Scientists are usually a rather cheery bunch. But every now and then, they have a habit of wondering how the Universe might cave in and destroy us in the blink of an eye. Take physicists Frans Pretorius from Princeton University and William East from the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Canada, for instance. They’ve
Month: August 2018
Scientists in Siberia have made an extraordinary find: the fossilised remains of an extinct baby Palaeolithic horse, in almost perfect condition. Dug out from the permafrost in Siberia’s Batagaika crater – AKA the “Doorway to the Underworld” – the tiny colt is so beautifully preserved, it looks like it could be sleeping. But the equine
NASA’s Worldview program has some bad news. The Earth is on fire. The red points in the picture above are areas around the world with fires actively burning, accurate as of Thursday. It doesn’t look great. The Worldview website lets you look at current events happening across the planet. One of those events is wildfires,
Ask a three-year-old why they think it’s raining, and she may say “because the flowers are thirsty”. Her brother might also tell you that trees have leaves to provide shade for people and animals. These are instances of teleological thinking, the idea that things came into being and exist for a purpose. Teleological explanations for
For around a century it’s been thought that particles don’t have defined properties until we nail them down with a measurement. That kind of quantum madness opens up a whole world of counter-intuitive paradoxes. Take this one, for example – it’s possible for a single particle to experience two sequences of events at the same
In 1815, a volcanic eruption in Indonesia sent shockwaves through history. It gave us science fiction. It gave us Dickensian Christmas (we’ll get to that in a bit). And now, it turns out it may also have played a role in the downfall of one of western history’s greatest generals, Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon was
As the Pentagon reorients toward great-power competition with adversaries like Russia and China, its preparations go beyond learning to ski and practicing to drive across Europe. US military units rely on wireless networks and radio-frequency communications to talk on the battlefield, sharing intelligence, targeting data, and orders. But concern is growing that rivals like China
Parasitic gall wasps have some of the freshest cribs nature has to offer. Deposited among the trees as young larvae, these hungry parasites trick their plant host into covering them with a gall – a swelling that provides plenty of nutrients for a growing wasp. But in the game of life, there’s always a bigger
They’re the vilest, most unthinkable horrors you could ever imagine lurking in the sewers underneath our cities. Even Pennywise is terrified of them. They’re called fatbergs: vast deposits of congealed fat and grease stuck together with soiled diapers, condoms, tampons, wet wipes, you name it. But these stomach-churning accumulations that clog up sewer systems could
The Milky Way is a zombie. No, not really, it doesn’t go around eating other galaxies’ brains. But it did “die” once, before flaring back to life. That’s what a Japanese scientist has ascertained after peering into the chemical compositions of our galaxy’s stars. In a large section of the Milky Way, the stars can
Pool noodles aren’t just an important swimming aid. Their buoyancy and bendiness make fun times in the water even more fun than usual. But don’t just take our word for it. This crocodile in Florida clearly thinks so too, having been spotted using a bright yellow pool noodle when crossing a canal in Key Largo
Hawaii may face a direct hit from a Category 5 hurricane later this week. The National Weather Service on Tuesday night said that Hurricane Lane had been upgraded to a Category 5 storm, meaning it has the potential to bring winds in excess of 157 miles per hour (253 km/h) and cause severe damage to
Let’s face it. Most of us are never going to go to space. And none of us are going to visit the Orion Nebula. But we can dream – and now thanks to NASA, we can selfie our way into some of the most spectacular scenery in the Milky Way. To celebrate the 15th anniversary
In an age where everyone seems to be sharing everything on social media, sometimes we forget to think before we tweet. If you’re sharing the news of a new internship or job at NASA, take a note from Twitter user Naomi H’s book not to use bad ‘language’ on Twitter. A now deleted thread started
If you’re watching a movie where an underwater submarine is communicating with an aeroplane, some creative licence is being taken – the sonar waves used by subs can’t reach the air, and radio waves used by planes don’t travel at all well underwater. That’s always caused problems for communications between underwater and airborne vehicles, as
A 13-year-old girl who died over 50,000 years ago may not have had a long time alive on this planet, but she was in fact very special. Millennia later, a fragment of her skeleton reveals that she was the first-generation result of a mating between two different species of hominin. Her mum was a Neanderthal,
An analysis of a stalagmite from the depths of a cave in China has unveiled clues about an event in Earth’s history when its magnetic field flipped back and forth in a geological blink. Not only was this rapid wobble a surprise, a similarly abrupt shift in the near future would almost certainly pose big
People will tell you laziness is bad. Get up and be active, they say. Move your body around, and it won’t just keep you fit, it could even keep you young. That’s good advice, but new research suggests being inherently lazy isn’t always as bad as is made out – and could actually be an evolutionary
The breakdown of some of the oldest and thickest sea ice in the Arctic has occurred for the first time in recorded history. Not once, but twice this year, the breaking ice has opened waters north of Greenland that are usually frozen even in summer. It’s partially the result of climate change-driven heatwaves and warm
What if we have quantum entanglement’s ‘spooky’ nature all wrong, and we’re missing something? A new experiment using the wavelength of photons created more than 7.8 billion years ago makes that more unlikely than ever. If there’s a classical physics explanation for the phenomenon, it’s extremely well hidden. MIT physicists have pushed the limits on
Before its mysterious collapse more than 1,000 years ago, the Maya civilisation in Mesoamerica was home to one of the densest populations in human history. But as the ancient and burgeoning civilisation spread across the Yucatan peninsula, it left a pernicious mark on the environment that can still be observed today. A new study shows
A year ago, the Great American total solar eclipse evoked awe, wonder and bewilderment, as Earth dwellers briefly had the chance to bask in the shadow of the Moon. Close to 200 million Americans viewed the spectacle in some way, including roughly 15 million lucky folks who managed to squeeze themselves within the path of
It looks like something out of a sad fairy tale. Tiny ants are pulling over petals, making a pile, and on top rests a dead bumblebee. The original video was posted by Minnesota resident Nicole Webinger, but has since been taken down – although there’s no shortage of copies proliferating across the internet. “Saw this
They’re incredible. Amazing. Magical. But perhaps the most fantastic thing about lucid dreams – in which the dreamer becomes aware they’re dreaming – is how realistic they seem. Sadly, only about half of us ever experience lucid dreams in our lives, and efforts to trigger the phenomenon have delivered mixed results. But now, new research
How much pressure does light exert on the matter with which it interacts? It’s a problem that’s confounded scientists for nearly 150 years – and it may now have a solution. A team of researchers have come up with a method for measuring the effect a photon has on matter. Even though a photon has
The Meg had one of the biggest opening weekends at the box office this year, taking in more than US$45 million. At the center of the movie is the megalodon, a giant prehistoric shark that ate whales and was 10 times bigger than a Tyrannosaurus rex. Scientists believe the megashark went extinct at least 2
Everybody loves a good optical illusion - and this recently discovered perception trick has us questioning how we see the world around us. Take a look at those lines in the image above (or you can see the full picture below if you scroll down a bit). What kind of lines do you see? Are they
Well, well, well. Looks like the jig is up. The “new kind of aurora” discovered earlier this year, and subsequently named “STEVE” (if that is even its real name) has been rumbled. It seems Steve isn’t an aurora after all. But that doesn’t mean the game is over. Because Steve’s actual identity may be even
Not everybody ‘gets’ art, but one man’s failure to comprehend the artwork in front of him was so extreme he literally fell through a black void into limbo. A museum visitor scrutinising Anish Kapoor’s Descent Into Limbo at the Serralves Museum in Portugal let curiosity get the better of him when inspecting the ultra-black optical
Archaeologists have had a closer look at the bones inside that mysterious black granite sarcophagus, and now have a better idea about who was inside. The three skeletons belonged to two men and a woman, who lived during the early Ptolemaic period. Discovered in Alexandria in July, the sarcophagus – a stone receptacle for the
Shadowy craters near the Moon’s poles may hide untold reserves of ice – an incredibly precious resource in space – within reach of robotic and human explorers. That’s one big takeaway from a new study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The researchers took data from US and Indian lunar
A new study has demonstrated that a bunch of the important brain processes known as ‘executive functions’ aren’t affected by someone’s sex or gender, as it has been argued before. The research references more than 150 previous studies into executive functions and associated behaviour, finding “small and subtle to no sex and gender differences in
It was 5,000 years ago. In Africa’s shifting environment, an early society came together on the shores of Kenya’s Lake Turkana, and they built something so rare and remarkable, researchers have never seen anything quite like it. Five millennia later, an international team of archaeologists has now uncovered what this ancient structure was: a massive,
The puzzle of how Einstein’s equivalence principle plays out in the quantum realm has vexed physicists for decades. Now two researchers may have finally figured out the key that will allow us to solve this mystery. Einstein’s physical theories have held up under pretty much every classical physics test thrown at them. But when you
Research suggests that you’re more likely to find a narcissist in the corner office than just about anywhere else. As psychoanalyst leadership expert Michael Maccoby has argued, that’s because narcissists often thrive in leadership roles, since so-called “productive narcissists” are super comfortable with risk and charming enough to get people’s backing for their ideas. “Narcissists
The Arctic permafrost really should stay frozen. In many places it’s been frozen for tens of thousands of years, locking away greenhouse gasses and ancient diseases. Unfortunately, our planet’s changing climate is denting permafrosts around the world. And now NASA-funded research has confirmed that the expected gradual thawing of the Arctic permafrost is being dramatically
Their name means ‘monster’, and once upon a time, ancient sailors feared that’s exactly what these giant creatures of the deep were. But while basking sharks (Cetorhinus maximus) might be the second-largest fish in the ocean, these gentle giants are not fearsome predators but vulnerable plankton-eaters – and despite their massive size, there’s still a
A new report reveals that a shocking amount of contact lens users – nearly 20 percent – dispose of those little plastic circles in a terribly irresponsible way, by flushing them down the toilet or the drain of the sink. Of an estimated 45 million US contact lens wearers, that’s around 9 million right there.
In astronomy, cutting-edge technology often begins with a bunch of bulldozers, busted rocks, and dump trucks. So it goes with the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT), which will the world’s largest and most powerful when it sees “first light” in 2024. Astronomers hope to use the huge observatory to study the ancient universe and look for
At the time of writing, more than 430 people have died following an earthquake in the Indonesian island of Lombok. A further 2,500 people have been hospitalised with serious injuries and over 270,000 people have been displaced. Earthquakes are one of the deadliest natural disasters, accounting for just 7.5 percent of such events between 1994 and
In a truly fascinating case, scientists have discovered that what was once thought to be an extremely rare, elusive songbird in Africa, may have never existed after all. For more than 30 years, experts tried to catch a glimpse of a bird so evasive it was deemed almost mythical. And last year, DNA analysis pointed
You probably use Wi-Fi on the regular to connect your smartphone, computer, or other electronic device to the glory of the world wide web. But soon, that same technology could also keep you safe in real-life public areas. According to a peer-reviewed study led by researchers from Rutgers University-New Brunswick, ordinary Wi-Fi can effectively and cheaply detect
The news that, after 106 years, Captain Scott’s fruitcake was found by the Antarctic Heritage Trust and ‘smelled edible’, raises the question: are there other foods that have similar staying power? The answer is, yes, several. 1. Honey In 2015, archaeologists reported that they’d found 3,000-year-old honey while excavating tombs in Egypt, and it was
For years, dieters have had to deal with a lot of conflicting advice on how to eat. First, fat was the bad guy. Then it was considered ideal to avoid sugar and go low-carb. Lately, dieters trying the trendy ketogenic diet have discovered that if they replace carbs with fat, they can trick their bodies into a
Former US president Barack Obama famously had a wardrobe full of identical suits. As a world leader, life presents more than enough big decisions – Obama’s reasoning was that it made sense to minimise the complexity of the small decisions. Artists are often thought of as rather different. Francis Bacon, for example, had a tempestuous
Quick: Pick one of these colours. Just the first one that catches your eye, don’t overthink it. Now pick a number between zero and nine. Got it? Good, now scroll past this photo of a dog yawning. Shutterstock If I were a betting man, I’d bet you picked blue and seven. Not everyone makes those choices,
The headlines of record-crushing heat in the Northern Hemisphere began in June and haven’t stopped midway through August. Scores of locations on every continent north of the equator have witnessed their hottest weather in recorded history. The swelter has intensified raging wildfires in western North America, Scandinavia and Siberia, while leading to heat-related deaths in Japan and eastern
There’s amazing stuff happening every day in the wide and wonderful world of science. We’re hoping you didn’t miss a thing! Just in case you did, though, or if you wanted a recap, here are some of our favourite stories of the week. And for those of you who are all over the news, see