Our galaxy has been shaped by its encounters with many smaller galaxies over billions of years. It absorbed some, but even some of those that escaped have left their mark. Parts of the galactic disk have been found to be vibrating as a result of a close (galactically speaking) encounter with the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy. […]
518-Million-Year-Old Ancient Armored Worm Is Ancestor Of Three Major Animal Groups
An ancient worm preserved in the fossil record for 518 million years old has been found to be a pivotal point in the evolutionary tree, representing the ancestor of three major groups of animals. Wufengella, as the fella’ is known, was a bristly character measuring just half an inch in length, and hails from an […]
Hurricane Hunters Are Flying Through Ian’s Powerful Winds To Get The Forecasts You Rely On – Here’s What Happens When The Plane Plunges Into The Eyewall Of A Storm
As Hurricane Ian intensifies on its way toward the Florida coast, hurricane hunters are in the sky doing something almost unimaginable: flying through the center of the storm. With each pass, the scientists aboard these planes take measurements that satellites can’t and send them to forecasters at the National Hurricane Center. Jason Dunion, a University […]
200 Years Ago Today, The World Learned The Rosetta Stone Had Been Decoded
200 years ago today, the world learned that French philologist Jean-Francois Champollion had decoded the Rosetta Stone – an accomplishment that would allow the world to read Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics. In 1799, during a demolition of a fort by one of Napoleon’s lieutenants in Rosetta (modern-day Rashid) in Egypt. a giant slab covered in ancient […]
Cold Water Swimming Is All The Rage But Is It Actually Good For You?
Have you got friends that like to take a refreshing (well more like freezing) dip in the ocean on Boxing Day? Or are you one of those people yourself? Well, you might be on to something: taking a dip in cold water may reduce the risk of disorders like diabetes and may cut body fat […]
Cacao Was Consumed By All Ancient Maya, Not Just The Elites
The ancient Maya are famed for their ritual use of cacao, and new evidence suggests that the iconic pods were more widely consumed than previously thought. Until now, archaeologists assumed that the ingestion of cacao products was the exclusive right of the political and religious elites – yet it now appears that even the lowliest […]
James Earl Jones Retires As Darth Vader, Hands His Voice Over To AI
At 91 years of age and after an incredible career as one of the most iconic voices on the planet, James Earl Jones has retired from being the voice of Darth Vader – but not before allowing technology to continue his legacy. The actor has now handed over the rights to his voice recordings to […]
Watch Moment DART Smashed Into Asteroid Captured By Telescopes On Earth
All astronomers’ eyes were pointed towards NASA’s DART mission on Monday when an uncrewed spacecraft crashed into an asteroid, hoping to find out whether humanity could avert a catastrophic collision. So far, so good: it looks like the mission was an “unprecedented success for planetary defense,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement. Advertisement […]
With Long Life Comes Tiny Testicles For Bowhead Whales
Living forever can get messy in the context of cancer as the longer an organism is on this Earth, generally speaking, the higher its risk of developing a genetic mutation that can lead to disease. Some plucky animals, like the bowhead whale, have adapted to overcome this, becoming one of the longest living species on […]
About 200 Dead Whales Have Been Towed Out To Sea Off Tasmania – And What Happens Next Is A True Marvel Of Nature
Australians watched in horror last week as 230 pilot whales became stranded at a beach near Macquarie Harbour on Tasmania’s west coast. Some whales were saved, but the vast majority died. This left a big problem: what to do with all the rotting whale carcasses? Authorities decided to tow the dead animals out to sea, […]
Woman Hospitalized For Three Days After A Dog Pooped In Her Mouth
A woman taking a nap with her mouth open ended up in hospital for three days after her daughter’s dog took a poop in her mouth. Amanda Gommo and her daughter were looking after their chihuahua named Belle, who was suffering from gastrointestinal distress when the incident occurred. “I was having my afternoon nap with […]
Redditor Claims To Be Using AI-Written Essays To Get Straight As In School
With some artificial intelligence (AI) programs able to write sentences well enough to apparently convince a Google engineer that it is sentient, it was inevitable that someone out there would try to use it to cheat at homework. According to one Redditor, this has already happened – and as a result, they and their friends […]
“We Have Impact”: NASA’s DART Mission Scores A Direct Hit On Asteroid Dimorphos
The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) has proven one thing – we have the capability to slam a spacecraft at high speed into a Great Pyramid-sized rock 11 million kilometers (7 million miles) from Earth. In the process, we got some excellent images of the jumble of rocks that make up the surface of Dimorphos, […]
Epigenetic Changes Can Cause Developmental Abnormalities In “Grandoffspring” As Well As Offspring
Our physical traits and disease risk can be decided by epigenetic modifications that alter how our genes are expressed, meaning our health and development can differ from what’s laid out in our genetic code. Whether these changes could be carried across generations has been a puzzling question, but new research believes to have found evidence […]
Soviet Submarine B-59 And The Man Who Single-Handedly Prevented Nuclear War
A new opera is to tell the story of a soviet naval officer who, in 1962, narrowly prevented the world from entering a nuclear war. Vasili Arkhipov was born into a peasant family near Moscow in 1926. After serving as a minesweeper in World War II, he began working aboard Soviet submarines in 1947, rising […]
World’s Biggest Carbon Capture Project Has Set Its Sight On Wyoming
Climate tech companies have kicked off their plan to construct a colossal plant in Wyoming that’s capable of sucking up 5 million tons of carbon per year and storing it deep underground. Dubbed Project Bison, the LA-based CarbonCapture Inch and Texas-based Frontier Carbon Solutions hope to get the direct air capture (DAC) plant up and […]
Mexico Earthquake Sets Off Desert Tsunami In Death Valley Cave Containing World’s Rarest Fish
Last week, Mexico experienced a major earthquake that killed at least two people. Given its 7.6 magnitude, there were fears the death toll could be considerably larger. Being on land, the quake did not cause a tsunami in the ocean. However, it triggered what has been termed a “desert tsunami” in the Devil’s Hole pool, […]
Giving Cars Massive Googly Eyes Makes Crossing Safer, Study Finds
As self-driving cars become commonplace, the question on everyone’s tongues is how well will they react to pedestrians. With human drivers, it’s relatively easy to understand that they likely won’t just mow you over at a crossing (unless it’s a BMW). But without one? It will always be hard to tell whether a computer system […]
China Reveals World’s First Cloned Arctic Wolf Pup
A Chinese biotech company has cloned an Arctic wolf for the very first time. Not only is the young whippersnapper a milestone in the field of cloning technology, but the researchers believe this feat could provide hope for endangered species that are struggling to survive. The tiny Arctic wolf was born in Beijing on June […]
Gucci Runway Features 136 Identical Twins: How Common Are They IRL?
Italian fashion house Gucci’s spring/summer 2023 show, Twinsburg, featured 68 sets of identical twins modeling on the runway. That impressive number of identical twins in one place got us thinking: what is the science of identical twin births? Monozygotic twins (aka identical twins) are distinct from dizygotic twins (fraternal, or non-identical, twins). For fraternal twins, […]
