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Eight years ago, a popular interactive map showed you where you would pop up if you were to dig your way right through the Earth. It’s a bit of fun, even if for the vast majority the answer was “somewhere in an ocean”. But would it be possible to dig through the Earth and pop out the other […]

Africa is gradually splitting in two. As with most geological processes, it unfolds at a glacial pace over millions of years, but in time it could cause part of East Africa to break away from the rest of the continent, likely giving rise to a new ocean between the two landmasses. The rest of this […]

Who doesn’t love a long, hot shower at the end of a tiring day? Or – perhaps more relevant right now – an icy cold one in the middle of a heat wave? Well, as with everything humans enjoy, science has looked into our showering proclivities to see what exactly is going on.  It turns out hot and […]

We strongly advise you never go swimming in Burundi’s Rusizi River, but if fate deals you a cruel hand and you’re left with no other option, beware of Gustave. Gustave is a legend in this part of East Africa, surrounded by decades of folklore, fear, and fragmented accounts. Most of what we know about this […]

In humans, as in many animals, things tend to come in pairs. We have two eyes, two ears, two hands, and two feet – and, right in the middle of our faces, two nostrils. For most of those features, of course, having two makes sense. A pair of eyes gives us a wider range of […]

We know full well that our species has the capacity to effect phenomenal change, even accidentally, for better or for worse. We see it in the climate crisis but also in the eradication of smallpox. When the DART mission hit asteroid Dimorphos, our species gained the ability to move celestial bodies. It turns out we […]

This week, a 120-million-year-old dinosaur trackway has revealed the fastest Cretaceous theropod ever discovered, Little Foot, one of the most complete early hominin fossils, may actually be an “unidentified human relative”, and NASA finally confirmed billionaire Jared Isaacman as its new head. Finally, we visited the European Space Agency to ask real astronauts the question […]

Our third interstellar visitor that we have detected, comet 3I/ATLAS, has been found to contain molecules that are key for life. But what does that mean?  If you don’t know the story by now, on July 1, 2025, the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System did its job beautifully and spotted an object as it hurtled […]

Picture it now. You are a young scientist at your first conference, and you’ve just seen a senior researcher you’ve long admired. They’re bound to have great insights for your latest project; all you have to do is say hello – it all starts there. Everywhere around there’s a hum of conversation as researchers gather […]

Picture a rhinoceros and you might imagine a pointy-beaked bird perching on its back. These birds aren’t simply there to eat ticks and other tiny nuisances; this unlikely alliance is a complex relationship that blurs the line between parasitic and symbiotic. Oxpeckers are the “ride-or-die” companions of Africa’s megafauna. They most famously hitch a ride […]

Critically endangered species live life on a knife-edge. Often with populations in the low hundreds, every individual is vital to continue to breed and maintain numbers. Unforeseen events, like climate-related extreme weather, can often further threaten this precarious balance, as is the case recently with the Tapanuli orangutan, the rarest great ape in the world.  […]

NASA has just released two images from its recent near-infrared SPHEREx mission. This is an incredible near-infrared space telescope that aims to collect the detailed light spectrum of 450 million galaxies. To do that, it has very narrow filters which are equivalent to how we categorize colors, only not in the light that we can […]

Historically, Jesus of Nazareth was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious leader, seen as a prophet by followers of Islam – and, of course, he is believed to be God the Son made flesh and the long-awaited Messiah who was prophesied in the Hebrew Bible. This latter part earned him the appellative ‘Christ.’ Christians around […]

If you look in the right places, you may encounter the claim that there is only one, or two depending on who is speaking, places on Earth where you can walk directly on the mantle. Is this true, what does it even mean, and if it’s real, how did it happen? Any model of the […]

Organ transplantd have come a long way since the first human-to-human heart transplant back in 1967. A new record was set for organ transplants in the United States in 2024, as for the first time ever the country saw more than 48,000 organ transplants in a year. The more we do them, the more we […]

A biologist with a passion for invertebrates had been caring for an unassuming worm in his lab for decades. Only recently did he decide to test out how old this unlikely pet really was – and he was pleasantly surprised by the results.  The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in […]

A new species of carnivorous pitcher plant has been described on Palawan Island in the Philippines. Named for its “large mouth”, it’s an impressive specimen, but one that scientists say is already at risk of extinction with fewer than 50 known plants in existence. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign […]

Science fiction loves space travel. In the absence of a Stargate, to travel between the stars and explore the cosmos, you need spaceships. There are fast ones and slow ones, realistic ones and some that are sadly completely impossible. So many have captured the imagination of people across movies, television, video games, and novels. But […]

Our third known interstellar visitor, comet 3I/ATLAS, will reach its closest point to Earth today, December 19. It will still be pretty far away, at 270 million kilometers (168 million miles) away, but despite being almost twice the Earth-Sun distance, it’s the closest it will ever get to Earth as it continues its journey through […]

It’s barely perceptible, but from the morning after December 21 (or June 21 if you’re below the equator), the Sun starts to hang around for just a little longer each day. For most of us, that means we can start dreaming about the day that our morning commute doesn’t begin in complete darkness, but for […]