It is as inevitable as the rising of the Sun and the turning of the tides. Someday another large rock from space will crash into the Earth. It has happened for billions of years in the past and will continue to happen for billions of years into the future. So far humanity has been lucky,
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One year in the next five will almost certainly be the hottest on record and there’s a two-in-three chance a single year will cross the crucial 1.5 °C global warming threshold, an alarming new report by the World Meteorological Organization predicts. The report, known as the Global Annual to Decadal Climate Update, warns if humanity
Archaeologists have described what could be the oldest examples of construction plans in human history, chiseled into ancient stones in Jordan and Saudi Arabia between 7,000 and 8,000 years ago. Engraved geometric patterns have been matched with neighboring desert megastructures built long before the pyramids of Giza, leading an international team of researchers to conclude
Saturn’s rings are one of the jewels of the Solar System, but it seems that their time is short and their existence fleeting. A new study suggests the rings are between 400 million and 100 million years old – a fraction of the age of the Solar System. This means we are just lucky to
Talking to babies could help shape the structure of their growing brains, according to new research. A study led by researchers at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom has found toddlers who hear more speech on the regular have more efficient-looking neurons. Specifically, brain scans showed that their language-processing regions hosted a
We can now hear one of the largest and most ancient living organisms on Earth whisper with the tremble of a million leaves echoing through its roots. The forest made of a single tree known as Pando (“I spread” in Latin) has 47,000 stems (all with the same DNA) sprouting from a shared root system
New York is sinking, and its skyscrapers are bringing it down. That’s the finding of a new study that modeled the geology beneath the city compared to satellite data showing its footprint is collapsing into Earth. Technically called subsidence, this gradual settling or sudden sinking of Earth’s surface occurs when soft sediments shift, or loads
They are known as ultra-fast outflows (UFOs), powerful space winds emitted by the supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at the center of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) – aka. “quasars.” These winds (with a fun name!) move close to the speed of light (relativistic speeds) and regulate the behavior of SMBHs during their active phase. These gas
In a first, a team of mathematicians has developed a model that can map the best way for human males to reach sexual climax. What they’ve found is that getting too excited early on can actually prevent men from reaching climax. But the good news is their research also shows a way around this problem.
Dog brains are much smaller than wolf brains, but new research suggests modern breeding efforts have somewhat increased their relative size. Compared to ancient dogs, modern breeds that developed in the past 150 years possess larger skulls compared to their body size. Yet scientists still don’t know why. Numerous studies have shown that domesticating wild
Every skin flake, hair follicle, eyelash, and spit drop cast from your body contains instructions written in a chemical code, one that is unique to you. According to a new study, technology has advanced to the point that it’s now possible to sift scraps of human DNA out of the air, water, or soil and
Albert Einstein wasn’t entirely convinced about quantum mechanics, suggesting our understanding of it was incomplete. In particular, Einstein took issue with entanglement, the notion that a particle could be affected by another particle that wasn’t close by. Experiments since have shown that quantum entanglement is indeed possible and that two entangled particles can be connected
After just a few short months in the lead, Jupiter has once again ceded the title of “most known moons” to Saturn. The discovery of 62 previously unknown satellites has put the ringed planet firmly back in the lead, with a grand total of 145 officially recognized moons. This means Big Jupe, with its paltry
We’ve touched on the hazards of solar storms plenty of times in the past. We’ve also recently started reporting even more stories involving some sort of AI, especially in the last few months since it has come back to the forefront of many discussions around technologies. So it should come as no surprise that a
When you’re poking around ancient ruins, you probably expect to find a few artifacts or the bits and pieces left behind by the people who lived and worked there long ago. But an archaeological site has just yielded something you might not expect if you didn’t know the history of the place. At what was
A forest often echoes with the sounds of its inhabitants, especially after rainfall. Birds coo and caw, insects chirp and buzz, frogs blip and bellow. But not all forest conversations are audible – nor do they all include animals. In a new study, scientists in Japan found intriguing hints that rain may prompt some fungi
Although long dead, fossil skeletons provide an incredible window into the lifestyle and environment of an extinct animal. By analyzing the various features of fossil bones we can reveal not only the overall size and shape of the animal, but also what kind of movement the animal was capable of, its lifestyle, and the environment
Extending high above and below the Milky Way’s galactic plane, a pair of huge, symmetrical blobs of gas stretch out like the lobes of a cosmic hourglass, glowing faintly with an X-ray radiance. They’re known as eROSITA bubbles, named after the X-ray telescope that spotted them in 2020, and are located in the Milky Way’s
Just because there’s no mini-Neptune in our Solar System doesn’t mean they’re not common. They appear to be widespread throughout the Milky Way, and according to NASA, are the most common exoplanet type. GJ 1214 b is one of them. One of the James Webb Space Telescope’s stated science goals is the study of exoplanets.
Wood is good for a lot of things. Building boxes, boats, and bookcases, for instance. Making tools, or campfires. Feeding termites. And beavers. You’ll note powering functional electrical appliances isn’t among them. Researchers at Linköping University and the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden clearly never paid much attention to lists of things wood
Astronomers said on Friday they have identified the “largest” cosmic explosion ever observed, a fireball 100 times the size of our Solar System that suddenly began blazing in the distant universe more than three years ago. While the astronomers offered what they think is the most likely explanation for the explosion, they emphasized that more
Insects have been around for close to 480 million years, giving them plenty of time to creep, crawl, burrow and flutter all over our planet’s surface. Well, just about all over. Surprisingly few species live in the oceans, and scientists have been trying to figure out why that’s the case. A research team from the
New research has uncovered an intriguing advantage human vision has over that of our monkey cousins. Thanks to small differences in the structure of the retina, our eyes are able to perceive a greater range of blue tones. The findings, reported by researchers from the University of Washington, the Medical University of Vienna, and the
Fast radio bursts – intense, milliseconds-long flashes of radio energy from outer space – have puzzled astronomers since they were first spotted in 2007. A single burst can emit as much energy in its brief life as the Sun does in a few days. The great majority of the short-lived pulses originate outside our Milky
How did we get here? Where are we going? And how long will it take? These questions are as old as humanity itself, and, if they’ve already been asked by other species elsewhere in the Universe, potentially very much older than that. They are also some of the fundamental questions we are trying to answer
Amid the human-driven ecological unraveling, the illegal wildlife trade poses one of the greatest threats to many species’ continued existence. Alas, the internet has allowed this trade to flourish more easily than ever. On top of a booming trade on the open web, new research has identified hundreds of species traded on the dark web,
Eight years after the technology was approved by government authorities, it can be reported that at least one child with DNA from three different people has been born to parents in the United Kingdom. The announcement isn’t exactly ‘new’ knowledge, but reporters at The Guardian were able to prompt an official confirmation with a freedom
For 20 years, experts have relied on the human genome reference as a genetic benchmark for the study of biology, disease, evolution, and more. It’s considered one of the greatest scientific achievements of the 21st century. Now we’ve got something even better. Scientists have just unveiled the first draft of the human pangenome, a much
Scientists have been left baffled by a mysterious celestial object so bright that physics dictates it should have exploded. NASA has been tracking so-called ultraluminous X-ray sources, objects that can be 10 million times as bright as the Sun, to understand how they work. These objects are impossible in theory because they break the Eddington
A grapefruit-sized metallic object fell from the sky, straight through the roof of a New Jersey home, and crashed into the floor of the bedroom on Monday, according to local reports. Police who responded to the incident in Hopewell, New Jersey, believe the falling object may be a meteorite, possibly from the Eta Aquarids meteor
Archaeologists have unearthed the remnants of a 7,000-year-old road hidden beneath layers of sea mud off the southern Croatian coast. Made at the sunken Neolithic site of Soline, this exciting find may once have linked the ancient Hvar culture settlement to the now isolated island of Korčula. Once an artificial island, the ancient site of
In 1998, I unintentionally created a racially biased artificial intelligence algorithm. There are lessons in that story that resonate even more strongly today. The dangers of bias and errors in AI algorithms are now well known. Why, then, has there been a flurry of blunders by tech companies in recent months, especially in the world
Since the Cambrian explosion 538.8 million years ago – a time when many of the animal phyla we’re familiar with today were established – five major mass extinction events have whittled down the biodiversity of all creatures great and small. Last year, researchers from the US published evidence of one occurring earlier, around 550 million
Human noses come in a variety of shapes and sizes, from cute and petite to classically aquiline, broad and stately, bold and noble. A new study by an international team of researchers has found at least some of the genes responsible for our nasal anatomy may have been inherited from our Neanderthal cousins. The analysis
In a recent study submitted to the Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, a pair of researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) examine the likelihood of extraterrestrial intelligent civilizations intercepting outward transmissions from NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN) that are aimed at
J.R.R. Tolkien’s magical The Lord of the Rings universe includes hobbits, elves, wizards, and now, a new genus of butterflies called Saurona after the dark lord Sauron. “Naming a genus is not something that happens very often,” said Blanca Huertas, a senior curator of butterflies at the Natural History Museum in London, in a release
A closer look at the junction where a Greenland glacier crunches into the ocean floor, known as its grounding line, has revealed less stability amid the shifting of tides – and therefore a greater rate of melting – than previously estimated thanks to global warming. The finding explains why rates of glacier melts are well
Our planet is teetering on the edge of several tipping points that once passed, will topple into a cascade of ecological changes. Extreme heatwaves, droughts, floods, and storms are becoming more common and intense; the energy trapped by Earth’s atmosphere and oceans fizzing up like a carbonated soft drink under pressure. Now a new study
The Amazon rainforest is on the precipice of a catastrophic collapse from which it may never return. The traditional knowledge that once helped cultivate this precious ecosystem could now help it recover, according to new research by researchers from the University of São Paulo, the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation, and the National Institute for Amazonian
The first-time detection of gravitational waves (GW) by researchers at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) in 2015 triggered a revolution in astronomy. This phenomenon consists of ripples in spacetime caused by the merger of massive objects and was predicted a century prior by Einstein’s theory of general relativity. In the coming years, this burgeoning
Most diamonds are formed deep inside Earth and brought close to the surface in small yet powerful volcanic eruptions of a kind of rock called “kimberlite”. Our supercomputer modeling, published in Nature Geoscience, shows these eruptions are fueled by giant “pillars of heat” rooted 2,900 kilometers (1,802 miles) below ground, just above our planet’s core.
More like a verdant rug than a forest or pasture, the humble moss packs a surprising lot of punch for being such a small plant. In an amazing new study, researchers have only just discovered how vital this diverse group of itty-bitty botanicals is to ecosystems around the world. “We were gobsmacked to find that
A new era of clinical research on psilocybin mushrooms (aka ‘magic mushrooms’) has emboldened some scientists to share their own life-changing experiences with psychedelics. A recent case study describes a young 35-year-old male researcher in the United States, who claims to distinguish red and green colors better after taking psychedelics. Following his ingestion of magic
Scientists are rewriting the story of how modern humans first spread out of Africa, and it might contain more run-ins with Europe’s Neanderthals than previously recognized. Last year, archaeologists uncovered several lines of evidence to suggest that Homo sapiens was living in Europe a whole 10,000 years before we once thought. That initial group of
Shadows flickering across the dust roiling around a newborn star have revealed a rare glimpse of how the Solar System may have formed billions of years ago. Changing light around a star named TW Hydrae suggests that the giant disks of material circling the star are off-kilter, orbiting at slightly different angles of inclination. New
Vietnam has reported a record-high temperature, with climate experts warning such extreme weather events would continue. The country’s scientists have warned that global warming is exacerbating adverse weather, with the region sweltering under a heatwave in April – when neighboring countries also registered record temperatures. A temperature of 44.1 degrees Celsius (111.38 degrees Fahrenheit) was
The surface of Mars is a pretty desolate place at first glance. The soil is many times as dry as the driest desert on planet Earth, the temperatures swing from one extreme to the other, and the air is incredibly thin and toxic. And yet, there’s ample evidence that the planet was once much warmer
Like any toddler, the infant Sun was an absolute trial. It kicked and screamed, lashing the space around it with powerful superflares every few days. Once upon a time, we thought that these outbursts would have posed a hindrance to life on Earth. But evidence suggests they may have been the trigger that kicked it