Everything we know about what’s inside the Earth comes from the measurements of seismometers. Quakes shake our planet, and scientists can reconstruct what’s under our feet from how waves move through our world. Under incredible pressures and temperatures, materials can also behave oddly. The inner core, for example, is solid due to pressure, but also […]
“Impossibly” Big Galaxies From Dawn Of The Universe May Just Be Extra-Glowy
A few months ago, astronomers using JWST reported that they had observed massive galaxies from just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang. The problem is that using their starlight, the team came to an impossible conclusion: these galaxies had more mass than what would have been available in the universe to make […]
Cracks In The Universe: Astrophysicists May Have Found Evidence Of Cosmic Strings
A team of astrophysicists says they may have found evidence for “cosmic strings”, long-hypothesized defects in the universe left over from its early in its expansion. Cosmic strings were first suggested in the 1970s by theoretical physicist Tom W. B. Kibble, and later revived in the context of string theory. The one-dimensional strings, far narrower […]
Ukraine Looks To Turn Chernobyl Into One Of Europe’s Biggest Wind Farms
Ukraine is drumming up a simple yet ingenious plan to make use of the wasteland that surrounds the ruins of Chernobyl: turn the site into a giant wind farm and transform the region into a hub of green power. German company NOTUS Energy has recently signed a deal with the Ministry of Environmental Protection and […]
Feast Your Eyes On The Last Remaining Dodo Soft Tissues
The dodo has become an iconic symbol of humanity recklessly driving animals into extinction. By the end of the 17th century, European colonizers had wiped this flightless bird from the planet. Practically nothing of the species now remains, except for a fascinating specimen at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. The so-called “Oxford Dodo” […]
People Think Today’s US-Wide Emergency Alert Will Turn The Nation Into Zombies
Today at 2:20 pm Eastern time, cell phone, TV, and radio users in the US will be met with an emergency alert test on their various devices. The alert will test the Emergency Alert System (EAS) on TV and radio, and the Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) system for cell phones. Advertisement “We want to ensure […]
From Wombats To Polar Bears, All The Best Animals Glow Under UV Light
In a study of more than 100 species of mammals, all but one were found to glow externally when exposed to UV light; even the exception, the dwarf spinner dolphin, has fluorescent teeth. Nevertheless, not all species fluoresce to the same extent, with white fur being a strong predictor of blacklight glow. Fluorescence is the […]
You Could Use A Disco Ball To Watch The “Ring Of Fire” Eclipse
When the Moon blocks out most of the Sun on October 14, tens of millions of North Americans will look to the skies for one of the greatest sights the heavens can offer. European astronomers have some advice on how they can do it cheaply and safely: dig out an old disco ball, which can […]
Physics Nobel Prize Awarded For Use Of Tiniest Flashes To Study Electrons
The winners of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physics are Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz, and Anne L’Huillier. The award was given for their discovery of how to generate pulses of light that last for attoseconds – that is one billionth billionth of a second. The prize is worth 11 million Swedish kronor (around 1 million […]
Iron-Age Pigs Are A Tasty Yet Formidable Hybrid Of Pig And Wild Boar
It’s perfectly possible for domestic pigs to interbreed with wild boars to create a hybrid hog. They may be tough, intelligent, and purportedly delicious, but these so-called “super pigs” have the potential to cause a real headache for native animals and the natural ecosystem. There have been many active attempts to breed boar–pig hybrids by […]
How To Watch The “Ring Of Fire” Eclipse Across The United States This Month
It is almost time to get some eclipse glasses and look to the sky. On October 14, millions of people across the Americas will get the chance to see an annular eclipse of the Sun. This happens when, during a total solar eclipse, the Moon is near its apogee, the furthest point from Earth. The […]
Same-Sex Behavior Is Everywhere In Nature. Does It Have Evolutionary Benefits?
Same-sex behavior is sometimes said to be an “evolutionary conundrum” since it doesn’t appear to directly help with the reproduction of genes and the survival of species, at least on the surface. However, in a new study, scientists demonstrate how same-sex sexual behavior has evolved independently multiple times across hundreds of different animal species and […]
The Moon’s Far Side Holds The Future Of “Dark Ages” Radio Astronomy
Putting telescopes on the far side of the Moon, safe from Earthly interference, is one of the biggest reasons to revive lunar missions. However, the Moon has its own challenges, including a 300°C (530°F) temperature range, leading to some doubt about how long instruments would survive. To test the waters, or lack thereof, the LuSEE-Night […]
What Is Sea Glass And Can You Keep It If You Find It?
It may feel like we’re always telling you what not to do – don’t stack rocks while out hiking; leave that sand dollar alone – but, just this once, here’s something you can do: hold onto shards of sea glass if you stumble across them on the beach. In fact, when it comes to sea glass, taking […]
Satellite Launched Last Year Becomes One Of The Brightest Things In The Sky
Back in 2022, AST Space Mobile launched BlueWalker 3, a new prototype of telecommunication satellite that can send satellite internet directly to regular mobile phones with no modification to their hardware. It is made by an enormous antenna of 64 square meters (693 square feet). This is the largest commercial antenna ever deployed in low […]
Astronauts Spark Up Spherical Fireball On Tiangong Space Station
Astronauts aboard China’s Tiangong space station have lit a candle inside it, to demonstrate how flames act in zero gravity. Gui Haichao and Zhu Yangzhu lit the candle while live-streaming a lecture to viewers down below. On Earth, the hot gases from the flames rise while gravity pulls cooler and denser air downwards to the […]
Was Jesus A Hallucinogenic Mushroom? One Scholar Certainly Thought So
During the late 1960s, a renowned British scholar undid his whole career by backing a pretty wild claim: According to John Marco Allegro, an influential philologist and archaeologist, Jesus was not a living man but a mushroom. I know, it all makes sense now. For some, the Bible represents the literal truth in all things, […]
Mercury Appears To Be Shrinking
Despite being the closest planet to Earth, and all other planets in the Solar System, in fact, Mercury gets little in the way of attention. It only has itself to blame, being an inhospitable scorched planet with temperatures reaching 430°C (800°F) in the 59-Earth-day-long Mercury daytime. Even ignoring its lack of atmosphere, it’s not exactly […]
Cancer Is Spreading In Shellfish, And Has Been For Hundreds Of Years
Clams and cockles have been succumbing to a contagious form of cancer for centuries, two new studies have found. The analysis is reshaping our understanding of cancer and could lead to new approaches to tackling the human form of the disease in the future. We don’t typically think of cancer as being something that can […]
The Ariel School Incident: The Story Behind The UFO Encounter Explored In Netflix Documentary
A new Netflix documentary series, named Encounters, has explored eyewitness testimony of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) and supposed encounters with alien species, including one from 1994. But what really took place on that day? On September 16, 1994, 62 students at the Ariel School in Ruwa, Zimbabwe, claimed to witness an unknown craft descend from the […]
