This new Hubble image is an excellent way to remind yourself of the sheer enormity of the Universe. The space-based telescope pointed its delicate instrumentation at a particular region of the sky for hours, peering deep into space to a distance of 11 billion light-years – just 3 billion years after the Big Bang. It
Month: August 2018
Ants don’t tend to get in traffic jams. They might butt heads (or antennae) momentarily as they go about their industrious business, but ants somehow have mastered the art of keeping things moving. They’re geniuses of flow. Another striking thing about ants is that some of them just sit around doing nothing. This has also
A chemical analysis of fossils from 3.4 billion years ago has put them firmly in the running for the title of “world’s oldest evidence of life.” Only discovered in 2011, the microfossils hail from the Strelley Pools formation in the Western Australian desert – an extraordinary find, considering Earth is thought to be around 4.5
During this week 106 years ago, New Zealand was talking about the future of our planet. The predictions weren’t uplifting. On August 14, 1912, a newspaper called the Rodney and Otamatea Times, Waitemata and Kaipara Gazette printed a prescient paragraph in its “science notes and news” section. The brief note warned that Earth’s atmosphere was
Elon Musk’s Boring Company, founded in late 2016, has only sold merchandise so far. But this week, it announced plans to build a 3-mile (5-kilometre) tunnel that could transport people in Los Angeles to Dodger Stadium in just four minutes. The Boring Company says its new tunnel to Dodger Stadium will be the first public
Astronomers were just looking through photographs received from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on Monday, when they noticed something slightly out of place. There, on the surface of the enigmatic Red Planet, in one of the few regions not obscured by a dust storm, was none other than the wide-eyed Beaker – the shy and ill-fated
Scientists just worked out a way of rapidly producing a mineral capable of storing carbon dioxide (CO2) – giving us a potentially exciting option for dealing with our increasingly overcooked planet. Magnesite, which is a type of magnesium carbonate, forms when magnesium combines with carbonic acid – CO2 dissolved in water. If we can produce
The shredded carcasses of microscopic marine algae could play an important role in the formation of clouds over the world’s oceans, a new study has found. We all know clouds form as microscopic water droplets in the air condense on the surface of microscopic particles. These particles can be soluble – such as where salt crystals
High above our heads, there’s a mysterious Russian satellite. And the strange way it’s acting – according to the US State Department – is unlike any satellite we’ve seen before. “We don’t know for certain what it is and there is no way to verify it,” US Assistant Secretary for Arms Control, Yleem D.S. Poblete,
There’s a distinct line between the truly profound and what sounds a bit like it might be profound. But isn’t. And doesn’t actually make any sense. At all. Researchers call the latter thing “pseudo-profound bullshit” (seriously), and as funny as it sounds, it’s an important subject of scientific study. Why? Because the more we find
Thousands of years ago, on what is now the Greek island of Santorini, a mountain exploded in one of the largest volcanic eruptions in recorded history. But scientists have had difficulty establishing exactly when the Minoan volcano Thera erupted – until now. An unusual source may be able to settle the debate from conflicting archaeological
If our Universe happened to be locked in an eternal heartbeat of expansion and collapse, black holes would leave an impression. And it could look just like a number of swirls recently detected in the faint echo of light at the edge of space. It’s hardly the smoking gun for what’s called the conformal cyclic
Melbourne lost its “most liveable city” title yesterday and is confronting being runner-up to Vienna after seven years at the top. These rankings are based on The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Global Liveability Index, which “assesses which locations around the world provide the best or the worst living conditions”. But the tool was actually designed to
If you notice dogs aiming as high as possible when they pee in public, there might be a very good reason for that: they’re trying to trick other dogs into thinking they’re taller than they really are. We already know that dogs leave a urine marker to label their territory or as a calling card
It’s starting to feel real. Boeing and Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) have contracts with NASA to fly astronauts to the International Space Station as part of what’s known as the Commercial Crew Program. Seven years after the end of the space shuttle program, NASA introduced the astronauts who will fly with both companies.
If planets come any hotter than KELT-9b we’re yet to find them. Not only does this roasted ball of gas win first prize for scorching temperatures, it can now claim to be the first planet known to have free-roaming atoms of iron and titanium in its atmosphere. To most of us, the discovery is just
Way out past Pluto, in the region of asteroid-filled space known as the Kuiper belt, NASA probe New Horizons just got a tantalising hint of a long-sought structure in the outer Solar System. An ultraviolet glow picked up by the probe’s Alice UV spectrometer could be evidence of the ‘hydrogen wall’, a region of dense
Disney is making humanoid robots that can perform mind-boggling stunts in midair, according to TechCrunch. Disneyland parks have incorporated animatronics into their displays for decades, but with its new project, “Stuntronics,” Disney hopes to take performing robotics to the next level. The project was born of a research experiment named “Stickman.” Stickman was a robot
The past four years have been the four warmest ever recorded – and now, according to a new scientific forecast, the next five will also probably be “anomalously warm,” even beyond what the steady increase in global warming would produce on its own. That could include another record warmest year, even warmer than the current
George Aldrich has more nicknames than most. Some people call him the Chief Sniffer. Others have called him Nostrildamus, NASA Nose and Master Sniffer. Aldrich prefers the term ‘nasalnaut’, because for several decades, he has been using his nose for the common good at NASA. “I have been a Chemical Specialist at NASA for 44
There’s a new world land speed record of 448.757 mph (that’s 722.1 km/h) – and what’s even more astonishing is the record was set in a 50-year-old car, the Challenger 2, which first attempted the feat back in 1968. The original record run was attempted by legendary speed freak Mickey Thompson, so it’s fitting that
Earth is a pretty big place, but it’s not as big as our appetite. That’s the conclusion of a new study by researchers in Canada, who calculated that if the entire world population tried to eat what the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) actually recommends, we wouldn’t have enough farms to feed everybody. “The
As The Meg, a new sci-fi horror film about a giant shark, fills cinema screens worldwide, it’s worth pausing to appreciate the animal behind the screams. Carcharocles megalodon (or just Megalodon) is one of the most impressive creatures ever to have existed on Earth. Huge, voracious, and beautifully mysterious, megalodons were the largest known sharks
If you’ve been paying attention, you know that corvids (crows, rooks and ravens) are remarkably intelligent birds. Now these feathered geniuses have been given a job: six rooks have been trained to pick up rubbish in the Puy du Fou historical theme park in western France. Whenever Boubou, Bamboo, Bill, Black, Bricole and Baco deposit
If you’ve ever snapped a bundle of dry spaghetti before putting it in the pot, you know what a mess it makes. Small pieces of pasta fly off everywhere as the pieces snap into tiny bits along the middle. The way spaghetti breaks is fascinating, though. Go get a single piece of spaghetti, grasp it
Our digital lives may be undermining the happiness we receive from face-to-face interactions, according to a new study. And weirdly, this is particularly the case for younger generations who are more digitally savvy. You’d think those who grew up using electronic devices for just about everything, would have a greater sense of control over their
Sometimes, you need a reminder that the world isn’t all bad. Today, the reminder we bring you is this adorable ‘Japan pig’ – a brand new species of pygmy seahorse just discovered in southeastern Japan. “Japan is recognised as a global hotspot of marine biodiversity, with 53 recorded species of syngnathids, including ten species of
A fire in Glacier National Park, in Montana’s Rocky Mountains, has sparked evacuations over the weekend as record heat and high winds caused the fire to spread. The Howe Ridge Fire first ignited over the weekend after lightning struck on Saturday. The wildfire spread rapidly as triple-digit temperatures and high winds fed the flames. Over
He wasn’t a pilot, and as far as authorities can tell, didn’t have a pilot’s licence. So how did a man with no apparent flying experience successfully steal and take off in a large commercial passenger plane? According to Richard Russell – the identified culprit behind a brazen and ultimately fatal unauthorised flight above Seattle
Gamma-ray bursts are the brightest and most energetic events in the Universe. They’re also some of the more mysterious – but now researchers have made a discovery that could help us understand the conditions under which they occur. The light curves of six gamma-ray burst events showed evidence of complex time-reversible wavelike structures – that
SpaceX, the aerospace company founded by Elon Musk, held a hush-hush conference in Colorado this week to formulate a plan for landing people on Mars and building an outpost. The inaugural ‘Mars Workshop’, first reported by Eric Berger at Ars Technica, happened Tuesday and Wednesday in Boulder, Colorado. SpaceX reportedly sent invitations to about 60
The macro world as we know it is governed by Newton’s laws of motion and gravity – what goes up, must come down. But a team of physicists from Columbia University have put forward a theoretical paper that turns this idea on its head. They say there might actually be particles with negative mass –
Recognising faces is essential for how we interact in complex societies, and is often thought to be an ability that requires the sophistication of the large human brain. But new evidence we published in Frontiers in Psychology shows that insects such as the honeybee (Apis mellifera) and the European wasp (Vespula vulgaris) use visual processing
It might not be a happy ending, but in the circumstances, it’s the happiest we could have hoped for. Tahlequah, aka the orca mother J35, has finally surrendered her deceased newborn calf, after carrying her lifeless body for seventeen straight days in an arduous display of animal grief and denial that made headlines around the
Martian dust storms are a pretty common occurrence, and generally happen whenever the southern hemisphere is experiencing summer. Though they can begin quite suddenly, these storms typically stay contained to a local area and last only about a few weeks. However, on occasion, Martian dust storms can grow to become global phenomena, covering the entire
Scientists have sequenced the full genome of a tiny fern with leaves the size of gnats that could help in cutting atmospheric carbon dioxide, fixing nitrogen in agriculture, and shooing insects from crops. Azolla filiculoides is a water fern often found fertilizing rice paddies in Asia, but its ancestry goes much further back. “Fifteen million years
The saying goes that the Taj Mahal is pinkish in the morning, milky white in the evening, and golden when the moon shines. Though this may once have been true for the famously pristine marble monument, a mixture of pollution and poor management has now burdened the Taj with a 24-hour layer of yellowy-brown. Condemning
The heat wave that has swept Europe over the summer may not be very pleasant for the human population, but rare pink tropical birds at a nature reserve in southwest England sure seem excited. Officials at Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT) Slimbridge, a wetland wildlife reserve in Gloucestershire, said in a statement Thursday that six Andean flamingos laid
A grieving orca was spotted off the coast of Washington state Thursday, carrying her stillborn calf through the Pacific Ocean for the 17th day in a journey that has astonished and devastated much of the world. Tahlequah, as the mother has come to be called, gave birth on July 25 in what should have been
When drivers navigate busy intersections, most of them fail to look out for pedestrians or cyclists when turning right, according to a new study. In the summer, cars must share the road with more pedestrians and cyclists than usual, and in Toronto this is causing an epidemic of car accidents. By the start of June,
A galaxy in nearby space called Segue 1 is quite the oddity. It’s very small, and very faint, it hangs out very close to the Milky Way, and no one knows quite where it came from. But now astronomers have accurately measured its movement for the first time, which has finally offered some clues. So
When gold hunters in Russia collected the yellowish stone in 2016, they thought it might contain a precious metal. It didn’t – but what it did contain was far more rare and valuable. The rock had come from space, and it contained a new, never-before-seen mineral. It has yet to be officially documented, but scientists
Vice President Pence laid out an ambitious plan Thursday that would begin creating a military command dedicated to space and establish a “Space Force” as the sixth branch of the US military as soon as 2020, the first since the Air Force was formed shortly after World War II. Pence warned of the advancements that
When it comes to online dating, a majority of men and women pursue partners who are “out of their league”, reaching out to people who are 25 percent more desirable than themselves, according to a new study. University of Michigan professors Elizabeth Bruch and M.E.J. Newman, who study human behaviour, analysed the messages between heterosexual
Life is short, and we spend a lot of our time sleeping, which is why the idea of hypnopedia, or the ability to learn during sleep, has been tantalising scientists for so long. Now, a new study adds more evidence against the whole idea. According to the new research, while the brain is capable of
Physics is a huge, complex field. It also happens to be one of the most fascinating, dealing with everything from black holes and wormholes to quantum teleportation and gravitational waves. But unless you have an innate knowledge of the field, it’s pretty hard to figure out how all these concepts actually fit together – and
All around the world, countries are seeing dwindling birth rates and rising life expectancy. Ageing populations are leading to greater spending on healthcare and pensions, but the number of people working and paying taxes is steadily going down. As a result, these countries are at risk of becoming “demographic time bombs,” signifying a crisis of
If you’re in Bermuda at the right time of the month, you’re in for a treat. Around 2-5 days after the full moon, and around 55 minutes after sunset, the Bermuda fireworm swims to the ocean surface and flares into brilliance, lighting up with an incredible bioluminescent glow. The creature lives most of its life in mucus