The world’s largest plant designed to suck carbon dioxide out of the air and turn it into rock started running on Wednesday, the companies behind the plant said. The plant, named Orca, after the Icelandic word “orka” meaning “energy”, consists of four units, each made up of two metal boxes, similar in appearance to the
About 90 million years ago, a gigantic apex predator – a meat-eating dinosaur with serrated shark-like teeth – prowled what is now Uzbekistan, according to a new study of the behemoth’s jawbone. The 26-foot-long (8 meters) beast weighed 2,200 pounds (1,000 kilograms), making it longer than an African elephant and heavier than a bison. Researchers named it Ulughbegsaurus uzbekistanensis, after Ulugh Beg,
The vast majority of the world’s fossil fuels are effectively “unextractable” and must remain in the ground if we want even half a chance at meeting our climate goals, according to a new study. For nations like Indonesia and Australia, the world’s leading exporters in coal, that will require abandoning 95 percent of their natural
Global warming is a big challenge for warm-blooded animals, which must maintain a constant internal body temperature. As anyone who’s experienced heatstroke can tell you, our bodies become severely stressed when we overheat. Animals are dealing with global warming in various ways. Some move to cooler areas, such as closer to the poles or to
It’s obvious that the information coming through our eyes is a fundamental way in which we navigate the world, but what’s less clear is exactly how this visual data is processed in the brain to stop us walking into walls and off the edges of cliffs. A new study looking at the behavior of fruit
Amid the swarms of small surreal things scuttling and swimming across planet Earth 500 million years ago, a giant loomed. Titanokorys gainesi, newly discovered in the Burgess Shale fossil formation, would have been a Cambrian colossus, measuring a gobsmacking estimated half a meter (1.64 feet) in length. That may seem small to us now, but
Elon Musk announced a humanoid robot designed to help with those repetitive, boring tasks people hate doing. Musk suggested it could run to the grocery store for you, but presumably it would handle any number of tasks involving manual labor. Predictably, social media filled with references to a string of dystopian sci-fi movies about robots
Supervolcano eruptions have caused some of the greatest catastrophes in the history of our planet, and yet we still don’t really know how to predict when or how they will strike. Instead of slipping into a quiet recovery period, new research suggests some of these large volcanoes can remain active for thousands of years after
Mars is bombarded with radiation. Without a protective magnetic shield and a thick atmosphere like Earth’s, radiation from space has a nearly unimpeded path to the Martian surface. Our machines can roam around on the surface and face all that radiation with impunity. But not humans. For humans, all that radiation is a deadly hazard.
Songbirds usually need very little instruction to belt out the tunes of their kin, but the right melody doesn’t necessarily come to them ‘out of the blue’ the moment they hatch. Instead, a new study suggests most baby birds start listening and responding to surrounding birdsong as mere embryos, while still tucked inside their eggs.
Ask any cat person to describe their feline friend, and they’ll likely affectionately say “jerkface”. Cat people also know, however, that each little fuzzy jerkface is its very own idiosyncratic self. Or are they? According to new research, each cat’s personality and behavior can be defined using a combination of just seven traits. But before
In metals, electrons are normally expected to be diffusive in their movement, operating as individual particles – in other words, they don’t gain momentum as a group. In a new study, scientists have now discovered a type of metal where electrons actually do flow in a fluid-like way – like water in a pipe –
As our eyes on the sky grow ever more sensitive, we’re going to find more and more things we’ve never seen before. Such is the case for a newly discovered source of radio signals, located not far from the center of the galaxy. It’s called ASKAP J173608.2-321635, and astronomers have been unable to figure out
NASA is commonly thought of as America’s space agency, but its name also emphasizes another research area. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is also America’s civilian aerospace research organization. In that role, it has been instrumental in developing new technologies ranging from rocket engines to aircraft control systems. Part of that role is running
The Sun is always showering Earth with a mist of magnetized particles known as solar wind. For the most part, our planet’s magnetic shield blocks this electric wind from doing any real damage to Earth or its inhabitants, instead sending those particles skittering toward the poles and leaving behind a pleasant aurora in their wake. But sometimes, every century or so,
When you know you’re being watched by somebody, it’s hard to pretend they’re not there. It can be difficult to block them out and keep focus, feeling their gaze bearing down upon you. Strangely enough, it doesn’t even seem to really matter whether they’re alive or not. In new research, scientists set up an experiment
You may well have seen sci-fi movies or television shows where the protagonist asks to zoom in on an image and enhance the results – revealing a face, or a number plate, or any other key detail – and Google’s newest artificial intelligence engines, based on what’s known as diffusion models, are able to pull
We thought we had it all figured out. When a star of a certain mass ceases nuclear fusion, dies and becomes a white dwarf, all that’s left to keep it shining is residual heat. Eventually it will cool to darkness, leaving a cold, dead crystal known as a black dwarf. We don’t think the Universe
Should 80 percent of the Amazon be declared a protected area by 2025? The world’s top conservation body is on Sunday poised to decide whether its 1,400 members can vote on this controversial proposal, put forward by indigenous groups. Submitted under an emergency provision to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the
You wouldn’t miss one of Australia’s musk ducks if you saw it. The name comes from the musky smell the ducks waft around during the breeding season, and the males have a large, black lobe below their bill. But if the musk duck you’re hanging out with is called Ripper, the other dead giveaway is…
It was only supposed to fly five times. And yet NASA’s helicopter on Mars, Ingenuity, has completed 12 flights and it isn’t ready to retire. Given its stunning and unexpected success, the US space agency has extended Ingenuity’s mission indefinitely. The tiny helicopter has become the regular travel companion of the rover Perseverance, whose core
Poverty Point in northern Louisiana is one of the first US civilizations on record, inhabited by a community of Native Americans as early as 1700 BCE. In a new study, researchers have shown these inhabitants to be highly skilled engineers, rather than the simpler hunter-gatherers they’re often portrayed as. The massive earthen structures put up
Fixing breaks in genes with speed and perfection can be a matter of life and death for most organisms. Even the simplest changes in a sequence risk catastrophe, especially if the altered code is responsible for a critical function. Over the past half a century, biologists have studied the mechanisms involved to piece together most of
What will our Sun look like after it dies? Scientists have made predictions about what the end will look like for our Solar System, and when that will happen. And humans won’t be around to see the final act. Previously, astronomers thought it would turn into a planetary nebula – a luminous bubble of gas
A wild boar carried out a daring mission to free two piglets from a trap, demonstrating high levels of intelligence and empathy, a new paper published in Scientific Reports shows. The incident, which occurred in January 2020, was documented by a team of scientists from the Czech University of Life Sciences at the Voděradské Bučiny National Nature
Many home chefs know that tempering chocolate to achieve a perfect finish and a satisfying ‘snap’ is no easy feat. Small variations in the quality of ingredients, temperature, mixing and timing can all set you up to fail, even when you learn from the best. The results of a new study by food scientists from
Supply chains have been wreaking havoc across the industrial world. The complex web that holds the world’s economies together has been fraying at the edges, resulting in some unexpected shortages, such as a lack of rental cars in Alaska and a lack of Lunchables at the author’s local grocery store. Now there’s a supply shortage that directly ties to
Your dog sees you, there’s no doubt about that. These beautiful animals are ever watchful, ever devoted to us. But despite their loving (and food-obsessed) gaze, just how keenly can they identify what we do? Can they discern the meaning and intention behind our actions? Perhaps they can, at least to some extent, according to
Goffin’s cockatoos, so adept at toolmaking in a laboratory setting, have now demonstrated their engineering chops in the wild. In their natural habitat on the Tanimbar Islands in Maluku, Indonesia, scientists have finally observed the birds (Cacatua goffiniana) making tools that help them gain better access to food. The results demonstrate that the previous behavior
Weird neighbors. We’ve all had ’em. And apparently that’s as true for galaxies as it is for the people in them. One of the Milky Way’s strange fellows is Centaurus A, a peculiar galaxy over 12 million light-years away. It’s one of the closest galactic neighbors we have with an active supermassive black hole in
Some birds are renowned for the beauty of their songs, but the bird with arguably the most complex song in the world doesn’t pen its own ditties. The superb lyrebird (Menura novaehollandiae) of Australia mimics the sounds in its environment with exquisite skill and accuracy, building a spectacular repertoire. Its song, according to Sir David
As a tree grows and branches, we know it consumes and stores carbon from the atmosphere in its wood. But what happens when a tree dies? Believe it or not, we still don’t really understand how the whole process unwinds. Deadwood, which includes fallen trees, standing dead trees, trunks and fallen branches, is currently thought
Following a failed first attempt last month, NASA’s Perseverance rover has successfully drilled and captured a perfect rock core from the Red Planet. This puts scientists one big step closer to their goal of someday returning the rock sample to Earth, in order to study it for signs of ancient microbial life, according to NASA. Perseverance (or “Percy” to
The debris from a colossal cosmic explosion in a galaxy hundreds of millions of light-years away is no ordinary supernova. According to a new analysis of the distant event, it was triggered by a merger between two objects, one of which was compact, either a black hole or a neutron star. The evidence of this
None of us would be around if organisms hadn’t been sparked into life billions of years ago. The question of just how that spark came about continues to fascinate scientists. New research looking at how the conditions on primordial Earth might have produced life has identified a mixture of salts that, mixed with heat flows
Physicists working on a type of fusion reactor called a stellarator are getting closer to actually harnessing the power of nuclear fusion. According to a new paper, the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator in Germany is now capable of containing heat that reaches temperatures twice as high as those found in the core of the Sun. This
Archaeologists have discovered some of the oldest artifacts ever found to be associated with beer, in a haul from Qiaotou in southern China dating back 9,000 years. However, it appears the ancient drinkers in question weren’t in it simply for a buzz. The find consisted of two human skeletons surrounded by scores of ceramic pots
As far as Lower Paleolithic archaeology goes, this is quite the haul: Experts have uncovered a record 98 elephant-bone tools at a site dating back some 400,000 years. This discovery could change our thinking on how some of the early humans – such as Neanderthals – fashioned implements like these. The bones were collected from
As our world continues to heat up dangerously, researchers are investigating the past to see how climate change affected our species in previous eras. A new study has revealed several human migrations into Arabia over the last 400,000 years. These migrations were driven by the same type shift in climate: an increase in rainfall over
There are eight known planets in the Solar System (ever since Pluto was booted from the club), but for a while, there has been some evidence that there might be one more. A hypothetical Planet Nine lurking on the outer edge of our Solar System. So far this world has eluded discovery, but a new
There are many kinds of stars out there in the big, wide Universe. We have a whole system for categorizing them according to temperature, size, and brightness. Even so, a recently discovered object is suggesting that we’re far from knowing everything. It’s been nicknamed ‘The Accident’, and it’s a type of object called a brown
A 23-year-old student in Germany can shrink and enlarge his pupils on demand, according to a new case report – a feat that was previously thought to be impossible. Two tiny opposing muscles in the eye act as puppeteers of each pupil (the dark center of the eye), dilating or enlarging them in a dark environment to
As Hurricane Ida headed into the Gulf of Mexico, a team of scientists was closely watching a giant, slowly swirling pool of warm water directly ahead in its path. That warm pool, an eddy, was a warning sign. It was around 125 miles (200 kilometers) across. And it was about to give Ida the power
The best case scenario for the climate crisis is looking increasingly disastrous for much of the world, especially when it comes to rising seas. Even if we can limit global warming below 2 degrees Celsius, in line with the Paris Climate Accord, by 2100 many coastal regions could be experiencing once-in-a-century sea level threats, such
We think of DNA as the vitally important molecules that carry genetic instructions for most living things, including ourselves. But not all DNA actually codes proteins; now, we’re finding more and more functions involving the non-coding DNA scientists used to think of as ‘junk’. A new study suggests that satellite DNA – a type of non-coding
A newborn star system 1,400 light-years from Earth is revealed in all its dynamic glory in a new photo from the Hubble Space Telescope. The system is called IRAS 05491+0247, and it’s at the center of a particularly rare and gorgeous cosmic interaction, known as a Herbig-Haro object. This particular Herbig-Haro object, called HH 111,
When it comes to getting rid of an annoying pest, sometimes subtlety just won’t cut it. Sometimes you just have to throw everything or anything within reach, pelting the offender with shells and debris until they scuttle off back to their hole. OK, that approach probably isn’t great for humans. But for octopuses, it seems
Russian cosmonauts discovered cracks on the Zarya module of the International Space Station (ISS) and are concerned that the fissures could spread over time, a senior space official reported on Monday (Aug. 30). “Superficial fissures have been found in some places on the Zarya module,” Vladimir Solovyov, chief engineer of rocket and space corporation Energia,
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