An analysis of 12 ancient papyrus fragments has revealed some surprising details about how the Egyptians mixed their red and black ink – findings which could give us a lot more insight into how the earliest writers managed to get their words down on the page. We know that ancient Egyptians were using inks to
Month: October 2020
Scientists are seeing the Australian platypus in a whole new light. Under an ultraviolet lamp, this bizarre-looking creature appears even more peculiar than normal, glowing a soft, greenish-blue hue instead of the typical brown we’re used to seeing. The recent discovery has not been found in any other monotreme species – a primitive type of
Every 200,000 to 300,000 years, Earth’s magnetic poles reverse. What was once the north pole becomes the south, and vice versa. It’s a time of invisible upheaval. The last reversal was unusual because it was so long ago. For some reason, the poles have remained oriented the way they are now for about three-quarters of
It’s that time of the year when skeletons, skulls, and bones have found their way onto cookies, porches, and storefront windows. While skeletons are universally considered symbols of death, the process of turning a newly dead animal into a bony skeleton relies on an explosion of life that ushers in the process of decomposition. Much
Scientists have examined the relationship between forest fungi and mature trees in greater detail than ever before. Turns out the more fungal colonies they’re connected to, the better the trees grow – an important discovery for forest management and climate change response. Previous research has shown how fungal organisms can support trees at the seedling
Imagine, if you will, a microscopic submarine, motoring around inside your blood vessels, delivering medicine, or perhaps performing surgery all on its own. This is the sort of future theoretical physicist Richard Feynman used to fantasise about, and yet today, we’re still stuck on the swimming part. For a vessel at such a tiny scale,
Earth’s past has served up some super-sized beasties – from mega sharks to giant wombats. Birds are no exception. Palaeontologists have re-discovered a fossil of one of the largest flying avians ever found, tucked away safely in an old museum collection. “I love going to collections and just finding treasures there,” University of California palaeontologist
Future pandemics will happen more often, kill more people, and wreak even worse damage to the global economy than COVID-19 without a fundamental shift in how humans treat nature, the United Nations’ biodiversity panel said Thursday. Warning that there are up to 850,000 viruses which, like the novel coronavirus, exist in animals and may be
There are many unanswered questions about our place in the Universe. Why are we here? What is the likelihood of our existence? Could there be others like us out there in the galaxy? One of the numbers that could help us answer these questions is this: How many rocky planets like Earth are orbiting stars
Humans and dogs have shared a long and beautiful relationship, but the story of how we got together has been lost to the sands of time – so we don’t know exactly how long we’ve been friends. According to new research, though, we started dogs on the path of domestication well before 11,000 years ago.
NASA said Thursday its robotic spacecraft Osiris-Rex was able to stow a rock and dust sample scooped up from the asteroid Bennu, after a flap that had wedged open put the mission at risk. “We are here to announce today that we’ve successfully completed that operation,” said Rich Burns, the mission’s project manager. The probe
US President Donald Trump’s administration on Thursday removed endangered species protections for the gray wolf, paving the way for the iconic predator to be more widely hunted. The move was slammed by conservation groups, which said that while wolf numbers have partly recovered since the animal was first listed in 1974, they remain “functionally extinct”
Philae has been dead for years. Its last transmission was received in July 2015; now, its unresponsive form rests under a rocky overhang on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Yet, even as the robotic lander lies in cold repose, scientists haven’t given up on it. They have finally found the place where Philae bounced as it was coming
A little over five years ago, humanity was yet to detect gravitational waves. Now, observations are pouring in at an astonishing speed. In a six-month span last year, the LIGO-Virgo collaboration detected, on average, 1.5 gravitational wave events per week. From 1 April to 1 October 2019, the upgraded LIGO and Virgo interferometers detected 39
A meteorite that landed on a frozen lake in 2018 contains thousands of organic compounds that formed billions of years ago and could hold clues about the origins of life on Earth. The meteor entered Earth’s atmosphere on Jan. 16, 2018, after a very long journey through the freezing vacuum of space, lighting up skies over Ontario, Canada,
Rapid melt is reshaping coastal Greenland, potentially altering the human and animal ecosystems along the country’s coast. New research published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface on Oct. 27 finds that the ice retreat in Greenland has changed the way glaciers flow and where they dump into the sea. These changes could impact ice loss from
Ram’s horn shells are small, delicate spiral structures beachcombers can commonly find throughout the world. Yet despite their ubiquity, the original owners of these shells are extremely elusive. Until now, we’ve never had footage of a single one in the wild. In the twilight zone of our oceans, at the tips of sunlight’s fingers, a remotely operated vehicle
Scientists have discovered a new detached coral reef at the northern tip of the Great Barrier Reef – and it stands an impressive 500 metres (1,640 feet) high, taller than the Empire State Building, the Sydney Tower and the Petronas Towers in Malaysia. It’s the first such discovery in the region for 120 years, made
With strange smarts, shifting skin, and squishy bodies powered by three hearts, octopuses can get up to all sorts of mischief. Their camouflage mastery can allow them to remain hidden while they stealthily explore their surroundings with noodley limbs that each have a mini-mind of their own. With them, these sea aliens can reach out to
NASA’s Juno spacecraft just captured images of colourful bursts of lightning-like electricity high in Jupiter’s atmosphere. These phenomena, which include jellyfish-shaped ‘sprites’ and glowing disks called ‘elves’, also occur high up in Earth’s atmosphere during thunderstorms. They were first documented in 1989. Scientists predicted that other planets that have lightning, like Jupiter, would also produce
Passing electricity through a piece of quartz crystal generates a pulse you can literally set your watch by. Set a time crystal melting, on the other hand, and it just might pulse with the deepest secrets of the Universe. A team of researchers from institutions across Japan has shown the quantum underpinnings of particles arranged as
Titan, the already pretty weird moon of Saturn, just got a little bit weirder. Astronomers have detected cyclopropenylidene (C3H2) in its atmosphere – an extremely rare carbon-based molecule that’s so reactive, it can only exist on Earth in laboratory conditions. In fact, it’s so rare that it has never before been detected in an atmosphere,
Bats have long endured a bad reputation, even before COVID-19 emerged. These highly mobile creatures that live in clustered colonies are well-known reservoirs of viruses, including coronaviruses, that, as we’ve seen, can spill over into humans. But these innocent animals are unfairly maligned. They are important pollinators and pest controllers. And when bats are feeling
The loss of billions of tonnes of ice from Earth’s frozen spaces is likely to increase global temperatures by an additional 0.4 degrees Celsius, according to research Tuesday highlighting the danger of a “vicious circle” of warming. Arctic summer sea ice levels have declined by more than 10 percent each decade since the late 1970s
To help defeat – or at least contain – COVID-19, people all over the world have been told to stay at home this year, to lower transmission of the pervasive pathogen that has so drastically altered the course of 2020. Depending on the severity of outbreaks, sometimes being advised to ‘shelter in place’ is just
Roughly two to three times Earth’s distance from the Sun, in the Asteroid Belt that lies between Mars and Jupiter, 16 Psyche makes its home. This giant metal asteroid is one of the most massive objects in the Asteroid Belt, categorised as a minor planet. Astronomers think that 16 Psyche is the exposed core of
What has two brains, no legs and the best profile pic on Facebook? That would be this rare, two-headed racer snake recently discovered by a house cat in Palm Harbor, Florida. The cat’s family was rudely introduced to the supernatural serpent about a month ago, when their cat, Olive, dropped the critter on their living room floor, according
The discovery of the extraordinary exoplanet LTT 9779b was first announced a month ago. Just 260 light-years away, the planet was immediately pegged as an excellent candidate for follow-up study of its curious atmosphere. But it turns out we didn’t even have to wait too long to learn more. LTT 9779b is a little bigger than
For more than two decades, astronomers have been systematically tracing mystery sources of high-energy gamma rays to their sources. One, however, remained stubborn – the brightest unidentified source of gamma rays in the Milky Way. It seemed to be coming from a binary system 2,740 light-years away, but only one of the stars could be found.
It’s official. There’s water on the Moon. We’ve thought that there was for over a decade, based on detections described back in 2009, but there was room for interpretation in the wavelengths used. Now, using a different wavelength unique to water, scientists report the first unambiguous detection. Those 2009 conclusions were apparently on the money.
In 2005 astronomers found a dense grouping of stars in the Virgo constellation. It looked like a star cluster, except further surveys showed that some of the stars are moving towards us, and some are moving away. That finding was unexpected and suggested the stream was no simple star cluster. A 2019 study showed that
The discovery of two small dinosaurs with bat-like wings a few years ago was a palaeontologist’s dream. Just how flight evolved in birds is something we’re still trying to nail down, and looking at this early evolution of bat-like wings in dinosaurs could give us a clue. But a team of researchers has now
Agricultural department workers wearing protective suits have eradicated the first nest of giant “murder hornets” discovered in the United States, vacuuming them out of a tree in Washington state. The nest of Asian giant hornets was found on Thursday by Washington State Department of Agriculture (WSDA) entomologists on a property in Blaine, near the border
The quality and complexity of dreams appear to change with our stages of sleep, according to a new analysis. Before the twenty-first century, we used to think dreams only occurred during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, but more recent research shows people sometimes recall dreams even when they are woken from non-REM stages of sleep.
Monkeys, much like humans, could be engaged in the process of self-domesticating themselves, altering the course of their own evolution and physiology through the way they behave with one another, new research suggests. It’s long been recognised that domestication in animals promotes certain physical features that aren’t observed in their wild counterparts. This phenomenon –
There comes a time in everyone’s life when the brain and the body reach their peak before age begins to take its toll. While muscle mass, strength, and function start to deteriorate around age 30, new research on professional chess players suggests the brain actually ages in a slower and more gradual way. Analysing 125
Two years after it left Earth, Mercury probe BepiColombo has completed the first of its first flybys of Venus. The manoeuvre is designed to give the spacecraft a boost on its journey – but it’s also too good an opportunity to pass up for a little science. As it swung around the planet on a
People thrive all across the globe, at every temperature, altitude, and landscape. How did human beings become so successful at adapting to whatever environment we wind up in? Human origins researchers like me are interested in how this quintessential human trait, adaptability, evolved. At a site in Kenya, my colleagues and I have been working
A new psychology study investigating the best way to say ‘thank you’ has now offered a few preliminary tips for those looking to strengthen their romantic relationships. In both diary entries and conversation studies, psychologists found the best way to express gratitude is to elaborate on how responsive your loved one was to your needs.
NASA said Friday that its robotic spacecraft OSIRIS-REx had succeeded in collecting a large sample of particles from the Bennu asteroid this week – but so much that it was leaking. The team in charge of the probe is now working to quickly stow the remaining samples that would eventually be delivered back to Earth
Naked mole rats are beloved for having some of the strangest mammalian superpowers. They can resist cancers, defy the usual mammalian ageing process, survive almost 20 minutes without oxygen, and tolerate surprisingly high levels of pain. But it turns out these highly social freaks of nature have a nasty little secret that makes them more
Water is essential for basic human survival. But it can also be dangerous; contaminated water can spread deadly diseases that have the potential to eradicate whole communities. Safe, clean water offers humanity one of its best chances to thrive. Several ancient civilisations, including the Greeks, Egyptians, and Romans, filtered their water. Sanskrit writings dating back
Learning no lessons from horror films of yore, Britain has plans for a high-speed rail project that will lay tracks over the ruins of a medieval church. And, apparently, the project has run into some trouble with witches and dark spirits. According to archaeologists working at Stoke Mandeville, a village that lies in the path
When it comes to friendships, people are known to become more selective with age. It turns out the same is true of male chimps, who have fewer yet more genuine pals to ape around with as they get older, according to a study published in the journal Science on October 22. The research, which was
Owls are one of the rare avian predators that catch their prey by night, and new research suggests that there’s something special in the way the DNA molecules in their eyes are packaged, giving them a powerful visual advantage in the dark. Through the process of natural selection, the new study proposes that the DNA
For the first time, astronomers have seen clear evidence of plumes of toxic volcanic gas erupting forth from the volcanoes of Io. New radio images of the Jovian moon have finally provided some answers to long-standing questions about its atmosphere. Io is the most volcanic place in the Solar System. More than 400 active volcanoes
Our love of pandas has helped these cute and fuzzy giants bounce back from dwindling numbers. But despite all the attention we’ve showered them with and the intense research and effort to get them to breed, no one had ever managed to film how this happens in the wild. Until now. It took a three year
Scientists have created a super white paint that is the yin to Vantablack’s yang. While ultra black materials can today absorb more than 99.96 percent of sunlight, this new super white coat can reflect 95.5 percent of all the photons that hit it. Instead of warming up under direct light, objects painted with this new
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