For the first time ever, a chimeric monkey containing a large number of cells derived from embryonic stem cells has been born alive. The infant’s cells originate from two different embryos, meaning they are genetically distinct, therefore rendering the young primate a “chimera”. “This has been a long-sought goal in the field,” senior author Zhen […]
Diamond Batteries Made From Nuclear Waste Have Potential – But Are The Claims Credible?
Two companies are looking to make diamonds from nuclear waste that can be used as batteries. However, while one is sticking to applications that seem to fit the technology, the other is talking about uses that seem incompatible with what they have demonstrated. Seven years ago, scientists at the University of Bristol announced that they […]
What Really Happened During The 1917 “Miracle Of The Sun”?
In 1917, three children in Fátima, Portugal, claimed that they had encountered an apparition of the Virgin Mary while returning home from tending sheep. According to the trio, Mary told them that she would reappear on the 13th day of every month for six months (like Urkel) before she disappeared. Word of this miracle spread, […]
Scientists Resurrect Hybrid Seeds From A Secretive 144-Year-Old Experiment
Back in 1879, botanist William J. Beal began one of the world’s oldest science experiments, burying 20 glass pint bottles filled with 50 seeds in sand. One hundred and forty-four years later, scientists at the same university have continued his work, resurrecting those seeds and finding among them a hybrid plant, likely not meant to […]
Incredible New Video Shows Moment NASA Slammed Into An Asteroid
Just over a year after DART hit asteroid Dimorphos, new images from the event were made public on the Planetary Data System on October 31, 2023. They were taken by DART’s companion LICIACube and cover the whole collision and some of the aftermath – and have now been turned into videos showing the event in […]
Most Colorful View Of The Universe Reveals Monstrously Magnified Stars
Astronomers have combined the observations of the two biggest telescopes in space to create what they are calling the “most colorful image of the universe”. By using JWST to observe one of Hubble’s famous “Frontier Fields” deep views of the universe, they’ve created a panchromatic image ranging from blue visible light all the way to […]
Why US Zoos Are Rapidly Losing Pandas Amid Tensions With China
Three giant pandas left a zoo in Washington DC on Wednesday with a one-way ticket to China. This trio isn’t the first set of pandas in “the West” to take the monumental journey back to their ancestral homeland in recent times. Against the backdrop of hairy political tensions between the US and China, some are […]
Why Shocking Green “Slime” Was Bubbling From New York’s Sewers Last Week
Fluorescent green goo was seen oozing from sewers onto the streets of Manhattan last week, sowing confusion among New Yorkers and social media snoopers. There’s no need to call the Ghostbusters nor the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, though. Images of the oddly bright liquid were near the World Trade Center in the Lower Manhattan area […]
Man’s Life Saved By Emergency Breast Implants
A man’s life has been saved by emergency breast implants, after a lung infection required him to have a double lung transplant. That’s a sentence that needs some explaining. 34-year-old David “Davey” Bauer, described as vaping for years after smoking from the age of 21 until he quit in 2014, caught influenza and developed a […]
New Obesity Drug That Helps Cut Weight Up To 25 Percent Approved By FDA
Whether it’s Wegovy or Ozempic, weight loss drugs feel like they’re everywhere at the moment. That doesn’t look set to stop any time soon either, with the FDA announcing yesterday the approval of Zepbound, a weight-management injectable that may well snatch the crown from its semaglutide-based competitors. Why was it approved? The approval comes after […]
Knowledge Of World War II Medical Atrocities Is Crucial For Medical Ethics, Experts Argue
Health professionals’ education and medical ethics should be informed by an in-depth understanding of how medicine was abused by the Nazi regime. By examining this dark phase in modern medical history, it is believed future generations of medical and healthcare professionals will be empowered to face moral and ethical dilemmas, as well as their own […]
Has Welfare For Marine Mammals In Zoos Improved?
Marine mammals, particularly orcas, underwent something of a tidal wave change in public opinion after the 2013 documentary film Blackfish was released. Foremost in that film was the story of Tilikum the orca, who killed several people while at SeaWorld. Tilikum died in 2017, but the outrage and animal welfare concerns sparked by the film […]
We’re About To Get An Incredible View Of Uranus, A New Island Forms Off The Coast Of Japan, And Much More This Week
This week you can now use binoculars to see the toolbag dropped by ISS astronauts on a recent spacewalk, the world’s first “chimeric” monkey with a high proportion of stem cell-derived cells was born alive, and we may have just had our first fight in space. Finally, we question if “panda diplomacy” might be coming […]
Do Racehorses Even Know They’re ‘Racing’ Each Other? It’s Unlikely
When racing season arrives, everyone becomes an expert on the horses that are the stars of the spectacle. TV personalities, professional pundits and form guides talk confidently about the favourite’s “will to win”. In close races, the equine contestants “battle it out”, demonstrating “heart”, “grit” and “determination”. Advertisement But do horses even know they are […]
The Mystery Of Speech: When Did Humans Start Talking?
There’s no doubt about it – humans love to talk. The average person speaks thousands of words a day and it’s a vital part of how we communicate with one another. But when did we become such chatty Cathy’s? Researchers have long pondered and argued over this question, coming up with quite a range of answers […]
450-Million-Year-Old Marine Organism Brought Back To “Life” As A Soft Robot
A 450-million-year-old extinct marine organism is back not with a bang, but more of a gentle thud, after researchers recreated it in the form of a soft robotic replica. It’s hoped that it’s the first of many such robots that could be used to give us a better understanding of how extinct organisms moved, and […]
Revolution In Biology: Half-Synthetic Yeast Genome Unveils New Horizons In Genetic Engineering
Synthetic DNA might sound like the stuff of science fiction, but it’s fast becoming a reality. Researchers have created a yeast cell with a genome that’s over 50 percent synthetic, including the world’s first entirely synthetic chromosome. Scientists have previously produced synthetic bacterial and viral genomes, but the next step up was eukaryotic – a […]
Researchers Warn We Could Run Out Of Data To Train AI By 2026. What Then?
As artificial intelligence (AI) reaches the peak of its popularity, researchers have warned the industry might be running out of training data – the fuel that runs powerful AI systems. This could slow down the growth of AI models, especially large language models, and may even alter the trajectory of the AI revolution. But why […]
Impending Bamboo Bloom After 120 Years: Why This Rare Event Could Spell Disaster
There is a type of bamboo known as henon, Phyllostachys nigra var. henonis, which only flowers once every 120 years. Though this may seem like a long time to put off flowering, the bamboo dies shortly afterward, so let’s not be so quick to judge. With a gap of over a century between flowering, botanists […]
Planet Earth Has A “Pulse”, With 27.5 Million Years Between Beats
For the last five decades, researchers have suspected that our planet’s major geological events occur in a cycle – but couldn’t get the data to properly back it up. However, with technology coming on in leaps and bounds, geologists have since been able to show that Earth does in fact have a beating geological heart, […]