You will soon have the opportunity to see interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS for yourself, as it is observed live by the Virtual Telescope Project this week. As you are probably aware by now, this year has brought our third interstellar visitor that we know of. On July 1, the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) detected […]
A Woman Born Missing Most Of Her Brain Just Celebrated Her 20th Birthday. What Does That Mean?
In November 2005, Alex Simpson was born in Omaha, Nebraska. Her diagnosis wasn’t good. At first, everything seemed fine – until she was 2 months old. Then, the problems began: Alex was crying 20-22 hours a day; she was having trouble digesting milk – and when her parents took her to the hospital, the reason […]
When And Where Interstellar Objects Like 3I/ATLAS Are Most Likely To Hit Earth
Astronomers have calculated the risk posed by interstellar visitors such as ‘Oumuamua and 3I/ATLAS hitting the Earth. They conclude that, unlikely as such an event is within anyone’s lifetime, it’s possible to calculate the most vulnerable places and times. Before revealing their conclusions (still to pass peer review), we’d like to stress that the difference […]
Person In The US Infected With A Form Of Bird Flu Never Seen In Humans Before
As bird flu continues to cause problems around the world, a patient in the US has tested positive for H5N5, a subtype of avian influenza never before seen in humans. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content. The Washington State Department of Health […]
Carl Sagan Left A Heartfelt Message For The First People To Set Foot On Mars
The much-loved astronomer and science communicator Carl Sagan once recorded a message for the future astronauts who will one day set foot on Mars. Sagan was a big advocate for the exploration of the Red Planet. Co-founder of The Planetary Society, he believed we should go to the planet to study it as an analog […]
People Are Just Learning About A Key Feature Of The Statue Of Liberty That Everyone Forgets
Given to the United States by France in 1884, the Statue of Liberty has become one of the world’s most iconic landmarks. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content. Picture it, and you probably see its distinctive shade of green (though it hasn’t always […]
Lupus Linked To Virus That Over 95 Percent Of Us Carry, First Radio Detection Received From Interstellar Object 3I/ATLAS, And Much More This Week
This week, a long-standing mystery of how lupus is linked to the Epstein-Barr virus has been solved, the first radio detection from interstellar object 3I/ATLAS has been observed by astronomers and the first coronal mass ejection from a star that is not our Sun, bumblebees are doing Morse code now, and sperm whales are using […]
Why Do Cars Have Those Lines On The Rear Window?
There are many features on a car that have a clear purpose (even if it seems like some people don’t know what the stick on the side of the steering wheel is for), but spend enough time in one and you’ll notice things that have no obvious explanation. What’s that weird thing on the dashboard? […]
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk Responds To Wild Speculation That 3I/ATLAS Is An Alien Spaceship
Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and CEO of private space firm SpaceX, has weighed in on the topic of interstellar object 3I/ATLAS, and the hypothesis that it may be an alien mothership (spoiler alert: it isn’t). On July 1, 2025, astronomers at the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System spotted an object hurtling through our […]
Did NASA’s Viking Mission Find Evidence Of Extant Life On Mars? It’s Not As Out There As It Sounds
As the search for life on Mars continues – with promising potential biosignatures recently identified by NASA at the Bright Angel formation – there are a few scientists out there who think we may have found life on the Red Planet already. According to four authors of a recent letter to the journal Science, NASA’s […]
World’s Oldest RNA Recovered From Baby Mammoth Beautifully Preserved In Permafrost For 40,000 Years
Acting like a natural time capsule, permafrost can perfectly preserve the prehistoric remnants of the Ice Age, including species that have fallen into extinction. For the first time, scientists have successfully recovered RNA from incredibly preserved woolly mammoths, offering fresh insights into the biology of these long-lost giants. DNA – very, very old DNA – […]
No Mining, No Machines – How The Future Of Technology Depends On Greener Mines
There’s no denying it: We need to radically transform our relationship to resources and consumption if we want to combat climate change. One way to do that is to develop new low-carbon technologies, but there’s still a challenge here that’s often overlooked. Take electric cars, for example. They’re the quintessential representation of efforts to transition […]
“It Was A Huge Surprise”: Dinosaur Eggs Were Speckled And Colorful, Just Like Birds’ Eggs
What could be more festive than a big bowl of Mini Eggs at Easter? Brown, white, green, and speckled, they reflect the diversity of egg décor we see in nature, but how far back do pretty eggs go? Were dinosaur eggs colorful? The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or […]
Meet The Peacock Spiders: Secretive, Small But Oh So Special
Some species capture the internet’s attention more than most, from feisty pygmy hippos to giant penguin chicks. One group of spiders, however, has mesmerized those on the World Wide Web with their hypnotic dance moves. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content. In […]
“Sudden Unexplained Death” In US Turns Out To Be World’s First Confirmed Death From Tick-Spread “Meat Allergy”
For the first time, researchers have confirmed a human death caused by “meat allergy”, an uncommon condition that is caused by tick bites. The death occurred in an otherwise healthy, 47-year-old male airline pilot from New Jersey, USA, who in the summer of 2024, had been on a camping trip with his family when he […]
What’s The Longest Border In The World? It’s A Lot Weirder Than It Looks On A Map
The longest land border in the world is between Canada and the United States, stretching 8,891 kilometers (5,525 miles). From afar, it appears to be a relatively boring border – clean, crisp, and dead-straight – but a closer look reveals this territorial boundary is very strange. The US-Canada border has two main bits: the long […]
“The Fall Of Icarus”: You Have Never Seen An Astrophotography Picture Like This!
We love a good astronomy picture, thanks to prizes like the Astronomy Photographer Of The Year, the quality of astrophotography continues to grow with ever better composition and ideas. Yesterday, however, will be remembered as the day astrophotography had its bar raised by literal kilometers. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please […]
Blue Origin Sends NASA Mission To Mars, Followed By First-Ever Successful Landing Of New Glenn’s Booster
It’s off! The Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (ESCAPADE) mission is on its way to Mars. It was sent into orbit by New Glenn, the heavy-lift launch vehicle from Blue Origin, the private space firm headed by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. The rocket flew successfully after a previous scrubbed launch on November 13. The […]
This 4,300-Year-Old Silver Goblet May Contain Earliest Known Depiction Of Cosmic Genesis
An engraving on an ancient silver cup from the West Bank may represent the oldest known illustration of the creation of the cosmos. The item, known as the ˁAin Samiya goblet, was discovered in 1970 in the tomb of a high-ranking Bronze-Age individual who resided in the Judean Hills, and may have been interred to […]
Filter-Feeding Pterosaur Becomes The First Extinct Species Discovered In Fossil Vomit
The pursuit of becoming a world-first fossil is one of dogged determination. The majority of life on Earth doesn’t get preserved, so you’ve got to die just right, bathed in just the right conditions. For one filter-feeding pterosaur, that meant spending an eternity encased in vomit. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. […]
