County Wicklow in Ireland, has had a recent spate of wildfires threatening homes and forests. However, one good thing has emerged from this troubling situation – a message, hidden since the Second World War. The burnt remains of a gorse fire on Bray Head has revealed a sign saying ‘EIRE’ made of rocks, which would have
In 1959, Soviet scientists embarked on an audacious experiment to breed a population of tame foxes, a strain of animals that wouldn’t be aggressive or fearful of people. Scientists painstakingly selected the friendliest foxes to start each new generation, and within 10 cycles they began to see differences from wild foxes – fox pups that
NASA’s new planet-hunting space telescope TESS has been inserted into its orbit around Earth, and has just started its job of scanning the skies to look for planets beyond the Solar System. But before it even started work, NASA turned it on to do a few test observations – and it just so happened to
In 2016, the Nobel Prize in Physics went to three British scientists for their work on superconductors and superfluids, which included the explanation of a rather odd phase of matter. Now their discovery has a practical application – shrinking an electrical component to a size that will help quantum computers reach a scale that just
Facebook isn’t content to know just who you are, what you do, where you go, and who you talk to. It also wants to know how you spend your money. On Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Facebook is asking banks – including JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup – to turn over
After more than 125 years of mystery, scientists think they have reconfirmed the final resting place of the world’s forgotten ‘eighth wonder’, clearing up much of the uncertainty from previous studies. On 10 June 1886, Mt Tarawera blew its top in one of the largest volcanic eruptions in New Zealand’s history, sending volcanic debris flying
Academics at Imperial Tech Foresight (ITF), an offshoot of Imperial College London, have been working to bring to life nebulous and intangible technological advances in a way you’ve never seen before. They have created a table of disruptive tech, taking inspiration from the periodic table of chemical elements. It contains 100 innovations, ranging from the
Using a new holographic technology, researchers have been able to twist and manipulate a beam of laser light to tie it into knots, creating complex, three-dimensional light structures. Why? To study what happens to the space around them, of course. It involves manipulating something called polarisation. To our eyes, a laser beam looks like it’s
Astronomers have detected yet another mysterious and powerful fast radio burst hitting Earth from an unknown source in space. If that’s not strange enough, this particular fast radio burst is incredibly low, in the 580 megahertz frequency range – nearly 200 MHz lower than any other fast radio burst we’ve picked up on before. If
For roughly 17 months, she patiently waited. Like many expectant mothers, she looked forward to the day she would get to welcome her baby into the world. On Tuesday morning, it finally happened. J35, a member of an endangered population of southern resident killer whales, gave birth near Victoria, B.C. It was a baby girl.
After decades of looking, researchers have identified a molecule that plays an important role in guiding sperm to find eggs. The discovery, observed in the cellular biology of sea urchins, isn’t just of importance for marine invertebrates – as the findings may reveal new secrets about human fertility that could help us to treat male
A failed assassination attempt against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on Saturday was mounted with explosive-armed drones, according to news reports. Nine days earlier, and on the other side of the world, terrorists claimed to have sent an armed drone to attack the international airport in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. No
Meetings of the International Congress of Mathematics are usually pretty tame affairs, despite handing out one of the most prestigious award in mathematics. But this year, the meeting was shaken up after the Fields medal, also known as the ‘Nobel Prize’ of mathematics, was stolen from one of the winners just 30 minutes after he
On September 8, a massive and controversial plastic-cleaning system will be launched into the Pacific Ocean. The goal of the system, created by The Ocean Cleanup, a nonprofit organisation founded in 2013 by 24-year-old Dutch innovator Boyan Slat, is to remove plastic debris from the now-famous marine area known as the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch“.
New parenting books seem to pop up all the time. How to do it the French way, the Tiger Mom way, the New Kid by Friday way, or how to just muddle through – the choice can be a little overwhelming. How can we know which guide will give us the answers to the questions
Just in case you’re thinking of taking up a second language soon, language-learning website Voxy put together this handy infographic breaking down which languages are hardest for English speakers to learn. Compiled using information from multiple sources, including the Foreign Service Institute of the US Department of State, the infographic breaks down the amount of
When it comes to predicting who is most likely to act in a trustworthy manner, one of the most important factors is the anticipation of guilt, according to a new study. In the study, researchers identify a trait predictor of trustworthy intentions and behavior. They also provide practical advice for deciding in whom we should
One of Japan’s top medical universities has been systematically blocking female applicants from entering the school for at least eight years, local news agencies reported on Thursday. Tokyo Medical University, a private institution consistently ranked among the country’s best for clinical medicine, has been automatically lowering the entrance exam results of female applicants for the
In his book Fluent Forever, opera singer Gabriel Wyner suggests that one of the best ways to learn a new language is to practice remembering it. In other words, instead of reading and re-reading a list of vocabulary words, you should read it once and then test yourself repeatedly. The same strategy works for pretty much anything
HOUSTON — NASA on Friday announced the crews of the first flights from U.S. soil since the space shuttle retired in 2011, an elite group of astronauts that the agency hopes will help open a new era of space travel. The crews would fly on spacecraft developed not by NASA but by two corporations, SpaceX
The southern peak of the massif of Kebnekaise is the tallest mountain in Sweden, but it might not hold the title for much longer – after a week of particularly hot weather, the mountain has started to shrink. In fact, the glacier-topped southern peak might already be lower than the rocky northern peak, after four
It’s a nightmarish scenario – the elevator seals you inside, rises several floors, judders to a halt, and then SNAP! The frayed cable fails, and you plummet. Can you save yourself by jumping at the right time? In this predicament, the key point to realise is that along with the elevator, you are also falling.
Despite decades of ongoing research, scientists are trying to understand how the four fundamental forces of the Universe fit together. Whereas quantum mechanics can explain how three of these forces things work together on the smallest of scales (electromagnetism, weak and strong nuclear forces), General Relativity explains how things behaves on the largest of scales
There is a very strange object floating around our stellar neighbourhood and it has astronomers intrigued. It’s very large, and has an extremely strong magnetic field, and it’s a “rogue”, not attached to any other object. And we know this because astronomers have detected it using the Very Large Array radio telescope. At just 20
The metal lanthanum strontium copper oxide might not mean much to most of us, but to physicists it just might hold the secret to developing electronics that conduct electricity with near perfect efficiency. When placed inside a powerful magnetic field, the substance doesn’t conduct quite like other metals. Once we learn why, we might at
Unmarked graves, such as those in which murder victims are often callously concealed, may soon be easier to locate, thanks to a technique demonstrated by US researchers. They have found that LIDAR, a tool proving increasingly useful in archaeology, can also be applied to forensics. They have shown that the shallow graves these bodies are
Aftershocks are a common feature of big earthquakes, but they usually occur relatively close to the tremor’s epicenter. For the first time, researchers have found evidence of earthquakes triggering seismic events on the other side of the globe, suggesting a ripple effect that could potentially be used to forecast catastrophes in the future. Researchers at
NASA wants to stop relying on Russia to get American astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS). And little by little, SpaceX is making that happen. Back in 2014, the US agreed to pay Elon Musk’s aerospace company SpaceX US$2.6 billion for a spacecraft that could carry the nation’s astronauts into orbit. It struck the
The sediment under a lake in Mexico contains some of the long-sought answers to the mystery of the Mayan demise. Ancient Mayans, primarily concentrated in what is now the Yucatan Peninsula, were among the most advanced civilizations of their time. Mayans were some of the first to build cities. They used astronomy to advance agricultural
There are a lot of rocks up there in space, whizzing about and occasionally smacking into other objects. Here on Earth, our atmosphere burns up most of the pebbles that come hurtling our way. Not so with the Moon – and ESA telescopes caught two impacts on film just 24 hours apart. The two impacts,
In a rare and fortuitous moment, scientists have caught Madagascar’s red-fronted lemurs (Eulemur rufifrons) gnawing on toxic millipedes and rubbing them all over their genitals and anuses. The first-of-its-kind discovery was made in 2016 by Louise Peckre, an expert in primatology at the Leibniz Institute for Primate Research in Germany, when she was on a
Before the massive Hope Diamond came to rest in a Smithsonian exhibit, before the gem passed among wealthy owners and thieves and French royals, before it acquired its cursed reputation, before it was mined in India, the diamond was born at hellish depths beneath Earth’s crust. Fittingly, the birth of a blue diamond like the
Even before Stonehenge became Stonehenge, the beloved and mysterious sarsen monument we know today, it was an important place to the people of the Mesolithic and Neolithic that inhabited the region. Bone remains suggest it was once an important burial place for at least hundreds of years – and now a new analysis has shown
Mounting science is painting a very bleak picture of a future of soaring temperatures, and the accompanying death toll those soaring temperatures will demand. New research has given us the first solid prediction of how more heatwaves like the one that’s struck Europe this year will affect future death rates, finding tropical heatwaves in some
Last July, California’s Death Valley endured the hottest month ever measured on the planet. This July ended up even hotter. Over both day and night, the temperature at Death Valley averaged 42.3 degrees Celsius (108.1 Fahrenheit), ahead of the mark set a year ago by about a half-degree. That previous mark had broken a record
We’ve only been to the Moon a handful of times. But we’ve already set our sights on a far more ambitious mission: colonize Mars. If you believe the hype, it may happen in just a few decades. Elon Musk anticipates that SpaceX’s BFR (big f–king rocket) will take its first handful of passengers to the
How should humans go about searching for alien life? After all, astronomers have already identified thousands of candidate planets – but in new research, scientists have come up with a way to refine what we’re actually looking for. Researchers say it could be the amount of ultraviolet (UV) light coming from a host star that
Scientists think that a series of famous mass burial sites in the Pacific and northern Scotland are the final resting places for the prehistoric victims of catastrophic tsunamis. While archaeologists have uncovered numerous mass burial sites all around the world, figuring out the story behind these mass graves can be quite difficult to determine, especially
It’s treated as a taboo subject, but miscarriages of pregnancy happen a lot. Well according to a new paper, they happen a lot more than any of us may realise – even the women having them. The research has found that more than half of successful fertilisations will end in miscarriage. The research, which has
Your social calendar might be sucking the joy out of activities that are supposed to be fun or relaxing, according to an upcoming paper co-written by a professor who studies time management. The paper argues that when a leisure activity is planned rather than spontaneous, we enjoy it less. That’s because we tend to mentally
Forget language, or smarts, or even our flair for art. Our species represents the last of its kind simply because we’ve pushed into environments others never dared to tread. Two archaeologists suggest the global domination of a single species of hominin isn’t incidental – Homo sapien’s ability to flourish in extreme conditions was a key
The human brain is a pretty damn amazing organ. Get rid of one bit, and sometimes the brain will just say “I’ve got this” and figure out how to repurpose something else. Take the man with damage to 90 percent of his brain who is out there living his best life. Or the woman who lived for
How do you identify an exoplanet? Often the way it behaves gravitationally is a big clue, but studying the way it reflects light – its spectrum – can also be invaluable. To that end, astronomers have created a catalogue of ‘light fingerprints’: spectral profiles for 19 Solar System bodies, so we can have a better
Hopes for fewer large wildfires in 2018, after last year’s disastrous fire season, are rapidly disappearing across the West. Six deaths have been reported in Northern California’s Carr Fire, including two firefighters. Fires have scorched Yosemite, Yellowstone, Crater Lake, Sequoia and Grand Canyon national parks. A blaze in June forced Colorado to shut down the
The mantle beneath Tibet has been torn into four massive pieces, according to a new computer model that gives an unprecedented glimpse at what’s going on under the surface our planet. Determining exactly what’s happening so far underground isn’t always easy, but can help in everything from predicting earthquakes to understanding how terrain evolves over
Australia has nearly five million dogs, with nearly 40 percent of Australian households owning one. But it seems that 40 percent of Australian dogs are not walked enough and that a similar percentage of dogs are overweight or obese. With colleagues at the University of Sydney, we are interested in collecting more recent data on
Elon Musk wants to do it. NASA wants to do it. Heck, Arnold Schwarzenegger did do it (well, in a movie). But can it be done? We’re talking about terraforming Mars: turning the Red Planet back into a blue one, by geoengineering the hostile Martian environment into something hospitable to humans. But according to new
Theoretical research by an international team of physicists has discovered that the Great Pyramid of Giza can concentrate electromagnetic energy in its internal chambers and under its base. And although the ancient Egyptian’s probably weren’t aware of this weird design quirk, the study could be important for nanoparticle research in the future. “Applications of modern
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