Google Earth gives you a fascinating 3D tour of the planet in your web browser, and the app’s newest feature lets you look back from the current day all the way to 1984 – so you can see how climate change has changed the face of Earth over the last 37 years. Google itself has
Algorithms can help us with everything, from choosing what music to listen to next to finding the cheapest flight online. Now, new research reveals one of the tipping points that tend to make us trust a computer’s judgment rather than a human’s. The findings offer an interesting insight into how ready we’ve become to let
NASA has selected SpaceX to land the first astronauts on the surface of the Moon since 1972, the agency said Friday, in a huge victory for Elon Musk‘s company. The contract, worth $2.9 billion, involves the prototype Starship spacecraft that is being tested at SpaceX’s south Texas facility. “Today I’m very excited, and we are
For a couple of hundred years, Cahokia was the place to be in what is now the US state of Illinois. The bustling, vibrant city was at one time home to some 15,000 people, but by the end of the 14th century it was deserted – and researchers still aren’t sure why. A new study
The last ice age was a bad time for wildlife. The world froze, ecosystems changed, and humans and animals competed fiercely for available resources. By 11,700 years ago, as the ice age drew to a close, most of the large mammals roaming what is now the Yukon Territory in Canada had gone extinct; the large
A small, flying reptile glides beneath the canopy of an ancient forest, scouring the trees for tasty bugs. She spots a cicada buzzing in the boughs of a ginkgo tree, then swoops down to snatch it up in her beak. The bug flees; the reptile follows, grasping swiftly along the branches with her sharp claws
Our plastic pollution problem has become so bad that microplastics are now embedded in the regular cycles of the atmosphere, circulating around the planet like oxygen or water, according to a new study. Plastic particles sent up into the air from ocean spray and road surfaces travel across continents and reaching the most remote spots
Early into the pandemic it became clear that something was wrong: the first signs of a tangential and potentially deadly threat emerging in the wake of COVID-19. It was an old problem, in truth, but one given fresh potency as humans scrambled to protect themselves from the coronavirus. As production of single-use face masks and
Although it’s extremely difficult to directly image the shadow of and the space around a black hole, that’s not the only tool astronomers have in their kit. Based on years of observations and analysis, there’s a decades-long tradition of black hole visualizations, going all the way back to the work of French astronomer Jean-Pierre Luminet
An alphabetic inscription written on a jar fragment found at the site of Tel Lachish in Israel and dating back around 3,450 years may provide a “missing link” in the history of the alphabet, a team of researchers said. “Dating to the fifteenth century BCE, this inscription is currently the oldest securely dated alphabetic inscription from the
A new formula for white paint has given us the whitest white yet. It reflects a jaw-dropping 98.1 percent of all light that hits it, remaining significantly cooler than the ambient temperature, even when sitting in full sunlight. If used to coat buildings, its inventors say, the paint could help in the fight against global
Few things excite biologists more than contemplating the parts of the world still relatively free of human damage. For the last 30 years, scientists intent on protecting Earth’s biodiversity have sought to enshrine targets for preserving and expanding these remaining areas of wilderness. But what actually is wilderness, and how do we know when we’ve
For two and a half million years, the most infamous of predators, Tyrannosaurus rex, slowly stomped its way around what is today North America’s western coast. Scientists have now come up with an estimate for the total number of T. rex’s that ever existed: around 2.5 billion (yes, billion). This may sound like a lot – and it’s
If you could cross a monkey with a human, what might that creature tell us? We are beginning to find out. In a pioneering and controversial experiment, scientists successfully created just such a hybrid: a chimeric combination of monkey and human cells, existing together in a living embryo that otherwise would never have been conceived
Telescopes from across the globe have teamed up to take unprecedented images of supermassive black hole M87* as it blasts matter into space at 99 percent the speed of light. This is the same famous black hole that was captured by the Event Horizon Telescope and unveiled in 2019. That first release was a spectacular achievement. It
If Planet Nine is out there, a large, mysterious planet lurking at the dark edges of the Solar System, it may not be where we thought it might be. According to astronomers searching for the hypothetical object, new information taken into account could mean that its orbit is significantly more elliptical than most recently predicted.
Earth’s suit of geomagnetic armor has a chink, and it’s growing. A weak spot in our planet’s magnetic field, located above the southern Atlantic Ocean, has been increasing in size over the last two centuries, and it’s starting to split in two. For those of us on the ground, this isn’t cause for concern: The protective field
New Zealand will force banks to reveal the impact their investments have on climate change under world-first legislation intended to make the financial sector’s environmental record transparent, officials said. Commerce Minister David Clark said the law would make climate reporting mandatory for banks, insurance companies and investment firms. “Becoming the first country in the world
NASA’s $800 million Mars lander is in an energy crisis. InSight, which landed in a Martian plain called Elysium Planitia in 2018, has detected more than 500 Mars quakes, felt more than 10,000 dust devils pass by, and started to measure the planet’s core. But over the past few months, InSight has been fighting for its life
To make some of the most precise measurements we can of the world around us, scientists tend to go small – right down to the atomic scale, using a technique called atom interferometry. Now, for the first time, scientists have performed this kind of measurement in space, using a sounding rocket specially designed to carry
A series of newly surfaced images and videos of unidentified flying objects filmed by the US Navy have now been confirmed as authentic by the Pentagon. While many in the public generally refer to such mysterious sightings as UFOs, the more modern term used in defense circles is ‘Unidentified Aerial Phenomena‘ (UAPs) – and they’re
The more we study the Universe, the more it seems likely that each galaxy is orbiting a cosmic colossus – a supermassive black hole, powering the galactic nucleus. There’s a lot we don’t know about these giant objects – including the glaring question of how they grow so huge – but new research could help
Japan’s decision to release more than one million tonnes of treated radioactive water from the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant into the sea has stirred fierce controversy. Here are some questions and answers about the plan, expected to take decades to complete. What is the processed water? Since the 2011 nuclear disaster, radioactive water has accumulated
You may not give a pile of bat poop gathered over 4,300 years a second look – but to a group of scientists, it’s provided an intriguing insight into how bat diets and therefore climate conditions have shifted over thousands of years. Taller than the average man (2 meters or 6-and-a-half feet), the pile of
The last ice age persisted for over 100,000 years. An ice-bound eternity by any stretch of the imagination, but this long winter was not completely frozen into stillness. During the Last Glacial Period, which ended approximately 12,000 years ago, climate change existed as a powerful phenomenon, much as it does now, albeit for different reasons.
Spiders rely quite significantly on touch to sense the world around them. Their bodies and legs are covered in tiny hairs and slits that can distinguish between different kinds of vibrations. Prey blundering into a web makes a very different vibrational clamor from another spider coming a-wooing, or the stirring of a breeze, for example.
Last week, Tesla CEO Elon Musk released a video showing how his company Neuralink – a brain-computer-interface company – had advanced its technology to the point that the chip could allow a monkey to play video games with its mind. Neuralink could transition from operating on monkeys to human trials within the year, if the startup meets
Precipitation is much more widespread throughout the Solar System than commonly assumed. Obviously it rains water on Earth. But it snows carbon dioxide on Mars, rains methane on Titan, sulfuric acid on Venus, and could potentially rain diamonds on Neptune. The type of material falling out of the sky is almost as varied as the planets themselves. New research
From the smallest microbe to the mightiest oak, death is as true for above as it is for below, even for the mightiest galaxies. The process, however, is not a quick one. A haunting new Hubble photo of the galaxy NGC 1947 demonstrates this well: Even from a distance of around 45.4 million light-years away
The scorching destruction of Australia’s Black Summer bushfires between 2019 and 2020 provided an ominous glimpse of fire’s reach in our hotter, dryer world, and the impact of the unprecedented inferno is still being measured. Just weeks ago, scientists observed that the amount of smoke spewed from the blaze into the atmosphere rivaled that of
Have you heard the one about NASA spending millions to develop a pen that would write in space, while the Soviet Union used pencils? Well, that story is a big fat myth, but the refrain ‘simple is best’ isn’t wrong. For example, to secure any loose cables, pipes, or even equipment on Mars rovers, NASA
On Thursday, NASA released a stunning photo of a sea of dunes on Mars. It also shows wind-sculpted lines surrounding Mars’ frosty northern polar cap. The section captured in the shot represents an area that is 31 kilometers (19 miles) wide, NASA said. The sea of dunes, however, actually covers an area as large as Texas. The
This may come as a bit of a shocker, but technically speaking, not all water on Earth is made up of H2O molecules. Less than a century ago, the discovery of the hydrogen isotope deuterium – 2H, but often simplified to D – revealed the existence of another kind of water with the chemical formula 2H2O or
A confluence of warm water is threatening to topple the very pillars that keep the ‘Doomsday Glacier’ afloat. The first measurements ever performed below the icy tongue of Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier have now revealed a previously underestimated flow of warm water from the east. This inflow of heat is mixing with other waters below the
We encounter artificial intelligence (AI) every day. AI describes computer systems that are able to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence. When you search something on the internet, the top results you see are decided by AI. Any recommendations you get from your favorite shopping or streaming websites will also be based on an AI algorithm.
Nearly 4 in 5 dog owners report instances of jealousy from their pooches, and new research suggests those behaviors can be triggered even if a supposed rival for affection and attention is out of sight. In other words, dogs appear to have the mental capacity to imagine a situation that would make them feel jealous,
NASA has delayed the first flight of its Ingenuity Mars helicopter after a crucial test-spin of the drone’s rotor blades abruptly stopped. This was the last major test to make sure the helicopter would be ready for its first flight, which was originally scheduled for early Monday. Now NASA has delayed the historic liftoff —
Trees are the Earth’s lungs – it’s well understood they drawdown and lock up vast amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. But emerging research is showing trees can also emit methane, and it’s currently unknown just how much. This could be a major problem, given methane is a greenhouse gas about 45 times more
It’s easy to focus on all the negatives amid a traumatic global pandemic, but there are some positives, too. A new online survey has found the psychological outcomes of New Zealand’s super strict lockdown were not all bad. The study mirrors other mental health studies on COVID-19 in New Zealand, which had one of the
Rechargeable lithium-ion batteries are basically everywhere, powering everything from smartphones to notebooks, earbuds to gaming devices, and so much more. But while the convenience of this ubiquitous (and Nobel Prize-winning) battery chemistry has radically changed the way we use and charge portable technology, lithium-ion is far from perfect. The performance of lithium-ion batteries degrades over
The tropical water at the equator is renowned for having the richest diversity of marine life on Earth, with vibrant coral reefs and large aggregations of tunas, sea turtles, manta rays, and whale sharks. The number of marine species naturally tapers off as you head towards the poles. Ecologists have assumed this global pattern has
Archaeologists have found a “Lost Golden City” that’s been buried under the ancient Egyptian capital of Luxor for the past 3,000 years, the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities announced Thursday (April 8). The city, historically known as “The Rise of Aten,” was founded by Amenhotep III (ruled 1391-1353 BCE), the grandfather of Tutankhamun, or King Tut. People
Whiskers on cats and other mammals aren’t covered with sensors. Instead, the sensing is done at the base of the whisker, hidden inside a small follicle, and scientists just discovered a lot more about how this biological transmission works. Getting into the follicle to take a look at the base of whiskers would interfere with
Astrophysicists have found a new region of the Milky Way, and it’s filled with searingly hot, bright-blue stars that are about to explode. The researchers were creating the most detailed map yet of the star-flecked spiral arms of our galactic neighborhood with the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Gaia telescope when they discovered the region, which
Have you ever noticed how we usually try and solve problems by adding more, rather than taking away? More meetings, more forms, more buttons, more shelves, more systems, more code, and so on. Now scientists think they might know the reason why. A study of 1,585 people across 8 different experiments showed that our brains
A bacterium that dwells deep underground, living off chemical reactions triggered by radioactive decay, has been doing so unchanged for millions of years, new research has found. A genetic analysis of microbes of the species Candidatus Desulforudis audaxviator (CDA) collected from three different continents has revealed that the bacterium has barely evolved since they were last
Some of the oldest human art in Europe is entirely hidden from sight, tucked away in the narrow crawl spaces of deep, dark, and winding caves. To even see the walls, let alone decorate them, stone age artists would have needed to crawl around with several torches, and archaeologists now suspect all that smoke induced
We’ve known for a while that Earth is under a constant rain of space dust, and that it’s copious. Given its microscopic size, however, it’s been very hard to obtain an accurate estimate of the quantity. Such micrometeorites are no bigger than a fraction of a millimeter, shed like space dander from passing comets and asteroids.
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