News

On April 23, 1972, Apollo 16’s Lunar Module and its crew of two NASA astronauts – John W. Young and Charles M. Duke – left the Moon’s surface to reconnect with the Command Module before returning to Earth. While they were 95 kilograms (209 pounds) of lunar rock heavier due to their scientific activities, Duke […]

Are you a Duolingo dabbler, bilingual from birth, or a perfect polyglot?  This new “multilingual calculator” can help you find out. In a new study, two researchers at New York University (both, unsurprisingly, multilingual) have developed an interactive tool that allows people to assess just how multilingual they truly are.  The rest of this article […]

Europa is one of the four largest moons of Jupiter. It has an icy surface that hides a deep ocean, containing maybe two to three times as much water as there is on Earth. These characteristics made this world a prime candidate for hosting life. A new study, though, suggests that the possibility of a […]

There’s a sinister health threat we’re not taking seriously enough, a new paper argues – and it’s not a virus, bacterium, nor even a fungus. It’s the amoebae, free-living organisms that can survive extreme conditions and cause devastating human illness, but which – according to the scientists behind the new research – are “often overlooked […]

Dogs have played a pivotal part in the exploration of Antarctica, and have subsequently been used on the continent for nearly a century. But in 1994, the last dogs left the continent, and Antarctica has been paw print-free ever since. The first time that we know dogs laid paws on the continent was in 1899, […]

Comet 3I/ATLAS continues its flight away from the Solar System, and the data we have collected from this incredible interstellar object by missions in deep space continues to be steadily delivered to Earth. The latest is from Europa Clipper, the NASA mission bound for the eponymous icy moon of Jupiter. The full data is still […]

Were you among the lucky people who saw the extraordinary aurorae of May 2024? They were the product of an incredible solar storm, coming from a region on the solar surface that was among the most active of the last two decades. Scientists were keeping an eye on the area before the event and for […]

Some volcanoes get all the publicity. Some deserve it – Yellowstone, for example, has a reputation that’s entirely deserved: if it erupted tomorrow, “it would really feel like the end of the world,” Alexa Van Eaton, a physical volcanologist at the Cascades Volcano Observatory, told PBS Terra back in November. “The area well beyond Missoula, […]

Tokyo has been toppled as the world’s most populous city, with the Indonesian capital of Jakarta now ruling the roost, followed by the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka. The reshuffling is partly due to changes in how urban areas are defined, but it also reflects a broader, more profound shift in our world.  In November 2025, […]

Researchers have identified specific psychological traits that indicate whether someone is likely to follow conspiracy theories. The results suggest that those who believe the world is fundamentally unjust and those who have a lower tolerance for ambiguity are more likely to hold to conspiracy ideas. Conspiracy theories are not new. Historically, such beliefs – which […]

The Trump Administration has suddenly frozen the construction of all offshore wind farms in the US. The reason, it claims, is due to “national security risks.” Just before Christmas, the US Department of the Interior announced that all five of the country’s large-scale offshore wind projects that were under construction must be paused with immediate […]

Did you know that Wyoming is home to a dinosaur “mummy zone”? Here, scientists have been finding remarkably preserved dinosaurs since the early 20th century, and we just got two new carcasses that heralded a bunch of dinosaur firsts. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access […]

When Betelgeuse finally collapses, the star – currently a red supergiant – will likely shine as brightly as the Moon in the sky for about two weeks, and be visible during the daytime for 6-12 months after that. It will be a spectacular event, but calculating when it will happen is a tricky business. Every […]

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) just announced a big shakeup of the recommended childhood vaccine schedule in the USA. Following a memo from the office of President Trump at the end of last year, acting CDC Director Jim O’Neill has now instructed the agency to move forward with changes that see six […]

A treasure trove of deep reef dwellers has been discovered in coral reefs off the coast of Guam, including 20 that are new to science – and there could be more yet to come. Deep coral reefs like those in Guam exist at depths greater than 100 meters (330 feet) – which lies within the […]

The galaxy is expected to be home to billions of free-floating, or “rogue”, planets that have no stellar companion. These worlds have been kicked out of the system where they formed, and they travel cold and alone around the Milky Way. They are found serendipitously, their properties hard to estimate, but a new approach and […]

Galaxies might be separated by hundreds of thousands of light-years at the very least, but they do occasionally merge. During those collisions, the supermassive black holes that sit at the center of those galaxies can become active, entering a feeding frenzy thanks to fresh supplies of gas being thrown towards the core by the merger. […]

In 1917, a group of German soldiers arrived at a military hospital near Freiburg after returning from a campaign in Dobrudja, a region of the Balkans that had been riddled with disease. All of the troops had been struck down with a nasty case of dysentery caused by the Shigella group of bacteria – except for […]

Plunge 1,000 meters (3,300 feet) below the ocean’s surface, and there can be found the midnight zone, where the complete lack of sunlight and extreme cold and pressure have led to the evolution of all manner of ethereal weirdos. One of the rarest members of the gang? The giant phantom jellyfish (Stygiomedusa gigantea). The rest […]

Mammals are vertebrates famous for, among other talents, having milk-producing mammary glands, having hair or fur, giving birth to live young, and being warm-blooded. While these traits, along with having a complex neocortex in their brain, are generally found in all mammals, they are not universal rules. For obvious example, monotremes such as platypuses do […]