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This week on Break It Down: two comb jellies become one, how Hurricane Milton grew so intense, superpowered scans reveal COVID’s impact on the brain, a humanlike robot’s jokes fail to impress his friend, Lucy the Australopithecine might have used tools 3.2 million years ago, and Mozambique’s elephants offer modern-day proof of evolution. Available on […]

Walking under the blue welcome sign at the San Diego Convention Center earlier this year was quite an experience. I was greeted immediately with a kaleidoscope of activity and dynamic sounds that only hinted at the epic science adventures to come. This was Pittcon – the largest global conference and exposition on laboratory science held […]

A lucky group of swimmers from charity Ocean Culture Life (OCL) were met with a rare treat on a trip to Tonga – an encounter with an all-white humpback whale calf. The team, who were on one of Tonga’s regulated whale swimming charters, came across the rare calf swimming and playing alongside its mother and […]

New observations of the Great Red Spot (GRS), Jupiter’s enormous storm, have revealed that it is less stable than previously thought. Regular observations over the course of 90 days have revealed that its elliptical shape can change dimension, becoming squished in different directions. The fact that it changes shape is not exactly unexpected. It has […]

Tiny pieces of charcoal have been found in sediments at the Tam Pà Ling Cave in Laos. The discoveries call into question previous confidence humans did not camp in the cave, and that remains there were instead washed inside. The cave represents our only established resource to unravel some of the biggest questions about humanity’s […]

How we respond to arguments or opinions that differ from our own can have serious implications, whether it’s a tiff between a friend or a family member, or a stubborn dispute with a colleague at work. We’ve probably all had instances where everyone involved thinks they’re right and things just don’t go anywhere. According to […]

On the Japanese islands of Ishigaki and Iriomote lives a very unusual amphibian. The Eiffinger’s tree frog (Kurixalus eiffingeri) could be said to have the most house-proud babies in nature, as their tadpoles hold in their first poop until they become frogs. These small frogs spend most of their young lives in tree hollows and […]

Unnerving footage shows the plane shake as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) flew into Hurricane Milton to learn more about its development. NOAA regularly makes flights inside hurricanes to monitor them and make predictions about their progress. Using two aircraft – nicknamed “Kermit” and “Miss Piggy” – the hurricane specialists take data from […]

Sometimes where you are born is not where you are meant to be, especially if you are going to be brighter and hotter than anyone else there. Young star cluster R136 is a stellar nursery full of stars but over the last 2 million years it has sent dozens of massive stars flying into interstellar […]

A harmonious oasis of nuanced debate and reason… is sadly not an accurate description of most social media platforms. Let’s face it, things can quickly get very nasty in those comment sections – but why is it like that? A new study explores what the authors call the “confrontation effect”, in which users become highly […]

Hurricane Milton made landfall last night as a Category 3 storm, causing destruction on Florida’s west coast and leaving millions without power.  For a brief time, the intense storm was Category 5, with Fox 35 Orlando meteorologist Noah Bergren describing it as “nearing the mathematical limit of what Earth’s atmosphere over this ocean water can […]

Every now and then, the various robots NASA has placed on Mars find an unusual rock or feature. After all, that is (partly) what they’re there for. These finds can be interesting, like a donut-shaped rock that may not be from the planet; or very interesting, like the incredibly unusual striped rock Perseverance recently found […]

The black hole that was recently spotted consuming a star that got too close has found its next victim, which may be another black hole. Astronomers are looking forward to watching the process in action, and have used what they have already seen to confirm a link between two scientific mysteries.  One of the thrillingly […]

Studying exoplanets is not easy. Despite enormous steps forward in technology, models, and observational tricks, astronomers are still looking at small dots either blocking some starlight or reflecting it while being next to a bright object that easily outshines them. It requires practice, and researchers have decided to use Uranus to get better at it. […]

Having the means to see Earth from space is one of science’s greatest achievements and it’s provided us with all sorts of stunning imagery, including an incredible new time-lapse of the line dividing day and night as Earth progresses through the seasons. Posted to X by ESA Earth Observation, the video is a compilation of […]

With Hurricane Milton making landfall in Florida on Wednesday night, officials have warned that the monstrous storm is set to bring significant change to the state’s coastline. By generating strong winds and changes in pressure over the sea, hurricanes can push large amounts of seawater toward the shore, known as a storm surge. The intense […]

The largest volcano in Washington state has shown a flurry of seismic activity in recent weeks, having previously remained virtually silent for thousands of years. Officials from the US Geological Survey (USGS) are now installing temporary seismic stations around Mount Adams in order to monitor the situation and determine whether the sleepy giant is likely […]

Yesterday, we saw amazing observations of a full halo coronal mass ejection release from the Sun, passing over comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, and continuing straight for Earth. It will slam into our planet in a matter of hours. Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are stupendous releases of high-speed plasma from the Sun. They are associated with […]

Germophobes may be horrified, but bathrooms are rich locations for biological diversity, with so many species living side-by-side that most have yet to be recorded. When it comes to the black mold you really should have cleaned off months ago, that can be a health hazard, but a wealth of new discoveries on toothbrushes and […]

For the 170 years that scientists have been aware of Arthropleura, a genus of the biggest arthropods ever known to have existed, there’s been a key question that has remained unanswered: what did their heads look like? Now, thanks to some newly discovered fossils, they’ve finally solved the mystery. Arthropleura was a millipede-like critter that lived […]