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
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.
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
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
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
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
Astronomers have discovered evidence of water vapor in the atmosphere of Jupiter’s moon Ganymede for the first time. Ganymede, the largest moon in the Solar System, is covered in an icy crust. Scientists believe Ganymede may have a liquid ocean 100 miles (161 km) beneath its surface, and that such an ocean could host aquatic
In April 1998, light from the explosive death of a massive star 120 million light-years away irradiated Earth. This was SN 1998bw, the very first collapsar supernova to be observed, emitted by a massive stellar core undergoing gravitational collapse, and the very first supernova to be associated with a gamma-ray burst. Now, astronomers have detected
A lagoon in Argentina’s southern Patagonia region has turned bright pink in a striking, but frightful phenomenon experts and activists blame on pollution by a chemical used to preserve prawns for export. The color is caused by sodium sulfite, an anti-bacterial product used in fish factories, whose waste is blamed for contaminating the Chubut river
In a strange turn of events, researchers in Mexico have announced they plan to rebury an unusual archaeological monument found in the outskirts of Mexico City – covering up an important historical discovery until some unknown time in the future. The discovery in question is a tunnel built centuries ago as part of the Albarradón
In 2018, a message in a bottle dating back to 1886 – 132 years ago – was found half-buried in the sand of a Western Australian beach. According to its contents, it spent more than a century swimming around, before it was discovered nearly 950 kilometres (590 miles) from where it was thrown off a
A newly developed method of levitating and manipulating tiny objects using sound waves could represent a major step forward for the technology. Engineers in Japan have figured out how to pick up objects from reflective surfaces using acoustic levitation. Although they can’t yet do so reliably, the advance could help unlock the full potential of
Planetary formation is a complicated, multilayered process. Even with the influx of data on exoplanets, there are still only two known planets that are not yet fully formed. Known as PDS 70b and PDS 70c, the two planets, which were originally found by the Very Large Telescope, are some of the best objects we have to flesh
The “little helicopter that could” has done it again. NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter on Mars, a tissue-box-sized rotorcraft that landed with the Perseverance rover in February, completed its 10th flight over the red planet on Saturday. Each Ingenuity flight has been more daring than the last. So Saturday’s flight was likely the helicopter’s riskiest yet: If
Making sense of the world after birth, let alone navigating it, isn’t something we expect human infants to do. Baby mice, however, seem to have a leg up on us when it comes to seeing the world with new eyes. Even before they have witnessed the world around them, a new study suggests newborn mice
Spanish prison authorities were baffled after a prisoner who was declared dead by three separate doctors woke up in the morgue – just hours before his own autopsy was set to commence. The prisoner, then-29-year-old Gonzalo Montoya Jiménez, was found unresponsive in his cell during a morning roll call on 7 January 2018 and had
Space is full of hazards. The Earth, and its atmosphere, does a great job of shielding us from most of them. But sometimes those hazards are more powerful than even those protections can withstand, and potentially catastrophic events can result. Some of the most commonly known potential catastrophic events are solar flares. While normal solar
Dig a teaspoon into your nearest clump of soil, and what you’ll emerge with will contain more microorganisms than there are people on Earth. We know this from lab studies that analyze samples of earth scooped from the microbial wild to determine which forms of microscopic life exist in the world beneath our feet. The
One of the most important open questions in science is how our consciousness is established. In the 1990s, long before winning the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics for his prediction of black holes, physicist Roger Penrose teamed up with anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff to propose an ambitious answer. They claimed that the brain’s neuronal system forms
An immobile probe sitting like a squat turtle on the surface of Mars has finally delivered a comprehensive picture of the red planet’s internal structure. The Mars InSight lander measured around 733 marsquakes, and used information on 35 of them, to form a picture of the crust, mantle, and core. It’s the first time seismic
Scientists on Thursday unveiled the most exhaustive database yet of the proteins that form the building blocks of life, in a breakthrough observers said would “fundamentally change biological research”. Every cell in every living organism is triggered to perform its function by proteins that deliver constant instructions to maintain health and ward off infection. Unlike
The Tollund Man is one of the most famous ‘bog bodies’ ever discovered in northern Europe. Even though the 30- to 40-year-old human was buried in a bog more than 2,400 years ago, the acidic peat has mummified his body to a remarkable degree, preserving his hair, brain, skin, nails, and intestines – even the
Average life expectancy in the US plummeted by a year and a half in 2020 – the largest single-year decline since World War II, according to a new report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Life expectancy went from nearly 79 years in 2019 to just over 77 years in 2020, the report found.
Australia’s sulphur-crested cockatoos have rapidly turned into big city birds. In Sydney, these large, white, and noisy parrots (Cacatua galerita) have fully adapted to the urban environment, quenching their thirst in public drinking fountains and foraging for food on the streets. Some have even learned how to throw open the lids of trash bins to comb through
The world’s coral reefs have reached a precipice, and only we can pull them back from the brink. According to a recent perspective, written on behalf of thousands of coral reef scientists, the coming decade will be our last chance to act. If we can limit global warming to 1.5 degrees, up to 30 percent of
At the bottom of the Treporti Channel, meters beneath the waves of the Venetian Lagoon, a series of surprising ancient structures has just been uncovered. Aligned for a distance of around 1,200 meters (3,937 feet), they suggest that, once upon a time, before sea levels rose and flooded the area, a Roman-era road stretched across
Fifty-two years after the first historical Moon landing, we’ve been given a brand new perspective of a classic Apollo-era photo. Reddit user and visual effects artist Michael Ranger, AKA rg1213, chose the iconic photo of Buzz Aldrin taken by Neil Armstrong during the Apollo 11 mission, and ‘unwrapped’ the lunar vista reflected in the astronaut’s
Looking like the Eye of Sauron from the Lord of the Rings trilogy, an ancient undersea volcano was slowly revealed by multibeam sonar 3,100 meters (10,170 ft) below our vessel, 280 kilometers (174 miles) southeast of Christmas Island. This was on day 12 of our voyage of exploration to Australia’s Indian Ocean Territories, aboard CSIRO’s dedicated
Extreme weather is striking all over the world, illustrating how vulnerable swathes of humanity are to natural disasters. Some events – like wildfires sweeping the western US – are seasonal, while others came as a total surprise. China and Western Europe were both hit by devastating floods in the past week, with a death toll
A mangled trilobite, found fossilized in Czechia, looks like it narrowly escaped becoming lunch more than 450 million years ago. All that’s left of this ancient marine arthropod is the head, but researchers think the pincers of something like a giant sea scorpion could have been what amputated its eye, scratching the shell and scarring
Chimpanzees and gorillas are not known for violence towards each other, and the two hominid species live peacefully together in certain areas – so it’s surprising and saddening that researchers have witnessed lethal fights between them for the first time. Two separate encounters were observed in the Loango National Park in Gabon in 2019. Both
‘Magic angle’ twisted trilayer graphene doesn’t only have an impressively exotic name, it might be a particularly rare type of superconductor, according to new research – one that could be useful everywhere from medical equipment to quantum computers. Scientists are finding that stacking single-atom layers of graphene on top of each other at slightly different
Once early humans figured out how to tame a wild flame – to cook food, warm the camp, extend daylight, and keep predators away – some scientists think the skill spread like wildfire. If they’re right, it means early human populations right across Africa, Europe, and Asia were trading knowledge at least 400,000 years ago.
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