A star just 35 light-years away has been found to host a number of rocky exoplanets, and one that has a good chance of habitability. Around the red dwarf L 98-59 orbit at least four planets, and the system looks to be fascinating. New observations confirm what prior research had already suggested – the existence
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A long-lost piece of Stonehenge that was taken by a man performing restoration work on the monument has been returned after 60 years, giving scientists a chance to peer inside a pillar of the iconic monument for the first time. In 1958, Robert Phillips, a representative of the drilling company helping to restore Stonehenge, took the cylindrical
The strange-looking caecilians are limbless, worm-like amphibians that have been around for hundreds of millions of years, but they’ve never been found in the wild in the US – until now. It’s now been confirmed that a creature caught in 2019 in the C-4 (or Tamiami) Canal in Florida is a Rio Cauca caecilian, Typhlonectes
The history of the Incas was written by their conquerors, and as we’re coming to find out, the story we know is not necessarily accurate. Modern radiocarbon dating now suggests Machu Picchu is at least two decades older than historical records have indicated. According to interpretations of 16th century documents by the American archaeologist and
If you’re wondering just how advanced artificial intelligence (AI) systems are getting, then know this: the US military is testing an experimental AI network tasked with identifying likely future events worthy of closer attention, and days before they occur. The series of tests are called the Global Information Dominance Experiments (GIDE), and they combine data from a huge
The Permian-Triassic extinction event that happened some 252 million years ago is the worst extinction event our planet has ever seen. It wiped out around 90 percent of marine species and some 70 percent of vertebrate species on land, and was so severe that it’s often called the Great Dying. There are still lots of
An ancient fragment of clay tablet dating back to 3,700 years ago, during the Old Babylonian period, contains what is now the oldest known example of applied geometry, a mathematician has discovered. That’s more than a millennium prior to the birth of Pythagoras. And this history-altering artifact, known as Si.427, had just been sitting in
Emperor penguins thrive on Antarctica’s coastlines in icy conditions any human would find extreme. Yet, like Goldilocks, they have a narrow comfort zone: If there’s too much sea ice, trips to bring food from the ocean become long and arduous, and their chicks may starve. With too little sea ice, the chicks are at risk
Childbirth can trigger a number of odd body changes, but for a woman in Portugal, post-pregnancy symptoms were particularly curious: She started to lactate from her armpit, according to a new report. The 26-year-old woman told doctors that she developed pain in her right armpit two days after giving birth, according to the report, published July
Neurotransmitters are chemical substances crucial to the proper functioning of the brain, responsible for carrying messages between neurons and other kinds of cells. As such, they’re a fundamental part of how neurons relay signals to other cells, but not just that – according to a new study, neurotransmitter activity can even indicate how good (or
After so many smoke-filled summers and record-setting burns, residents of Western North America are no strangers to wildfires. Still, many questions are circulating about why forest fires are becoming larger and more severe – and what can be done about it. Is climate change fueling these fires? Does the long history of fighting every fire
Despite their magnificent towering presence, giraffes have somehow managed to keep their social behavior largely under the scientific radar. As it now turns out, we humans have deeply misunderstood these huge animals. “It is baffling to me that such a large, iconic and charismatic African species has been understudied for so long,” said University of Bristol
A new study by NASA scientists suggests that the ‘roughness’ of the Moon‘s surface, and its accompanying shadows, could be a hiding spot for water ice. Although it might look like a dried-up husk, the Moon seems to have water all over it. Our spacecraft just keep seeing (or crashing into) the icy stuff. But
Chipmunks in the South Lake Tahoe area have tested positive for plague, prompting officials to close several spots in the vicinity, according to news reports. Officials announced this week that Kiva Beach and the Taylor Creek Visitor Center in South Lake Tahoe will be closed through Friday (Aug. 6) following the positive plague tests, according
Neanderthals, long perceived to have been unsophisticated and brutish, really did paint stalagmites in a Spanish cave more than 60,000 years ago, according to a study published on Monday. The issue had roiled the paleoarchaeology community ever since the publication of a 2018 paper attributing red ocher pigment found on the stalagmitic dome of Cueva
Over 20 ‘hunger hotspots’ around the world are expected to encounter an increase in severe food insecurity over the next four months, according to a new report from the United Nations (UN). Two UN bodies – the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Food Programme (WFP) – published the advice last week, warning these
Ever since its formation around 4.5 billion years ago, Earth’s rotation has been gradually slowing down, and its days gotten progressively longer as a result. While Earth’s slowdown is not noticeable on human timescales, it’s enough to work significant changes over eons. One of those changes, new research suggests, is perhaps the most significant of
There’s a widespread belief that your testosterone can affect where you end up in life. At least for men, there is some evidence for this claim: several studies have linked higher testosterone to socioeconomic success. But a link is different to a cause and using DNA, our new research suggests it may be much less
A new analysis of Neanderthal genomes suggests the ancient blood that once pumped through this long-extinct population of archaic humans had more in common with modern human blood than scientists realized. While it was long assumed that Neanderthals all possessed blood type O, a new study of previously sequenced genomes of three Neanderthal individuals shows
It sounds a bit like the start of a joke – what brings together 14,000 scientists and 1,990 jurisdictions in 34 countries? Unfortunately, the punchline – the climate crisis – is anything but funny. In a new report, experts have issued yet another warning about the state of our planet, and this latest update is truly
Birds’ nests are snug little places: safe, warm, and lined with soft materials to keep the vulnerable babies comfortable and protected. For the tufted titmouse (Baeolophus bicolor) and its closest relatives, that material is often the fur of mammalian carnivores, which scientists had thought pillaged from dead animals, or opportunistically snagged when the animals shed.
Greenland’s ice sheet has experienced a “massive melting event” during a heatwave that has seen temperatures more than 10 degrees Celsius above seasonal norms, according to Danish researchers. Since Wednesday the ice sheet covering the vast Arctic territory, has melted by around 8 billion metric tons a day, twice its normal average rate during summer,
Many fears around transitioning our societies towards a more climate-friendly future understandably revolve around job losses. While it’s true that some forms of work will no longer be available, time and time again the research has shown that such a transition will overall create a lot more work. Now, an international team of researchers has
Fans of science aren’t immune from swallowing the occasional bit of baloney. Fortunately, reminders that science values a critical eye can go a long way when it comes to sorting robust evidence from misinformation dressed in a lab coat. A study by researchers from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and the University of Pennsylvania in
It’s no secret that bottled water has more of an impact on the environment than filling up a bottle from the tap, but now researchers have crunched the numbers on just how much difference there is – and it’s a lot. Using Barcelona in Spain as a test case – home to some 1.35 million
Abrupt disruptions to Earth’s climate thousands of years ago that caused extreme sea-level rise and mass ice cap melting can serve as an early warning system for today’s planetary tipping points, according to new research. Climate tipping points – which are irrevocable over centuries or longer – are thresholds past which large and rapid changes
Particle accelerators are hugely important in the study of the matter of the Universe, but the ones we think of tend to be gigantic instruments – surrounding cities in some cases. Now scientists have made a much smaller version to power an advanced laser, a setup that could be just as useful as its larger
One of the annoying things about global warming – besides the likelihood it will ravage life on Earth – is all the new words we are expected to learn in order to track our descent into climate chaos. Rising temperatures have not only boosted the intensity or frequency of major storms and heatwaves, they have
The ocean is vast, and deep, and dark, and inhospitable to us feeble land-dwelling creatures. There’s much that remains unknown or poorly understood in its roiling, seething belly. Technology is changing that. For over a century, mariners have reported an eerily beautiful phenomenon they called the “milky sea” – enormous patches of glowing water that
A network of strange features discovered underground at the south pole of Mars may not be lakes of liquid salty water after all. According to a new analysis, the strange shiny patches in radar data collected from the Mars Express orbiting probe could be resulting from frozen clay – specifically, hydrous aluminium silicates, or smectite
Paleontologists have uncovered an enormous fossil graveyard of squiggly, alien-like Jurassic sea creatures beneath a limestone quarry in the UK’s Cotswolds region. The fossil find includes perhaps tens of thousands of marine invertebrates called echinoderms – meaning “hedgehog skin” in Greek, and including the ancient ancestors of modern starfish, sea cucumbers, sea urchins and frilly-limbed sea
A new Russian space-station module malfunctioned after it docked on Thursday. The module, called Nauka, starting unexpectedly firing its thrusters — which moved the entire station out of position. The long-awaited science module had already encountered several technical issues on its way to the ISS, but once it docked to the space station on Thursday
Pure water is an almost perfect insulator. Yes, water found in nature conducts electricity – but that’s because of the impurities therein, which dissolve into free ions that allow an electric current to flow. Pure water only becomes “metallic” – electronically conductive – at extremely high pressures, beyond our current abilities to produce in a
When Derek Muller took an experimental land yacht for a spin this spring, he wasn’t aiming to stir up scientific controversy. He certainly wasn’t trying to win $US10,000 in a bet. Muller, the creator of the Veritasium YouTube channel, likes to break down funky science concepts for his 9.5 million subscribers. So in May, he
Exoplanets are tricksy little beasts. As they are very small, very dim, and very far away, seeing them directly is extremely challenging and rare. As such, we usually infer their presence from their effects on their host stars – which means that when we do, on the odd occasion, see one directly, it’s a cause
Iceland may be the last exposed remnant of a nearly Texas-size continent – called Icelandia – that sank beneath the North Atlantic Ocean about 10 million years ago, according to a new theory proposed by an international team of geophysicists and geologists. The theory goes against long-standing ideas about the formation of Iceland and the
So extreme is the magnetic and gravitational environment around a black hole that we should see light bend around it and be reflected back at the viewer from behind the black hole – at least, per the theoretical predictions of Einstein’s general relativity. Now, for the first time, astronomers have directly detected this reflected light,
What makes one person more creative than another? Creativity is hard to define and perhaps even more difficult to measure, but scientists think they’ve come up with a remarkably simple way of assessing at least one aspect of it. It’s a test that you can take yourself in a couple of minutes, and it works
Polyfluoroalkyl and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are known as ‘forever chemicals’ because they don’t naturally break down in the environment. Now a new study reveals the increasing pace of Arctic ice melt is leaking more of these chemicals into the environment. PFAS don’t originate in the Arctic, but they do settle there – they’re used in
Within the remains of 890-million-year-old microbial reefs – a world that was dominated by bacteria and algae – lie possible signs of multicellular animal life, 90 million years before there was thought to be enough oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere to sustain such life. We all personally know oxygen is vital to us as animals –
In the hands of a trained archeologist, a well-preserved grave can be read like an obituary, detailing the health, death, travels and even fortunes of a life long gone. Advances in technology have been pushing the limits on how well-preserved a body needs to be in order for experts to extract a biography. In the case
The jawbone of a bat that lived 100,000 years ago has been confirmed as belonging to an extinct species of giant vampire bat. The discovery of the jawbone of the species Desmodus draculae, found in a cave in Argentina, is helping fill in the huge gaps in the history of these amazing animals, and could
Charles Darwin famously discussed the “imperfections” of the geological record in his book On The Origin of Species. He correctly pointed out that unless conditions are just right, it’s unlikely for organisms to be preserved as fossils, even those with bones and shells. He also said “no organism wholly soft can be preserved”. However, after
A wall of sand over 100 meters (300 feet) high swallowed a city on the fringes of the Gobi desert in northwestern China, in scenes reminiscent of a disaster film. Dunhuang, a tourist draw with a colorful history as a Silk Road outpost, momentarily disappeared in the dust clouds as the storm hit on Sunday.
Earth is swallowing up more carbon from its atmosphere than scientists previously thought, new research suggests. This discovery may change some of the equations and balances around our projections of climate change, although it doesn’t mean we can breathe a sigh of relief. The updated findings indicate that around a third of carbon rolled into
Push materials to their limits, and strange things can occur – such as the discovery of a previously unknown phase of liquid, which has been reported by scientists looking at the development of super-thin, high-density glass. These types of glass are used in a variety of ways, including in OLED displays and optical fibers, but
A new study by scientists has demonstrated how researchers may be able to create an accelerating jet of antimatter from light. A team of physicists has shown that high-intensity lasers can be used to generate colliding gamma photons – the most energetic wavelengths of light – to produce electron-positron pairs. This, they say, could help
Archaeologists have discovered the 2,200-year-old wreck of an ancient Egyptian ship that sank after being struck with giant blocks from the famous temple of Amun. The so-called galley, along with a burial ground, were discovered beneath the Mediterranean Sea in Thonis-Heracleion, a city that fell into the water long ago. The ship is called a
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