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,
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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.
Snakes may not have any limbs, but it doesn’t stop them from getting around. By wiggling their bodies to-and-fro, these crafty creatures can easily dash across land or water without the need for feet or fins. Some can even fly. Jake Socha is an expert on the paradise tree snake (Chrysopelea paradisi), which lives in
Picture in your mind the delta of a river – the way the main channel splits into smaller rivulets and tributaries. Something similar occurs in waves as they propagate through a certain kind of medium: the path of the wave splits, breaking up into smaller channels like the branches of a tree. This is called
Renewable energy such as wind and solar projects are already cheaper to build than it is to continue operating 40 percent of the world’s existing coal fleet, according to analysis released Tuesday. In a report outlining how the world can phase out the most polluting fuel while powering an economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic,
A stark warning about the kind of summer that could become routine in the UK by the end of this century has been issued in a new study by the country’s Met Office. Using temperature data and climate model simulations, the researchers tested the likelihood of UK temperatures exceeding 30°C, 35°C, and 40°C (86 F,
Scientists have discovered four new species and two new genera inhabiting the deep, abyssal landscape that lines the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. The Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ), a vast, recessed fracture zone covering some 4.5 million square kilometres (1.7 million square miles) of the central Pacific, is considered something of a prize in the mining
When you think of the colour scheme sported by the prehistoric world of the dinosaurs, greens and browns typically spring to mind. But more and more research has shown that millions of years ago, vibrant, vivid colours were everywhere in nature, just like they are today. The latest evidence – 99-million-year-old insects caught in amber
For once, we’re going to break with the usual advice and tell you that you very much should stare into the Sun. Specifically, into NASA’s new 10-year timelapse video of activity on the solar surface. Lasting 61 minutes in total, the awe-inspiring video has been produced from high-resolution imagery captured by the Solar Dynamics Observatory
Dropping a mirror on Earth is only minor cause for concern, perhaps about the potential of some upcoming bad luck. Dropping a mirror while on a spacewalk means creating a potentially dangerous new piece of space junk, all while thousands of people watch it happen, streaming live. A small mirror came loose from International Space
When you picture the Solar System in your head, most people would think of the Sun, stolid and stationary in the centre, with everything else whizzing about around it. But every body in the Solar System also exerts its own gravitational tug on the star, causing it to move around just a tiny bit. Therefore,
Massive stars aren’t like your car keys. They’re not going to disappear under a pile of mail on your kitchen counter, or end up in the washing machine. But a massive star that astronomers were observing for a decade now appears to be totally missing. The star, in the very late stages of its lifespan,
The Ik people of Uganda are a small mountain community with a big reputation. Except there are researchers who now think that reputation is wholly undeserved. In the 1960s, a prominent anthropologist by the name of Colin Turnbull published a book that described the Ik people as extraordinarily ‘unfriendly’, ‘uncharitable’, and ‘mean’. He named them
Deep within the hearts of Neptune and Uranus, it could be raining diamonds. Now, scientists have produced new experimental evidence showing how this could be possible. The hypothesis goes that the intense heat and pressure thousands of kilometres below the surface of these ice giants should split apart hydrocarbon compounds, with the carbon compressing into
For over 1,000 years, the ancient Maya city of Tikal stood tall, embodying one of the largest and most important urban centres ever built by this enigmatic and enduring pre-Columbian civilisation. By the late 9th century CE however, this Maya metropolis was unravelling. Around this time, Tikal and a number of other Maya cities were abandoned,
Deep in the cold, dark water, on the seafloor west of Greenland, a quiet ecosystem thrives. For the first time, a garden of soft corals and sponges has been found in these waters, sprawling across an area a little bigger than the City of San Jose. The discovery highlights not only how little we understand
A mysterious increase in radiation levels over northern Europe was detected this month by authorities from several countries, although no nation has yet come forward to claim responsibility for the anomaly. The subtle radiation spike – at levels that are considered harmless to humans, but significant enough to be picked up by radiation monitoring stations
In the strange field of quantum physics, quantum entanglement – what Einstein called “spooky action at a distance” – stands out as one of the most intriguing phenomena. And now scientists just managed to successfully demonstrate it again, this time onboard a CubeSat satellite orbiting Earth. Quantum entanglement is where two particles become inextricably linked
How would the Sun look as it dipped below the horizon on a long (17 hour) day on Uranus? Or what would a late-night sunset on Mars look like, when we finally get there? Thanks to some NASA computer modelling, these scenarios are now a little easier to imagine. What makes a sunset is the
On 2 July 2019, the Moon cast its shadow on the surface of the Earth. This time, the shadow’s path travelled across the South Pacific Ocean. It also passed over some of Argentina and Chile. For surface dwellers in the path, the Moon briefly blocked the Sun, turning night into day. But for one “eye”
It was said that all he touched turned to gold. But destiny eventually caught up with the legendary King Midas, and a long-lost chronicle of his ancient downfall appears to have literally surfaced in Turkey. Last year, archaeologists were investigating an ancient mound site in central Turkey called Türkmen-Karahöyük. The greater region, the Konya Plain,
While artificial intelligence systems continue to make huge strides forward, they’re still not particularly good at dealing with chaos or unpredictability. Now researchers think they have found a way to fix this, by teaching AI about physics. To be more specific, teaching them about the Hamiltonian function, which gives the AI information about the entirety
Not everyone can see pictures in their minds when they close their eyes and summon thoughts – an ability many of us take for granted. While people have been aware of this phenomenon since the 1800s, it hasn’t been widely studied, and was only recently named ‘aphantasia’. This absence of voluntarily generated mental visual imagery
On 15 September 2017, NASA’s Cassini Orbiter concluded its mission by diving into Saturn’s atmosphere. Over the course of the 13 years it spent studying the Saturn system, it revealed a great deal about this gas giant and its largest moon, Titan. In the coming years, scientists are eager to send another mission to Titan to follow up on Cassini
By making use of the ‘spooky’ laws behind quantum entanglement, physicists think have found a way to make information leap between a pair of electrons separated by distance. Teleporting fundamental states between photons – massless particles of light – is quickly becoming old news, a trick we are still learning to exploit in computing and encrypted communications
A hot desert wind is carrying a massive cloud of Saharan dust into the southern United States this week. Dust plumes from the Sahara routinely blow westward across the Atlantic at this time of year, but this event is a doozy – by some measures, the biggest in decades. And a second plume appears to
As our planet’s permafrosts continue to melt in record-breaking heat, we can expect to find astonishing things from the ancient past. Like this huge wolf head, preserved since the last ice age and unearthed in incredible condition in Siberia in 2018, an estimated 40,000 years since being entombed in frozen wilderness. The giant head, discovered
In a giant cloud of gas and dust 1,400 light-years away, twin shadows stretch across space from a star, like the vast wings of a colossal cosmic bat. Now astronomers have caught these shadows beating – and they’re not sure what’s causing it. The winged shadow, photographed using Hubble in 2018 and nicknamed the Bat
Every second, trillions upon trillions of incredibly low-mass subatomic particles called neutrinos shoot out from the Sun and slide undetected through your body. These neutrinos are produced by the two known types of fusion reactions that happen in our Sun, and up until now scientists have only detected one group of them – the neutrinos
The Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins of Shark Bay in Western Australia have an unusual way of obtaining food. They chivvy fish into a large, empty marine gastropod shell. Then they carry the shell and captured fish up to the surface, and shake it upside down. Slurp! go the fish, straight down into the dolphin’s belly. It’s
Wombats are among the most peculiar of animals. They look like a massively overgrown guinea pig with a boofy head, a waddling gait, squared-off butt, backwards-facing pouch and ever-growing molars. Indeed, wombats are oddballs and don’t look much like their nearest living relatives, the koala. But koalas and wombats (collectively known as “vombatiformes”) are the
For the first time, astronomers have seen a flash of light from the collision of two black holes. The objects met and merged 7.5 billion light-years away, within a vortex of hot, swirling matter circling a larger, supermassive black hole. This whirlpool is called the accretion disk, and it orbits a black hole’s event horizon
When Mary Jackson began her career as the first Black female engineer at NASA, she was relegated to a computer lab segregated from the rest. Nearly seventy years later, those visiting the United States’ space agency in Washington DC must drive up Hidden Figures Way to what is now called the Mary W. Jackson NASA
A 50-year-old theoretical process for extracting energy from a rotating black hole finally has experimental verification. Using an analogue of the components required, physicists have shown that the Penrose process is indeed a plausible mechanism to slurp out some of that rotational energy – if we could ever develop the means. That’s not likely, but
A new photo showing a mystery creature swimming in Loch Ness has sparked new interest in Nessie, the long-necked plesiosaur-like cryptid rumoured to inhabit the loch’s dark and enigmatic depths. There’s just one big problem, and you can probably guess what it is. The image has been digitally manipulated. According to an investigation conducted by
Scientists confirmed that the submerged land mass, named Zealandia, was its own continent in 2017. But they hadn’t been able to map its full breadth until now. On Monday, researchers from GNS Science in New Zealand announced that they’d mapped the shape and size of the continent in unprecedented detail. They put their maps on an interactive website so that
The United Nations said Tuesday it was working to verify reports of a new Arctic record temperature of 38 degrees Celsius (100.4 degrees Fahrenheit) in a Siberian town over the weekend. The suspected record temperature was measured in the Russian town of Verkoyansk on Saturday during a prolonged heatwave, which has also seen a hike
Measures to contain the global pandemic have caused our global carbon emissions to plummet, and some think this unprecedented event might actually help us to tackle climate change. But new research has put a more realistic spin on this rosy outlook by looking at the development of clean energy alternatives. For now, people around the
The search for extraterrestrial life is increasingly homing in on the Solar System’s ocean worlds, and there’s new evidence that Jupiter’s moon Europa should be the first port of call. According to new modelling, Europa’s subsurface oceans should be able to support life. The NASA team behind this research has also calculated that processes such
In a time of ancient gods, warriors and kings, the tale of a tribe of warrior women was established in Greek mythology. Said to be daughters of the gods, these fierce female fighters from Asia Minor have caught people’s imaginations for centuries and still permeate through popular culture today as legendary Amazon warriors. For a
In August of last year, the LIGO and Virgo collaborations made a first-of-its-kind gravitational wave detection – what seemed to be a black hole swallowing up a neutron star. Now LIGO has confirmed the event, giving it the name GW190814. And it looks like the neutron star was not actually… a neutron star. That would
The current pandemic isn’t just affecting humans, it’s also impacting wildlife. As the world locks down to avoid further spread of the devastating coronavirus, there are suddenly far fewer cars on the road, planes in the sky and ships in the water. And nature has surely noticed. Recently, pumas have been spotted ambling down the
The list of the fastest 500 supercomputers in the world just got updated again, and there’s a new number one: the Fugaku supercomputer built by the RIKEN Institute and the Fujitsu tech company in Japan. IBM’s Summit supercomputer has been comprehensively pushed into second place, because Fugaku can crunch through 415.5 quadrillion computations per second (also
Picture a spiral galaxy. You’re probably imagining something like Messier 34 – long, spiralling arms sweeping away from a brightly glowing centre, speckled with glittering star clusters and punctuated with dark streaks of dust. But from our vantage point, galaxies can be oriented any which way, including edge-on – like NGC 5907, also known as
The Moon may be Earth’s closest cosmic neighbour – and the only extraterrestrial body humans have ever set foot on – but there’s a lot about it we don’t understand. And one of the biggest mysteries is why its two sides are so significantly different. Researchers have proposed a possible new explanation, backed by experimental
Lockdowns have been a controversial aspect of the COVID-19 pandemic. Yes, they undoubtedly save lives, but they also cause major ongoing economic issues – disrupting industries, causing job losses and associated financial pain. But another thing lockdowns have done all over the world is decrease air pollution, and new research shows an interesting flow-on effect
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