Today, January 19, at 3:20 pm UTC, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has made history – not just for Japan, but for the whole world. Its Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) successfully soft-landed on the Moon. The goal was to be able to do so within just 100 meters (330 feet) of a […]
World’s Largest Deep-Sea Coral Reef Habitat Discovered Off The US Coast
Some discoveries are more impressive than others and finding the largest deep-sea coral reef habitat in the world is pretty damn impressive. The team at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has discovered an area larger than the state of Vermont that contains a whole seascape of cold-water coral mounds that had, until now, remained […]
The Beautiful Winners Of This Year’s “Ocean Art” Photo Awards Have Arrived
The Underwater Photography Guide has revealed the winners of their 12th annual Ocean Art competition, showcasing some of the finest underwater photography you’ll see this year. The Ocean Art 2023 competition featured 14 different categories, ranging from Portrait and Marine Life Behavior to Underwater Conservation and Black & White. They even have a category dedicated […]
10,000-Year-Old Chewing Gum Reveals Stone Age Diet And Poor Oral Health
Ten millennia ago, a bunch of teenagers in what is now Sweden chewed up and spat out pieces of birch resin, in much the same way that modern kids might stick their used gum to the underside of a school desk. Little did these ancient adolescents know, however, that their discarded chewings would one day […]
Skeleton Of “Spanish Monk” Turns Out To Be An Aztec Woman
New research has revealed a grave historical error at Palacio de Cortés in Mexico. It was long assumed that a skeleton on display at the palace was that of a Spanish monk – but a new analysis has shown that it actually likely belonged to an Aztec woman. Palacio de Cortés in the city of […]
Why Some Memories Are So Hard To Forget (And Why That Can Be A Problem)
Some memories are best forgotten. Granted, this observation is unlikely to make you feel better if you’re running late for work because you can’t remember where you put your keys… but when we’re talking about memories associated with addictive substances, the possible issues around this become clearer. A new study has uncovered the mechanism that […]
Mars Astronauts Will Experience Time Dilation, How Worried We Should Be About The New COVID-19 Variant, And Much More This Week
This week, water flows freely down the Klamath River for the first time in 100 years, the oldest known supermassive black hole was found at the center of GN-z11, and a 14,000-year-old woolly mammoth tusk tells the tale of the animal’s huge journey. Finally, we ask what will be happening on the surface of the […]
Snakes Revealed As “Lungers” Or “Strikers” In Mesmerizing Slow Motion Footage
Snake fangs get a lot of attention, from their use in creating anti-venom to figuring out how they evolved. One area of research has now gone beyond just the fangs, looking at the way that all of the teeth and their morphology are related to the whole of the snake as it moves in response […]
One Twin Had Regular Botox, The Other Didn’t. This Is What Happened.
Call it Botox, Dysport, or Jeuveau – there’s no denying that injections with botulinum toxin A are popular. In fact, over 8.7 million cosmetic procedures were carried out with them in the US in 2022. But does their regular, long-term use make any real difference to the faces of those who receive them? A case […]
Clouds Can Weigh Incredible Amounts, So How Do They Stay In The Sky?
If you are someone who has a child, plays some other role in a child’s life, or are simply near one at a bus stop, at some point you are going to be asked how clouds stay in the sky by a toddler. Science lessons from your youth fade pretty quickly, we get it. There’s […]
Colossus: Never-Before-Seen Photos Show The Computer That Helped Win WW2
This is the computer that helped secure the Allied victory in the Second World War and sent the Third Reich to the trash can of history. GCHQ, the UK’s intelligence agency, has unveiled never-before-seen images of the code-cracking computers that played a crucial role in the Second World War. They’ve been released to mark the […]
Is Honey Bee Vomit?
Honey is enjoyed by humans and animals alike the world over, but if stories about it being delicious bee barf have put you off your breakfast, you can rest assured it’s not vomit – but it’s also not much better. There are around 20,000 species of bees in the world and, of these, less than […]
How The Supposedly Ancient Kensington Runestone Became Inscribed With 19th-Century Runes
In I898, Olof Öhman, a Swedish immigrant living in Minnesota, claimed to have found a huge 90-kilogram (200-pound) slab of stone, hidden in the roots of a tree. The slab was covered in characters of the runic alphabet used by peoples of northern Europe, Britain, Scandinavia, and Iceland before the 17th century. A translation of […]
Did Prehistoric Humans Ever Inhabit Antarctica?
Humans are too recent arrivals on Earth to have taken advantage of a time when Antarctica was habitable, let alone when continental drift made it possible to walk there. Nevertheless, humans have visited many places they found too forbidding to stay, raising the question of whether humans saw, or even set foot on, Antarctica before […]
Japan Set To Become Fifth Nation Ever To Land On The Moon Tomorrow
Tomorrow is a big day for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The space agency will attempt to land its Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, or SLIM, on the Moon. If the mission is successful on a soft touch down, Japan will become the fifth nation to land on the Moon and the third this […]
Brand New Image Of First Black Hole To Be Photographed Reveals Moving Shadow
In 2017, researchers used a virtual telescope the size of our planet to image the shadow of a supermassive black hole for the first time. The image was of M87*, the black hole at the center of galaxy Messier 87, and was the first image of the shadow of the event horizon and bright accretion […]
Polycephaly: The Rare Phenomenon Of Multi-Headed Animals
Those of you who are chronic users of TikTok (welcome to the gang) may have seen an unusual animal video doing the rounds this week: a two-headed calf. It’s a condition known as polycephaly, and although it’s widespread in mythology, it’s much rarer in reality. What is polycephaly? The term polycephaly stems from the Greek […]
Enormous Ice Deposit Nearly 4 Kilometers Thick Discovered Under Mars’s Equator
Planetary scientists believe they have found an enormous deposit of water ice near the Mars equator. Almost two decades ago, researchers discovered some peculiar deep deposits underneath the Medusae Fossae Formation (MFF). The latest data suggest these deposits are extremely rich in ice. The MFF is made of many wind-sculpted features and has an area […]
Water Is Freely Flowing Down The Klamath River For First Time In 100 Years
Following years of activism from Indigenous communities and environmentalists, the removal of dams along the Klamath River is allowing water to flow freely once again, marking a new hope for the region’s iconic salmon. The Klamath River, which trails for 414 kilometers (257 miles) between Oregon and northwestern California, was once the third-largest salmon-producing river […]
Tourist Returns Stones To Pompeii Explaining “I Didn’t Know About The Curse”
If anywhere is going to be cursed, it’s the ancient Roman city of Pompeii, where thousands of bodies are perfectly preserved by the volcanic ash and pumice from an extraordinarily powerful eruption that wiped out everything, including neighboring town Herculaneum, thousands of years ago. Even rational people who know curses are Not A Thing might […]
