Until the late 19th century, the success of criminal investigations largely hung on witness reports and (often extorted) confessions. A lack of scientific tools meant investigators needed advanced deductive reasoning abilities – and even then they’d often hit a dead end. Today, investigations demand an interdisciplinary and high-tech approach, involving experts from diverse scientific disciplines.
Month: July 2023
A Bronze Age arrowhead excavated in Switzerland in the 19th century turns out to be made from an unexpected material. The tiny artifact is made from iron retrieved from an object that fell from the sky. But there’s a twist. It wasn’t even the closest meteorite to the settlement at the time. Rather, a team
On a basic level, a star is pretty simple. Gravity squeezes the star trying to collapse it, which causes the inner core to get extremely hot and dense. This triggers nuclear fusion, and the heat and pressure from that pushes back against gravity. The two forces balance each other while a star is in its
Super-heated seawater off the Florida Keys has grown so perilous to the world’s third-largest barrier reef that scientists are now removing samples of coral from ocean nurseries to place in cooler land-based tanks. Sea temperatures off Florida have risen to extraordinary highs this month, presenting a severe threat to the barrier reef. “Hot water is
Caecilian mothers grow a fatty skin layer for their babies to tear off and eat. It offers not only nourishment for their offspring but also microbes, providing a starter kit for their young’s own microbiome, new research has discovered. Caecilians are weird, mysterious creatures. They look sort of like huge worms or small snakes, but
Scientists have discovered an “astounding diversity” of giant viruses taking on “previously unimaginable” shapes and forms in just a few handfuls of forest soil. These giant viruses have alien-looking appendages and internal structures that have never been seen before. The soil sample was collected in 2019 from Harvard Forest, a short drive from Boston in
New research sheds light on a tricky idea of consciousness: There’s a difference between what the brain takes in and what we’re consciously aware of taking in. Scientists now think they’ve pinpointed the brain region where that conscious awareness is managed. The team, from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel and the University of
New observations of the roiling cloud of dust around a baby star have revealed what looks like the early stages in the gestation of giant planets. By using the Very Large Telescope and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, astronomers have identified clumps in the thick material around a star named V960 Mon that could gravitationally
On the heels of a new record high in the Mediterranean, the North Atlantic reached its hottest-ever level this week, several weeks earlier than its usual annual peak, according to preliminary data released Friday by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The news comes after scientists confirmed that July is on track to be
Say hello to ionocaloric cooling. It’s a new way to lower temperatures with the potential to replace existing methods of chilling things with a process that is safer and better for the planet. Typical refrigeration systems transport heat away from a space via a gas that cools as it expands some distance away. As effective
The search for alien life has always been hampered by the huge racket that Earth generates, rendering it difficult to tease out alien signals from all the local noise. But a new method for recognizing radio signals traveling through interstellar space could narrow the search considerably. “I think it’s one of the biggest advances in
Scientists have discovered an exceptional case of a partially warm-blooded fish, fundamentally changing our understanding of fish physiology. The fact that basking sharks (Cetorhinus maximus) show elevated body temperatures while swimming is like “finding that cows have wings,” says marine biologist Nicholas Payne from Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland. Of all the shark and fish
Scientists said on Friday they have genetically engineered female fruit flies that can have offspring without needing a male, marking the first time ‘virgin birth” has been induced in an animal. The offspring of the flies were also able to give birth without mating, showing that the trait could be passed down generations, in another