We humans are very curious about the nuclear furnace that powers life on Earth. We’ve looked at the Sun in so many different ways, both Earth-based and space-based. Yet we’ve had a really hard time getting a glimpse of its poles. Now a solar mission has given us just that, in the form of an
The fate of civilisation itself lies squarely in the hands of today’s leaders, Sir David Attenborough has warned in a strident address on behalf of the world’s peoples. Speaking at the opening of the United Nations COP24 Climate Change Conference in Katowice, Poland, Attenborough implored the assembled delegates and decision-makers to listen to the voices
He may (or may not) have brought about the world’s first genetically modified human babies using CRISPR-Cas9, but He Jiankui’s shoes are probably not the most comfortable in the world right now. According to reports from Chinese media, the geneticist’s whereabouts are currently unknown. It’s been reported that he is under house arrest at the
Four new detections of gravitational waves have been announced at the Gravitational Waves Physics and Astronomy Workshop, at the University of Maryland in the United States. This brings the total number of detections to 11, since the first back in 2015. Ten are from binary black hole mergers and one from the merger of two
The first Russian rocket to fly with people since a harrowing failure two months ago blasted off Monday morning in a successful return to flight. The Soyuz rocket and spacecraft launched at 5:31 pm local time (6:31 am Eastern time) with three people on board – NASA astronaut Anne C. McClain, Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques
For the past two years, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft has sailed across the solar system by the light of the stars. Like ancient mariners and the Apollo astronauts, it needed the constancy of the constellations to navigate the dark unknown. All that changed Monday, when the NASA probe finally reached its target, an Empire State Building-size
Our environment is changing, and changing fast, putting pressure on our hardworking scientists to come up with ever more ingenious ways of meeting the needs of humankind – like pulling drinkable water right out of the air, in this case. A new prototype device, developed at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST)
Kiel, Germany: The herring here – both a symbol of the seaside region and a staple food that locals eat salted, pickled or fried – have plummeted to about a third of their population in the 1990s. Cod have declined drastically, too. And they are getting smaller and thinner. Scientists have observed fish in their
In ancient cave art around the world, a particular motif shows up time and again: the impressions of the hands of the people who visited long ago, printed or stencilled. And yet, in some caves decorated by the Palaeolithic inhabitants of France and Spain, something curious has been observed: A very high number of those
A huge, gaping cave has been discovered hidden in the remote Canadian wilderness, and despite the overwhelming scale of this stunning natural void, researchers suggest it may never have been seen by human eyes before. Nicknamed the ‘Sarlacc Pit’ after the monstrous pit-dwelling beast in Star Wars, the giant cave – concealed amidst the rugged
The Intentional Space Station can be a fabulous place of learning and wonder. But to get to that wonder, there’s always some troubleshooting to be done – and that work falls to the astronauts crewing the ISS missions. Take this recent footage of astronauts grappling with CIMON – a floating robot head similar to Siri
There’s mounting pressure on the world to grapple with its plastic addiction. Landfills and oceans alike are choking on waste plastic, which is made from crude oil and can take centuries to decompose. New evidence, though, suggests that small changes in plastic policy can make large changes in aggregate. When Australia’s two largest supermarket chains
When long-dead human remains are found buried in unusual circumstances, anthropologists are usually able to piece together why. But the bones of a child that lived just a couple of hundred years ago in Poland are proving to be a bit of a head-scratcher. In a shallow grave in Tunel Wielki Cave, located in Sąspowska
A former NASA astronaut says the agency he used to work for has a duty to protect civilians from killer asteroids, but that it isn’t meeting that obligation. The threat of asteroid strikes might seem as abstract as outer space itself. But the risk, while infrequent, is real – and potentially more deadly than the
It may sound like a scene straight out of a horror movie, but statistically you are not that unlikely to end up on a date with a psychopath. It is estimated that about 1 in 100 people are psychopaths – similar to the number of people who are teachers. And while we may associate psychopaths
Astronomers have been able to get their closest, most detailed look yet at the first stages of a dying star – a supernova known as SN 2018oh – using a combination of super-powerful telescopes out in space and based here on Earth. This unprecedented look at the death throes of SN 2018oh (also labelled ASASSN-18bt), around
East Africa is famously the birthplace of humankind and the location where our ancient hominin ancestors first invented sophisticated stone tools. This technology, dating back to 2.6 million years ago, is then thought to have spread around Africa and the rest of the Old World later on. But new research, published in Science, has uncovered
A year ago today, Tesla’s big battery in South Australia began dispatching power to the state’s grid, one day ahead of schedule. By most accounts, the world’s largest lithium-ion battery has been a remarkable success. But there are some concerns that have so far escaped scrutiny. The big battery (or the Hornsdale Power Reserve, to
We know that even a grain of dust or tiny droplet can damage a tough metal surface if the particle gathers up a high-enough speed when it smashes into it. But until now there’s been a problem figuring out how or why that damage happens. That’s because the speed has to be really freaking high,
The Woolsey and Paradise wildfires brought widespread devastation to California in November, killing more than 90 people and torching 250,000 acres of land. With the fires now fully contained, residents have returned home to find nothing but scorched foundations. Officials are still on the hunt for hundreds of missing people – a process made more
Jumping spiders are already among the most adorable members of the arachnid order, but we’re ready to give them the prize, officially. A species of ant-mimicking jumping spider has just been found suckling its babies on milk. You know what else does that? Kitties. Doggos. Mousies. But Toxeus magnus is much more diligent than mouse
If classic monster movies and old science experiments are to be believed, life begins with a spark. Not everybody is convinced by this kind of origin story, so the search continues for sources of energy capable of transforming a prebiotic soup into a life-generating dish. Maybe the secret ingredient isn’t anything more shocking than a
We need to talk about the dark ages. No, not those dark ages after the fall of the western Roman Empire. The cosmological dark ages. The time in our Universe, billions of years ago, before the formation of the first stars. And we need to talk about the cosmic dawn: the birth of those first
NASA’s next lunar science experiments will arrive at the Moon via a spacecraft built by one of nine private companies – a first for one of the agency’s science missions. In an announcement Thursday, the space agency named the organizations that are now eligible to bid on delivering science and technology payloads to the lunar
Bill Gates sees nuclear energy as a potential solution to lowering carbon-dioxide emissions around the world, and he has spent the past decade funding new ways to produce the energy in a safe, affordable way. About 10 years ago, Gates cofounded a company called TerraPower to build new kinds of nuclear reactors. TerraPower is developing
Have you ever stopped to wonder exactly how much light has been produced by all the stars in the Universe, over all the time that has passed? Well, now you can wonder no more. An international team of astronomers has actually calculated the amount of starlight in the cosmos. And it’s teaching us new things
Scientists are at a loss to explain a strange seismic event that shook the planet on November 11 and was picked up by earthquake sensors stationed across the globe. While the cause of this mysterious disturbance remains unknown, it’s somehow linked to an ongoing seismic swarm that’s been rumbling the archipelago of Mayotte in the
Much like Egypt’s pharaohs, the emperors of China’s Western Han dynasty had a thing for being buried inside pyramids – although less recognisable than the iconic ones we know from places like Giza. Scattered along the outskirts of Xi’an along the banks of China’s Wei River, the sides of these burial mounds align with the
Atomic clocks, based on the minute oscillations of atoms, are the most precise timekeeping devices humans have created. Every year, scientists make adjustments that improve the precision of these devices. Now, they’ve achieved new performance records, making two atomic clocks so precise they could detect gravitational waves, those faint ripples in the fabric of space-time.
The outer layer of the Earth, the solid crust we walk on, is made up of broken pieces, much like the shell of a broken egg. These pieces, the tectonic plates, move around the planet at speeds of a few centimetres per year. Every so often they come together and combine into a supercontinent, which
This week, a Holstein by the name of Knickers captured the heart of the Internet by standing horns and shoulders above a herd of cattle on a farm in Australia. And there’s no arguing that the lad is large. At the shoulder, Knickers stands a mighty 6’4″ (193 centimetres), which means he’s two inches taller
In the land down under, sticking out in a crowd is rarely a good thing. Australians have a habit of cutting “tall poppies” down to size, frowning on those overachievers who are too big for their own boots. An exception has been made for Knickers the giant cow, long may he reign. Right now, Knickers is
Could nature’s smallest organisms help us to combat rising CO2 levels and even oil spills? Strange as it might seem, the answer might be yes, with research into newly discovered deep-sea microbes suggesting these tiny critters possess a keen appetite for pollutants. The microbes – collected in the Gulf of California, around 2,000 metres (6,562
Why is ‘boobs’ or ‘wriggly’ more likely to get a laugh than, say, ‘taxes’? What makes some words funnier than others? Although you might not have thought about it much before, deducing the humour factor in words is a surprisingly complex process. “Nobody has really done a good job at predicting humour in advance,” University
It happens all the time. You’re online, checking out products, maybe looking for a holiday, or researching home loans, when all of a sudden there’s a pop-up. “Live help is available! Chat now with a member of our friendly customer support team!” It’s easy to dismiss these chat dialogues, but it’s also easy to take
Just as moons orbit planets, planets orbit stars, and stars orbit galactic cores, galaxies can be orbited by other, much smaller galaxies. The Milky Way has several of these hangers-on, most notably the Large and Small Magellanic clouds, the only two of our galaxy’s satellites visible to the naked eye. Now, thanks to Gaia data
A scene painted on a cave wall more than 15,000 thousand years ago appears to tell the simple story of a hunter collapsing before a disembowelled beast. Reading between the lines, the images might describe something bigger. Maybe even astronomical. Figures depicted in the famous prehistoric paintings at Lascaux were positioned with purpose, according to
On the eve of the most important global climate meeting in years, a definitive United Nations report has found that the world is well off course on its promises to cut greenhouse gas emissions – and may have even further to go than previously thought. Seven major countries, including the United States, are well behind
The Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities has been going hard on the archaeological discoveries this year, but are we tired of it? No, no we are not. Especially when they come up with spectacular finds like this one. In a tomb in the El-Assasif necropolis in the ancient city of Thebes, two wooden coffins have been
Most modern humans have a little bit of Neanderthal hiding somewhere in their genes. For years, it was assumed that this tiny dose of DNA came from a brief encounter between our ancestors and their Neanderthal neighbours thousands of years ago. But what started as a one night stand now looks more like a frequent
Spider silk is well known as one of the strongest natural materials in existence, but now scientists have a better understanding of why – and it’s all to do with the old adage of strength in numbers. Through an atomic force microscope trained on the silk of a brown recluse spider (Loxosceles reclusa) – which essentially
At the heart of our galaxy, the core around which everything in the Milky Way orbits, lies the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A*. Without the gravitationally binding force of Sgr A*, the Milky Way wouldn’t exist – yet, although it’s only 25,640 light-years away, we’ve never seen it. We’ll never actually see a black hole,
Cruise liners are a surprisingly large source of greenhouse gases and pollution, but Norwegian cruise operator Hurtigruten says it’s on its way to carbon neutrality – and all thanks to dead fish. Although this sounds crazy, it does actually make a lot of sense. Norway has a large fishing industry, and leftovers and off-cuts are
Scientists have an imprecise understanding of the obscure phenomenon of mass whale strandings, when large numbers of the marine mammals suddenly beach themselves – often their final acts. There are, of course, many reasons a whale would find itself on a beach: illness or injury that leaves them at the mercy of ocean currents and
The unseen depths of the Great Australian Bight are absolutely teeming with life, a new study study has revealed. But soon enough, even these deep-sea creatures could be subject to the probing fingers of the oil industry. The Great Australian Bight is a 1,160-kilometre (720 mile) open bay that takes a sizeable chunk out of
A six-month-long journey that could shape the future of humanity reached its nail-biting conclusion today. On May 5th, NASA launched its InSight Mars lander from California’s Vanderberg Air Force Base. On Monday afternoon, following “seven minutes of terror,” the craft reached its final destination – Elysium Planitia, a flat plain near the Red Planet’s equator
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said there’s a “70 per cent chance” he’ll personally travel to Mars. Musk, 47, told Axios’ new program on HBO that he believes Mars exploration is more than just a fantasy dreamed up by the super-wealthy who may want to use space travel as an “escape hatch”. “Your probability of dying
The idea was once taboo, but desperate times may just call for desperate measures. If humans are able to spray millions of tons of sulfate aerosol into the sky, we could create a sort of chemical canopy that reflects heat from the Sun and takes the edge off global warming. This kind of atmosphere-hacking could be dangerous,
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 34
- 35
- 36
- 37
- 38
- …
- 62
- Next Page »