Warning: This is a grisly one. Around 850,000 years ago, a small child belonging to a now extinct human species was decapitated and processed for food, according to new archaeological finds in northern Spain. The specimen, a tiny vertebra, belonged to a two- to four-year-old member of the archaic human species known as Homo antecessor, […]
How To Watch The ISS As It Crosses The US Night Sky In The Next Few Days
Summer nights are great for watching the sky. The best meteor shower of the year has started, most of the world will get to see a lunar eclipse soon, and even if you live in a city with light pollution, you can still catch the International Space Station (ISS) as it passes overhead. Humans have […]
“Robo-Bunnies” Are Florida’s Newest Weapon Against Python Invaders
How do you stop an invasive species from taking over an ecosystem and decimating the local species that live there? Well, if it’s Florida, you use a vibrating robot bunny. “These things […] may sound a little crazy,” admitted Robert McCleery, a professor at the University of Florida’s Wildlife Ecology and Conservation Department. But, he […]
Are We About To Get The First-Ever Negative Leap Second?
You wouldn’t have noticed, unless your brain possesses an atomic clock, but Earth has been spinning unusually fast in recent weeks. On a handful of days, the days are over 1 millisecond shorter than the usual 24 hours. Earth’s days are rarely 24 hours on the dot because numerous factors can influence the speed of […]
There’s A Hidden Code In Your DNA And Scientists Have Just Identified It
A portion of our genome that was once dismissed as being “junk” may actually play an important role in regulating gene expression, new research suggests. According to the work of an international team of scientists, the “junk” has actually evolved to influence how genes are turned on and off, especially during early human development. The […]
Mesmerizing Drone Footage Captures Rare Glimpse Of Critically Endangered Wedgefish
The ocean holds all sorts of differently shaped delights, from colorful starfish to life that is a little more… blobby. Now, impressive drone footage has provided a rare glimpse at one of the most triangular beings in the ocean: the wedgefish. Wildlife videographer Jake Mason was flying his drone off in Shark Bay off the […]
The Universe Might End Sooner Than We Thought – But Don’t Worry, We’ve Still Got 33 Billion Years
The universe began in an event we call the Big Bang around 13.8 billion years ago. Humanity has been able to understand a lot of what has happened since and where the universe is going, but we do not know exactly how it is going to end. A new study suggests that the cosmos might […]
Giant Prehistoric Whale Graveyard Revealed By Disappearing Glacier In The Russian Arctic
A melting glacier has pulled back the veil on a prehistoric whale graveyard in Russia. Scientists at Russia’s Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI) recently found the gathering of whale skeletons on Wilczek Island in the Franz Josef Land archipelago, northern Russia, during the study of the region’s permafrost. “Having compared the current position of […]
Surprising JWST Observations Hint We Might Be Inside A Black Hole
A study analyzing JWST observations of the early universe has uncovered an intriguing mystery: most galaxies appear to be rotating in the same direction. This unexpected pattern, which defies current cosmological models, has led the study’s authors to propose a bold possibility: that our universe might exist inside a black hole. The JWST has allowed […]
Ötzi The Iceman’s DNA Reveals He Belonged To A Previously Unknown Genetic Lineage
Since his discovery in 1991, Ötzi, the famous mummified Iceman found frozen in the Ötztal Alps, has been offering all sorts of insights into the Neolithic past. Now scientists have turned to his neighbors to see if their DNA can offer even more information about ancient people living in this region at the time. The […]
First Antiproton Quantum Bit Created At CERN’s Antimatter Factory
The BASE collaboration within the Antimatter Factory at CERN is having an exciting year. Not only are they getting ready to transport antimatter around the facility on the back of a van, but they have also demonstrated for the first time a quantum bit or qubit (the fundamental processing unit of a quantum computer) using […]
Killer Fur: There’s Only One Poisonous Rodent In The World, And It Can Take Out An Elephant
Ever wondered what it would look like if you could combine the features of a rat, a skunk, and a porcupine? Well, wonder no more, because nature has already dished up such a creature: the African crested rat (Lophiomys imhausi). It looks endearingly bonkers, but don’t be fooled. This maned rodent has a toxic trick […]
Entangled Atomic Clock Experiment Could Finally Provide Hints At A Theory Of Everything
A new experiment involving a network of entangled atomic clocks could finally help us test how quantum mechanics fits with general relativity. Quantum mechanics is our best understanding of the universe at atomic and subatomic scales. With it, we have revolutionized our understanding of physics on teeny tiny scales. General relativity – first outlined by […]
Stepping Stones To Life-Crucial Molecules Found In Planet-Forming Disk: “It’s Really Exciting!”
Astronomers report the discovery of 17 different complex organic molecules around protostar V883 Orionis. They also report the first tentative detection of ethylene glycol and glycolonitrile, which are precursors to crucial building blocks of life such as the amino acids glycine and alanine, as well as the nucleobase adenine found in both DNA and RNA. […]
Marathon Fusion Claims They Have A Method For Transmuting Mercury Into Gold
In a yet-to-be-peer-reviewed paper, fusion startup Marathon claims that they have come up with a method for turning mercury into gold. There is an old joke that fusion is always 30 years away. After being proposed in the 1950s as a solution to our energy needs, we have still not found a way to make […]
Meet The Aardwolf: The Smallest Hyena, With A 300,000-Termite-A-Night Appetite
What do you think of when you imagine a hyena? A cackling, meat-eating character, right? Turns out, they’re not all like that. Like any family, there’s one member of the hyena clan that’s something of an oddball – the aardwolf (Proteles cristatus). The name might conjure up images of the cursed result of an experiment […]
“Missing Link” Planet Detected? It Could Turn Into Two Different Types Of Worlds
To misquote Hamlet, there seems to be more types of planets across the heavens than have been dreamt in our astronomy before the advent of dedicated planet-hunting telescopes. In the Solar System, we have rocky worlds, dwarf planets, gas giants, and icy giants. Beyond, we find super-Earths, sub-Neptunes, hot Jupiters, and more. Now, astronomers have […]
Your Dog Is Not A Good Judge Of Character
Dogs are great judges of character, right? That’s certainly what lots of people think anyway. If dogs gravitate towards someone then that person must be safe and trustworthy, but if the pooch gets protective then perhaps that someone is untrustworthy. But whether or not this is true and how, if at all, dogs socially evaluate […]
NASA’s Viking Project May Have Found Life On Mars 50 Years Ago, Then Accidentally Killed It
As the search for life on Mars continues – with the Mars Sample Return program set to return samples of the planet in the early 2030s – one scientist has suggested that we may have already found life on the Red Planet, almost 50 years ago. And then, in what would not be an all-time […]
First Evidence Of A Dinosaur Herd Combining Two Species Revealed In Cretaceous Tracks
A late Cretaceous trackway in Canada contains the footprints of at least nine dinosaurs from four species. Two of the trackmakers were large tyrannosaurs, which may have sparked the motions of the other dinosaurs, or happened to be nearby a few hours earlier or later. However, while that part of the puzzle remains unsolved, the […]
