Victoria Falls is said to be the largest waterfall on Earth, and Angel Falls the highest, but no matter how impressive they might look to us, both these natural wonders fall far short of the true victors. The largest and most powerful waterfalls we know of are actually surrounded by water, deep beneath the lapping
Month: July 2020
The perilous rise of our seas is pushing tides, waves and storms further inland from our shores – so much so, that in the coming century, scientists predict enormous swathes of land will be regularly inundated by water. By 2100, if we have failed to put up defences and do nothing to curb our global
Before our Solar System had planets, it had planetesimals. Scientists think that most of the meteorites that have struck Earth are fragments of these planetesimals. Scientists also think that these planetesimals either melted completely, very early in their history, or that they remained as little more than collections of rocks, or “rubble piles”. But one
Here’s the story – our protagonist rewinds history, locates baby Hitler, and averts global war by putting him on a path to peace … but, oh noes! This sets off a domino chain of events that stops our hero from being born, or worse, kicks off the apocalypse. Unintended ‘butterfly effect‘-style consequences of time travel might be
NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, who made spaceflight history on May 30 by becoming the first people to launch to orbit aboard a SpaceX vehicle, might see their weekend homecoming plans thrown to the wind. After docking SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Endeavour ship to the International Space Station and spending two months there, the men are preparing to
Away from the glare of civilisation’s blinding lights, an unimpeded view of the night sky makes you feel like you’re standing on the shores of eternity. But there is one place on Earth where the sights stretch just that little bit further than anywhere else. Researchers have measured the clarity of the stars at a
Mars 2020, the spaceship carrying NASA’s new rover Perseverance to the Red Planet, experienced technical difficulties and was temporarily running on essential systems only, the agency said Thursday. “Data indicate the spacecraft had entered a state known as safe mode, likely because a part of the spacecraft was a little colder than expected while Mars
A rocket carrying NASA’s most ambitious Mars rover yet has launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, though its crucial journey through space is just beginning. The Perseverance rover and its landing apparatus is packed inside the top of a 197-foot Atlas V rocket at Cape Canaveral, Florida, Thursday morning. At 7:50 am ET, the rocket’s boosters fired and
On Thursday morning, NASA will launch its fifth Mars rover: A robotic scientist the size of an SUV. The $US2.4 billion, nuclear-powered vehicle, named Perseverance (“Percy” for short) is designed to trundle along the Martian surface, mine for signs of ancient life, capture high-quality video and audio, and collect rock and soil samples for an eventual return
Elon Musk‘s growing constellation of internet satellites has been sending streaks of bright light across night skies around the world. Even the biggest comet to pass Earth in 25 years wasn’t spared. A striking photo showing Comet Neowise behind those streaks of light shows how easily the satellites can upstage observations of distant objects in
Stonehenge, a Neolithic wonder in southern England, has vexed historians and archaeologists for centuries with its many mysteries: How was it built? What purpose did it serve? Where did its towering sandstone boulders come from? That last question may finally have an answer after a study published Wednesday found that most of the giant stones
It’s not just honeybees that pollinate our crops and put food on our plates. In North America alone there are roughly 4,000 species of native bee, and new research has calculated these wild insects provide over US$1.5 billion each year from pollinating just a handful of crops. Analysing the production of 131 commercial farms in
For the first time, scientists have observed that ‘megaripples’ on Mars – huge sand waves seen on the Martian surface – are moving structures, and not ancient relics stuck in place since the Red Planet’s distant past. Megaripples, which also occur in deserts on Earth, are generally larger than smaller sand ripples, and are composed
Researchers have successfully revived tiny microbes trapped dormant in a seemingly lifeless zone of the seabed for more than 100 million years. A team of scientists from Japan and America were looking to see whether microscopic life survives in the less-than-hospitable conditions beneath the seafloor of the Pacific Ocean. “We wanted to know how long
Air pollution cuts life expectancy for every man, woman, and child on Earth by nearly two years, according to data released Tuesday which experts said showed poor air quality is “the greatest risk to human health”. The Air Quality Life Index (AQLI) said that as the world races to find a vaccine to bring the
Dozens of US states have reported mysterious seeds showing up in packages from China and are warning citizens not to plant them because they could be an invasive species. The US Department of Agriculture said Tuesday that it was investigating the unsolicited packages of seeds reported by at least 27 states and urged anyone who
Fourteen years after receiving the official go-ahead, scientists on Tuesday began assembling a giant machine in southern France designed to demonstrate that nuclear fusion, the process which powers the Sun, can be a safe and viable energy source on Earth. The groundbreaking multinational experiment, known as the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), has seen components arrive in
Common chemicals nicknamed ‘forever chemicals‘ for their tendency to stick around in the environment for a disconcertingly long time have been detected in Arctic seawater. PFAS (per and polyfluoroalkyl substances) chemicals are used in a lot of household products. While the effects of PFAS on human health are still being debated, they have been detected in
Scientists have developed an experimental device and protocol for manipulating the content of people’s dreams while they are sleeping, by making them recall specific cues that can trigger targeted dream themes and experiences. While the boundless dream-building of Inception remains the stuff of science fiction for now, the new research shows that the evolving science
Humans are about to make history by sending a little piece of a Martian rock back to the surface of Mars for the first time ever. The meteorite fragment Sayh al Uhaymir 008 (or SaU 008) will hitch a ride on the 2020 NASA Perseverance rover mission on Thursday – some 600,000 years after it
Norway’s Arctic archipelago Svalbard on Saturday recorded its highest-ever temperature, the country’s meteorological institute reported. According to scientific study, global warming in the Arctic is happening twice as fast as for the rest of the planet. For the second day in a row, the archipelago registered 21.2 degrees Celsius (70.2 Fahrenheit) in the afternoon, just
A first-of-its-kind artificial intelligence (AI) study of romantic relationships based on data from thousands of couples has identified the top predictors that make partners feel positively about their relationship – and the findings show romantic happiness is about a lot more than simply who you’re with. Researchers conducted a machine-learning analysis of data collected from
NASA on Monday gave its latest Mars rover Perseverance the all clear to launch later this week on a mission to seek out signs of ancient microbial life. “The launch readiness review is complete, and we are indeed go for launch,” administrator Jim Bridenstine said. “We are in extraordinary times right now with the coronavirus
While greenhouse gases are warming Earth’s surface, they’re also causing rapid cooling far above us, at the edge of space. In fact, the upper atmosphere about 90 kilometres (56 miles) above Antarctica is cooling at a rate 10 times faster than the average warming at the planet’s surface. Our new research has precisely measured this
Living in the present can be a present in itself, but during a global pandemic, when the world is in crisis, reflecting only on the ‘now’ might not be your best tactic. If we want to get through this tragedy stronger than ever, psychologist Jennifer Aaker and Szu-chi Huang from Stanford University argue we need
A stunning flash of ultraviolet light from an exploding white dwarf has been detected by astronomers for only the second time, and could give researchers important clues about what spurs the demise of these ancient, spent stars. Researchers became aware of this unusual supernova – called SN2019yvq – last December, only a day after the
It’s common knowledge that the Sun is the centre of the Solar System. Around it, the planets orbit – along with a thick belt of asteroids, some meteor fields, and a handful of far-travelling comets. But that’s not the whole story. “Instead, everything orbits the Solar System centre of mass,” James O’Donoghue, a planetary scientist
We have developed four-winged bird-like robots, called ornithopters, that can take off and fly with the agility of swifts, hummingbirds and insects. We did this by reverse engineering the aerodynamics and biomechanics of these creatures. Our ornithopters have the potential to outperform and outmanoeuvre existing drone configurations with static wings or propellers. What are ornithopters?
The Hubble space telescope has spent the past 30 years orbiting 547 km (340 miles) above Earth. The ageing satellite has had a couple of hiccups in the last few years, but it’s not done taking incredible photos of our cosmic backyard yet. For example, earlier this month, Hubble flexed its Solar System chops, and
During a visit to a bookstore a few weeks ago, we couldn’t help but stare at a display unit featuring no fewer than 10 books telling you how to rid plastics from your daily life. We’re bombarded by information on the topic of marine litter and plastic pollution, but how much do we really know
Understanding what’s going on in the mind of toddlers is helpful in improving everything from education and parenting to pre-school entertainment, and new research sheds light on how these young kids react to a feeling we’ve all had at some point: uncertainty. In tests with a total of 160 toddlers aged between 25 and 32
This stunning image captured last year by physicists at the University of Glasgow in Scotland is the first-ever photo of quantum entanglement – a phenomenon so strange, physicist Albert Einstein famously described it as ‘spooky action at a distance’. It might not look like much, but just stop and think about it for a second:
China has launched its Tianwen-1 mission to Mars. A rocket holding an orbiter, lander and rover took flight from the country’s Hainan province earlier this week, with hopes to deploy the rover on Mars’s surface by early next year. Similarly, the launch of the Emirates Mars Mission last Sunday marked the Arab world’s foray into interplanetary
As plants begin to spread across melting permafrost, scientists are growing ever more worried their roots will stir microbes into unleashing vast stores of carbon. To scientists, roots are known as rhizomes, and when these tendrils extend deeper into the soil, it accelerates microbial decomposition by up to fourfold, potentially ‘priming’ the frozen ground for
Nearly a century after experiments confirmed that atoms, matter’s smallest building blocks, have ethereal, wave-like characteristics, physicists have just found a new way to show how mammoth-sized molecules ripple with the same uncertainty. Researchers from the University of Vienna and the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany, put a new spin on a classic experiment to create
In the very early days of the Solar System, baby Earth may have taken a much shorter time to form than we previously thought. According to an analysis in February 2020, there’s evidence that most of Earth took just 5 million years to come together – several times shorter than current models suggest. This revision
Thermosets are some of the toughest plastics around. They’re used in products that have to be particularly durable and heat-resistant – but that also makes them very difficult to break down and recycle. That could change with the help of new research into the chemical bonds that hold these thermosets together. The study suggests that
Spiral galaxies look nice and tidy, with most of their stars and gas confined to a disc neatly arranged in swirling spiral arms. But there’s a lot more to a galaxy than what we can see, as a new image of invisible phenomena adroitly demonstrates. The image shows a galaxy called NGC 4217, around 67
Landsat 8 strikes again. Landsat 8 is the United States Geological Survey’s most recently launched satellite, and it holds the powerful Operational Land Imager (OLI.) The OLI is a powerful multi-spectral imager with a wide dynamic range. The OLI does a great job of keeping an eye on Earth, and now it’s captured images of
Our collective pandemic experience has made us keenly aware that bats have an uncanny ability to carry around deadly viruses, but somehow still survive. There is a lot we don’t yet know about this enviable virus resistance – along with other bat abilities, such as extreme longevity – but new highly-detailed genome sequences may provide
Many expecting fathers claim they’d love to take on the aching back, cramped organs, and painful contractions of their partner’s pregnancy. But so far, the male seahorse is the only vertebrate to make good on such a swap. These remarkable fish can hold more than 1,000 embryos in a ‘brood pouch’ for up to a
US officials and scientists have begun laying the groundwork for a more secure “virtually unhackable” internet based on quantum computing technology. At a presentation Thursday, Department of Energy (DOE) officials issued a report that lays out a blueprint strategy for the development of a national quantum internet, using laws of quantum mechanics to transmit information
Energy generated from nuclear fusion holds plenty of potential as a clean and almost limitless source of power, but many obstacles need to be overcome before it’s a practical reality – and scientists may have just clambered over another one. New models of an unwanted fusion phenomenon called ‘chirping’, where vital heat can be lost
It’s been busily orbiting and observing Jupiter and its moons for four years now, but the scientific spacecraft Juno still has some surprises to share. For the first time, it has imaged the north pole of one of the oddest objects in the Solar System, Jupiter’s moon Ganymede. There, the constant rain of plasma from
The United States accused Russia on Thursday of test-firing an anti-satellite weapon in space, warning that the threat against Washington’s systems was “real, serious and increasing.” US Space Command “has evidence” that Moscow “conducted a non-destructive test of a space-based anti-satellite weapon” on July 15, it said in a statement. “Last week’s test is another
A massive survey of the world’s coral reefs has turned up a shocking decline in the populations of reef sharks. Over a three year period, almost no sharks at all were recorded at 19 percent of the reefs being monitored, meaning the predators are “functionally extinct” in up to eight nations. The cause is likely
Scattered through the genomes of humans around the world we can find remnants of a Neanderthal ancestry. In some, this bestows resilience to illness, or even a unique head shape. A rare few, it seems, have inherited the Neanderthals‘ sensitive side. Evolutionary geneticists have taken a close look at a genetic variation in Neanderthal DNA
A new DNA study published Thursday sheds fresh light on the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade, from the legacy of rape that can be seen in today’s genetics to how disease likely decimated some groups forced to work in deadly conditions. For example, DNA from one African region may be under-represented in the US
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- Next Page »