For the first time, engineers have demonstrated how ‘bubbles’ of lighter grains can form in sand, just as they can in other fluids – even though granular materials tend towards mixing. Although individual grains of sand are solid, when you get a lot of them, they behave surprisingly like a fluid – think of falling
California is notorious for its earthquakes, but a stunning new discovery reveals for the first time just how much we’ve underestimated its omnipresent earth-shaking potential. By the time you just about finish reading this story, in fact, Southern California will probably have experienced another quake – based off a new, unprecedented deep dive into 10
Greenland, home to the Earth’s second largest ice sheet, has lost ice at an accelerating pace in the past several decades – a nearly sixfold increase that could contribute to future sea level rise, according to a new study based on nearly a half century of data. The findings, published Monday in the Proceedings of
We know that self-driving cars are promising to make the roads safer and give us more time to relax, but the energy-saving and pollution-cutting benefits are also important. Now a new study suggests those benefits might not be as big as we thought. The problem, according to researchers from the University of Michigan, is that
So you’ve discovered an unusual winged insect preserved in amber, and it happens to have a superb set of mouth parts dangling from its head. You could name it after a president’s body part, maybe. If not David Attenborough. Again. Or just do what one researcher did with a specimen that doesn’t seem to fit
We are surrounded by alien worlds. In neighbouring star systems, Earth-like planets abound, with unusual names like Proxima b, TRAPPIST–1e, Ross–128b, and LHS–1140b. Are these strange places habitable? Are they homes for life-forms we can’t yet imagine? The jury is out. While these exoplanets all orbit within the so-called habitable aka Goldilocks zones of their
The Cassini mission to Saturn and its moons wrapped up in 2017, when the spacecraft was sent plunging into the gas giant to meet its end. But there’s still a lot of data from the mission to keep scientists busy. A team of scientists working with Cassini data have made a surprising discovery: Titan’s methane-filled
Bryan Thomas doesn’t want any more “wishy-washy conversations about climate change.” For four years, he has served as station chief of the Barrow Atmospheric Baseline Observatory, America’s northernmost scientific outpost in its fastest-warming state. Each morning, after digging through snow to his office’s front door, Thomas checks the preliminary number on the observatory’s carbon dioxide monitor.
A beautiful spring morning at the Topeka Zoo in Kansas turned tragic Saturday when a male Sumatran tiger attacked a keeper, inflicting wounds that sent her to a hospital. Although keepers are never supposed to be in the same space as the tigers, they found themselves together in the outdoor habitat that morning for reasons
The human face is unique yet universal, mechanical yet expressive, modern yet ancient. For over 4 million years, our features have slowly morphed into what we see today in the mirror, a brief stop on the way to who knows what. From early hominins to modern Homo sapiens, a new review written by leading experts
A test of the emergency escape system for SpaceX’s new spacecraft designed to carry NASA astronauts into orbit went awry on Saturday, and an unverified video making the rounds on Twitter claims to show just how bad the anomaly was. On Saturday afternoon, SpaceX attempted a static-fire test of the emergency abort system on its
The line between human-made materials and living organisms just got more blurred. Researchers have created a new biomaterial that isn’t alive, but which exhibits three key traits for life: metabolism, self-assembly, and organisation. The new material can crawl forward like a slime mould, growing new strands from the front as the old ones at the
Butterflies are like the Bear Grylls of the Amazon rainforest. Faced with a nutrient-poor environment, these beautiful creatures will drink just about anything to survive. That goes for muddy river banks, sweaty clothing, puddles of urine, and of course, the ‘tears’ of turtles. It’s hard to believe until you see it with your own eyes.
The Pacific Ocean off the California coast is mixed up, and so are many of the animals that live there. The violet, thumbnail-size snails washing up here in Horseshoe Cove have never been seen this far north. By-the-wind sailors, a tiny relative of warm-water jellyfish, sprinkle the tideline by the dozen. And in the tide
When severe weather threatens, meteorologists use maps to show where storms are located and where they’re headed. They want their audiences to know if they’re in the path of the storm. But research has shown a substantial percentage of people can’t place themselves on a map, a potential problem if a tornado or violent storm
NASA’s new planet-hunting telescope, TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite), just found its first Earth-sized world. Though the Earth-sized planet, and its hot sub-Neptune companion, were first observed by TESS in January 2019, it’s taken until now to confirm their status with ground-based follow-up observations. The discovery is published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. When TESS was
Beresheet, the unlikely lander built with donations to a non-profit group, crashed into the Moon. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a historic accomplishment in its own way. Now SpaceIL, the non-profit behind Beresheet, wants to send another lander to the Moon. The Beresheet lander crashed into the Moon last week, on its final descent.
After years of chastising us for failing to safely eject USB drives from computers, Microsoft has done the unthinkable: finally acknowledging it’s okay to yank that sucker out and live your best life. Ever since USB drives became a thing, the Windows maker has warned and admonished computer users for not safely removing external hardware
On 22 March 2015, NASA’s Chandra X-ray observatory recorded a blip in its data. Not far from the southern constellation of Fornax, something brightened, then slowly faded away. Thanks to a new technique, now we know that blip was two neutron stars colliding, 6.6 billion light-years from Earth. We also know that when neutron stars
A deep-rooted preference for sons over daughters has skewed the world’s sex ratios more than we thought. A massive five-year analysis has found that since 1970, sex-selective abortions in a dozen countries have resulted in 23 million ‘missing’ girls. These are women that were never born, and yet today, their absence is palpable, especially in
Two incredible tombs in Egypt have been discovered in such an exceptional state of preservation that even the murals on the walls have retained their dazzling hues. One of the tombs is in the Akhmim necropolis in the province of Sohag – discovered because a gang of tomb robbers carrying out an illegal excavation was
There’s something about the meandering streak of lightning that implies random chaos. Yet bolts from the blue not only hit the same places with regularity, but successive discharges often reuse the exact same channel. It’s never been entirely clear how the path laid down by one bolt sticks around for repeat performances, but new research
Working on an oil rig, hundreds of kilometres out to sea, things can get a bit lonely. Visitors of any sort are unusual. Those on four legs even more so. Last Friday, workers on a Chevron oil rig in Thailand were shocked to discover a lost dog, swimming in the ocean 220 kilometres from the
There’s a trick to night-time photography: longer exposures. They soak up more light, making everything pop brilliantly in your shot, provided your camera stays really, really still. Of course, most of the time, we’re still only talking extra seconds of exposure time, maybe minutes. Okay, in rare cases, hours. But a team of amateur astronomer
After decades of searching, scientists have finally detected in space the first molecular bond that would have formed in the early Universe after the Big Bang. The unambiguous discovery of the helium hydride ion HeH+ in the planetary nebula NGC 7027 brings to a close an epic hunt to locate the elusive molecule in outer
When it comes to the kinds of technology needed to contain a sun, there are currently just two horses in the race. Neither is what you’d call ‘petite’. An earlier form of fusion technology that barely made it out of the starting blocks has just overcome a serious hurdle. It’s got a long way to
It was unprecedented. In 2017, astronomers discovered the first known interstellar object in our Solar System: ‘Oumuamua, a mysterious cigar-shaped enigma, identified as our first visitor from outer, outer space. But just because ‘Oumuamua was the first detected interstellar object, doesn’t mean it was the first ever. Just five years ago, in fact, Earth’s atmosphere
The world watched in horror Monday night while flames tore through the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. As fire consumed the roof and toppled its iconic central spire, it seemed as though the historic church could be lost forever – but it’s possible, thanks to cutting-edge imagining technology, that all hope may not be lost.
Just when you think orcas couldn’t possible be any more awesome, they get even better. New evidence shows these whales are really good at scaring off the most feared beast in the sea. Yep. Orcas have toppled the great white shark off their ‘apex predator’ throne. A team of marine scientists has found that great
Britain was something of a late bloomer as far as the Neolithic Revolution goes. While Europe sweated it out growing crops and dragging stones into circles, communities over the channel were still happily foraging and hunting for food. An analysis of ancient remains by an international team of researchers has filled in missing details on
The “over versus under” toilet paper argument has been waged in bathrooms everywhere since it was first invented. Plenty of space online in the form of polls and listicles has been dedicated to the proper way to orient our toilet paper. The subject even has its own section on Wikipedia filled with arguments for “over”
As Earth makes its annual passage through the tail of comet C/1861 G1, or Thatcher, we’re treated to the spectacular sight of meteors burning up in the atmosphere. This is the Lyrid meteor shower, and it comes around every April. This year, the lovely team at the Giant Magellan Telescope has put together a beautiful
The dog-like robots from Boston Dynamics are back with another video, albeit this time the video is less focused on virality and more a demonstration of raw power. Behold, 10 robot dogs pulling a large truck: (Boston Dynamics/YouTube) Pretty intense, no? Don’t get too worried – these little guys aren’t coming to pull your house
The road to reusable space rockets was always going to be a bumpy one, such are the technical challenges involved. SpaceX has been making excellent progress, but just had its latest bump – having its central Falcon Heavy booster fall over in choppy seas off the coast of Florida. The booster rocket had successfully touched
Scientists have developed a first-of-its-kind device that generates electricity from nothing other than the natural phenomenon of snowfall. Based upon the principles of the triboelectric effect, in which electrical charge is generated after two materials come into contact with one another, the researchers’ new technology exploits the fact that snow particles carry a positive electrical
Meteorites are a bit like fruitcake – chunks of mineral held together by a stone matrix. Those mineral inclusions can contain some pretty fascinating glimpses into the stuff of the Solar System – but now scientists have found something they’ve never seen before. In a meteorite recovered from Antarctica in 2002 is a tiny, ancient
In August of 2016, astronomers from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) announced the discovery of an exoplanet in the neighboring system of Proxima Centauri. The news was greeted with considerable excitement, as this was the closest rocky planet to our Solar System that also orbited within its star’s habitable zone. Since then, multiple studies have
An archaeological survey in Oxfordshire, England has produced another macabre mystery: 26 ancient skeletons in burial pits, suspected to be around 3,000 years old, dating back to the Iron Age before the Roman occupation of Britain. What makes the find even more intriguing is evidence suggesting the pits were used for ritual burials. The chthonic
There’s more to the wind than meets the eye. As it whips around the world, this invisible force can carry dangerous passengers to some of the most untouched regions, including dust particles, microbes, and maybe even plastic. A small pilot study now suggests that tiny fragments of this synthetic material are raining down in some
In what the Israeli media is calling a “world’s first,” scientists at Tel Aviv University have 3D printed a small heart using human tissue that includes vessels, collagen, and biological molecules – a breakthrough, according to Haaretz, that they hope could one day render organ donation obsolete. The technology is still many years out from
In his 89 years of life, Dutch physician Jan Karbaat crowned himself “a pioneer in the field of fertilisation”. Today, his reputation is anything but. Last week, DNA tests confirmed what 49 adults have long suspected. Decades ago, when each of their mothers had sought treatment from Karbaat, the fertility doctor had impregnated them not
Humanity could be on the verge of an unprecedented merging of human biology with advanced technology, fusing our thoughts and knowledge directly with the cloud in real-time – and this incredible turning point may be just decades away, scientists say. In a new research paper exploring what they call the ‘human brain/cloud interface’, scientists explain
We think of the Moon as a dry and dusty sort of place, but over the years, scientists have learnt that Earth’s satellite is actually rather loaded with water – in volcanic deposits, in its chilly poles, in the permanent shadows of its craters. But it looks like water has also been hiding somewhere else,
Proof that families come in all shapes, sizes and species, three eagles – two dads and a mom – are raising three, fluffy-feathered eaglets in a nest near the Mississippi River this spring. According to the Stewards of the Upper Mississippi River Refuge, all three birds, Valor I, Valor II (dads) and Starr (mom), “take
In a bid to learn more about the way the human brain develops, scientists in China have added a human brain gene to the genome of rhesus monkeys. It’s called MC HP 1, or microcephalin, and it’s involved in regulating the foetal growth of the brain. The addition does seem to have made the monkeys
Less than a week ago, the world was blown away by the first-ever direct image of a black hole‘s event horizon. But this now world-famous object doesn’t really have an official name, although a few options are now vying for legitimacy. The galaxy that contains this supermassive black hole is called NGC 4486 or Messier
Stratolaunch, the massive aircraft dreamed up by the late Paul Allen, flew for the first time on Saturday, becoming the largest plane by wingspan ever to take to the skies. Larger than Howard Hughes’s Spruce Goose – which flew only once, in 1947- Stratolaunch lifted off from the Mojave Air and Space Port in the
A Florida man was killed on Friday by what ornithologists say is the “world’s most dangerous bird“. It was a cassowary – an enormous, flightless bird around which even experienced zookeepers take precautions. He raised the animal on his farm, along with other exotic birds, authorities said. Police identified the man as 75-year-old Marvin Hajos.
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