Throughout all known space, between the stars and the galaxies, an extremely faint glow suffuses, a relic left over from the dawn of the Universe. This is the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the first light that could travel through the Universe when it cooled enough around 380,000 years after the Big Bang for ions and electrons
Skywatchers admiring November’s full moon will also get to see another treat: a penumbral eclipse, when the Moon passes through Earth’s outer shadow, on Monday, November 30, according to NASA. The Moon will be at its fullest for only a moment — on Monday, that happens at 4:30 am EST (9:30 UTC) — but the
First we discovered platypus would look great at a rave, now wombats, bilbies and other marsupials can join the blacklight party – with scientists unexpectedly finding they all glow wonderfully fluorescent greens, blues and pinks beneath UV light. Over the last few years scientists have found biofluorescence is more common across mammals than we realised
It seems that Earth has been misplaced. According to a new map of the Milky Way galaxy, the Solar System’s position isn’t where we thought it was. Not only is it closer to the galactic centre – and the supermassive hole therein, Sagittarius A* – it’s orbiting at a faster clip. It’s nothing to be
A dwindling tribe of chimpanzees in Guinea that gained global fame for uncanny abilities to use tools has a glimmer of hope after its last fertile female gave birth. The tiny community of apes lives in a forest around the village of Bossou, in the far southeastern corner of the country. Scientists have trekked to
The discovery of a creature described as resembling a “buck-toothed toucan” that lived some 68 million years ago has upended assumptions about diversity in the birds that lived alongside dinosaurs. At less than nine centimetres (3.5 inches) long, the delicate skull of the bird scientists have dubbed Falcatakely forsterae might be easily overlooked. In fact,
Space is a hostile place. We may have developed the technology to launch astronauts into orbit and get them home safely, but scientists are still figuring out how space travel affects human health, especially over the long haul. That’s essential before any planned missions to Mars go ahead, to assure the health and safety of
Archaeologists have uncovered a “treasure trove” of artifacts as another major ice patch melts away in the Norwegian mountains, revealing a total of 68 arrows and many more items from an ancient reindeer hunting site. The earliest finds go back some 6,000 years, according to radiocarbon dating. They include reindeer bones and antlers, as well
The question of whether a 7-million-year-old primate, nicknamed ‘Toumai,’ walked on two or four legs has whipped up drama amongst palaeontologists – complete with a vanishing femur. Since the discovery of Sahelanthropus tchadensis’s first fossil back in 2001, it has often been cited as our earliest known hominin ancestor. Initial analysis suggested that Sahelanthropus regularly walked upright
The surface of the Sun is a turbulent dance of gravity, plasma, and magnetic fields. Much like the weather on Earth, its behavior can seem unpredictable, but there are patterns to be found when you look closely. The first pattern to be observed on the solar surface was that of sunspots. Sunspots were noticed by
For a long time, Hawai’i Island has been home to a mystery. Somehow, the amount of freshwater in underground aquifers has seemed much smaller than it should be, given the amount of rainfall. Scientists have just found out why. Deep underground, running below the island’s coast, vast quantities of freshwater are transported from the flanks of
The largest sharks ever to have roamed the oceans parked their young in shallow, warm-water nurseries where food was abundant and predators scarce until they could assume their title as kings and queens of the sea. But as sea levels declined in a cooling world, the brutal mega-predator, Otodus megalodons, may have found fewer and
An Egyptian mummy that was decorated with a woman’s portrait contained a surprise – the body of a child who was only 5 years old when she died. Now, scientists have learned more about the mysterious girl and her burial, thanks to high-resolution scans and X-ray ”microbeams” that targeted very small regions in the intact artifact. Computed X-ray tomography (CT)
In June of 1670 – almost exactly 350 years ago – French astronomer Voituret Anthelme recorded a ‘new’ star in the sky. In the Northern constellation of Vulpecula, a pinpoint of light flared into brightness before gradually fading from view with the naked eye over a year later. The event was classified as a nova,
An extremely magnetised star 16,700 light-years away could be the next clue in solving the mystery of fast radio bursts. In data from observations of the magnetar 1E 1547.0-5408 taken in 2009, astronomers have just discovered a pair of bursts of radio emission that look incredibly similar to bursts from SGR 1935+2154 – a magnetar
Who embedded a large metal monolith in the remote Utah desert? State wildlife officials are scratching their heads after discovering a bizarre 10-foot-tall (3 meters) installation in Red Rock Country in southeastern Utah. The shiny silver rectangle sits in the center of the dead end of one of the many shallow rock ravines that scour this desert
Two of Charles Darwin’s notebooks containing his pioneering ideas on evolution and his famous “Tree of Life” sketch are missing, believed stolen, the Cambridge University Library said on Tuesday. The British scientist filled the leather notebooks in 1837 after returning from his voyage on the HMS Beagle. The library said they were worth millions of
Before we start mining for precious metals in the darkness of the deep sea, we might try switching on the light first and observing our surroundings. In this seemingly isolated abyss, at deeper than 3,000 metres (9,800 ft) below sea level, scientists were able to coax a massive swarm of 115 cutthroat eels (Ilyophis arx)
How might The Terminator have played out if Skynet had decided it probably wasn’t responsible enough to hold the keys to the entire US nuclear arsenal? As it turns out, scientists may just have saved us from such a future AI-led apocalypse, by creating neural networks that know when they’re untrustworthy. These deep learning neural
When a dead thresher shark washed up onshore, it was obvious what had killed it – a swordfish had stabbed it from behind and left a large hunk of its “sword” embedded in the beast, a new study finds. No one saw the actual attack, so it’s unclear why the swordfish jabbed the shark. But
For decades, planetary geologists have studied tiny chunks of lunar rock to unravel the Moon’s mysteries. The rocks have revealed how old the Moon is, helped scientists estimate the age of other planets, and offered insight into how turbulent our Solar System once was. But nobody has collected any new Moon rocks for more than 40 years.
Ants are pretty organised little creatures. Highly social insects, they know how to forage, build complicated nests, steal your pantry snacks, and generally look after the queens and the colony, all by working together. Leaf-cutter ants turn that cooperation up several notches. Leaf-cutter ant colonies like Acromyrmex echinatior can contain millions of ants, split into
When stars like the Sun reach the end of their lives, the object that remains is a white dwarf. This is the star’s shrunken, naked core, no longer capable of nuclear fusion. It shines, but only with residual heat, slowly cooling over billions of years until it’s completely cold and dark. But not all white
The mighty Arecibo telescope will be closed forever, the US National Science Foundation has decided. But the radio telescope which brought us confirmation of the first exoplanet in 1992 will undoubtedly live on in the hearts and minds of scientists, many of who took to social media to mourn the end of an era and to
Just before going into a hallucinogenic trance, Indigenous Californians who had gathered in a cave likely looked up toward the rocky ceiling, where a pinwheel and big-eyed moth were painted in red. This mysterious “pinwheel,” is likely a depiction of the delicate, white flower of Datura wrightii, a powerful hallucinogen that the Chumash people took not
We’ve seen evidence that COVID-19 lockdowns have reduced at least some forms of pollution, temporarily – but the overall picture remains disturbingly grim, according to new figures from the United Nations’ World Meteorological Organisation (WMO). The WMO says that there will be a reduction in global CO2 emissions for 2020 – but that it won’t
The origins of life, a few billion years ago, were humble. Single-celled organisms squirming in the ooze, over millions and billions of years developing into multi-celled plants and, eventually, animals. But when and how these evolutionary spurts occurred has been difficult to puzzle out. Organic material doesn’t necessarily preserve well, and when it does, we
Every now and then, Earth reminds us it’s capable of releasing some furious energy. Case in point: scientists have just detected a new extreme in hotspots of lightning activity called ‘superbolts’: intense lightning strikes that shine up to 1,000 times brighter than typical lightning strikes. The observations come from researchers at the US Los Alamos
We often hear about people being “in the zone” when they have excelled, be it at sport, playing music, video gaming, or going for a run. For decades, researchers have tried to find out what the zone is and how to enter it. And the assumption has been that there is one zone that we
In the dusty desert town of Woomera, in the South Australian desert, scientists are getting ready. On 6 December 2020, after six years in space, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft will finally return to Earth. It carries with it a cargo unbelievably rare, precious, and hard-won – at least 100 milligrams of material
The remains of two victims of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius almost 2,000 years ago have been unearthed at a grand villa on the fringes of Pompeii, officials at the archaeological site said Saturday. “Two skeletons of individuals caught in the fury of the eruption have been found,” the officials at the Italian site near
On Wednesday night, around 100 kilometres (60 miles) south of Australia’s Tasmanian coast, those on board the research vessel Investigator witnessed something amazing. At 9:21 pm local time, a bright green meteor streaked across the sky before breaking up over the Tasman Sea – disappearing from view in just a few short seconds. If anything
Star-gazers are in for a treat over Christmas, as Jupiter and Saturn will get closer to each other in Earth’s night sky than they have been for nearly 800 years. Set up your telescope, hope for a clear night, and get ready. The celestial synchronisation has been in the works since summer as Jupiter and
As our need for electronic gadgets and sensors grows, scientists are coming up with new ways to keep devices powered for longer on less energy. The latest sensor to be invented in the lab can go for a whole year on a single burst of energy, aided by a physics phenomenon known as quantum tunnelling.
In July of 2015, NASA’s New Horizons probe made history when it became the first mission ever to conduct a close flyby of Pluto. This was followed by the spacecraft making the first-ever encounter with a Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) – known as Arrokoth (AKA 2014 MU69) – on 31 December 2018. In addition, its unique position in the outer Solar System has
Microplastics of our own making are turning up in the rain, wind, soil, and snow of the most remote and mountainous regions on our planet. First they were found in the French Pyrenees. Then it was the North American Rocky Mountains. Now it’s Nepal’s Sagarmāthā National Park – home of Mount Everest, the tallest peak
Several countries in East Africa – namely Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, and South Sudan – are still trying to contain the worst desert locust invasion the region has experienced in over 70 years. The locusts have destroyed vegetation – especially staple cereal crops, legumes, and pastures – resulting in huge economic losses. The World Bank estimates
Greenland is the largest island in the world and on it rests the largest ice mass in the Northern Hemisphere. If all that ice melted, the sea would rise by more than 7 metres. But that’s not going to happen, is it? Well, not any time soon, but understanding how much of the ice sheet
Leonardo da Vinci is famous for his elaborate, nuanced artworks and advanced technological ideas. But new research has revealed another level of complexity to his drawings: a hidden world of tiny life-forms on his artwork. The findings, the researchers said, could help build a microbiome “catalogue” for artwork. Each of the pieces had a unique
The clouds that hang low and thick in our sky, reflecting sunlight back out into space, are melting into thin air as the world warms. The loss will not only trigger greater climate changes than we expected, but new research suggests it could also undermine the potential of future geoengineering solutions. The idea of seeding
Is that light particle more like a ball careening through space, or more of a smeary mess that is everywhere at once? The answer depends on whether the absurd laws of subatomic particles or the deterministic equations that govern larger objects hold more sway. Now, for the first time, physicists have found a way to
Telling faces apart has been an important social skill in the evolution of our species. But our ability to recognise faces actually varies much more than you might think. On the one end of the scale are those with face blindness – a condition where people struggle to recognise faces at all. At the other end are
Some of the Milky Way’s oldest stars aren’t where we expect them to be. One of the ways we categorize stars is by their metallicity. That is the fraction of heavier elements a star has compared to hydrogen and helium. It’s a useful metric because the metallicity of a star is a good measure of
In images from the Hubble Space Telescope, scientists have spotted an entirely new phenomenon. Reaching tens of thousands of light-years into the void of space, vast shadows stretch from the centre of the galaxy IC 5063, as though something is blocking the bright light from therein. You’ve probably seen something very like it before – bright
We live in an age of division. Of red hats versus blue votes. Black lives versus blue lines. Green energy versus gold purses. Society, it seems, is melting like some proverbial iceberg. It’s a metaphor that extends beyond the poetic. A model of social cohesion created by researchers from the Complexity Science Hub Vienna draws
Life on planet Earth is a fragile thing. All it takes is one wayward asteroid, and bam, there goes the most dominant group of land animals on our planet. If it wasn’t for the 10 kilometre-wide meteorite that hurtled into Earth some 66 million years ago, dinosaurs might have continued to dominate the land, a
In 2004, astronomers found something really weird. Around 6,200 light-years away, a star was found surrounded by a ring-shaped nebula glowing in invisible ultraviolet light. There’s nothing else quite like it in the Milky Way galaxy, making it difficult to figure out how and why the object, named the Blue Ring Nebula, got that way.
More than 500 years ago, a medieval soldier’s dead body settled at the bottom of a Lithuanian lake, and for centuries it lay hidden beneath the mud. Now, those submerged remains have finally been found. The skeleton was discovered during an underwater inspection of the old Dubingiai bridge in eastern Lithuania’s Lake Asveja. Though the skeleton lay under a
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