Sixty-six million years ago, a massive asteroid crashed into a shallow sea near Mexico. The impact carved out a 90-mile-wide crater and flung mountains of earth into space. Earthbound debris fell to the planet in droplets of molten rock and glass. Ancient fish caught glass blobs in their gills as they swam, gape-mouthed, beneath the
Month: March 2019
A grave dating back to early medieval Italy is a sad testament to the horrors of medicine in the Dark Ages. The skeletal remains of a young woman were found with the skeleton of a foetus between her thighs – and a hole in her skull researchers have determined was likely the result of a
These days we have more information at our fingertips than ever before, so it’s a real puzzle why so many people insist on rejecting the facts. Maybe the answer is: we don’t know how a fact comes to be. A new survey from the Pew Research Center has found that many Americans cannot recognise the
The natural world is a strange and wonderful place. But sometimes biologists come across something that is just… odd. Really, really odd. Case in point: this peculiar arachnid photographed by natural scientist Andreas Kay in Ecuador’s Amazon rainforest in July 2017. By all appearances, it looks like it has the tiny head of a black
Humans will always make the final decision on whether armed robots can shoot, according to a statement by the US Department of Defense. Their clarification comes amid fears about a new advanced targeting system, known as ATLAS, that will use artificial intelligence in combat vehicles to target and execute threats. While the public may feel
When a person dies, cremation is an increasingly popular option. The practice eclipsed burials in the US in 2015 and is expected to make up more than half of all body disposals by 2020, according to the Cremation Association of North America. But instead of storing a loved one’s cremains in an urn or sprinkling
The design for SpaceX’s Starship (aka. Big Falcon Rocket) is really starting to come together! Over the holidays, sections of the Starship Hopper (a miniature version of the Starship) were photographed being put together at the company’s South Texas Launch Site. By mid-January, the parts were fully-integrated, forming the body of the stainless-steel prototype that
We just got some massive news in the ongoing drive to switch to renewable energy: scientists have identified 530,000 sites worldwide suitable for pumped-hydro energy storage, capable of storing more than enough energy to power the entire planet. Pumped-hydro is one of the best technologies we have for storing intermittent renewable energy, such as solar
Feeling down in the dumps? If you want to stop wallowing in your own misery, new research suggests that the best method is to stop focusing on yourself and think kind thoughts about other people instead. Yes, it sounds like the PSA at the end of a children’s show, but among the methods tested by
By now, you may have already seen some of the ‘noisy GIFs’ floating around the internet. They don’t actually contain any sounds, but plenty of people seem to nonetheless be able to ‘hear’ the noise produced in the image. The skipping powerlines is definitely the most popular one we’ve seen, but you might also be able
Two European crows that look quite different from each other are actually diverging from a single species, right before our eyes. In Western Europe, it’s the inky-black carrion crow (Corvus corone). In the east, the grey hooded crow (C. cornix). They overlap in a very narrow zone running along the River Elbe in Germany, where
It started off as an enigma. Biologists at field sites around the world reported that frogs had simply disappeared. Costa Rica, 1987: the golden toad, missing. Australia, 1979: the gastric brooding frog, gone. In Ecuador, Arthur’s stubfoot toad was last seen in 1988. By 1990, cases of unexplained frog declines were piling up. These were
In space, no one can hear an asteroid scream. But astronomers just used the Hubble telescope to see one destroying itself. A 2.5-mile-wide (4 kilometer wide) asteroid called 6478 Gault was first discovered in 1988, and it seemed like many of the other 800,000 known space rocks. But in January, astronomers saw something strange in
Forget mutant turtles. Kangaroo rats are the true ninjas of the animal kingdom. A series of four high-speed videos has recently captured these little fighters flipping and kicking in mid-air as they artfully dance around their arch nemesis, the hungry sidewinder rattlesnake (Crotalus cerastes). It’s a battle between two extreme athletes, and the result is a lightning
A peculiar new paper, published in a little-known scientific journal, has the tabloids stirred up about the possibility of life on Mars. According to this paper, an international team of scientists are now claiming to have found evidence of ‘mushrooms’ growing on the surface of the Red Planet. The ‘evidence’ is primarily based on images,
It starts on a single limb. The leaves grow small, and begin to curl, turning a pale yellow or reddish colour. Within weeks, another apple tree is dead. But that’s not the end of it. Adjacent trees in the orchard often begin to show the same thing. Again, the symptoms may start on a single
Everything you see around you is made up of elementary particles called quarks and leptons, which can combine to form bigger particles such as protons or atoms. But that doesn’t make them boring – these subatomic particles can also combine in exotic ways we’ve never spotted. Now CERN’s LHCb collaboration has announced the discovery of
Scorching temperatures of 880 degrees Celsius. Tempestuous clouds of iron and dust that envelop the entire planet in a global storm. Such are the conditions on HR 8799e, an exoplanet 129 light-years away – and the first to be studied directly using a technique called optical interferometry. It’s thanks to applying this technique that we
Early this morning, India launched a missile toward space, struck an Earth-orbiting satellite, and destroyed the spacecraft. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a televised address shortly after the launch to declare the anti-satellite, or ASAT, test a success. He praised the manoeuvre, called “Mission Shakti”, as “an unprecedented achievement” that registers India as “a
The super arrogant seem to like the super bloom. Park officials in California’s Antelope Valley, about 70 miles (110 kilometers) north of Los Angeles, said Tuesday that in recent days someone landed a helicopter in a field of poppies – part of the massive bloom unfolding across the state – and then began a hike.
Few places have served as a locus for the public’s anxiety about climate change as much as the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. The global seed ark, popularly known as the “Doomsday Vault”, is embedded deep in the permafrost of a northerly Norwegian island and stores nearly a million samples from around the world for safekeeping
Human ingenuity is no match for evolution. An exceptional new video shows a tiny tropical lizard breathing underwater from a sort of “scuba tank” on its head. Found in Costa Rica, this intrepid little diver, known as a water anole (Anolis aquaticus), is possibly using its bubble tank to hide from predators and hunt for
For the very first time, the Hubble Space Telescope has captured the formation of a giant storm – or a Great Dark Spot – on the icy surface of Neptune. It’s the fourth vortex that Hubble has captured on this frigid planet since 1993, and the very first that scientists have been able to chronicle over
Artificial cells created inside the lab have taken another major step forward, with scientists developing cells that are able to produce their own chemical energy and synthesise parts of their own construction. That makes these artificial cells a lot more like real, biological cells – cells that can construct and organise their own building blocks naturally.
Its shorelines comprise the lowest land on Earth, and its waters are nearly 10 times saltier than seawater. But rumours of the Dead Sea’s deadness are nonetheless quite exaggerated, an incredible new discovery shows. The famous ‘Sea of Death‘, bordered by Jordan, Israel, and the West Bank, isn’t actually a sea at all, but rather
Somewhere in the outer reaches of the Solar System, beyond the orbit of Neptune, something wonky is happening. A few objects are orbiting differently from everything else, and we don’t know why. A popular hypothesis is that an unseen object called Planet Nine could be messing with these orbits; astronomers are avidly searching for this planet. But
Today our middle-aged Universe looks eerily smooth. Too smooth, in fact. While a rapid growth spurt in space-time would explain what we see, science needs more than nice ideas. It needs evidence that whittles away contending arguments. We might finally know where to look for some. A team of physicists from the Centre for Astrophysics
The International Space Station (ISS) is about to place a call. But not just any old ISS call. It’s going to be via X-rays: the first test of NASA’s newly developed X-ray communication system, called XCOM. XCOM could revolutionise communications between Earth and far-flung spacecraft, being able to transfer gigabits per second. Think of how
Although we’ve all enjoyed the odd energy drink, a beverage known as Power Natural High Energy Drink SX might give you more of a kick than you expect. Zambian authorities have just banned the drink after tests showed it was spiked with sildenafil citrate – a medication better known as Viagra. A few months ago,
Terrestrial organisms stuck on the outside of the International Space Station (ISS) have survived 533 days in the vacuum, intense ultraviolet radiation, and extreme temperature variations of space. You know what that means? It’s not impossible for life to survive on Mars. Of all the planets in the Solar System, Mars seems like the most
Physicists have measured the sound of ‘nothingness’ at room temperature – an important step in our future ability to listen in to the Universe. You can think of it a little like this – we’ve now been able to measure the way some of the ubiquitous ‘background noise’ of space interacts with our equipment, which
Global energy experts released grim findings Monday, saying that not only are planet-warming carbon-dioxide emissions still increasing, but the world’s growing thirst for energy has led to higher emissions from coal-fired power plants than ever before. Energy demand around the world grew by 2.3 percent over the past year, marking the most rapid increase in
We don’t know a lot about the world’s earliest animals, but thanks to their 558 million-year-old fossilised remains, we thought we had a hint as to their appearance. Now, it seems, we were wrong about even that. Scientists at the Australian National University (ANU) have discovered that the iconic Dickinsonia fossils are probably not flat
Some people think we’re living in a vast computer simulation contrived by an advanced alien intelligence. But not METI scientists. The truth, they say, is much simpler than that. Members of METI (Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence), a San Francisco-based research organisation, convened in Paris last week to discuss aliens. Or, rather, the complete and utter lack
Earlier this month, the world was excited to hear that NASA had scheduled the first-ever “all-female spacewalk”. Now, an annoying equipment problem has disappointed many #WomeninSTEM enthusiasts. Expedition 59/60 flight engineers Christina Koch and Anne McClain were going to venture outside the International Space Station (ISS) on March 29 to continue upgrading batteries on one
An international team has managed to capture an elusive state of matter that stays stable even at room temperature. It’s called a supercrystal, and all it took were laser pulses shorter than a blink of the eye. Okay, so of course it’s more complicated than that. The experiment involved layering inorganic compounds and “frustrating” them,
Thousands of poisonous toads have flooded a South Florida neighborhood, raising fears about the dangers they pose to pets and children, according to local reports. The toads started appearing in Palm Beach Gardens, a city of 55,000, north of Miami, in recent weeks, according CBS Miami. They have been found in people’s gardens, swimming pools,
The fastest-shrinking glacier in Greenland has made an unexpected turn. Although it’s been melting for 20 years, the Jakobshavn Glacier in West Greenland – famous for producing the iceberg that sank the Titanic – has now started growing again. Since the 1980s, waters have been growing warmer around Baffin Bay, where the glacier meets the
A young Colombian child by the name of Itzamara Vega already has the whole world talking about her, and she was only born in February. At just 35 weeks of age, still nestled in her mother’s womb, Itzamara was diagnosed with an incredibly rare condition – one that’s been recorded less than two hundred times. Hiding
If you’ve ever made a somewhat rash online purchase after a couple of drinks then you’re not alone – a new survey says nearly 4 in 5 people who consume alcohol have shopped on the web while intoxicated. These purchases add up too, with US$444 the average annual spend for a drunk shopper, and a
When tropical cyclone Idai made landfall near Beira, Mozambique on March 14, a spokesperson for the UN World Meteorological Organization called it possibly the the worst weather-related disaster to hit the southern hemisphere. This massive and horrifying storm caused catastrophic flooding and widespread destruction of buildings and roads in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi. Mozambique’s President
We all knew the mighty Tyrannosaurus rex was big. But palaeontologists in Canada have just identified the biggest lizard tyrant king yet – its name is Scotty, and boy was it a corker. From nose to tail-tip, Scotty measures 13 metres (43 feet), and would have cracked the scales at 8,800 kilograms (19,400 pounds), based
We’ve learned a lot about Neptune’s largest moon, Triton, since it was first discovered in 1846. Some scientists believe it could be an “ocean world” with liquid water – and maybe even harbor life. And now, pending approval, we might soon get our best glimpse yet. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory proposed on Tuesday at a
Researchers have discovered that sun bears can precisely copy each other’s facial expressions in social situations. It’s a bigger deal than you might think, especially for scientists. When humans are in social situations, we often adjust our facial expressions in response to someone else. It’s called facial mimicry, and past a point of sufficient complexity
Jupiter’s anomalous size and location in our Solar System has been puzzling researchers for years, since it doesn’t fit with our understanding of planetary formation. Now, astronomers think they’ve figured out how the gas giant ended up in its curious position. According to current models, giant planets form in the outer reaches of a system,
A science teacher from a remote village in Kenya has won a US$1 million global prize recognising and celebrating the impact and importance of the world’s best educators. Peter Tabichi, a maths and physics teacher from Kenya’s famine-prone Rift Valley, was selected out of 10,000 teachers from almost 180 countries to win the Varkey Foundation
The Great Red Spot, a storm larger than the Earth and powerful enough to tear apart smaller storms that get drawn into it, is one of the most recognizable features in Jupiter’s atmosphere and the entire solar system. The counterclockwise-moving storm, an anticyclone, boasts wind speeds as high as 300 miles (500 kilometres) per hour.
A meteor that exploded above the clouds over the Bering Sea in December was caught on camera by NASA’s eyes in the sky. Just minutes after the meteor burst apart on 18 December 2018, the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) instrument aboard the Terra satellite captured the scene in a sequence of images. Clearly visible is
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