After counting all the normal, luminous matter in the obvious places of the universe – galaxies, clusters of galaxies and the intergalactic medium – about half of it is still missing. So not only is 85 percent of the matter in the universe made up of an unknown, invisible substance dubbed “dark matter”, we can’t
It’s hard to imagine how a thin papyrus scroll could survive a volcanic eruption. Even harder is imagining how such an artefact can be read some 2,000 years later without unrolling it at all. An international team of researchers now claims we are closer than ever before to ‘virtually’ unravelling and reading the only intact
A rare and deadly fungus, the only one that can poison a human from mere touch, has just showed up where nobody expected – in suburban Queensland, in the far north of Australia. Originally discovered in China in 1895, the reddish-orange poison fire coral (Podostroma cornu-damae) is predominantly encountered in Asia, including Korea, Japan, and
We all know by now that eating less meat is good for the planet – the production of meat products for human consumption leaves behind a hefty carbon footprint. Now scientists have worked out a very simple way that canteens in schools and colleges could greatly reduce the amount of meat eaten – without actually having
When a single neutrino was detected by a neutrino detector in Antarctica in September 2017, it was the start of something amazing. It was to become the first-ever high-energy neutrino that astronomers could trace back to an origin – a blazar galaxy called TXS 0506+056, 3.8 billion light-years away. But, in the manner of many
It’s been six years since Boyan Slat began developing a system to rid the world’s oceans of harmful plastic. In 2013, the entrepreneur founded The Ocean Cleanup, a nonprofit that aims to remove plastic from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a trash-filled vortex in the Pacific Ocean that’s more than twice the size of Texas.
Archaeologists have recovered a rare and tantalising treasure off the coast of Mallorca in Spain. Not gold or jewels, but 93 jug-like terracotta vessels called amphorae from a Roman ship that sank 1,700 years ago. Most of these beautiful jugs are still intact and sealed, which means there’s a very good chance their contents were
Half a billion years ago, when trilobites ruled and dry land was a barren wasteland, Earth was having a terrible time making a decision. North and south had switched places nearly 80 times in just a few million years, making it one of the most geomagnetically turbulent moments in history. Geologists from the Russian Academy
Scientists just found the most basic ingredients for life bursting from an ocean on Saturn’s moon Enceladus. A new analysis of NASA data reveals the presence of organic compounds in the plumes of liquid water that shoot into space from the ocean below Enceladus’s icy crust. These compounds, which carry nitrogen and oxygen, play a
A new gel-like fluid that sticks to vegetation for months on end could be an ingenious new way to stop mother nature from burning. Devised by an engineer and a former fire-prevention forester, this sprayable retardant could one day be used to drastically reduce the number of forest fires experienced each year. By coating vast
NASA’s Mars InSight lander has detected some “peculiar sounds,” thanks to an onboard seismometer that’s capable of picking up the tiniest of vibrations. The InSight team found that delicate parts inside the seismometer itself were expanding and contracting, causing “dinks and donks” – the team’s nickname for strange mechanical sounds – to show up in
If the world is serious about reducing its carbon emissions, we’ll need to re-think how we feed our future children. Creating ways to support and promote breastfeeding, scientists say, is an environmental imperative. Today, breastfeeding is rarely seen as a climate issue, but a new editorial from researchers in the United Kingdom argues the production
From smartphones to electric cars, we’re going to continue to need plenty of batteries in the years to come. New research shows how an upgraded type of aluminium battery could offer several advantages over the traditional lithium-ion ones in use today. The battery has low production costs, and doesn’t take the same environmental toll as
Weird and wonderful, the microscopic tardigrades are sometimes colloquially known as ‘water bears’ and ‘moss piglets’. In all fairness, though, no bear or piglet ever dreamt of doing the amazing things these uniquely gifted creatures are capable of. Tardigrades are know for their incredible resilience, as they’re able to survive all manner of extreme conditions. When the going gets tough,
Like most people, something called a theory of mind allows me to mentally step into another’s shoes and imagine their thoughts. But whether we share this talent with other primates is still a matter of debate. A new study adds even more evidence to the view that apes are able to anticipate the others’ actions
Our next-door neighbour is a cannibal. In its distant past, the Andromeda galaxy has devoured at least two other galaxies, subsuming their stars into its galactic halo. And now, for the first time, astronomers have identified those stars, tracking them to individual galactic mergers billions of years ago. It shouldn’t come as a tremendous surprise.
What’s the ultimate exit strategy if the worst happens? Like a sudden global pandemic, or some other kind of existential crisis that threatens humanity with extinction? The sad truth is, if an apocalyptic outbreak comes, there may be no escape. But if you’re in the right place when the catastrophe hits – like an island
Back when you were just a fingernail-sized blob in your mother’s uterus, your tiny baby flippers had far more in common with the paws of ancient reptiles than you might be comfortable with. Special immunostaining techniques carried out by scientists from Washington’s Howard University and Sorbonne University in Paris have revealed new human atavisms –
According to a decade-long study by an international team of researchers, human CO2 emissions total 100 times more than the planet-warming effects of all volcanoes combined. The total amount emitted by volcanoes is only about 0.3 gigatons a year – a tiny fraction of the 37 gigatons humankind produced in 2018 alone. That means they’re
For nearly 20 years, researchers have closely watched a “loose tooth” of ice dangle from the edge of the Antarctic ice sheet, waiting for it to detach. It turns out, we were keeping our eyes on the wrong part. According to the Australian Antarctic Division, a neighbouring slab of ice along the same rift system has
The bigger they come, the harder they fall, the old saying goes – or in this case, the more popular the game, the more user data is at risk, should hackers get access to it. That’s reportedly what’s happened with smash mobile hit Words With Friends. A hacker by the name of Gnosticplayers claims to
Tesla’s “Smart Summon” feature, which lets cars navigate themselves in parking lots, isn’t even out of beta yet. But Tesla owners are already using it in some mind-bogglingly stupid ways, Electrek reports. In a video uploaded to YouTube account “Dirty Tesla”, a Model 3 owner tries to walk in front of his vehicle while the
We have a new record. Perhaps 1,060 light-years away, a gas giant called NGTS-10b is whipping around its star so closely, it completes an entire orbit in just 18.4 hours. That’s nearly as close as the planet can get to the host star without being ripped apart by gravitational forces. But it will get closer.
They’re called ‘lurkers’, and they may have been covertly surveilling us from space for millions of years – since before we even existed, perhaps. That’s the bold proposal being made in a new scientific paper by American physicist James Benford. But even though Benford’s ideas sound radical, they draw upon a long history of conjecture
When ancient burials are discovered in the sands of Egypt, the stories we hear are usually similar. High-ranking officials and nobles buried with rich grave goods, elaborate coffins, and often cartouches naming the deceased, so we know who they were. But a recent discovery paints a rather different picture. Archaeologists have found dozens of 2,000-year-old burials
What do you imagine the first settlers on Mars will look like? Maybe they’ll be the best and brightest our world has to offer: people from countries around the world with multiple degrees and decades of training in astrophysics. Or maybe the first Earthlings on Mars will be a bunch of microbes. A paper published
Of all the known trees found solely Europe, more than half are at risk of dying out, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) reports. Some of these ancient natives have existed here since before the last ice age, but as the sixth mass extinction unfolds, Europe’s perennial woods are more threatened than its reptiles,
The world is dealing with a lot right now. The climate is rapidly warming, the oceans are growing dangerously acidic, a sixth extinction is officially unfolding, and all the while the threat of nuclear war hangs imminent. But there’s another crisis on the horizon you might have never heard of. And if the world continues
Cormac McCarthy knows a thing or two about good writing. He’s the visionary who gave us The Road, No Country for Old Men, and a list of other acclaimed novels. He’s won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and just about every other literature award; film adaptations of his works have been seen by
Time, as far as we know, moves only in one direction. But last year, researchers found events in some gamma-ray burst pulses that seemed to repeat themselves as though they were going backwards in time. Now, new research suggests a potential answer for what might be causing this time reversibility effect. If waves within the
At the edge of our Solar System, some unknown object is manipulating the paths of chunks of ice as they circle the Sun. These objects’ oval-shaped orbits all point in the same direction and tilt the same way, suggesting that an unseen force is herding them. At first, scientists thought the culprit was a mysterious
Superconductivity (passing charges through materials without losing heat) promises to revolutionise electronics and power, if we can get it working at reasonable temperatures – and scientists just reported a big step forward in our understanding of the phenomenon. The new discovery centres around the Hubbard model: a maths model of conduction and insulation in materials,
The Tyrannosaurus rex had the strongest bite of any known land animal – extinct or otherwise. The king of the dinosaurs was capable of biting through solid bone, but paleontologists had long been baffled as to how it accomplished this feat without breaking its own skull. In a new study published in the journal The
Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of SpaceX, addressed planet Earth on Saturday night about his latest plans to “extend consciousness beyond Earth” using a towering steel spaceship. Standing between two rockets that represented both the future of SpaceX and its nail-biting past, Musk delivered his talk to more than 100 people from the company’s
Some people can’t sleep if they know there’s a spider in their house. Imagine being in Beaumont, Tex., and thinking that the largest alligator ever caught in the United States was on the loose there. Fortunately, after a nerve-racking few days, that gator has been found. It was a tense week for neighbors of Gator
As Tropical Storm Karen withers away, Hurricane Lorenzo has become “one of the largest and most powerful hurricanes of record for the tropical central Atlantic,” according to the National Hurricane Center. Now packing 140 mph winds, Lorenzo became a Category 4 storm Thursday farther east than any other previous storm on record, save for Julia
Most of the 24 million annual visitors to Queensland don’t notice the series of seemingly innocuous yellow buoys at many popular beaches. Beneath the waves lies a series of baited drumlines and mesh nets that aim to make Queensland beaches safe from the ominous threat of sharks. Earlier this week the Queensland government lost a
Former Blink-182 singer Tom DeLonge has pulled off an astonishing career change. In 2017, after quitting the band, he co-founded a group called To the Stars Academy of Arts & Sciences, an organization committed to researching aliens. And he apparently now has something to show for it. In a recent Q&A with The New York
Astronomers have spotted three supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at the center of three colliding galaxies a billion light years away from Earth. That alone is unusual, but the three black holes are also glowing in x-ray emissions. This is evidence that all three are also active galactic nuclei (AGN,) gobbling up material and flaring brightly.
For all our perception of supermassive black holes as gravitational vortices ravenously devouring stars, it doesn’t actually happen that often. For instance, our galaxy’s own black hole might only do it a handful of times every 100,000 years. So it’s quite a special occasion for the astronomers who have just observed the immediate aftermath of
You ever watch your pets sleeping? When they twitch their paws and whiskers, and yip and mewl? Well, cats and dogs experience REM sleep, which means they’re probably dreaming. And, while evidence of REM sleep has so far not been seen in octopuses, they do have a kind of sleep twitch of their own. Sleeping
Global warming has put a glacier in the Italian Alps at risk of collapse, officials warned, leading to road closures, travel restrictions, and evacuations in the immediate vicinity. Municipal officials issued the order after surveyors observed a significant increase in the sliding speed of the Planpincieux glacier, which rests on the Italian side of the
Like the deserts of the Antarctic, or the deepest parts of the sea, Mono Lake in California is an inhospitable place for most life forms. Apart from bacteria and algae, it appears only brine shrimp and diving flies can put up with its super-salty waters. But there’s more to this body of water than meets
We humans have officially entered uncharted territory. In the roughly 2.5 million years our kind has walked the Earth, never before have we endured such an atmosphere. New research on ancient soil has now confirmed that carbon dioxide levels in the past sixty years are the highest we’ve experienced in all of human history. Throughout
These days we’re used to jaw-dropping photos getting snapped from the International Space Station, but the latest one NASA astronaut Christina Koch recently posted to Twitter comes with a special message, too. The image shows the Soyuz MS-15 spaceflight taking three people to the ISS: Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka and NASA astronaut Jessica Meir as part
Autonomous driving will bring us a number of freedoms. Passengers will be able to watch movies, read newspapers – if they still exist – or play video games while the AI drives. But BMW thinks being chauffeured by a self-driving car can get a whole lot more exciting than that. The German carmaker released –
In the search for the earliest life on Earth, it can be hard to tell whether you’re looking at an actual fossil, or crinkles in the rock itself. Such doubts have long shadowed the 1980s discovery of 3.5 billion-year-old fossils in the Australian desert. Now, scientists think they have finally put the matter to bed.
There is such a thing as not enough chaos. In a new study, scientists have discovered that complex calculations performed by computers can be off by as much as 15 percent, due to a “pathological” inability to grasp the true mathematical complexity of chaotic dynamical systems. “Our work shows that the behaviour of the chaotic
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