The assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BCE triggered a nearly two-decade power struggle that led to the fall of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire. Historic records say the period was marked with strange sightings in the sky, unusually cold weather and widespread famine – and a new study suggests
Archaeologists working near Stonehenge in the UK have discovered part of a giant ring of deep shafts in the ground, thought to date back round 4,500 years. Originally, they may have been used to guide people to sacred sites… or to warn them to stay away. Using a combination of techniques, including ground-penetrating radar and
It’s only been in recent years – since the historic flyby of the New Horizons probe in 2015 – that we’ve been able to understand Pluto with any great depth or detail. We’ve learnt a lot about our Solar System’s tiny outlier, but one of the biggest surprises was a number of hints that liquid
Throughout the Universe, there are numerous examples of galaxies coming together in colossal mergers, a billion-year process that smears stars and gas across the surrounding space. For the most part, we know how this plays out – but we don’t quite know what happens to the supermassive black holes within their galactic centres. Astronomers think
What comes first – the squiggle or the inability to see numbers? That’s what scientists have had to investigate in the unusual case of an engineering geologist who suffered a neurological injury, and suddenly couldn’t perceive the numbers 2-9. But here’s the thing – he could still understand letters, symbols, and even the numbers 0
With the help of 3D modelling and machine learning, scientists think they’ve solved the mystery of the tiny earthquakes that regularly rumbled under Cahuilla, California from early 2016 to late 2019 – a period of almost four years. Some sort of natural fluid, such as water or liquid carbon dioxide, is likely to be the
Skywatchers along a narrow band from west Africa to the Arabian Peninsula, India and the Far East witnessed a dramatic “ring of fire” solar eclipse Sunday. So-called annular eclipses occur when the Moon – passing between Earth and the Sun – is not quite close enough to our planet to completely obscure sunlight, leaving a
New research shows that feelings of loneliness are linked to fundamental differences in the ways our brains are wired – affecting our perspective on friends, acquaintances, and people we’ve never met. While it’s only a small study, with much of the world currently in lockdown or practising social distancing, it’s a timely insight into the impacts
Even after more than 20 years in the ocean, everyday plastics can show very few signs of breaking up or degrading, according to a new study examining the effects of deep-sea submersion on this problematic material. Researchers looked at two plastic samples recovered from 4,150 metres (13,615 feet) below the surface of the eastern Pacific
It was time to move. Humans were heading out of Africa and journeying into Arabia, the first leg of a giant procession known as the Southern Dispersal – the most recent wave in the great ‘Out of Africa’ migration of our ancestors. New discoveries in this context are continually charting unexpected paths that challenge our
When most of us think of greenhouse gases, we imagine carbon dioxide or methane spewing into the atmosphere above. It’s not often we consider general anesthesia being part of the problem – but it is, and it’s something that happens thousands of times every day, at hospitals all around the world. The gases involved in
Somewhere out there in the deep lies a huge jellyfish, just waiting to unleash a complex cocktail of venom via its many long tentacles. Weighing up to 200 kilograms (440 pounds), the giant jellyfish Nemopilema nomurai, more commonly known as Nomura’s jellyfish, is one of the largest jellyfish species in the world, and it stings
Stripped of any fancy circuitry and complex layers of higher order thinking, the nervous system is little more than a calculator for making smart choices. Food is good, but what if it’s toxic? Empty calories won’t give you energy, but what if they’re satisfying? To better study how a rudimentary brain deals with decisions between
Three-quarters of new and emerging infectious diseases in humans originate in wildlife. COVID-19, SARS and Ebola all started this way. The COVID-19 global pandemic has drawn new attention to how people think about wild animals, consume them and interact with them, and how those interactions can affect public health. Any activity that puts people in
Nothing rages against the dying of the light harder than a star. Their death throes are wild and violent as the star is wracked with colossal quakes, throwing vast amounts of stellar material out into the surrounding space. Studying the gas and dust thrown off in such events can help us understand how these stars
Solar power has become a focal point of the battle to mitigate climate change. The potential of solar power is massive – Earth receives as much solar energy in an hour as all of humanity uses in a year. Even with that much energy hitting the Earth, it is only a tiny fraction of the
Perhaps the most iconic dinosaur is Tyrannosaurus rex, a massive predator that lived in what is now North America. We have now discovered that carnivorous dinosaurs of a similar size existed in ancient Australia as well. Following the footprints We learned about these carnivores by studying fossils that were discovered up to 90 years ago.
Thunderstorms are common across North America, especially in warm weather months. About 10 percent of them become severe, meaning they produce hail 1 inch (2.5 centimeter) or greater in diameter, winds gusting in excess of 50 knots (57.5 miles per hour), or a tornado. The US recently has experienced two rarer events: organized lines of thunderstorms
The touch paper has been lit. Black Lives Matter have taken to the streets. The revolution has started – statues have been pulled down and TV programmes have been removed from streaming services. Apologies are also coming in thick and fast – a tearful Keith Lemon actor, a “sincerely sorry” Ant and Dec. Many white
For the first time, US doctors can prescribe a video game. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has just approved EndeavorRX as an effective treatment for kids with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD. Children aged 8-12 years old can now be prescribed gaming sessions on EndeavorRX, in which players pilot a small aircraft through
A space telescope launched in July 2019 has just completed its first survey. For months, the eROSITA telescope aboard the Spektr-RG space observatory has been scanning the entire sky, collecting observations for the deepest all-sky survey in X-ray wavelengths. Now, all those data have been compiled into a map containing over 1 million bright X-ray
If we’re really serious about solving the climate crisis, we need to start tackling our economy’s overwhelming ‘power’ of consumption, researchers warn in a new report. While having money is often portrayed as something to aspire to, the wealthiest nations and individuals are also wreaking the most environmental destruction. If we keep heading in this
Deep beneath the mountains of Gran Sasso in Italy, the world’s most sensitive dark matter experiment has made a surprise detection. No, it’s not dark matter. Instead, the experiment has detected significantly more particle interaction events than predicted by the standard model of particle physics. Instead of the 232 ± 15 low-energy events expected in
Only 566 people have ever travelled to space. Sixty-five of them, or about 11.5 percent, were women. NASA recently proclaimed it will put the “first woman and next man” on the Moon by 2024. Despite nearly 60 years of human spaceflight, women are still in the territory of “firsts”. Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in
It’s a mystery that’s eluded scientists for over 100 years – why do two identically coloured shapes look different when they’re placed on a gradient background? Just take a look at the image above: the two circles are the same colour. Our perception of shades (and colours) changes according to their visual context, a process
Scientists have discovered an unprecedented system of underwater rivers flowing hidden from view along the continental shelf of Australia, on a scale unknown anywhere else in the world. This phenomenon – called Dense Shelf Water Cascades – appears to surround most of the country, according to new data recorded by ocean glider submersibles, which so
Near the centre of the Milky Way, in a vast cloud in the space between the stars, astronomers have identified an organic molecule never before detected in the interstellar medium. It’s called propargylimine, and it could play a key role in the formation of the amino acids vital for the emergence of life. “The peculiarity
Scientists had nicknamed it “The Thing” – a mysterious football-sized fossil discovered in Antarctica that sat in a Chilean museum awaiting someone who could work out just what it was. Now, analysis has revealed that the mystery fossil is in fact a soft-shelled egg, the largest ever found, laid some 68 million years ago, possibly
It was in the early hours of Monday morning when Denby Turton, a mechanical fitter at the Yandi mine in Western Australia, saw a curious light streaking through the sky. He and three others were sitting on top of a crusher, waiting for it to start up, when his boss suddenly exclaimed, “What the heck
One of the defining characteristics of the mysterious deep-space signals we call fast radio bursts is that they are unpredictable. They belch out across the cosmos without rhyme or reason, with no discernible pattern, making them incredibly hard to study. Now astronomers have found a fast radio burst (FRB) that repeats on a regular cycle.
The most severe extinction in Earth’s history looks to have been preceded and enabled by a colossal coal fire lit by volcanism over 250 million years ago, according to new research. The Permian-Triassic extinction, also known as the ‘Great Dying’, constitutes the deadliest of all our planet’s mass extinction events. When it took place, approximately
Artificial intelligence networks have learnt a new trick: being able to create photo-realistic faces from just a few pixelated dots, adding in features such as eyelashes and wrinkles that can’t even be found in the original. Before you freak out, it’s good to note this is not some kind of creepy reverse pixelation that can
New survey results from 40 countries shows that climate change matters to most people. In the vast majority of countries, fewer than 3 percent said climate change was not serious at all. We carried out this research as part of the University of Oxford’s Reuters Institute annual Digital News Reports. More than 80,000 people were
From our perspective here on Earth, one of the most spectacular celestial dances appears when the Moon partially obscures our view of the Sun, allowing a ring of star fire to escape its edges. And on June 21, that’s exactly the show we’ll be getting. The phenomenon is called an annular solar eclipse. It happens when
There’s only one planet we know of in the entire Universe that’s capable of hosting life. That’s Earth. So, when we search for exoplanets that might host life, it’s pretty much what we look for: a rocky exoplanet orbiting a Sun-like star at a distance that is neither too hot nor too cold for liquid
Synthetic gas, or syngas for short, is a crucial building block in the chemical manufacturing industry. Most people may never have heard of syngas, but every day it is used in the production of drugs, fertiliser, plastic, and biofuels. Unfortunately, even when syngas – a mix of hydrogen and carbon monoxide – is fermented to produce
High in the atmosphere of Mars, astronomers have found a phenomenon they’ve been hunting for decades: a faint green glow, caused by the interaction between sunlight and oxygen in the upper atmosphere. Previously, this glow has only been detected in one place: the sky above Earth. Its discovery in the Martian atmosphere will help us
The fact of human existence is evidence that technologically advanced life is possible in the Universe, yet all our searches for other civilisations have turned up exactly nothing. Since Earth harbours the only proof of life we have, it’s difficult to know just how common – or rare – it is. A new method for
Curiosity has been through some challenges. A two-year mission that’s now almost eight years and counting, storm seasons, getting covered in dust… and yet the rover is still rolling around the Red Planet and making amazing discoveries. But sometimes, even on Mars, it’s nice to just take a break and look up at the stars.
Diego the giant Galapagos tortoise whose tireless efforts are credited with almost single-handedly saving his once-threatened species, was put out to pasture Monday on his native island after decades of breeding in captivity, Ecuador’s environment minister said. Diego was shipped out from the Galapagos National Park’s breeding program on Santa Cruz to remote and uninhabited
For the first time, scientists have measured the lifespan of a neutron in the void of space. The margin of error means we can’t narrow it down yet, but once the technique is refined, it could prove to be a game changer. You see, when safely ensconced in the nucleus of an atom, the subatomic
Hummingbirds can perceive colours that the human eye cannot, thanks to the addition of an extra cone in the hummingbird’s eye that we don’t possess, new research reveals. The findings, demonstrated in experiments with wild broad-tailed hummingbirds (Selasphorus platycercus) in Colorado, suggest that the ability to discriminate non-spectral colours (including ultraviolet wavelengths) could play a
There’s simply no denying the fact that humans have drastically altered, developed, and ransacked much of the natural world for our own ends. But how much of the planet’s surface remains free of our often malign influence? If we were to map Earth looking only for signs of humanity’s footprint on landscapes, how much of
A 2014 Mars photo that has strangely resurfaced in tabloids this month does not show a femur amidst the rubble of the Red Planet. Like all such photos to date, the object you see is just a plain old Mars rock. And NASA debunked it six years ago. The image was taken using the Curiosity
In July 2015, the New Horizons spacecraft made history when it became the first robotic explorer to conduct a flyby of Pluto. This was followed by another first, when the NASA mission conducted the first flyby of a Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) on 31 December 2018 – which has since been named Arrokoth. Now, on the edge of the Solar System, New
Trees marked by Aboriginal cultural practices are a distinctive part of the Australian landscape. A recent discovery on Wiradjuri country in New South Wales shows some of these “culturally modified trees” may be much younger than anybody thought. What are culturally modified trees? Aboriginal people have long used bark, wood, and trees for practical and
For humans, getting whacked in the face by heavy raindrops is a mere annoyance. But for tiny and delicate organisms – like butterflies – drops of rainwater are the equivalent of a person being pummelled by bowling balls falling from the sky. Ouch. “[Getting hit with] raindrops is the most dangerous event for this kind
For well over 100 years hospitals have been putting people under with general anaesthesia to perform routine operations and surgeries. These days, it’s used all over the world, thousands of times every day. But although we know that it knocks us out and messes with our consciousness, the actual mechanism behind general anaesthesia was unknown