News

Let’s face it: claiming a connection to some foreign nationality or ethnicity on the dubious basis of a great-grandparent or two is as American as apple pie. You know it, countless comedians know it, and now, science knows it too. “We conducted the largest population genomics analysis of US samples that reflect the nation’s genetic […]

A team of researchers inspired by naturally occurring bubbles trapped in ice has come up with a novel way of using human-made bubbles to encode messages – and store those messages inside ice.  Ice cores are a pretty good way to get an idea of the Earth’s atmosphere in the ancient past, thanks to their […]

Generally speaking if you go outside and take a photo of the Sun every day at the same time (and with the proper equipment) and overlay the photos, you will find that the Sun makes a large figure of eight pattern in the sky. This is known as an “analemma”, and of course is created […]

It wasn’t a popular point of view, even at the time. The ancients, as well as their Dark Ages and medieval successors, figured adherence to the edicts of various gods should be more of a priority than annoying people in the agora with gotcha-style rhetoric. Eventually, of course, that religious outlook gave way to more […]

The Sculptor galaxy is a stunning spiral galaxy, 11 million light-years away, and it is currently experiencing an intense period of star formation. It was discovered by Caroline Herschel in 1783, yet we can guarantee that a new view of the Sculptor Galaxy by the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope has never been seen […]

Material scientist Brian Haidet has weighed a plane while it was flying for his YouTube channel AlphaPhoenix.  To weigh a plane, usually you would place scales underneath the landing gears, nose gears, and wing support points. But if you don’t have access to a plane and plane scales – or you just want to do […]

Every spring, Bogong moths (Agrotis infusa) fly up 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) to take shelter in the handful of high-altitude caves that stay cold enough for them through the heat of the Australian summer. Flying that far is a mighty feat for an insect, but the more impressive achievement is for the moths to find […]

Spiders are fascinating for a great number of reasons but one of the most obvious is how they manage to scuttle around on all eight limbs. Some spiders have even developed the adaptation known as autotomy, to lose limbs in an altercation with a predator, but not have it be the end of them. Now, […]

Political polarization in the US has been increasing for decades, but it has reached new heights in recent years. However, this divide does not just involve a disagreement over policies but also a distinct dislike between supporters of the two parties. Is this personal animosity shared equally between Democrats and Republicans? According to a new […]

The sands of the Thar Desert stretch across over 200,000 square kilometers (77,000 square miles), covering parts of northwestern India and eastern Pakistan. Roughly the size of the United Kingdom, it’s only the world’s ninth-largest subtropical desert, but it claims a unique title: it’s the most densely populated desert on Earth. How many people live […]

We still don’t know exactly when humans first reached the Americas, although we do know that people were present in New Mexico by around 23,000 years ago. All that remains of these mysterious ancient wanderers are a few footprints, and while some researchers have questioned the age of these tracks, new research confirms that they […]

Out of their 300,000 years of existence, Homo sapiens have spend the majority of their time in Africa, the undisputable motherland of our species. It wasn’t until 60,000 years ago that major waves of modern humans ventured out of the home continent to spread across Eurasia and beyond. Small droves of people left in earlier periods, […]

Not only are sharks incredible apex predators, they’re also renowned for their robust immune systems. However, their ways of achieving this differ greatly from ours as they lack lymph nodes and other organs associated with combating infections, such as tonsils. They can even produce many of the protective cells and antibodies that we have. Now, […]

The world’s largest sand battery is online and ready to make the most of Finland’s renewable energy. Once fully operational, this giant device is expected to cut carbon-equivalent emissions from the local heating network by about 160 tons each year, slashing the district’s heating emissions by nearly 70 percent. Towering at 13 meters tall and […]

Living without sunlight ain’t easy, but newly discovered sea spiders off the US coast have evolved a remarkable survival strategy on the deep seafloor. In a world where photosynthesis isn’t an option, these spindly creatures farm methane-eating bacteria on their own bodies and then feast upon them. Scientists at Occidental College and the California Institute […]

Guns, according to many a Second Amendment advocate, don’t kill people – people kill people. It’s a catchy turn of phrase, and it spawned a fun Welsh bop that one time, but it ignores one very important variable: that it’s a whole lot easier for people to kill people when they have easy access to […]

If you’re a bit of a fan of ancient and mysterious manuscripts, perhaps with a little sprinkling of satanic legend, then the Codex Gigas, or the Devil’s Bible, is for you. The legend behind it goes like this: In 13th-century Bohemia, a Christian monk named Herman broke his monastic vows and was subsequently sentenced to […]

Humans are pretty good at making things hot. Heck, it’s pretty much our species’ entire claim to fame at this point. But just how hot can we go when we really put our minds to it? It might seem like a frivolous question – but our ability to heat things up has been responsible for […]

Crystals that are perfectly symmetrical around a central point can nevertheless respond to light as if they were asymmetric, scientists have found. The discovery could lead to more sensitive measuring devices, improve the security of signal transmission, and even allow brighter optical displays, researchers claim. Symmetry comes in many forms. Our bodies, up to a […]

The US state of Alaska has issued its first-ever heat advisory, as meteorologists also warn of flooding caused by rapid snowmelt. The National Weather Service (NWS) offices in Fairbanks and Juneau issued the initial heat advisory on June 12, followed by an updated advisory on June 16 warning of temperatures up to 29.4 to 31.1°C […]