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People over on Reddit are discussing an old urban legend that NASA astronauts are issued with cyanide capsules – or other means intended to bring about death – in case they should find themselves in a situation where all hope of a return to Earth was lost. Advertisement “Probably a weird question but maybe someone […]

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced that it has banned the use of synthetic food dye Red No.3 in food, drink, and ingested medicine products, after studies in rats linked it to cancer. Advertisement What is Red No. 3 – and what’s happening to it? Red No. 3, also known as erythrosine, […]

Just over two years ago, observations from JWST had astronomers puzzled. Some galaxies were spotted that seemed to break our expected models. If the light we were getting from them was coming from their stars, they were simply too big to have formed in the few hundred million years that separated them from the birth […]

The only company with legal rights to salvage items from the wreckage of the RMS Titanic has scrapped its plans to recover artifacts from the sunken ship – at least for now – following a legal challenge from the US Government. Advertisement Many shipwrecks – such as military ships that have sunk in US waters […]

Astronaut Don Pettit has taken one of the most incredible astrophotography pictures ever, and possibly the best taken by humans from the International Space Station (ISS). The latest composition is a visual symphony of cosmic, terrestrial, and technological objects captured as the space station speeds around our planet at 8 kilometers (5 miles) per second. […]

China has revealed plans to build a gigantic power station in space, comparing the project to building Three Gorges Dam 36,000km (22,370 miles) above the Earth. Advertisement While the world continues to guzzle down oil like we aren’t aware of the climate crisis, more long-term thinkers are working on ways to make renewable energy like […]

Never challenge an octopus to a popping and locking dance off, that’s what my grandad always said. With eight worm-like arms, they exhibit extraordinary dexterity and control, and now scientists have uncovered a curious feature of their nervous systems that makes it possible. With segmented axial nerve cords that link up to individual suckers, octopuses […]

The class of planets known as “hot Jupiters” puzzled astronomers on first discovery, but rapidly led to an explanation that they had formed far out and migrated inwards. It was thought that during this process other planets in the same system would either be absorbed by the migrating giant, or ejected from the system. However, […]

This month, if you should incline your head slightly upwards at night, you will receive a treat in the form of six of the eight planets visible in the skyline. Advertisement Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun (and all the other planets), will not make the show in its current position behind the Sun, […]

Over the last century, our understanding of the evolution of stars has improved dramatically. By studying the cosmos, we have gained a pretty good theoretical model of how stars change over their lifetimes. Advertisement But looking at our own Sun, a G-type star on its main sequence fusing hydrogen to helium, and comparing it to […]

The de-extinction company Colossal Biosciences has reached another big milestone in its mission to make extinction a thing of the past, securing a further $200 million in Series C funding from TWG Global. It brings their total funding to $435 million to date, capital they have used to pioneer a de-extinction toolkit that has already […]

The US Presidency is said to be the hardest job in the world, so does it pay well? Put it this way: the salary would comfortably put you in the top 5 percent of earners in the US, although there are arguably easier ways to get rich quick. Advertisement As of January 2025, the US […]

The ongoing outbreak of bird flu has led to the deaths of millions of egg-laying chickens in the US. The deaths that have occurred over the last three months have had significant impact on the prices of eggs, helping to raise them to their highest point in years. Advertisement Bird flu cases often surge during […]

As wildfires continue to rage across Southern California, forecasters have warned of a powerful force worsening the situation: Santa Ana winds, aka devil winds. Advertisement Santa Ana winds are extremely warm, strong, and dry winds that occur when air from a region of high pressure over the arid desert areas of the southwestern US flows […]

Greenland has once again made headlines after US President-elect Donald Trump doubled down on his interest in purchasing or gaining control over the semi-autonomous Arctic territory of Denmark. His remarks have sparked widespread curiosity, criticism, and concern. So, what exactly is driving Trump’s fascination with Greenland? The short answer: natural resources and geopolitical maneuvering. Advertisement […]

A new application of laser technology known as two-way dual-comb ranging (TWDCR) has demonstrated with unprecedented precision in measuring the distance between instruments more than 100 kilometers (62 miles) apart. Improvements in long-distance ranging could help satellites fly better in formation and enhance the accuracy of scientific instruments for gravitational wave detection and very-long-baseline astronomical […]

Sagittarius A* is the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. As supermassive black holes go, it is fairly quiet. It’s not creating any galaxy-wide tantrums that should worry us. It does flare up though, and studying these flares across wavelengths has been very important to create models about the extreme environments […]

A new study investigating artificial intelligence (AI) and “cognitive offloading” by humans has found a negative correlation between frequent AI use and critical thinking abilities. Advertisement Large language models have become more freely available these days, whether it’s OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google’s AI summaries, providing (often not entirely accurate) answers at potentially huge costs to […]

Anxiety can act as a great motivator to avoid potentially uncomfortable interactions, and it seems that even rats may fall victim to it. A new study involving rats being let loose in a maze populated by food-guarding robots has revealed how their brains behaved when anticipating future threats, changing their behavior so that they could […]