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When a comet starts to approach the Sun or a planet is newly discovered orbiting another star, one of astronomers’ most important questions is how eccentric the orbit is. Since most non-scientists don’t know what this means, there’s always a question of whether to explain what is meant in articles about the discovery, or to […]

There are, Mark Twain was famously fond of declaring, three types of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics. It’s a succinct summation of something we’re all kind of aware of in our bones, even if we don’t know the precise explanation for it: that statistics can’t entirely be trusted – they’re simply too easy to […]

Off the coast of Brazil, just over 96 kilometers (90 miles) from São Paulo, sits an island that could be considered heaven to some, but hell to most. Teeming with some of the deadliest snakes in the world, Ilha da Queimada Grande, or Snake Island, is strictly off-limits for visitors – and with good reason. […]

Quantum computers have the potential to do things that not even the most powerful supercomputer can do, but the road to get there is far from easy. Still, the first applications of quantum computing are being investigated, and the first practical one might have just been performed. Researchers have recently generated random numbers in a […]

Sediments at the bottom of the Baltic Sea cut anything buried in them off from sunlight and oxygen. That’s fatal to many lifeforms, but others slip into dormancy, waiting for conditions to improve. Some scientists decided to give some of them a helping hand, exposing microorganisms from the sediments to light and air. Their work […]

Space is hard is a recurring maxim, and it is particularly true of human bodies. Prolonged time in microgravity has a whole array of physiological effects, from losing blood cells to getting weaker bones. But where exactly that bone loss happens has remained unclear. Experiments on mice have provided some concrete evidence of the how […]

Spring may have technically sprung in the Northern Hemisphere, but the lingering impact of the collapsing polar vortex could ensure that chilly weather will stick around for a while longer across North America.  ADVERTISEMENT April’s weather is set for a cold spell as an abrupt change in pressure patterns sweeps across North America. This atmospheric […]

A new study on Ancient Egyptian dynasties has proposed an intriguing explanation for the mystery of Shepseskaf’s tomb, relating it to a total solar eclipse in 2471 BCE. ADVERTISEMENT During the fourth dynasty of Egypt, the Great Pyramids of Giza were built for pharaohs Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure. The Sun god Ra – thought by […]

Dazzling octopuses, creepy deep-sea anglerfish, cusk eels, and crustaceans are just some of the deep-sea creatures that have been documented by a recent expedition off the Chilean coast. Dozens of these otherworldly creatures may be entirely new to science, never before documented by humans. ADVERTISEMENT The images and video come from an expedition by the […]

An ugly, misshapen blob of glassified soil could rewrite the story of humanity’s technological heritage, suggesting that we began experimenting with copper smelting while we were still hunter-gatherers. Dated to around 10,800 years ago, the greenish-yellow lump was discovered at a Pre-Pottery Neolithic site in Türkiye and shows signs of deliberate exposure to extremely high […]

For the first time, a giant helical structure spanning millions of kilometers has been captured on camera as it emerged from the Sun. ADVERTISEMENT In 2020, the European Space Agency (ESA), with help from NASA, launched the Solar Orbiter on a mission to get the closest images of the Sun ever taken, as well as […]

Issue 33 (April 2025) of CURIOUS is out now, bringing you science highlights for the month plus deep dives into intriguing topics, interviews, exclusives, diary dates, and explanations for some of Earth’s most perplexing natural phenomena and landscapes. Read Issue 33 of our digital magazine now by clicking below! Use the arrows to navigate or […]

Increasing numbers of people in central Africa are claiming to have seen a mysterious creature known as the Mokèlé-mbèmbé, the dinosaur of the Congo. But, are we about to discover a hitherto unknown species or is there something else going on? The dinosaur of the forest basin  ADVERTISEMENT Mokèlé-mbèmbé is a legendary creature said to […]

You can often hear people saying that a game, an album, a movie, or a TV series have altered their brain chemistry. Euphemistically that is something so good that radically alters how you actually think. Well, in some cases this might actually happen and the most famous example of this is probably Tetris. The capability […]

Life is full of big decisions, and making a choice between seemingly endless options can be – well, paralyzingly hard. Should you buy this apartment, or that one? Share with this housemate, or someone else? Settle for Mr Pretty-Damn-Great, or hold out to see if Mr Perfect comes along? ADVERTISEMENT It’s enough to make you despair […]

Cultivated or “lab-grown” meat and fish is often presented as a more eco and animal-friendly alternative to regular meat products, but new research suggests it might have another benefit too – it could one day see people who are allergic to seafood able to eat it again without a reaction being triggered. ADVERTISEMENT That research […]

Lake Victoria is Africa’s largest lake (and the largest tropical lake in the world), spreading into three countries and supporting over 47 million people. But it has a significant problem that threatens the future of that support – it’s turning green. Why is Lake Victoria turning green? ADVERTISEMENT Unfortunately, this isn’t because of a St […]

Much about aging feels like a gradual process – you don’t go to bed fresh-faced the day before your 60th birthday and then wake up looking saggier than a Shar Pei. But, when it comes to the brain, a recent study suggests that there’s a point where it begins to age much more rapidly, before […]

A physicist believes he may have solved the notorious “grandfather paradox”, suggesting that time travel to the past may not be ruled out by this particular branch of physics. ADVERTISEMENT First off, what is the grandfather paradox? Unlike the bootstrap paradox, which gets a little messy, the grandfather paradox is fairly simple to explain. Say […]

This week, a lost aurora on Neptune that was first hinted at 36 years ago has finally been captured by JWST, a newly discovered 90-million-year-old therizinosaur species has shocked scientists with one “unusual” trait, and, new evidence suggests the first giant land organism may have no living relatives, concluding they may be part of an […]