There is very little chance that any of us in our lifetime will actually go into space, to experience first-hand what it’s like to be among the stars. True, Blue Origin has launched into space manned with Captain Kirk himself, taking him to where no civilian has gone before, but at a cost well beyond […]
When You Look At Mars And A Giant Bear Stares Back
NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has snapped a picture of a new face on Mars. And this time it’s not a sphynx-like one that turns out to be a windswept hill, it’s an adorable bear… that turns out to be a filled-in crater possibly due to some volcanic activity. The image was taken by MRO’s […]
Why Are Egg Prices Sky-Rocketing? Some Blame Industry Price-Gouging
Egg prices are skyrocketing. While the cost of groceries has generally risen, the price of eggs has tripled in the US since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Things have heated up even further recently, with the price of a dozen eggs now costing around $4.25, compared to $1.79 last year. The situation has […]
Computer Scientist Attempts To Get The Police To Find His Stolen Bike Using Math
In an article about bike theft for The Times, one computer scientist outlines how he attempted to convince the police to search for his stolen bike using math. Bike theft is one of those crimes that doesn’t get given a lot of police attention. In Cambridge, UK, where the computer scientist lives, the police will […]
Artificial Intelligence May Hit The Singularity Within 7 Years, Researchers Claim
Researchers have claimed that artificial intelligence (AI) will reach the singularity within seven years, after attempting to quantify its progress. Translation company Translated, presenting their work at an Association for Machine Translation in the Americas conference, explained that they first began testing machine translation technology in 2011. The team settled on a metric to measure […]
Ping Pong Balls And Vaseline: All Of The Unhinged Ways People Want To Raise The Titanic
The HMS Titanic is arguably the most famous shipwreck of all time. Following its discovery in 1985 at an astonishing depth of 3,800 meters (12,500 feet) below sea level in the North Atlantic Ocean, visitors have flocked from all over the globe to see even a small fragment of the hull, like that currently sitting […]
How Has The Inside Of The Earth Stayed As Hot As The Sun’s Surface For Billions Of Years?
Our Earth is structured sort of like an onion – it’s one layer after another. Starting from the top down, there’s the crust, which includes the surface you walk on; then farther down, the mantle, mostly solid rock; then even deeper, the outer core, made of liquid iron; and finally, the inner core, made of […]
Ancient “Hell Pigs” With Massive Teeth Are Actually Misunderstood Omnivores
Two ancient, funky-looking mammals, anthracotheres and entelodonts, have been the subject of a new study looking at their teeth. Anthracotheres bear some resemblance to modern-day pigs and hippos and are thought to have had a diet of fruits and foliage. Entelodonts, also known as “hell pigs”, had powerful heads, were thought to crush bones like […]
Shape-Shifting Robot Escapes Miniature Prison Cell By Liquifying Before Re-solidifying
A robot that can shift between solid and liquid states has been filmed escaping from a miniature jail cell with bars too close together to allow it to leave in solid form. The creators claim they were inspired by sea cucumbers’ capacity to alter their tissue stiffness – but the scene is just a little […]
The Disappearance Of Bobby Dunbar, And The Boy Who Came Back
In August 1912, 4-year-old Bobby Dunbar went missing as his family took a fishing trip to nearby Swayze Lake, Louisiana. An eight-month state-wide search for the boy ensued, and ended when police found a handyman named William Cantwell Walters, who was traveling with a boy who matched Bobby’s description. The boy, Walters insisted, was his […]
Don’t Pour Oil Down The Drain, There’s A Fun Way To Get Rid Of It
There’s been a lot of hype around air fryers recently, but for foodies like Jay Rayner, nothing beats the indulgent crisp of something that’s been fried in a deep pool of bubbling golden oil (the secret ingredient is danger). However, what’s great for our tastebuds isn’t all that good for the environment as the cooking […]
Cannabis Increases Your Orgasm Intensity And Helps With Multiple Orgasms, Study Finds
A study investigating sex and cannabis has found that cannabis users report better orgasms while high, as well as an increased libido, and sense of taste and touch. Researchers, publishing their results in a recent study, asked 811 participants aged 18 to 85 years old a number of questions relating to their sex lives and […]
Guinea Worm Disease On Verge Of Being Second Eradicated Human Illness
Humanity is on the verge of eradicating an infectious human disease for the second time: Guinea worm disease. This tropical parasite affected millions of people in the 1980s – but the latest provisional figures show just 13 human cases reported worldwide in 2022. The record-low number of Guinea worm cases was recently reported by the […]
Vapes Linked To Molecular And Cellular Changes In Lungs Of Mice
New research has highlighted the extent of the changes that e-cigarettes can cause in the lungs, including altering gene and protein levels inside of the tissue in mouse models. The findings add to a growing body of evidence that e-cigarettes may not be a safe alternative to normal cigarettes and that they require further investigation […]
Oxygen Has Been Discovered In The Most Distant Galaxy Yet
The keen eye of JWST has been able to find several extremely distant galaxies over the last six months. And now, astronomers can tell that in one of them, there is oxygen. This is the most distant detection of the precious chemical element ever recorded. The galaxy is GHZ2/GLASS-z12, and the light detected by JWST […]
Patches Of Bahama’s Sea Keep Turning White And Scientists Are Mystified
Satellite images show that milky-white splodges of water have sprung up in the pristine blue waters of the Bahamas. While this phenomenon has been reported for almost 100 years, scientists still have no clue what actually causes it. The Landsat 8 satellite captured the natural-color image (above) of a whiting event along the west coast […]
How We Cracked The Mystery Of Australia’s Prehistoric Giant Eggs
It’s a long-running Australian detective story. From the 1980s onwards, researchers found eggshell fragments, and on rare occasions whole eggs, exposed in eroding sand dunes within the country’s arid zone (which covers most of Australia’s landmass). A proportion of shells matched eggs laid by emus, but the rest belonged to a mystery species. Researchers initially […]
Mysterious Hand Imprint Discovered In 1,000-Year-Old Moat Wall In Jerusalem
A moat that once stood in the way of the invading Crusader armies has been discovered beneath the Old City of Jerusalem, bringing to life some of the bloodiest and most iconic battles of the later Middle Ages. While excavating the ancient line of defense, archaeologists also happened upon a handprint carved into the wall […]
NASA And DARPA Want To Use Nuclear Rockets To Blast Humans To Mars
NASA and its eccentric cousin DARPA are teaming up to test nuclear-powered rockets that could someday blast astronauts to Mars. If all goes to plan, we could see this tech being demonstrated in the next four to five years. Time is the main push to develop nuclear rockets for space exploration. In theory, nuclear-powered rockets […]
Tatooine-like Planets Orbiting Two Suns Could Be Habitable
Maintaining a stable orbit around two stars is harder than one, and many planets will often get hot enough to cook any life, or cold enough to freeze it. However, a study of how planetary orbits would evolve over a billion years around different configurations of stellar pairs indicates a substantial minority probably maintain conditions […]
