News

NASA and the China National Space Administration (CNSA) have both landed exploratory rovers on Mars, with the aim to understand if life could, or ever has, existed on the Red Planet, our second closest neighbor.  While these missions focus on interesting areas of the planet, which may once or still be host to alien life, […]

It’s got to be a great day as a scientist when you’re called upon to perform magic tricks for monkeys. That’s what the authors of a 2023 study found themselves doing when they used “The French Drop” as a tool for studying an animal’s capacity to anticipate another’s actions. “Magicians use intricate techniques to mislead […]

In early November, Google announced Project Suncatcher, a moonshot project that aims to create satellite constellations that work as a data center in space. The plan itself has merit, and the tech giant is not the first to have thought of it. What raised quite a few eyebrows was a comment Google CEO Sundar Pichai […]

It’s no secret the deep sea is home to some strange-looking animals, so might we introduce you to yet another weirdo: the seven-arm octopus, AKA “the blob octopus”. This ocean giant can weigh up to 75 kilograms (165 pounds), but despite its huge size, it’s rarely been seen alive. The rest of this article is […]

A new study may help to solve a 39-year-old mystery, suggesting that Uranus is not so bizarre after all; Voyager 2 just imaged it during an unusual gust of solar “wind”. The iconic Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft, launched in 1977 and still going to this day, were sent with the primary objective of studying […]

A team of researchers believe they have identified a large, rotating structure 140 million light-years away from Earth. The structure, embedded within a larger filament, appears to challenge current models of the universe. Cosmic filaments, vast, thread-like structures of gas and dark matter, are some of the largest structures known in the universe.  “Astronomers theorize […]

Volcanoes may have played a pivotal role in the Black Death, the bubonic plague pandemic that ravaged 14th-century Europe. The Black Death tore through Europe, as well as parts of Asia and North Africa, between 1347 and 1353 CE. Caused by the plague bacterium, Yersinia pestis, the catastrophic pandemic killed up to 60 percent of […]

In the depths of the Amazon rainforest, a strange song drew scientists to a new species of bird, the first of its kind identified in over 75 years. It’s cute and very relaxed, but unfortunately, it’s reminding ornithologists of an infamously ill-fated bird: the dodo.  The new species, the slaty-masked tinamou (Tinamus resonans), inhabits the […]

When you think “birds-of-paradise”, your mind may jump to the bright, rainbow plumage of species like Diphyllodes magnificus or Paradisornis rudolphi. But equally present in the natural world is the exact opposite – a black so deep that it reflects less than 0.5 percent of the light that touches it – and now, scientists know […]

A young man in Bulgaria was left with horrific injuries to his head and limbs after he was mauled by a lion 6,000 years ago. Amazingly, however, the unfortunate chap survived the attack thanks to the care of his Copper Age community, although he probably suffered from physical and mental disabilities for the rest of […]

In a leaked memo sent to staff on Black Friday, November 28, the director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) – a branch of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) – called for significant changes to vaccine policy on the basis that “at least 10 children” had allegedly been found to have […]

Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is a beautiful barred spiral galaxy, but we will never see what it looks like from the outside. It is too big, and we are too deeply inside it. This limitation results in some large uncertainties about the detailed structure of our place in the universe. A new method to […]

Thousands of people type into Google “why does my belly button smell” each year, so we’re here to tell you: it’s most likely a buildup of bacteria, but there are a few other health problems you should look out for.  Smells are often, but not always, associated with bacteria. As they feast on organic material, […]

Chinese records of a total solar eclipse in 709 BCE have provided insight into two unrelated scientific questions we might not be able to resolve any other way, and revealed a mistake no one suspected. The orbit of the Moon is so regular that we can calculate the timing of solar eclipses back a very […]

We come to you today bearing sad news. After 30 years of chomping, chilling, and charming the public, the undisputed king of San Francisco, Claude the albino alligator, has died. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content. “It is with a heavy heart […]

Nitrous oxide (N2O), also known as laughing gas, could be a game-changing treatment option for severe depression, according to a new meta-analysis. The study incorporated seven clinical trials and four protocol papers from teams across the globe, and found good reason to think that inhaling the gas at clinical concentrations could help where other treatments […]

Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is estimated to be 13.6 billion years old. It began to form a few hundred million years after the Big Bang, but its distinctive spiral arms and general structure took many billions of years to assemble. So, imagine astronomers’ surprise when they looked at a JWST image and found a […]

Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS will make its closest approach to Earth this month, whizzing by at 270 million kilometers (168 million miles) away, putting on a show for anyone equipped even with a small telescope or binoculars.  By now, you have likely heard of our third confirmed interstellar visitor, but for those of you who aren’t […]

Time is relative. If you don’t believe me, get into a plank for one minute. How was that? Longest minute of your life, huh? And that’s just psychological time. Physical time, too, is relative and it’s fairly easy for two clocks to become out of sync. Differences in speed or gravity do the trick, so […]