In eastern Java, Indonesia lies the Kawah Ijen volcano, which has become something of a tourist hotspot in recent years. This is because, at night, otherworldly blue lights appear on its darkened slopes. These ghostly pale fires are caused by the large amounts of sulfur deposits on the volcano’s surface. When the high temperatures from […]
World’s Largest Solar Plus Battery Storage System Goes Live In Mojave Desert
In California’s share of the Mojave Desert, one of the sunniest places on Earth, the largest single solar and battery energy storage project in the world has just become fully operational: the Edwards & Sanborn Solar and Energy Storage facility. Consisting of almost 2 million solar panels, the sprawling solar farm has 875 megawatts of […]
The Sun Is A Star. But Is Every Star A Sun?
One of humanity’s great coming-of-age moments was the realization that the Sun is a star, falling somewhat unexceptionally within the range of those we see; made special only by our relationship to it. However, stars are not clones of each other. So do all other stars count as suns? Do any? If only some do, […]
The Palm Jumeirah Is The World’s Largest Archipelago Of Artificial Islands
Dubai is home to many a feat of engineering, but perhaps one of its most iconic is the Palm Jumeirah. This palm-tree-shaped archipelago of artificial islands began construction in 2001 and has since gone on to become one of the city’s most recognizable landmarks. So how do you make the world’s biggest artificial set of […]
What’s Going On With Voyager 1? NASA’s Interstellar Spacecraft’s Future Looks Uncertain
Voyager 1 is the furthest any human object has ever gone from Earth. It is now over 24 billion kilometers (15 billion miles) from our planet, flying through interstellar space. Since its launch in August 1977, the spacecraft has remained in contact with Earth, but over the last several months, that communication has become non-sensical. […]
Don’t Touch The Blue Sea Dragons. No Really, Don’t
Species within ecosystems are intrinsically linked. Whether they time the birth of their offspring with the sea ice or have evolved to live aboard another organism, these connections can be found time and time again in nature. Now, on a beach on North Padre Island off the coast of Texas, yet another example has appeared […]
Déjà Vu? Italy Plans To Build World’s Longest Suspension Bridge To Sicily
After decades of dreaming, Italy has once again set its sights on building the longest suspension bridge in the world to connect the Italian mainland with the island of Sicily. Their vision is a bridge that stretches around 3,300 meters (10,800 feet) over the Strait of Messina, the thin strip of sea between the “toe” […]
Weird Pink “Worm Lizard” Spotted Out Of Hiding For First Time In 90 Years
Being elusive might seem exclusively the realm of spies and space stuff, but animals are pretty good at it too, and one that takes the trait to heart is the Somali sharp-snouted worm lizard. Having not been officially seen in over 90 years, the odd-looking creature has now made a reappearance. The Somali sharp-snouted worm […]
“Humanity Do Better”: What A Scientist Found At The Bottom Of The Pacific Ocean
Humans have affected pretty much every part of the planet with our various pollutants, no matter how hard they are to reach. For example, in 2020 a new species found in the Mariana Trench was eventually named after the plastic found in its guts, and in 2023 microplastics were discovered in a cave system that […]
Climate Change Is Turning Ibex Nocturnal – But It’s Putting Them In Danger
The climate crisis and the warming of the planet is having a devastating effect on the natural world and the animal species that live in it. While polar bears have been found to be at greater risk of starvation due to a lack of sea ice, another species is facing the opposite problem, being put […]
There’s A Vast Ocean Of Water Hidden Beneath Our Feet
Deep beneath the surface of the Earth, there is a massive reservoir of water. It is estimated to contain three times the amount of water of all the oceans on our surface. In 2014, a team from the US used 2,000 seismometers to study seismic waves from over 500 earthquakes. By examining the speed of the […]
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Breaks Record For Largest Asteroid Sample Ever Collected In Space
When OSIRIS-REx was planned, the mission team aimed to collect at least 60 grams of material. That was the requirement for a successful mission. Well, consider OSIRIS-REx doubly successful, as it brought back home 121.6 grams (4.29 ounces), the largest collection of extraterrestrial material from beyond the Moon. The return of the Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition […]
NASA Received Laser And Radio Messages From Even Deeper Space, 13-Year-Old Boy Cured Of Terminal Brain Tumor, And Much More This Week
This week a lone stingray in a North Carolina aquarium was found to be pregnant and the idea of the world’s first shark-ray hybrid was put forward, a 280-million-year-old fossil was identified as a partial forgery, and Earth has received a power beam sent from space for the first time. Finally, we take a closer […]
The Secrets Of Gough’s Cave: Cannibalism And Ancient Rituals From 14,700 Years Ago
There is an ancient cave in Somerset, England, that may hold a complicated secret related to our prehistoric past: evidence of human cannibalism. Gough’s Cave, which was formed around 500,000 years ago, is located in Cheddar Gorge, which is made of limestone (not cheese) and is located in the Mendip Hills near Bristol. The cave […]
280-Million-Year-Old Mystery Solved As Forged Fossil’s “Skin” Identified As Paint
A magnificent fossil find was made in the Italian Alps in 1931. The specimen retrieved was thought to show remarkable preservation of an ancient reptile’s soft tissues, but that wasn’t the whole story. Now, a new study has revealed what makes this unusually well-preserved fossil so unusual: that “soft tissue” is, in fact, just black […]
Physicists Capture First Ever Images Of “Second Sound” In Superfluid
A team of physicists at MIT have captured the phenomenon of “second sound” in direct images for the first time. In usual materials, heat prefers to spread out from a localized source until it dissipates into its surroundings. But in certain materials, this is not the case. This includes superfluids, a state of matter caused […]
A New Form Of Magnetism Could Make For More Powerful Memory Devices
There are three types of magnetism, not two, new research reveals, and the new one could be much in demand. To the first users of compasses, magnets must have seemed a form of magic. Just when we started to think we had got a grasp on the traditional form, known as ferromagnetism, a new one, […]
8,200-Year-Old Paintings In Patagonia Helped Hunter-Gatherers Survive For 130 Generations
Ancient paintings on the walls of a Patagonian cave have been dated to 8,200 years ago, making them the oldest known rock art in the region by several millennia. Staggeringly, researchers also found that the markings were built up over a period of roughly 3,000 years, suggesting that the illustrations were used to transmit cultural […]
Solar System’s Icy Moons Are Likely Not Hosts To Life, Finds NASA
A new study looking at impact cratering on Titan has found bad news in the search for life on the moon, and potentially other icy moons of the Solar System as well. Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, is often thought of as a potential candidate for life. The moon is the only place in the Solar […]
World’s Largest Nuclear Power Plant Has Been Idle For Years – But Maybe Not For Long
The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant in Japan is currently the world’s largest nuclear power plant. As mighty as it may be, its reactors have been shut off for several years due to a cacophony of disasters and controversies. Recent developments suggest that may soon change, however. The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant is located at a 404-hectare (1,000-acre) […]
