Nearly a million years ago, some devastating event nearly wiped out humanity’s ancestors. Genomic data from 3,154 modern humans suggests the population was reduced from approximately 100,000 to just 1,280 breeding individuals around 900,000 years ago. That’s a jaw-dropping population decline of 98.7 percent that lasted 117,000 years and could have brought humanity to extinction.
Month: August 2023
Weeks after a cybersecurity incident was detected by researchers at the US National Science Foundation (NSF), a number of telescopes remain offline. The Gemini North telescope in Hawaii and the Gemini South telescope in Chile, as well as a number of smaller telescopes on the mountains of Cerro Tololo in Chile, were shut down out
The abilities of artificial intelligence (AI) systems are advancing at an astounding rate, nearing or bettering what humans can do in simulations and test environments. Setting aside the ethical and environmental concerns around AI and those of autonomous drones for a minute, we can marvel at this latest feat: an AI-controlled drone system that beat
Climate change has sharply boosted the risk of fast-spreading wildfires, according to a Californian study published Wednesday that offers lessons for prevention after recent disasters in Canada, Greece and Hawaii. Scientists at the Breakthrough Institute, a non-profit research centre, found that human-caused warming increased the frequency of “extreme” wildfires by 25 percent on average compared
A newly observed isotope of oxygen is defying all our expectations for how it should behave. It’s oxygen-28, with the highest number of neutrons ever seen in the nucleus of an oxygen atom. Yet, while scientists believe it should be stable, it decays rapidly – calling into question what we thought we knew about “magic”
Wild boars in southeastern Germany are known to contain high levels of radioactive cesium, which has been widely attributed to the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. But radioactivity levels have decreased in other animals while mysteriously persisting in the boars – a peculiar behavior known as the “wild boar paradox”. New research shows nuclear weapons tests from
The fossil fuels that humanity burns today will be a death sentence for many lives tomorrow. A recent review of 180 articles on the human death rate of climate change has settled on a deeply distressing number. Over the next century or so, conservative estimates suggest a billion people could die from climate catastrophes, possibly
India only landed on the Moon last week, but its Chandrayaan-3 mission has already made its first scientific observations of the lunar south pole. By shooting lasers at the surface, the onboard rover has confirmed the presence of sulfur, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has announced. It’s the first rover to ever explore the
A rare type of particle has emerged from proton collisions in the Large Hadron Collider. Between 2016 and 2018, physicists recorded more than 100 rare, unstable hypernuclei – atomic cores that contain an unusual flavor of quark in one of their nuclear particles. It’s a discovery that could help us understand the source of mysterious
The Whirlpool Galaxy, aka M51, is one of the most well-known objects in the night sky. It’s close enough and prominent in the northern sky that amateur astronomers have shared stunning pictures of it for decades. But you’ve never seen anything like this: M51 as seen by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). This image
A forest blaze in Greece is “the largest wildfire ever recorded in the EU” and the bloc is mobilising nearly half its firefighting air wing to tackle it, a European Commission spokesman said Tuesday. Firefighters have been battling the flames for 11 days in northeastern Greece which have killed at least 20 people and pose
A piece of ancient space rock that ended up on Earth is giving scientists the clues they need to understand the cloud of dust from which the Solar System was born. The rare object is known as Erg Chech 002, and an isotope contained within it suggests a sprinkling of radioactive material from recently exploded
Strange loops in the fabric of reality have finally been witnessed forming in a super cold gas, providing physicists with an opportunity to study the behaviors of a rather peculiar kind of one-sided magnetism. Known as ‘Alice rings’ after the Alice of ‘Wonderland’ fame, the circular structures were observed by a collaboration between researchers in
In all our explorations of Mars to date, no evidence has been found that meets the rigorous standards to claim that we have conclusively found life. But, decades ago in the 1970s, when the Viking landers became the first US mission to safely land on and explore the red planet, we may have been close.
Rumours that there are big cats in Britain stubbornly keep cropping up. The thought of a large predator lurking in the rural landscapes of Britain is an exciting one. The most recent widely published claim of a big black cat in the UK does actually show a photo of a big cat species, which can
Days after becoming the first nation to land a craft near the Moon‘s largely unexplored south pole, India’s space agency said on Monday it will launch a satellite to survey the Sun. “The launch of Aditya-L1, the first space-based Indian observatory to study the Sun, is scheduled for September 2,” the Indian Space Research Organisation
Forecasters were closely watching Tropical Storm Idalia as it passed Cuba and headed toward exceptionally warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico. The storm was on track to intensify rapidly before making landfall on the Florida Panhandle, possibly as a major hurricane, on Wednesday, Aug. 30. Hurricane scientist Haiyan Jiang of Florida International University explained
The Moon is known for its numerous craters that preserve the scars of turbulence from above. But just beneath the shattered lunar surface lies evidence of a succession of lava flows, detailing a different kind of chaos in the Moon’s past arising from below. Jianqing Feng, an astrophysicist at the Planetary Science Institute in Arizona,
Never let it be said that scientists don’t have an eye for the sublime. Encoding and deciphering a Chinese symbol for duality and harmony into the quantum states of two entangled photons, physicists recently demonstrated the superior efficiency of a new analytical technique. Researchers from the Sapienza University of Rome and the University of Ottawa
The biggest search for the Loch Ness Monster in five decades got underway in the Scottish Highlands Saturday, as researchers and enthusiasts from around the world braved pelting rain to try to track down the elusive Nessie. The expedition deployed drones with thermal scanners, boats with infrared cameras and an underwater hydrophone to try to
The Solar Orbiter spacecraft was zipping through space when a “hole” opened up in the sun’s atmosphere near its south pole. It wasn’t really a hole, per se. It was a coronal hole — a spot in the sun‘s outer atmosphere where the temperature has dropped. These “cool” spots don’t glow as bright as the
On Wednesday, a full, luminous moon will appear in the sky. While experts debate the exact definition of a supermoon, this last full moon of the summer meets all the criteria. In general, the moon is a supermoon when it reaches the point nearest to Earth in its orbit, known as perigee. At about 226,000
For the first time, researchers have been able to extract DNA fragments from an ancient clay brick, demonstrating how these building blocks from times long past could be used to catalog flora found in the environment at the time. When this brick was made some 2,900 years ago in what is now northern Iraq, the
Archaeologists have discovered evidence of unique early Neolithic burial practices in Galería del Sílex in Spain, following an analysis of ceramic vessels found with human remains in two pits. Representing an early instance of diverse Neolithic funerary customs deep within the Iberian Peninsula interior, the finding draws attention to the Atapuerca Mountains as a significant
We’ve been warned that our planet will change in unimaginable ways if we don’t act soon, and new research shows nearly 50 percent of 15–84-year-olds have already experienced significant change. Seeing what lies ahead, climate scientists have been at pains to show us how climate change will intensify such that today’s youth will bear the
It may seem like the ultimate in bling, but a new technique for tattooing gold onto living tissue is a step towards integrating human cells with electronic devices. By building on a fabrication technique called nanoimprint lithography, scientists printed living mouse embryo fibroblast cells with patterns of gold nanodots and nanowires. This, they say, is
An analysis of antibodies extracted from 800-year-old teeth has provided a new way to identify pathogens our ancestors contended with. The process could potentially help us understand how human antibodies – proteins naturally produced by our bodies in self-defense – have developed through history. Building on previous research, a team led by researchers from the
Glass might look and feel like a perfectly ordered solid, but up close its chaotic arrangement of particles more closely resemble the tumultuous mess of a freefalling liquid frozen in time. Known as amorphous solids, materials in this state defy easy explanation. New research involving computation and simulation is yielding clues. In particular, it suggests
Seismology has been ubiquitous on Earth for decades, and missions such as InSight have recently provided the same data for the inside of Mars. Understanding a planet’s inner workings is key to understanding its geology and climate. However, the inner workings of Venus, arguably our closest sister planet, have remained a mystery. The sulfuric acid
In 1997, a lone wolf crossed an ice bridge that briefly connected Canada with the remote Isle Royale, which lies off the coast of Michigan in Lake Superior and is renowned for its rich biodiversity. His arrival revived the flagging fortunes of the wider wolf population, which had been hit by disease and inbreeding, and
Scientists at Stanford University have designed a new paint that could help reduce our growing reliance on air conditioners and heaters. It comes in an array of colors, and if used properly, it could seriously slash electricity bills and emissions. The paint is capable of reflecting up to 80 percent of mid-infrared light from the
Nothing can go faster than light. It’s a rule of physics woven into the very fabric of Einstein’s special theory of relativity. The faster something goes, the closer it gets to its perspective of time freezing to a standstill. Go faster still, and you run into issues of time reversing, messing with notions of causality.
In early 2023, the Guardian published an article suggesting that more than 90% of rainforest carbon offsets are worthless. These credits are essentially a promise to protect forests and can be bought as a way to “offset” emissions elsewhere. Verra, the largest certifier of these offset credits, said the claims were “absolutely incorrect” but the
Crafting organic molecules into a bizarre kind of magnet, physicists from Aalto University and the University of Jyväskylä in Finland have created the perfect space for observing the elusive activity of an electronic state called a triplon. Where a garden variety magnet is typically best described as having two poles surrounded by a nest of
Most spiders pose very little danger to humans, including the notorious noble false widow (Steatoda nobilis). But the half-inch predator does punch surprisingly far above its weight. According to a recent study, for example, the noble false widow spider may habitually prey upon vertebrates, with known victims including lizards, bats, and now shrews. In fact,
India made history as the first country to land near the south pole of the Moon with its Chandrayaan-3 lander on August 23, 2023. This also makes it the first country to land on the Moon since China in 2020. India is one of several countries – including the US with its Artemis program –
Japan began releasing wastewater from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean on Thursday, prompting a furious China to ban all seafood imports from its neighbour. The start of the discharge of around 540 Olympic swimming pools’ worth of water over several decades is a big step in decommissioning the still highly dangerous
Mars is a wondrous world full of mysteries. We’re getting closer to solving some of them, but others remain baffling. Take the bizarre phenomenon of brain terrain for example. Consisting of intricately sculpted, whorled ridges and troughs, it resembles the wrinkled surface of the human brain. Exactly what causes the landscape to develop this way
Ever since Voyager 2 flew past Neptune in 1989, the giant dark smudges that appear in the distant planet’s atmosphere have presented a strange puzzle. Now, for the first time, we have observed one with Earth-based instruments in unprecedented resolution, helping scientists figure out why those patches appear so dark and why they are so
Sea ice loss in Antarctica during 2022’s emperor penguin breeding season resulted in the complete failure of four out of the five breeding colonies in the Bellingshausen Sea. Satellite imagery shows none of the chicks from those sites survived. The devastating event is the first recorded widespread breeding failure of emperor penguins (Aptenodytes forsteri); but,
Personally witnessing the contorted forms of Vesuvius’s human and animal victims drives home the horror of their final moments like no words or footage ever could. The famous casts of Pompeii have allowed this experience to be shared by generations of people across the world, from Italy to Australia. Unfortunately, the plaster may have also
We have a problem. Ever since the launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957, we have been launching debris into space. Everything from space stations and large communication satellites to small CubeSats. With each launch, we also add things such as rocket parts and paint chips to the orbital pile. Right now there are more than
When a magician tells you there’s nothing up their sleeve, you’re invited to look past the arm sweat and stale air for cards or rabbits lurking within. But when a manufacturer of high-quality microchips says there’s nothing in their vacuum chamber, you really need to trust them. Hairs, dust motes, or even molecules of pollutants
Forests, it’s often said, are the lungs of Earth. Tall trees stretch skyward to find sunlight, sucking water up from their roots and carbon dioxide in through their leaves to photosynthesize. Like any chemical reaction, this elemental exchange works best within an optimal temperature range, outside of which a tree’s photosynthetic machinery can break down.
India’s space agency successfully landed their Chandrayaan-3 lander on the lunar surface, becoming the fourth country to touch down on the Moon and the first to land at one of the lunar poles. The Indian Space Resource Organization’s (ISRO) Chandrayaan-3 launched last month and made a soft landing on the Moon’s south pole at approximately
Since the sale of the platform formerly known as Twitter in October 2022, almost half of its ‘environmentalist’ users – including scientists, policymakers and activists – have stopped tweeting. US researchers compared the habits of 380,000 people who tweeted regularly about environmental issues with a control group of 458,000 users who tweeted about the upcoming
At the Davidson Seamount, off the coast of California, a world of wonder lurks on the seafloor. There, in the shimmering warmth that seeps through from the volcano below, thousands of ‘pearl’ octopuses (Muusoctopus robustus) gather to mate, to nest, and to nurture their eggs to hatch. Discovered in 2018, the nursery is the most
A giraffe born without spots sounds like the plot of a children’s book – and actually is one – but this quirky coming-of-age story is also unfolding right now in real life. On the 31st of July, Brights Zoo in Tennessee welcomed a new baby giraffe without any spots to the world. Her coat is
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