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Arachnophobia, the fear of spiders, is one of the most common phobias – even for those without a full-blown fear, these eight-legged beasties still give plenty of people the creeps. But before you reach for a slipper the next time you see one scampering up your bedroom wall, consider this: spiders aren’t out to get […]

Microsoft has unveiled a new quantum chip named Majorana 1 which it claims will be able to solve major, real-world problems within decades. Though others are skeptical of the claims, Microsoft adds that their new chip design involves manipulating an “entirely new state of matter”. ADVERTISEMENT GO AD FREE Quantum computing, like nuclear fusion power, […]

The point at which ancient humans developed the weaponry for long-distance hunting is a matter of fierce debate amongst anthropologists. The authors of a new paper suggest that our ancestors may have possessed this lethal technology more than 300,000 years ago.  ADVERTISEMENT GO AD FREE To kill an animal remotely, prehistoric hunters would have had […]

US hospitals are on track for a crisis in as little as seven years. This stark warning comes from a group of researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) who are concerned about trends in hospital bed occupancy and staffing across the country since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.  ADVERTISEMENT GO AD […]

One of the greatest mysteries left for humans is the question; where is everybody else? Though there are around 200 billion trillion stars out there in the observable universe, we have found evidence for the existence of intelligent life on precisely one planet. ADVERTISEMENT GO AD FREE Many astronomers are trying to rectify this, searching […]

Scientists have proposed an unlikely solution to water scarcity in one of the driest places on the planet: fog. By harvesting moisture from the air, they argue, we could provide vulnerable communities in Chile’s Atacama desert with much-needed water. ADVERTISEMENT GO AD FREE The Atacama is the driest nonpolar desert – but not the driest […]

A new study measuring the cognitive skills of paleognaths – the small-brained, generally flightless, and more stereotypically dinosaur-like class of birds that includes ostriches, emus, and rheas – has yielded a surprising result: they’re not as “dumb” as we give them credit for. In fact, given the right motivation, they’re enthusiastic problem solvers – and […]

A private spacecraft on a pretty badass mission has sent back footage of the far side of the Moon, on its way to land in the Mare Crisium region of our satellite on March 2. ADVERTISEMENT GO AD FREE Blue Ghost, a spacecraft funded by NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative and operated by […]

A new mRNA vaccine against tuberculosis (TB) is showing favorable results in preclinical trials. With only one currently approved vaccine for TB – which recently surpassed COVID-19 to once again become the deadliest infectious disease on Earth – the findings are a great step forward in the quest to combat humanity’s ancient foe.  ADVERTISEMENT GO […]

After Pope Francis was hospitalized on February 14 to receive treatment for bronchitis, the Vatican has now announced that the head of the Catholic Church has been diagnosed with double pneumonia. ADVERTISEMENT GO AD FREE “A follow-up chest CT scan, to which the Holy Father was subjected this afternoon – prescribed by the Vatican medical […]

Five dinosaur specimens discovered near Australia’s south-eastern coast have shed light on the region’s Cretaceous predators. The finds come from fossil beds hundreds of kilometers and millions of years apart, but suggest a hierarchy between large, medium, and small-bodied predator families at the time. ADVERTISEMENT GO AD FREE To the general public, the most exciting […]

If you go down to the woods today, could you also say you’ve seen a forest? And what if it’s hot and humid when you get there, does that mean it’s actually a jungle? As it turns out, there is a difference between a wood, a forest, and a jungle, and we’re here to tell […]

Let’s be real – regularly getting less than six hours sleep a night sounds like a recipe for winding up drowsy at your desk. That is, unless you’ve got short sleeper syndrome. What is short sleeper syndrome? ADVERTISEMENT GO AD FREE Short sleeper syndrome (SSS) refers to people who naturally and routinely sleep for less […]

Chemists at Stanford University have developed a low-cost way to remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere using an unlikely source: rocks. ADVERTISEMENT GO AD FREE The process involves heating common minerals, so they transform into materials that spontaneously pull carbon from the atmosphere and permanently contain it. Even more impressively, these reactive materials can […]

Divination is an ancient practice. People from across the world have used various ways to attempt to anticipate or predict the future, but have you ever heard of divination spoons? Well, a 2,000-year-old bronze spoon that may have been used for such things has been discovered on private land on the West Coast of the […]

Red-eared sliders are one of the most popular pets in the United States, but as a result, they’ve become one of the world’s 100 most invasive species. Pet releases have contributed to their takeover, and as resilient reptiles with enhanced cognitive capacity, they’ve really run with their freedom. They outcompete many native species and have […]

Humankind shares the planet with all sorts of weird and wonderful creatures, from rare deep-sea mysteries, to black wolves, and tiny insects. Some of the species run into conflict with humans from time to time, whether through direct attacks or the spread of disease. Efforts to rank the most deadly are widespread, and now a […]

I am sorry to inform you that the most decorated dog in US history, K9 Hurricane, has died. ADVERTISEMENT GO AD FREE Hurricane, a Belgian Malinois, was a former Special Operations Canine with the US Secret Service. Originally a member of a winning US Canine Olympic team, he was soon brought on with the important […]

US national parks are famed for their biodiversity, but even the most well-studied of places can still throw us a surprise or two. In 2024, Big Bend National Park in Texas presented a particularly rare one – the first new plant genus and species to have been discovered in a US national park since 1976. […]

A nearby supernova that peppered the Earth with cosmic rays 2-3 million years ago has been blamed for an upsurge in viruses in an African Lake at the time. The connection remains fairly speculative, but if confirmed, it may change how we see the drivers of new species, and not just at the viral scale. […]