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Last year, a landslide sent a wall of water 200 meters (650 feet) high rushing down a Greenland fjord. Thankfully, not only was no one hurt but hardly anyone noticed. Seismologists across the globe were confused by signals they had never seen before. Fortunately, a research station at the mouth of Dickson Fjord, while abandoned […]

As we’ve explored the Solar System’s planets and moons using probes and orbiters, we have found and studied plenty of unusual features, from Jupiter’s “Great Blue Spot” to signs of something stirring beneath Europa’s ice. Advertisement One particularly striking feature, perhaps because it sparks our pareidolia, is the so-called “spiders on Mars“. Images taken of […]

Deep in the ocean lives an unusual isopod that’s known to swim upside-down while going backwards with the help of peculiar paddle-like legs as long as your fingers. Scientists recently captured several of these critters on camera, revealing for the first time their surprising snack of choice: sargassum. Advertisement Sargassum would seem an unlikely choice […]

Today, Polaris Dawn Mission Commander Jared Isaacman and Mission Specialist Sarah Gillis made history, becoming the first people to conduct a spacewalk on a private mission. Advertisement This morning, the four crewmembers sat inside their spacecraft and waited as the cabin depressurized. Once complete, they were protected from the vacuum of space by nothing but […]

Today at 6:12 am ET (10:15 am GMT), the crew of Polaris Dawn made history, becoming the first-ever private citizens to conduct a spacewalk. But they may have made history with another first; the first-ever livestream of a space crime.  Advertisement In 1967, 111 countries around the world signed up to the Outer Space Treaty, […]

Everyone is familiar with what happens when you shake up a bottle of soda and then open it up, or else hand it to an unsuspecting friend and let them open it up. Advertisement If you don’t, well it will explode everywhere. But the reason that happens may not be what you have been told.  […]

Earlier this year, a devastating wildfire ripped through 33,048 hectares (81,663 acres) of land in Jasper National Park in Canada. According to the BBC, it was the park’s worst wildfire of the last century, and yet already a new forest is emerging from the ash. Advertisement “This fire has even surprised me as a fire […]

It’s “rush hour” in Earth orbit at the moment. With three new humans arriving at the International Space Station (ISS) yesterday, September 11, plus the all-civilian Polaris Dawn mission, a total of 19 people are orbiting Earth right now – that’s a new world record. Advertisement A US astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts – Don […]

Today is the day that the crew of Polaris Dawn will conduct the first spacewalk ever attempted by private citizens.  Polaris Dawn Mission Commander Jared Isaacman and Mission Specialist Sarah Gillis will conduct the spacewalk, leaving the safety of Crew Dragon Resilience, and test SpaceX’s newly designed spacesuits, specially designed to give astronauts more maneuverability. […]

Astronomers have seen bubbles on the surface of red giant star R Doradus for the first time. This is the first time scientists have observed such incredible details on the surface of a star that is not the Sun.  Advertisement R Doradus is a variable red giant star. It has a volume over 5 million […]

A single dose of the psychedelic drug LSD appears to alter the brain activity of dogs with autism-like traits during social interactions. Unlike other canines, these pooches were unable to synchronize their neural activity with humans when being petted, yet all that changed when they ingested the trippy substance. Advertisement Describing their findings in a […]

New research has suggested that Mars had – and then lost – a third, far larger moon. If correct and supported by further evidence, it could explain a number of unusual features on the planet’s surface. Advertisement Mars, rubbing it in the face of moonless Venus and Mercury, has two moons to its name. The […]

During a routine sweep for endangered wildlife prior to logging operations, staff from Australia’s Forestry Corporation stumbled upon what they’ve called “a significant ecological find” – a clutch of eggs belonging to the coastal emu, one of the world’s rarest birds. Advertisement While the common emu, one of Australia’s most iconic species, has a stable […]

On January 25, 1979, Robert Williams became the first person on record to be killed by a robot. The first-of-a-kind death took place in the US over 45 years ago – but it was far from the last fatality at the hands of a robotic system. Advertisement Williams was a 25-year-old employee at the Ford […]

Ever heard of fanged frogs? Well, over 80 species of these toothy anurans that belong to the genus Limnonectes are hopping about Southeast Asia, and now their ranks have grown even further with a new species described in the mountains of the Philippines.  At the moment there are 11 species of fanged frogs known to live […]

The population of Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island, interbred with Native Americans before Europeans arrived, despite 3,700 kilometers (2,300 miles) between them, ancient DNA suggests. The islanders, once the poster child for a people who brought about environmental collapse through overharvesting of resources, also appear to be innocent of this charge, according to […]

Neanderthals and other prehistoric humans have a reputation for being bloodthirsty brutes, existing on a diet of megafauna meat and the flesh of their enemies. But it wasn’t just flame-grilled scraps of mammoth on the menu. A wealth of evidence shows that Neanderthals had a taste for meat, but also understood the value of fine […]

While you’re walking around you don’t notice it, but muons are passing through your body at the rate of about 10,000 muons per minute. Advertisement These fermions, identical in most respects to electrons except for their higher mass and baffling magnetic moment, are created in the Earth’s atmosphere as cosmic rays collide with it. Despite […]

A fossilized Neanderthal skeleton unearthed in France may have belonged to a previously undescribed lineage that split from other Neanderthals around 100,000 years ago. Just like modern humans, it looks like Neanderthals were a diverse and varied bunch.  The remains were discovered in 2015 within a cave system of France’s Rhône Valley that was known […]

After a bumpy few years, we have good news about NASA’s Voyager 1 mission to share. NASA has successfully switched thrusters on the aging spacecraft from an impressive 24,630,000,000 kilometers (15,310,000,000 miles) away. Advertisement Voyager 1 has traveled further than any human-made object, crossing the heliopause and heading into interstellar space. While doing this, it […]