The samples collected by Hayabusa-2 from Asteroid Ryugu continue to reveal new insight into how the building blocks of life might have gotten to our planet. Scientists now report the discovery of niacin (also known as Vitamin B3) as well as uracil: one of the four nucleotide bases that are found in RNA, a molecule […]
Ancient 60,000-Year-Old Eagle With 3-Meter Wingspan Could Probably Have Given Frodo A Lift
More than 60,000 years ago, giant eagles were flying around Australia with a wingspan of nearly 3 meters (9.8 feet) across. They are thought to be the largest birds of prey ever to live on the continent and possibly the largest continental eagles in the world, according to new research. This giant raptor from the […]
AI Has Finally Worked Out How To Draw Hands (Sort Of)
Recently, reports have surfaced stating that artificial intelligence (AI) has finally cracked how to draw hands, removing one of the final obvious markers that allowed us to know whether an image was AI-generated or human art. Luckily, we’re here to tell you that while the image generation AI, Midjourney, has got much better at drawing […]
Ancient Roman Women Were Banned From Joining The Army. They Fought Anyway
From its northernmost tip to the border with Asia, plenty of ancient European armies were happy to welcome women to their ranks. Traditionally, though, historians have agreed on one major exception to this rule: the Roman Empire, where the army and navy were – almost by definition – made up only of men. According to […]
Bog Bodies Were Overwhelmingly Killed By Violence, Analysis Of 1,000 Bodies Finds
A team of researchers has analyzed over 1,000 bog bodies, finding that many of them met violent ends, and nearly all of them were placed in bogs intentionally. Peat is created through the decomposition of organic matter, largely from plant materials such as moss. In particular. when sphagnum moss accumulates enough in wetlands to form […]
Martian Cities Could One Day Be Built From Potatoes And Dust
Scientists in the UK have developed a new type of concrete that might one day be used to build settlements elsewhere else in the Solar System. By combining potato starch with material simulating the dust of Mars or the Moon, they created something much stronger than regular concrete. This so-called “StarCrete” made of Martian dust […]
There’s A Weird Reason Why Hurricanes Never Cross The Equator
Hurricanes, cyclones, and typhoons regularly stir up a storm around the tropical stretches of our planet, raising hell wherever they may fall. However, it’s a curious fact that they very rarely approach the equator and – stranger still – never cross it. First things first, some terms need to be cleared up. Hurricanes, cyclones, and […]
Deadly Fungal Contagion Dubbed “Urgent Threat” By CDC Is Becoming More Infectious
A deadly fungus is spreading in the US, according to new research that found the cases of Candida auris rose drastically between 2019 and 2021. Classed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as an “urgent threat“, C. auris can cause potentially life-threatening infections that don’t respond well to the current first-line therapy. […]
The Eye-Popping Truth Behind The Legend That Your Eyes Can Pop Out When You Sneeze
Spend enough time on the internet and you have probably come across the urban legend that if you sneeze with your eyes open, your eyeball can pop out of its socket. Well, you’ll be pleased to have it confirmed that your eyeballs do not pop out of your sockets like champagne corks, even if similarly […]
Spirals, Tails, And Reflective Dust Were Released In The DART Asteroid Collision
Last September, DART hit asteroid Dimorphos, the small companion of asteroid Didymos. The impact was a test of planetary defense, showing that we can truly shift the orbit of a celestial body. But it was also a chance to study what an impact on an asteroid looks like. And astronomers did not waste time in […]
Animation Shows The Most Powerful Cosmic Events If They Were Visible To Our Eyes
A new animation allows us to get the gist of how sparkly the night sky would look to us in gamma rays thanks to the data collected by NASA’s Fermi Space Telescope in just one year. The visible light that humans can see with our unaided eye is but a small slither of the electromagnetic […]
Vesuvius Challenge – Decipher These 2,000-Year-Old Scrolls And Win $1 Million
Fancy yourself a code breaker or a technological wiz? If so, you could win $700,000 if you can solve a 2,000-year-old mystery. The former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman and a group of scientists are giving away prizes worth a total of $1,000,000, at the time of writing, to anyone who can successfully decipher scrolls recovered […]
Researchers Have Found Where The Energy Goes In Quantum Turbulence
Turbulence in a fluid due to the rotation of a body has applications across all realms of science and engineering. It doesn’t matter if you’re focusing on a neutron star or on an airplane engine: turbulence is there, often messing up your nice “simple” equations. There is turbulence also at the quantum level and, like […]
Emergency Alert Test To Ping Every Phone In The UK, Temporarily Blocking Apps
A new emergency alert system is being tested by the UK government on April 23. The alert sound has been shared on Twitter, and it will temporarily block the phone’s functionality until the owner has acknowledged the notification. “A new system that will give the Government and emergency services the capability to send an alert […]
New IPCC Climate Report: “We Are Up The Proverbial Creek, But We Do Have A Paddle”
The climate crisis is getting deeper and deeper – but humanity still has a number of options left on the table, according to the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report released today. The report can be summed up very simply: the planet is facing big trouble, but solutions are still available. Advertisement “If […]
It’s The Spring Equinox, But Does That Really Mean Equal Day And Night?
Depending on where you are, it’s the equinox today or tomorrow, but what does that really mean? It’s easy to define the solstices; they represent the longest day or night of the year depending on your hemisphere. On the other hand, the definition of the equinoxes is that the equator is pointed directly towards the […]
The Devil’s Kettle: For Decades, Nobody Knew Where This Underground River Led
In Judge C. R. Magney State Park, Minnesota, there is an unusual feature known as the Devil’s Kettle, where the Brule River splits in two around a large rock. While the bulk of the water goes over a waterfall and continues downstream, a significant amount of it travels down into a hole and then…. sort […]
Newly-Discovered Volcanic Plume-Dwelling Bacteria Boost Prospects For Life Within Icy Moons
Members of the Sulfurimonas group of bacteria have found a way to thrive in the smoky plumes at the bottom of the ocean, even without other sources of food. These bacteria have a genome beautifully adapted to living in an environment too oxygen-rich for their relatives. These plumes could have counterparts in the depths of […]
1900s “One Night Cough Syrup” Scares The Internet With Wild Ingredients
Medicine in the 1900s was questionable. It pretty much consisted of hard drugs delivered far beyond reasonable dosages, and for almost any ailment, cocaine or opioids were just the thing you needed. Whether they worked is a long conversation (they didn’t), but one thing is for sure – they looked like a good time. Perhaps […]
Yes, You Can Have An Allergic Reaction To Semen
Getting busy in the bedroom may come with some more unexpected risks, one of which is an allergic reaction to semen. Semen is comprised of many components, including sperm cells themselves (aka spermatozoa), water, lipids, carbohydrates, and salts. So, it may not be a surprise that the human body can have an allergic reaction to […]
