News

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. […]

Do you ever find that chocolate from an Advent calendar just doesn’t hit the same as a regular chocolate bar? Or perhaps you’re one of those oddballs who actually prefer the taste of Advent calendar chocolate. Either way, fear not – the festive cheer hasn’t gone to your head, you’re not imagining things. The rest […]

Stare deep into the eyes of a sheep and you’ll probably upset a farmer, but before the guns start waving you might notice something strange. Rather than a bouncy round pupil like our own, sheep have a rectangular black blob in the middle of their eyes. So, what gives? The rest of this article is […]

In 2004, scientists digging in China discovered a fossil that changed the way we saw dinosaurs. It was a Psittacosaurus, a horned herbivore that lived around 120 million years ago. It wasn’t alone in death, however, as scientists found the fossils of 34 offspring huddled around it. It was one of the earliest pieces of […]

A timelapse has been released showing the newly discovered Tatooine-like planet HD 143811 AB b making part of its journey around the two stars that give it light. The planet can be seen directly because it is both very large and very young, so the observations provide insight into how systems like this form and […]

Astronomers using the JWST have traced the source of a long-duration gamma-ray burst back to a supernova that exploded around 13.07 billion years in the universe’s past. The explosion is now the earliest known supernova event that we have seen, taking place when the universe was just 730 million years old. On March 14, 2025, […]

Take yourself back in time to the year 1758. We are in Germany and it’s winter, so we can confidently assume that it is cold, with possible snow covering the fields and roofs of houses. Here we meet the protagonist of this story, farmer and astronomer Johann Georg Palitzsch. He is scanning the sky as […]

What did dinosaurs look like? It’s not easy to figure out when all you have to go on is scant fossil evidence, but every now and then a rare find gives us a fresh glimpse into the past. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the […]

NASA’s Voyager spacecraft (1 and 2), launched in 1977, are both on a trajectory that will take them out of the Solar System, and into interstellar space.  It’s a slow journey. For an obvious example, in November 2026 Voyager 1 will reach one full light-day from Earth, or the amount of time it takes light […]