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The Christmas star. The Star of Bethlehem. Whatever you call it, it is a staple of any nativity scene, just as much as the wise men who followed it, usually represented as a bright star or comet above the stable where baby Jesus lies. The idea of the “star” comes from just a few lines […]

Humans are pretty monogamous, all things considered. That’s not a judgment call – it’s the conclusion of a new study from a researcher at the University of Cambridge’s Department of Archaeology, which places Homo sapiens a healthy seventh out of 35 species in terms of faithfulness to a single reproductive partner. We’re also, to put […]

Everyone’s made some decisions that they later regret – going crazy with the hair dye, microwaving an egg, finding out how have snails have sex… But what about inadvertently chopping down what would later turn out to be the oldest tree ever dated?  That’s exactly what happened to an unfortunate graduate student named Donald R. […]

Smack bang in the middle of your brain sits a tiny structure called the pineal gland, which has puzzled neuroscientists and philosophers for centuries. Among those to speculate on the role of this little blob was one René Descartes, whose suggestion that the soul sits within it kickstarted one of the most stubborn pseudoscientific theories […]

Kīlauea is one of the world’s most active volcanoes, spewing out lava and ash intermittently for most of 2025. Now, a camera operated by the US Geological Survey (USGS) has filmed its own demise as the volcanic eruptions come ever closer to the lens. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign […]

The three Norths are moving on from their “historic” meet-up in England. After momentarily aligning over Britain for three years, the British Geological Survey has just reported that the alignment will drift off the coast of England very shortly and head over the North Sea. Defining North is fiddlier than you might think. “True north” […]

A few weeks ago, a particularly strong lightning bolt was released over the Adriatic Sea, between the Italian and Balkan Peninsula. The electric field spread across the atmosphere, traveling hundreds of kilometers, where, above the Northern Italian town of Possagno, not too far from Venice, not one but two rare atmospheric phenomena took place. Incredibly, […]

Depending on your age and continent, you might be aware that each year NORAD tracks Santa, keeping the children of the United States and Canada updated on his movements. The story of how this came to be, which really sounds like it should be a Christmas movie, has its own fame, but remains less well-known. […]

This weekend, we will see the peak of the Geminids meteor shower. This is one of the best of the year, with an expected peak of 150 meteors every hour. Considering that there will be only one-third of the waning Moon visible, this is a great time to go meteor hunting. The rest of this […]

We’re willing to bet that at some point in your life, you’ve been advised to “sleep on it”. When wrestling with a difficult problem, going to bed and revisiting it in the morning really does seem to help us see things more clearly – but this is not just a placebo effect. There’s some actual […]

The genes of polar bears are showing they’re adapting in the face of a rapidly evolving world – and that is not necessarily good news. Scientists at the University of East Anglia studied the genetic material from blood samples of 17 polar bears, 12 of which were living in the colder reaches of northeastern Greenland […]

It’s not often at a science website that you get to cover Tom Cruise updates, but here is our chance to talk movies. A Tom Cruise space movie that was actually going to be shot in space has been canceled, reportedly for political reasons. Tom Cruise is well-known for performing a lot of his own […]

If you’ve ever drunk a glass, schooner, or, more properly, pint of beer, at some point you may have wondered why the head of the beer appears so much lighter than the beer itself. While beers vary and maltier, darker heads are possible, as a general rule the foam is lighter than the drink itself, […]

Some special bacteria are helping with a project that overlaps between science and fashion, and their help will require a trip to orbit, where they will be dealing with the increased radiation that exists above the protective bubble of our atmosphere. The project, which is called Pigmented Space Pioneers, aims to use the dyes produced […]

Long ago, but not that long ago, the English alphabet had 27 letters, rather than the current 26. In fact, it even had a starring role in the singsong nursery rhymes used to teach children their ABCs. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full […]

What’s the most valuable thing in your kitchen? That Himalayan pink salt, perhaps? Something gluten free? No: according to generations of chefs and Italians alike, the answer is in your saucepan – and chances are, you’ve been throwing this so-called “liquid gold” down the plughole for years. “Don’t throw the water out after your pasta […]

A pair of woolly mammoth vertebrae in Alaska have been dated to around 2,000 years old, making them by far the most recent evidence for the existence of this extinct beast ever recorded. However, upon further analysis, researchers discovered that the fossils are not in fact of proboscidean origin, and instead belong to a couple […]

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin has announced the participants on its next space tourist flight, the 37th launch for the New Shepard rocket configuration, and one crew member is of particular note. Engineer Michi Benthaus will become the first wheelchair user to fly above the edge of space. The date of the flight has not been […]

A mosasaur tooth has been found at one of the most famous Late Cretaceous fossil sites in the world. That means the famous marine predators adapted to a freshwater environment, and it seems they didn’t lose any of their size in the process. In 2022, Trissa Ford was digging in the famous Hell Creek, North […]

The first documented case of cooperative hunting between killer whales and dolphins has been observed in the waters off British Columbia, Canada. Incredible aerial footage shows the two species sharing fish scraps after a kill, and scientists have some theories as to why they’re teaming up. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. […]