Megalodon. The very name conjures awe: A giant shark that once dominated the world’s oceans, big enough to swallow a human whole. Such a beast – known only from teeth and vertebrae that survived the 3.6 million years since it went extinct – must have been fearsome indeed. It was one of the largest carnivores
Month: May 2022
The tightening grip of climate change on our planet is revealing secrets buried for millennia. As waters and ice recede under warming conditions, the traces of people and civilizations long gone from the mortal realm emerge. In recent months, Iraq has been hit particularly hard, battered by extreme drought, with the Mosul reservoir shrinking as
Collective action is often the key to creating dramatic social or environmental changes, be it reducing pollution and waste, diminishing overfishing by sourcing alternatives, or getting more scientists to openly share their data with others. Collective action, however, can involve social dilemmas. That’s because the choice to act altruistically might come at some personal cost.
Egypt on Monday unveiled a cache of sarcophagi and bronze statuettes – including one of pioneering architect Imhotep – at the Saqqara archaeological site south of Cairo. They were the latest in a series of discoveries made in the area. Saqqara is a vast necropolis of the ancient Egyptian capital Memphis, a UNESCO World Heritage
The discovery of a neutron star emitting unusual radio signals is rewriting our understanding of these unique star systems. My colleagues and I (the MeerTRAP team) made the discovery when observing the Vela-X 1 region of the Milky Way about 1,300 light-years away from Earth, using the MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa. We spotted
We tend to associate healthy coral reefs with their visual splendor: the vibrant array of colors and shapes that populate these beautiful underwater ecosystems. But they can also be rather noisy places. If you’ve ever been snorkeling in a coral reef environment, you’ll know the distinctive clicking and popping sounds made by various marine creatures
Male birds are not the only animals that woo the other sex with movement and sound. Male wolf spiders will sometimes lay down a beat for 45 minutes just to win over a female. By flexing their appendages, shaking their abdomens, and tapping their forelegs, male wolf spiders put on quite the show. And the
The Kīlauea volcano in Hawaii is said to be the world’s most active volcano, and yet we still don’t really know how it was born. New research suggests the original womb of magma lies more than 90 kilometers beneath the hotspot. While previous studies have found two shallow chambers of magma beneath Kīlauea, they weren’t big
When Mars helicopter Ingenuity was packed off on a one-way trip to the red planet, its engineers had a plan for five flights. That didn’t mean more flights were not on the cards; in fact, it’s normal for NASA’s spacecraft mission parameters to be set conservatively. But late last year, NASA extended the mission indefinitely,
“You can’t manage what you can’t measure”, according to a famous business mantra often attributed to management guru Peter Drucker. This can help explain why carbon emissions are under more scrutiny than ever as we ramp up our efforts to avoid the catastrophic effects of climate change. For example, the “carbon footprint” – a way
New research suggests that Darwinian evolution could be happening up to four times faster than previously thought, based on an analysis of genetic variation. The more genetic differences there are in a species, the faster evolution can happen, as certain traits die off and stronger ones get established. The team behind this latest study calls
There’s a revolution underway in astronomy. In fact, you might say there are several. In the past ten years, exoplanet studies have advanced considerably, gravitational wave astronomy has emerged as a new field, and the first images of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) have been captured. A related field, interferometry, has also advanced incredibly thanks to highly-sensitive
Scientists have found a new way to tell whether dinosaurs were hot- or cold-blooded. This question has long eluded paleontologists, leading to many heated debates where they even accused each other of acting more like politicians than scientists. Early dinosaur researchers initially assumed these animals were slow, lumbering, and cold-blooded like the modern reptiles they
Scientists recently discovered something about male mice that’s utterly bananas: The distinctive scent of a banana stresses them out. Researchers from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, learned about this unusual fruit aversion while analyzing spiking stress hormones in male mice when the males were close to pregnant or lactating females. The scientists reported in a
Scientists have long known that touching plants can set off a stress reaction in them – but until now it hasn’t been exactly clear how that worked at a molecular level, something that a new study hopes to shed light on. The researchers behind the study have identified certain genetic keys inside plants that lead
Dogs aren’t the only animals that can hear the emotion in our voices. According to new research, pigs and horses can also tell the difference between positive and negative expressions in human speech, and it could change how they respond to us. Previous studies have shown that domesticated horses can read emotions on human faces
We all know that a humongous black hole exists at the center of our galaxy. It’s called Sagittarius A* (Sgr A* for short) and it has the mass of 4 million suns. We got to see a radio image of it a few weeks back, showing its accretion disk. So, we know it’s there. Astronomers can chart
Throughout history, important cities around the world have flourished along river banks. But rivers can also be destructive forces. They routinely flood, and on rare occasions, they can abruptly shift pathways. These “channel-jumping” events, which are called avulsions, have caused some of the deadliest floods in human history. Avulsions on China’s Yellow River killed over
Somewhere out in the cosmos, there’s the physics equivalent of a unicorn. Catching even a glimpse of this oddity that looks like the isolated tip of a magnet would be like a beacon in the night, pointing the way to grand, unifying theories of absolutely everything. Yet aside from one tiny exception in the early 1980s,
Far and wide around the world, a whole bunch of animals are yawning right now. Maybe they’re ready to sleep; maybe it’s because they’re hot and bored. But if one thing is certain, the very thought of yawning makes us want to open our mouths and take a deep breath for some reason. (I’ve already
There’s not a lot, comparatively, going on at the Moon. There’s dust. There’s rock. There’s basalt plains, the product of extensive volcanism over much of the Moon’s history. And, as we have recently discovered, there’s water. Lots of water. Bound up in the lunar regolith. Trapped in volcanic glass. Possibly even in sheets of ice
The very tiny motion of a small star has revealed the presence of a super-Earth exoplanet, orbiting at a distance that is close to habitable. Around a faint red dwarf called Ross 508, located just 36.5 light-years away (yet too dim to be seen with the naked eye), astronomers have confirmed the existence of a
As Earth orbits the Sun, it plows through dust and debris left behind by comets and asteroids. That debris gives birth to meteor showers – which can be one of nature’s most amazing spectacles. Most meteor showers are predictable, recurring annually when the Earth traverses a particular trail of debris. Occasionally, however, Earth runs through
As temperatures around the world shift dramatically, wildlife are often being forced to relocate to find suitable habitats – and scientists are working hard to try and understand how many species might struggle with trying to find a new home. Animals going to higher ground face two issues: colder temperatures, and thinner, less oxygen-rich air
Kavachi Volcano, an active submarine volcano in the Solomon Islands, has long been home to sharks. However their once-peaceful playground in the southwest Pacific Ocean recently became a bit less serene. In recent months, NASA satellite images detected plumes of discolored water over the volcano – tell-tale signs of volcanic activity, hinting at multiple eruptions. The images
Every lungful of air we suck down is mostly made up of nitrogen, with a generous helping of oxygen, and a dash of carbon dioxide. But dusting this atmospheric soup is a whole encyclopedia of different compounds and elements, some of which we can only speculate about. One of those mysteries just came into focus,
We now know the genetic heritage one of the victims who tragically perished when the Italian city of Pompeii was devastated by a volcanic eruption nearly 2,000 years ago. Scientists have managed to sequence the genome of a man who was in his mid-life years when he died in the Pompeiian House of the Craftsman,
The tiny floating organisms that supply our world with as much as a fifth of its oxygen will be in dire straights as our oceans acidify, new research suggests. The creatures, called diatoms, will be deprived of the silica building blocks they need to construct their protective shells, which come in all sorts of dazzling
Voyager 1 is the farthest human-made object from Earth. After sweeping by Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, it is now almost 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) from Earth in interstellar space. Both Voyager 1 and its twin, Voyager 2, carry little pieces of humanity in the form of their Golden Records. These messages in
Future fusion reactions inside tokamaks could produce much more energy than previously thought, thanks to groundbreaking new research that found a foundational law for such reactors was wrong. The research, led by physicists from the Swiss Plasma Center at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EFPL), has determined that the maximum hydrogen fuel density is about
A mysterious, extinct creature that has puzzled scientists for more than a century may have finally found its place in the tree of life. The small, fish-like animal is named Palaeospondylus gunni, first discovered in fossils in Scotland in 1890, which lived approximately 390 million years ago during the Middle Devonian. Now, according to a
Earth’s interior is a far from quiet place. Deep below our surface activities, the planet rumbles with activity, from plate tectonics to convection currents that circulate through the hot magmatic fluids far underneath the crust. Now scientists studying satellite data of Earth have identified something inside Earth we’ve never seen before: a new type of
Experts are warning that the Eastern US should prepare for another barrage of tropical storms this year. The 2022 Atlantic hurricane season is likely to be more active than average for the seventh year in a row, according to the latest prediction from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). There is a 70 percent chance that
The ocean is swimming in sound, and a new artificial intelligence tool could help scientists sift through all that noise to track and study marine mammals. The tool is called DeepSqueak, not because it measures dolphin calls in the ocean underworld, but because it is based on a deep learning algorithm that was first used
Is your tiny robot really all that small if it’s bigger than the width of a coin? A team of scientists has built what is now the smallest-ever remote-controlled walking robot, coming in at a mere half a millimeter (less than a fiftieth of an inch) wide. Exceedingly tiny robots have a whole host of
Fast radio bursts are one of the biggest cosmic mysteries of our time. They’re extremely powerful but extremely brief explosions of electromagnetic radiation in radio wavelengths, discharging in milliseconds as much energy as 500 million Suns. For years, scientists puzzled over what could be causing these brief outbursts, detected in galaxies millions to billions of
Many families of land animals live separated by hundreds of kilometers of wide and vast oceans. Explanations for how they got so far from each other are as varied as the animals themselves. In recent times, many animals have hitched rides with humans traveling around the world, on our vehicles, food products, and on our
Bacteria are resourceful little organisms. They can live in some of the weirdest, most inhospitable places on our planet – arid deserts, toxic acidic lakes, even deep in Earth’s crust below the ocean floor. But scientists have just discovered a new, very unexpected habitat for the hardy little microbes: the venom of snakes and spiders.
As far as we know, it’s not possible for a person to move at twice the speed of light. In fact, it’s not possible for any object with the kind of mass you or I have to move faster than the speed of light. However, for certain strange particles, traveling at twice the speed of
Aneides vagrans, also called the wandering salamander, is an elusive critter. Its natural habitat is the canopy of California’s redwood trees, the world’s tallest trees, making it tough to observe. One thing we do know about this salamander is that when disturbed it will willingly jump from tree branches, assuming a posture similar to that taken by
We humans like to think our mastery of language sets us apart from the communication abilities of other animals, but an eye-opening new analysis of chimpanzees might force a rethink on just how unique our powers of speech really are. In a new study, researchers analyzed almost 5,000 recordings of wild adult chimpanzee calls in
Out in the dark depths of space, our models of the Universe get messy. A new study looking at the ultra-diffuse dwarf galaxy AGC 114905 has revived a controversial theory (or more accurately a hypothesis) of gravity, and given us more questions than answers about what’s making our galaxies tick. It all starts with dark matter
The ancient Maya once took enormous pride in their teeth. Long before Europeans were filling their cavities with gold, people in Mesoamerica were flashing grins bedazzled with jade, turquoise, gold, jet, or hematite gems. Male or female, rich or poor, it appears many individuals visited the dentist as young adults to have their teeth drilled
A total lunar eclipse is an incredible sight. As Earth passes between the Moon and the Sun, its shadow slips across the face of our satellite so only long, red wavelengths – sunlight refracted by Earth’s atmosphere – can slip through, tinting the usually pale Moon blood-red. That’s when we see it from here, on
An enormous asteroid four times the size of the Empire State Building will make a close approach to Earth on May 27, according to NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS). Fear not: the asteroid, named 7335 (1989 JA), will soundly miss our planet by about 2.5 million miles (4 million kilometers) – or nearly 10 times
Scientists keep on pushing the efficiency of solar panels higher and higher, and there’s a new record to report: a new solar cell has hit 39.5 percent efficiency under the standard 1-sun global illumination conditions. That 1-sun marker is simply a standardized way of measuring a fixed amount of sunlight, and almost 40 percent of
When something’s messing with your insides and you feel like you’re going to hurl, the last thing you probably want to do is eat. Deer, caribou, and other ungulates (hoofed animals) experience a similar problem when infected by non-deadly parasites. It utterly sucks for them, but it turns out infections that put them off their
Mars is well-known for its seasonal dust storms, which can sometimes grow to encompass the entire planet. In June 2018, the dust storms became so severe that they obscured most of the planet’s surface, causing NASA to lose contact with Opportunity, which eventually proved fatal to the record-breaking rover. Understanding these storms and what causes them
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- Next Page »