thousands of times faster than your average broadband speed,…
This Gorgeous Galaxy Is The Very Definition of ‘Flocculent’
I know you’re googling “flocculent” right now, unless you happen to be a chemist, or maybe a home brewer. You could spend each day of your life staring at a…
Scientists Discover Two Mating Flies Trapped in Amber 40 Million Years Ago
Forty or so million years ago, on the southern end of the Gondwana supercontinent, two mating insects unexpectedly found themselves in a sticky situation – and not in a good…
Earth Is Vibrating Substantially Less Because There’s So Little Activity Right Now
Flights are grounded. Fewer trains are running. Rush hour is gone. The world – particularly in cities – is looking drastically different during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. According to seismologists,…
Scientists Discover Deep-Sea Bacteria Has a Metabolism Unlike Anything We’ve Seen Before
A curious kind of bacteria found on the floor of the deep ocean might have a metabolism unlike anything we’ve seen before. Known as Acetobacterium woodii, scientists in Germany claim…
Breathtaking Photo Shows The Majestic Peaks of Himalayas From Space
Kangchenjunga is not to be underestimated. Earth’s third-highest mountain rises over 8,500 metres (over 28,000 ft) above the ground. But from the surreal elevation of space, the vastness of its…
Physicists Have Tested The Speed of Light at The Highest Energies Yet
Physicists have conducted the most high-energy test of the speed of light yet, and found that it is still constant, everywhere in the Universe, even in gamma rays spewed out…
Scientists Just Laid Out a Detailed Plan to Replenish Marine Life by 2050
If you’re not familiar with UN Sustainable Development Goal number 14, its aim is to “conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development” – and…
Scientists Find a Half Male, Half Female Bee, Split Right Down The Middle
Broadly speaking, animals tend to be sexually dimorphic. You have males, with small gametes, and females, with large gametes, both of which are required for sexual reproduction. Every now and…
Scientists Took Mentos And Coke to The Top of a Mountain, For Science
Adding pellets of Mentos mint candy to carbonated beverages has been a science fair staple for years. While most ten-year-olds can tell you why it spews up a geyser of…
Interstellar Comet 2I/Borisov Really Is Breaking Apart, According to New Data
Welp, that’s clinched it. It seems like it really is the end of the road for 2I/Borisov, a comet that travelled light-years across space before winding up in the Solar…
How to Boost Your Internet Speed While Everyone Is Working From Home
With #StayAtHome and social distancing now becoming a way of life, an increasing number of people are relying on the internet for work, education and entertainment. This has placed greater…
A Genome Study Has Caught Humans And Neanderthals Having Lots of Sex All Over Eurasia
The more we learn about our evolutionary history, the more it seems like early humans and Neanderthals just couldn’t keep their hands off one another. A new study has once…
Scientists Have Unearthed Traces of an Ancient Rainforest In… Antarctica
Since time immemorial, Earth’s poles have resembled frozen wastelands. Life can and does exist there, but there are sound reasons why humans and most other animals cling to the safety…
Astronomers May Have Found a ‘Missing Link’ Black Hole Because It Ate a Star
Black holes are sneaky. They lurk out there in the dark, not giving off any detectable radiation, making them very hard to find. But they have a weakness: they’re extremely…
A Bunch of Utterly Adorable New Spiders Have Been Discovered in Australia
With the power to make even the most arachnid-wary go “awww”, peacock spiders took the internet by storm. Their online popularity spurred a flurry of new species discoveries over the…
Social Media Is Full of Bots Spreading COVID-19 Anxiety. Don’t Fall For It
Recently Facebook, Reddit, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Twitter and YouTube committed to removing coronavirus-related misinformation from their platforms. COVID-19 is being described as the first major pandemic of the social media…
Scientists Are Developing a Test to Find The New Coronavirus in Wastewater
The battle with the new coronavirus has been well and truly engaged across the world, and one of the fronts we’re fighting on is trying to scale up testing measures…
By The Way, Antarctica Just Experienced an Unprecedented Summer Heatwave
While the world rightfully focuses on the COVID-19 pandemic, the planet is still warming. This summer’s Antarctic weather, as elsewhere in the world, was unprecedented in the observed record. Our…
New Analysis of a Famous Hominin Fossil Might Change Human Ancestry Story, Again
The Broken Hill skull has long been considered one of the key hominin fossils found in Africa, a possible relative of modern humans. It was recovered from cave deposits in…
Physicists Have Found a New Method For Generating Quantum Entangled Photons
If building a super-secure, super-smart ‘quantum internet’ is ever going to be possible, then quantum-entangled photons are likely to be essential in building it – and scientists just figured out…
New AI System Translates Human Brain Signals Into Text With Up to 97% Accuracy
The world is only just getting used to the power and sophistication of virtual assistants made by companies like Amazon and Google, which can decode our spoken speech with eerie…
Astronaut Pee Could Be a Great Building Material For Future Moon Bases
If we humans want to go live on the Moon – which we are planning to do – we’re going to have to have something to actually live in. Small…
Here’s Why You Don’t Need to Freak Out About Cats Getting COVID-19
After reports of two dogs testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 in Hong Kong, the most recent news to cause alarm among animal owners is that of a cat in Belgium with…
Good News, There’s a Microbe That Can Metabolise One of The Hardest Plastics to Recycle
Plastics are a growing problem for our environment, in part because they are so difficult to recycle. Now scientists have identified a microbe that might be able to help break…
Ocean Creatures Have Been Protecting Us From Millions of Viruses This Entire Time
It’s fair to say that the world has had more than enough of viruses right now. Unfortunately, the converse is not necessarily true. The incredible vastness of the virosphere is…
Surprise Discovery Reveals Neanderthals Loved Seafood And Were Excellent Fisherpeople
Neanderthals were apparently much more partial to seafood than previously thought: new research shows that Neanderthal communities living in Portugal during the last ice age were just as keen on…
Mars Could Have at Least Two Ancient Reservoirs of Water Deep Underground
Mars. Water. You’d never find two more unlikely companions, even in a buddy cop movie. But once upon a time, the dry, red dustbowl of Mars was lush and soggy.…
Astronomers Observe Blasting Supermassive Black Hole Jets From The Early Universe
In the far reaches of the Universe, astronomers have managed to capture a rare interaction. As a supermassive black hole ravenously slurps down matter around it, it’s sending out jets…
Feeling Helpless? You Can Actually Contribute to Coronavirus Research From Home
As people try to maintain social engagement during self-isolation, citizen science offers a unique opportunity. Defined as “public participation and collaboration in scientific research”, citizen science allows everyday people to…
Land Animals Began Dying in Earth’s Greatest Extinction Long Before Marine Life
Around a quarter of a billion years ago, the vast majority of species on land and sea were wiped out in The Great Dying, thanks to a series of volcanic…
Across Mammal Species, Females Outlive Males
Just like in humans, males across many mammal species don’t live as long as their female counterparts, and it’s not because they age differently, biologically speaking. “We’ve known for a…
The Strangest Field of Astronomy You’ve Never Heard Of
In 2015, astronomers found something weird. It was a white dwarf star, 570 light-years from Earth, with a peculiar dimming pattern. It dimmed several times to varying depths, each depth…
Early Research Suggests Our Brains Sync Up With Musicians’ During a Performance
It’s not hard to feel a connection between musicians, the music being played, and the audience at any gig or concert that you go to, but new research suggests this…
This Epic Ion Engine Will Power NASA’s Test Mission to Redirect an Asteroid
Despite humanity’s current struggle against the novel coronavirus, and despite it taking up most of our attention, other threats still exist. The very real threat of a possible asteroid strike…
Incredible Images Show How Bacteria Set Up Tiny Colonies on Your Tongue
Along the banks of a river of human epithelial cells, flowing across your tongue, many communities of bacteria have made their homes. Just as human cities organise into areas with…