Life isn’t always easy for astrophysicists: just when they’ve figured out another aspect of the patterns of movement in our Solar System, along come two of the moons of Neptune to mess everything up. The two moons in question are Naiad and Thalassa, both around 100 kilometres or 62 miles wide, which race around their
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Just as the Moon tugs at our planet’s seas, contributing to oceanic tidal waves, it also pulls at our atmosphere along with the Sun, creating waves in the sky. A new study now demonstrates how some types of ‘sky waves’ resonate around Earth, much like how sound waves resonate inside a bell. In the water,
There’s a major change happening in the Arctic. Dark waters are blooming with algae, as sunlight floods spaces long obscured by sheets of ice. Over the past two decades, there’s been a 57 percent increase in phytoplankton in the Arctic ocean, an analysis by researchers from Stanford University has revealed. That’s outpaced scientist’s expectations, and
Last year, scientists detected the most energetic gamma ray burst we’ve ever seen. A distant galaxy spat out a colossal flare in the range of a trillion electron volts (TeV), providing invaluable new insight into the physics of these incredibly energetic events. That was pretty amazing on its own – but now astrophysicists have used
Putting together a list of all the creatures great and small on the face of the Earth is no small task, but scientists have now put a plan together for how this daunting challenge might be successfully met. The potential solution outlines 10 key principles to be followed by list-makers, together with an agreed set
Although we usually have a pretty good handle on all the different kinds of blips and blobs detected by our telescopes, it would be unwise to assume we’ve seen everything there is to see out there in the big, wide Universe. Case in point: a new kind of signal spotted by radio telescopes, which has
It’s a captivating idea: build an interstellar ark, fill it with people, flora, and fauna of every kind, and set your course for a distant star! The concept is not only science fiction gold, its been the subject of many scientific studies and proposals. By building a ship that can accommodate multiple generations of human
The annual mean global temperature is likely to be at least 1 degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels in each of the next five years, the World Meteorological Organization said Thursday. The WMO said there was a 20 percent chance that it will exceed 1.5 C above 1850 to 1900 average levels in at least one
Slashing greenhouse gas emissions would probably not yield visible results until mid-century, researchers have said, cautioning that humanity must manage its expectations in the fight against global warming. Even under optimistic scenarios in which carbon pollution falls sharply, climate change will continue for decades, they reported Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications. “We need to
Look carefully, and tree rings can reveal quite a lot – including changes in the soil moisture that the trees are growing in. Now, scientists have collected 600 years of this data to better understand recent climate change, including a weather anomaly that was first noticeable in the middle of the 20th century. The new
The birth and development of civilisation on the Polynesian islands continues to be a source of fascination for historians, and new evidence shows that Native American visitors may well have been established in the area hundreds of years before European settlers. After a detailed DNA analysis of the genomes of more than 800 Polynesians and
Most of the Solar System is pretty well behaved, but in the distant reaches, out past the orbit of Neptune and far from the light of the Sun, things can get a little… strange. There are a bunch of rocks orbiting the Sun in patterns totally different from the objects found closer in. Because of
A peculiar “gel-like” substance the Chinese Yutu-2 rover discovered in a small impact crater on the far side of the Moon last year has now been identified. According to analysis of the images, and comparison with Apollo samples here on Earth, it’s exactly what you’d expect to find on the Moon: rock. More specifically, it’s
Global warming is turning clear mountain lakes green in the western United States because of an increase in algae blooms “without historical precedent”, researchers reported on Tuesday. The concentration of algae in two remote mountain lakes more than doubled in the past 70 years, researchers at Colorado State University found. Their results, published in the
The Earth’s magnetic field flips, every few hundred thousand years or so on average, which means magnetic north becomes magnetic south and vice versa (the planet doesn’t actually turn upside down). New research suggests this change of direction can happen up to 10 times faster than previously thought. That’s big news for scientists studying how
While bats live nearly all over the world, only some parts of our planet are blessed with flying foxes. So it’s no wonder that a recent photo of a huge fruit bat in the Philippines has gone viral on social media. “Remember when I told y’all about the Philippines having human-sized bats? Yeah, this was
The underwater caves along Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula contain within them a sprawling labyrinth of archaeological relics perhaps unlike anywhere else on Earth. Preserved in a vast network of flooded caverns, these inundated cenotes hold a treasure trove of Maya secrets – but as a new discovery shows, you can also find ancient artefacts dating back to
Its name was Kongonaphon kely, which means ‘tiny bug slayer’, and it was about the size of a coffee cup. But big things lay ahead for this little creature. Very big things indeed. The tiny bug slayer, which lived on Madagascar approximately 237 million years ago during the Triassic period, stood just 10 centimetres (about
A major global update based on data from more than 36,000 weather stations around the world confirms that, as the planet continues to warm, extreme weather events such as heatwaves and heavy rainfall are now more frequent, more intense, and longer. The research is based on a dataset known as HadEX and analyses 29 indices
In July of 2015, Breakthrough Initiatives announced that it was embarking on a ten-year initiative to conduct the largest Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) to date. This initiative was aptly named Breakthrough Listen, which combines state-of-the-art software and data obtained by premier observatories around the world to look for signs of extraterrestrial technological activity (aka. technosignatures). In recent
Meet the caecilian: looking like a cross between a snake and a worm, these creatures have been around for hundreds of millions of years, but scientists just made a brand new discovery about them. While caecilians are only distantly related to snakes, new research shows they appear to have similar venom glands. This is the
When you go outside and look at the sky on a clear night, it seems like nothing else could be as serene and peaceful. But many of those seemingly peaceful stars are evidence of a turbulent history – and now we’re learning to unlock their secrets. Using data from the Gaia Milky Way mapping survey,
Let’s turn back the hands of time. Before extinction knocked dinosaurs off their pillar, before the “Great Dying” extinction wiped out 95 percent of all organisms – we had the Paleozoic Era. During this age in Earth’s history, between 541 million and 252 million years ago, arthropods (animals with exoskeletons such as insects, crustaceans, scorpions,
Trapdoor spiders are an ingenious lot. They create hidden burrows with silk-hinged trapdoors from which they emerge to nab their unsuspecting prey. They’ve also proven rather slippery when it comes to naming conventions. The name ‘trapdoor spiders’ can refer to spiders from a wide range of taxonomic families across the world, and now a team
Finding a potentially habitable exoplanet isn’t as easy as you might think. Orbiting at a temperate distance from the host star is just the first step. Size and composition also play a role – as does the level of flare activity in the star. And all of that doesn’t mean much if the system is
Scientists in Italy are investigating the mysterious appearance of pink glacial ice in the Alps, caused by algae that accelerate the effects of climate change. There is debate about where the algae come from, but Biagio Di Mauro of Italy’s National Research Council said the pink snow observed on parts of the Presena glacier is
Lightning strikes killed 147 people in the north Indian state of Bihar over the last 10 days, officials said Sunday, warning of more extreme weather conditions to come, driven by climate change. Around 215 people – farmers, rural labourers and cattle graziers – have now died from strikes in the country’s poorest state since late
A video of a bird of prey capturing a large, shark-like fish in its claws has gone viral on social media, evoking multiple references to the science-fiction cult movie phenomenon Sharknado. The video, which CBS reported was shot by Tennessee native Ashley White last week and shared by Tracking Sharks, shows what appears to be a large hawk-like
A new fossil discovery has revealed that New Zealand’s ancient monster penguins were not the only human-sized, flightless birds waddling around our planet tens of millions of years ago. Recent findings in North America and Japan suggest there were giant penguin-like creatures plodding across the Northern Hemisphere, too. And these birds may have been even
Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram started out as a way to connect with friends, family and people of interest. But anyone on social media these days knows it’s increasingly a divisive landscape. Undoubtedly you’ve heard reports that hackers and even foreign governments are using social media to manipulate and attack you. You
There’s a new exotic subatomic particle on the atom smasher. Physicists working with CERN’s Large Hadron Collider beauty (LHCb) collaboration have found a new form of the elusive four-quark particle called a tetraquark that they have never seen before. The newly identified particle is made up of four quarks of the same flavour and is
Imagine being completely blind but still being able to see. Does that sound impossible? Well, it happens. A few years ago, a man (let’s call him Barry) suffered two strokes in quick succession. As a result, Barry was completely blind, and he walked with a stick. One day, some psychologists placed Barry in a corridor
If you studied algebra in high school (or you’re learning it right now), there’s a good chance you’re familiar with the quadratic formula. If not, it’s possible you repressed it. By this point, billions of us have had to learn, memorise, and implement this unwieldy algorithm in order to solve quadratic equations, but according to
Some 730 light-years away, around a star that’s a lot like our Sun, astronomers have found a really weird exoplanet. It’s just a little smaller than Neptune, which could indicate a gaseous planet… but it’s more than twice as massive as Neptune, with a density comparable to Earth and Venus. This super-dense surprise suggests that
Whale sharks, the majestic creatures that also happen to be the world’s largest fish, are far more gentle than the name suggests. They swim lazily around tropical waters, filter-feeding on plankton. Now, biologists have discovered the enigmatic giants have a curious trick up their sleeve – teeth-like scales adorning their eyeballs. It appears to be
The conventional wisdom for working out how old your dog is in human terms is to multiple the dog’s age by seven – something experts have previously debunked. Now researchers think they’ve landed on an alternative method that’s much more accurate. Part of the problem with the multiply-by-seven rule is that canines and human beings
We love flyover videos from other worlds. These stunning videos, created from imagery gathered by orbiting spacecraft, can give us a sense of what it would be like to fly in an airplane on another planet. This latest flyover video from the European Space Agency’s Mars Express spacecraft, provides a stunning view of one of
The coronavirus isn’t the only thing plaguing East Africa. Amid a global pandemic, people in this region of the world are also contending with another “extremely serious” threat to their lives and livelihoods: locusts. After one of the wettest years on record, these voracious insects have been gathering forces since 2019, as weather conditions allowed
Pandemic movies don’t just immerse you in a crisis, they might actually prepare you for one. New research suggests post-apocalyptic movies, or ‘prepper’ films, may give fans a practical and mental advantage in the current coronavirus pandemic. “If it’s a good movie, it pulls you in and you take the perspective of the characters, so
Scientists still aren’t entirely sure how the Moon formed, though plenty of hypotheses have been discussed. Now, new findings around metal deposits in lunar craters could mean we need to rethink those hypotheses again. In short, the findings suggest there are more metals like iron and titanium in the Moon’s craters than we thought there
Earth’s oceans are simmering with the heat trapped by increasing amounts of greenhouse gases. But one patch of water in the North Atlantic is stubbornly resisting the trend, and actually dropping in temperature. This ‘cold blob‘ has been a subject of interest for climatologists ever since it was first spotted back in 2015. Unfortunately, the
It seems almost certain that an asteroid impact wiped out the dinosaurs. But only almost. Another competing theory won’t completely go away: the extinction-by-volcano theory. A new study from the UK piles more evidence on the asteroid side of the debate, while adding a new volcanic twist. These researchers say that volcanic activity actually helped life recover
Disturbing reports of a mass elephant die-off have emerged from Botswana over the last two months, with more than 350 elephant carcasses spotted since May. Some of the elephants were found face down, suggesting a sudden collapse. Most of their bodies were located around water sources in the northern parts of the Okavango Delta, a
One of the largest known black holes in the Universe has turned out to have an appetite to match its prodigious size. New measurements reveal that it’s an absolute chonk, clocking in at around 34 billion times the mass of the Sun – and it devours almost one Sun’s worth of mass every day. This
White-throated sparrows in British Columbia are whistling a new tune and it’s going viral across Canada. What started as a minor change to a common song has now morphed into a continent-wide phenomenon before our very ears. “As far as we know, it’s unprecedented,” says biologist Ken Otter from the University of Northern British Columbia,
For most of the human history of Australia, sea levels were much lower than they are today, and there was extra dry land where people lived. Archaeologists could only speculate about how people used those now-submerged lands, and whether any traces remain today. But in a study published today in PLOS ONE, we report the
So you want to colonize Mars, huh? Well Mars is a long ways away, and in order for a colony to function that far from Earthly support, things have to be thought out very carefully. Including how many people are needed to make it work. A new study pegs the minimum number of settlers at
It has long been a mystery how some fish can colonise isolated lakes and ponds surrounded by inhospitably dry land. It’s not like fish can get out of the water, shake themselves off, and walk between far-flung pools to spread their spawn. Yet, from remote crater lakes to desert ponds, these fish are somehow there.
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